Ozanne vs De Lisle 1849

On Guernsey in 1849, John Ozanne, a homeopathic practitioner, was in consultation with his patient William Wakley.

An allopathic physician De Beauviour De Lisle was also present. De Lisle was prejudiced against homeopathy, and he abused John Ozanne in front of his patient "You are no professional man, you are an impostor, you are only a quack"

The case was heard at the Royal Court of Guernsey.

Witnesses for the Defense were called. William Wakley, his son and his wife. His son was distressed at the time. “O gentlemen I can’t bear this; I beg you will stop that”.

Colonel De Havilland gave witness that he had been cured of the gout by John Ozanne, after suffering much under allopathic physicians, including De Lisle for eight years previously. His weak eyes were also better.

The next witness was an allopathic practitioner Dr. Magrath, who was unfavourable to homeopathy, but whom The Journal of Health and Disease notes that ’he has put himself beyond the notice of men who perceive truth by ascertaining that no professional man could practice homeopathy’, and he added that ”homeopathy and allopathy were incompatible“.

At this point, the Court decided to exclude homeopathy, and the Bailiff declared that opinions on homeopathy could not influence the decision of the Court in the case before them. Mr. Tupper, De Lisles’ Defense Council, though not in favour of homeopathy explained that it would be difficult to define quack medicine as James’s Powder, which had a secret composition was prescribed by allopaths. The next few witnesses were all hostile to homeopathy, but on cross examination, the Court heard that most of these doctors had not read about or studied homeopathy, though Dr. Mansell had read about it and declared ’that if their system was true, all he had learnt was false‘.

There followed a series of quotes from allopathic publications defaming homeopathy. Mr. Tupper explained by comparing De Lisle, who stood in relation to John Ozanne in the same manner as a Minister of the Church of England would stand towards another Minster who had left the Church, therefore he asked the Court to deny John Ozanne’s case against his client.

The Queen’s Comptroller explained that the Law presumed malice when the words used were insulting. As John Ozanne was not claiming financial damages, he was claiming reparation for the insult offered to him. The words spoken were injurious, and they were spoken without provocation.

The merits of homeopathy had nothing to do with the case, and the assertion that homeopathy was condemned by the allopaths was ‘no defense whatsoever’. Every man was considered to be honest until the opposite was proved.

The Queen’s Comptroller was surprised that: ’The practitioners of medicine, above all men, ought to hesitate in pronouncing positive opinions on the science they professed. That science was, more than any other, undefined in its principles. ‘It was even at the present moment a mass of doubts and obscurities. Its Professors were still walking in the dark, and so uncertain was their science that it changed from day to day. What were considered indisputable truths twenty years ago, were now condemned and proscribed as errors. ‘And yet the Professors of this vague science ventured to dogmatise, and to pronounce authoritatively on the doctrines of others. This however, had always been the case in medicine as well as in other sciences. The regular Professors of those sciences have always been found the antagonists of new truths. ‘All great discoverers in morals and science had been treated by those who assumed to be the guardians of knowledge and truth, as impostors. ‘Such was the case in respect to Harvey’s circulation of the blood, and Jenner’s theory of vaccination, and in the present day, we have seen Richard Cobden and the other great discoverers in political science treated in the same manner.

The Queen’s Comptroller strongly denounced Mr. Tupper for comparing the disagreement to the Church. It’was monstrous’ to assert that a religious Dissenter became an impostor. ’Were illiberality of this kind to be indulged in we might just as well say that a medical man who changed his opinion on any point of practice was an imposter‘.

The Queen’s Comptroller condemned the allopathic witnesses who condemned without authority, study or in most cases, knowledge of homeopathy, and when pressed most of them did not even know what homeopathy was. Their opinions therefore, were worthless.

The articles and publications read before the court defaming homeopathy were ’a mass of scurrilous expressions of party feeling which was entitled to no attention‘.

The authorities who were better informed on this subject, such as the celebrated John Forbes, admitted that it was ’but simple justice to admit that Hahnemann was a man of profound learning and perfect integrity, and that many of his disciples were sincere, honest and learned men‘.

The Queen’s Comptroller declared that the defense of De Lisle was a ‘great aggravation’ to the original offense, and thus he was ’obliged to ask him for much heavier damage than he originally contemplated’ and sentenced him to pay £35 10 shillings to John Ozanne.

The Bailiff declared that the words charged in the action had been proved. Had De Lisle confined himself to claiming that homeopathy was quackery and not applied those terms to John Ozanne, and that using this Court case to defame homeopathy was not applicable. De Lisle used his words to defame John Ozanne, which were not justified.

The Bailiff presented a precedent, and said further: ’The opinion of the profession was declared to be that homeopathy was quackery, but if an individual took on himself to say that a person practicing homeopathy was a quack, he made himself liable to an action unless he proved his assertion‘.

Thus the Court awarded damages of £5 to John Ozanne and 2 shillings and 6 pence damages to the Queen.