Dr. med. Roland Sananès, Giant of French Homeopathy (August 11, 1930—March 20, 2020)

‘I only lived for homeopathy, a love that I always need to talk about ...’—Roland Sananes (quoted from Peker, 2014)

Fellow researcher and friend, Albert-Claude Quemoun, offered these remarks:

‘His great knowledge of homeopathic medical matters as well as his general culture delighted us...With art and intelligence he taught the characteristic signs of remedies in a theatrical way. The students rushed to listen to it and understand the “substance” of the remedy and to highlight the most common signs as well as the rarest’.

‘Our long collaboration has enabled us to assimilate and explain this medical material, as much on the toxicological, chemical, biological, kinetic and pathogenetic level, as on the search for the Similimum. Without forgetting our converging clinical experiences with convincing pharmacological results’.

Whether he was teaching or talking to lay audiences his love for homeopathy was quite palpable, fervent. He had many passions; women, painting, food but loved homeopathy most of all. From his childhood, he nurtured his need to communicate with a certain, how can it be said, Mediterranean warmth?

Dr Sananes was a Parisian homeopath who held a special place in the heart of the French homeopathic community. Roland took his medical degree in 1957, and his studies led him to join the spa and thalassotherapy centre in Quiberon to satisfy, it seems, his special need for physical closeness, physical medicine.[1]

Subsequently when he relocated to Paris, he became conscious of the benefits of homeopathy, which led him to meet and become a colleague of such luminaries as Pierre Vannier, Émile Iliovici, Othon-André Julian and Jacques Michaud; these latter three became especially close and together formed the backbone of the Société Médicale de Biothérapie. Little did he know that he was fated to become equally as important as his associates. This society was a homeopathic (and associated therapies, e.g., biotherapy) educational endeavour, under the direction of Dr med. Max Tétau. Roland Sananès was in charge of the educational department of this organisation until 1989, when the structure of the organization changed and became the National Federation of Homeopathic Doctors and Biotherapists.

From Peker's chapter devoted to him, it is suggested that many did not care for his unclassical, eclectic posture (he knew the power of the high potencies and also respected the power of the low).

‘I need a discovery every day, so I fight against schizophrenia, against psoriasis as much as against coughs or small daily sores ... I juggle with Hyosciamus 30CH, Nux vomica 30CH but I keep the Sulfur close at hand. Iodatum 5CH or Clematis erecta 5CH. Above all, I do not neglect acupuncture, osteopathy, iridology ... a patient can need anything’. He asks only to be healed.

‘His patients talk about his power of communication ... a doctor who questions, who listens, who touches, who smells, who manipulates ... who is interested in body and soul ... a doctor who does not count his time but who explains his choice of remedies. He never doubted the importance of constitutions, diatheses, lifestyle, inheritance ... found in all of his prescriptions’.—Roland Sananes (quoted from Peker, 2014).

It was for these reasons, among others, that he decided to found his own school—the French College of Human Sciences. In addition to this centre established in Paris, others were founded in Montpellier, Toulouse, Casablanca and Barcelona. His school joined forces, for an annual congress, with that of Albert-Claude Quemoun, President of the Scientific Homeopathic Institute. It seems Roland Sananès did find his audience as much with the public as with professionals.

From 1974 to 1978 he and several other noted homeopaths travelled throughout France to talk and educate the lay about the power and usefulness of homeopathy.

Again from Dr Peker's book: ‘He imitates Lycopodium or Sulfur, describes at length the diatheses, mimics the constitutions ... a great actor whom one never tires of’ That was one of his talents to bring forth living pictures of the remedies.[2]

In addition to his lectures and presentations, he passed on his experience in over 20 books, some bestsellers. One sold eighty thousand copies: they were widely read by the general public and healthcare professionals alike. Traditional Homeopathy (1976), Homeopathy and Body Language (1982), Homeopathy and Rheumatology (1984, 1996), Insomnia (2009; with Ruth Arbiser), Headaches and Bruises of the Soul (1986, 1997), Unicism, Pluralism, Complexism, the Three Dimensions of Homeopathy (1994) and Homeo-allergy (1995, 2001) are a few examples. Some have been translated into Spanish but, unfortunately, none have been translated into English.

In 1995, Roland Sananès expressed concern about the current negative events in France concerning homeopathy: ‘Evolution will therefore not come from the city, but from the countryside, from ecology, from the peasants and from the patients. A mother of a child in nursery who has had enough of giving him antibiotics without ceasing, who decides to look for something else and realizes that homeopathy works better and costs less, becomes without even realizing it the carrier of the homeopathic message’.

This was a reality he knew to exist but realised it was not enough of a response to help homeopathy grow. He felt there needed to be a major difference of appreciation in the medical proposal of homeopathy for its practice and pharmaecological recognition. He felt it of the utmost importance to have a continuous and constructive dialogue with the health, scientific and public authorities with the goal of an assured legitimacy.

This entry was digested from the memorial notice written by Dr med. Alain Sarembaud, ‘A passionate teacher: Roland Sananès, 1930–2020’ (La Revue d'Homeopathie, 11:3, pp. 148,9, September, 2020), Dr Peker's web contribution (https://www.homeopathie-francaise.fr/index.php/homeo-news/ hommage-a-roland-sananes)—accessed 9/10/2020 and material from her book, Mes rencontres avec des homéopathes remarquables, de 1953 à 2013 (Dr med. Jacqueline Peker; My Encounters with Remarkable Homeopaths, 2014, only in the French language).

Dr. med. Roland Sananès (August 11, 1930—March 20, 2020). Photo courtesy of Alissa Gould and Mark Land—(Boiron Company).

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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
31. Dezember 2020