Was Charles Darwin a reluctant homeopath?

For much of his life Darwin was plagued by mysterious illness. Symptoms included nausea and vomiting, heart palpitations, boils, trembling, fainting and spots before the eyes. By March 1849, he was unable to work one day out of three and felt he was dying. On the advice of shipmates, he visited the homeopathic clinic and water-cure spa of Dr James Gully.

His scepticism can be gauged from a letter in which he states "Dr Gully gives me homeopathic medicines three times a day which I take obediently, without an atom of faith'. However, within a month his symptoms had improved so dramatically that he was able to  walk seven miles a day. Darwin returned to the clinic several times over the next decade when his symptoms returned.

In later years Darwin himself experimented with homeopathic doses of ammonium salts upon the insectivorous syndew plant (Drosera rotundifolia). He discovered that however much he reduced the dose, prepared according to the homeopathic method of dilution and succusion (he did not realise that the doses were so dilute they no longer contained any molecules), the effects were still visible in the plant, causing it's 'tentacles' to turn inward.

Although Darwin provided details about the exceedingly small doses he tested, he never used the word 'homeopathic' when refereing to these experiments. He wrote "I am quite unhappy at the thought of having to publish such a statement".

An endorsement of homeopathy by Darwin at the time might have led to even greater antagonism against his theories about life and evolution.

From The Pharmaceutical Journal (Vol 282), 20 June 2009, pg 754