H. Fergie Woods | |
Birth Name: | Harold Fergie Woods |
Birth Date: | 1883 |
Death Date: | 15 January 1961 |
Occupation: | Physician, writer |
Harold Fergie Woods (1883 – 15 January 1961) was an English physician, homeopath and anti-vivisection activist.
Woods qualified L.R.C.P. and M.R.C.S. from Middlesex Hospital in 1908.[1] [2] After he qualified, he went to the United States with John Weir to study homeopathy under James Tyler Kent.[3] Woods had a long career at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital where he was Resident Medical Officer, Physician for Diseases of Children and a Consulting Physician.[2] [3] In 1925, he co-founded the International Homoeopathic League.[3]
Woods was a staunch opponent of vaccination and vivisection. He was a member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and gave speeches at anti-vivisection meetings. He stated that animal experimentation is scientifically useless and unethical as the animals are kept in mutilated and suffering conditions for considerable periods.[4] Woods concluded that abolition of vivisection is the only way to protect animals.[5] [6] He was a Vice-President of the National Anti-Vaccination League. In 1945, Woods signed a petition for the formation of a group of homeopathy within the British Medical Association.[7]
Woods was a germ theory denialist who held the view that germs were the result, not the cause of disease.[4] He was an elected medical member of Douglas Macmillan's Society for the Prevention and Relief of Cancer, an anti-vivisection cancer organization.[8]
Woods died on 15 January 1961.[9]