Alva Benjamin
Source: University of Sydney

Alva Benjamin M.B. Ch.B. FFHom (27 March 1884 – 7 February 1975), was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become a Physician and Skin Specialist at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, and physician at the Children’s Homeopathic Dispensary in Shepherd’s Bush.

Benjamin was a Lecturer on Diseases of the Skin at the Missionary School of Medicine (MSM), the Founder of the Hahnemann Society in 1958, and the President of Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis (LMHI).

Alva Benjamin was a colleague of Muriel Francis Adams, Marjorie Grace Blackie, Philip Norman Cutner, Donald MacDonald Foubister, Kathleen Priestman, John Weir, Harold Fergie Woods, and very many others, and he was a teacher of doctors Pichiah Sankaran and Alan Harford Askew.

Writing in the the British Medical Journal in 1948, Alva Benjamin estimated the number of homeopathic supporters in Britain to be “over 1 million people.”

Alva Benjamin lived at 46 Bickenhall Mansions, London W1, and at 62 Queen’s Gardens, Bayswater.

Alva Benjamin was born in London in 1884 to Philip Benjamin (1848 – 1924) and Minnie (Miriam) Cohen (1851 – 1918). Three years later, in 1887, his family moved to Australia. He was educated at Sydney High School, and The University of Sydney, where he studied medicine.

Benjamin graduated in 1913, and began his residency at Sydney Hospital. When World War One broke out in 1914, he was practicing in the small town of Casino, New South Wales.

In July 1915, Benjamin volunteered for the British Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He saw service twice during the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. This was followed by a posting to Salonika in 1916, where he was promoted to Captain and attached to the 29th General Hospital. He was also appointed Sanitary Officer, Western Area.

In 1918, Benjamin was made Sanitary Officer for all British units attached to the Royal Serbian Army. He was mentioned in despatches and, when demobbed in 1919, was serving as specialist surgeon at the 41st General Hospital in Salonika.

Immediately on leaving the army, Benjamin became resident medical officer at the East Dulwich Infirmary.

In 1921, Benjamin married Australian-born journalist Thelma Hilda Cohen (1890 – 1979), editor of The Daily Mail women’s page.

The Missionary School of Medicine at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital teaching staff included doctors experienced in tropical medicine and other specialities.

The Annual Reports list the teaching staff, many of whom are recognised for their contributions to the development of homeopathy. Donald Foubister lectured on Children’s Diseases, as did Kathleen Priestman (who was President of the Missionary School of Medicine between 1981 and 1991); Alva Benjamin taught on skin diseases, Charles Edwin Wheeler, John MacKillop and Muriel Francis Adams on general medicine; William Eldon Tucker and Philip Norman Cutner on surgery and H. Dodd, who was the vascular surgeon and later became President of the Missionary School of Medicine in 1952.

In 1958, Benjamin founded the Hahnemann Society, with the aim of educating the public about homeopathy. The society published a quarterly journal, Health and Homeopathy. It was renamed The Homeopathic Society, and it merged with the Homeopathic Trust in 1990, and with the British Homeopathic Association in 1999.

Alva Benjamin was an active participant in both national and international homeopathic meetings. He gave many talks on homeopathy, including his presidential address, “Medicine in the Two Elizabethan Eras: The Role of Homeopathy in the Second,” at the British Homeopathic Congress, held in London in September 1953. In October of the following year, he read a paper titled “The Present-Day Need for Homoeopathy” at the International Homoeopathic Congress, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In July 1966, he presented a paper, “The Principle of Totality in Choosing the Remedy,” to the American Institute of Homeopathy meeting held in Chicago.

Benjamin wrote a number of other articles and defenses of homeopathy for various publications, including the British Medical Journal, and also penned the Obituary for his RAMC colleague and fellow homeopath Harold Fergie Woods in the British Homeopathic Journal.

Alva Benjamin died in London on 7 February 1975, aged 90.

Of Interest:

Sophia “Zoë” Benjamin (24 December 1882 – 13 April 1962), older sister of Alva Benjamin, was an Australian educator, lecturer, writer, and broadcaster on early childhood education and child psychology, and an early advocate of sex education in Australia. She authored several pamphlets, including “Education for Parenthood” (1944), “Talks to Parents” (1947), and “The Schoolchild and his Parents” (1950). In 1948, Zoë Benjamin published The Emotional Problems of Childhood: A Book for Parents and Teachers.