Cesare Mattei
Cesare Mattei (1809-1896) was an Italian nobleman from the Bologna region who, after “careful study and deep and prolonged thought on medical subjects,” became a convinced homeopath (Gliddon, 1892). Finding Hahnemann’s existing remedies “quite insufficient” for the diseases he wanted to treat, he set out to find new ones of his own (Gliddon, 1892). According to the account his own promotional literature circulated, the turning point came when he noticed a favorite dog, suffering from a skin complaint, repeatedly seeking out and eating the leaves of one particular plant on its daily walks until the complaint cleared; Mattei, “an amateur chemist,” extracted what he took to be the plant’s active principle, tested it on acquaintances, and concluded he had found a valuable new class of remedy (Gliddon, 1892). He spent the following decades expanding this into a full system he called “Electro-Homoeopathy,” built around secret plant-derived liquids he termed “electricities,” and dated his correspondence from Rocchetta: a letter from Mattei to his English translator printed at the front of the 1891 second edition of Electro-homoeopathic Medicine is dated from Rochetta, 15 October 1887, placing him there corresponding with disciples abroad late in his life.
No source in this bundle documents Mattei publishing a chemical analysis, formal proving, or controlled trial of his remedies. He built his authority instead on personal testimonial, his own noble title, and tight control of a commercial distribution network: a General Depot, licensed sub-depots, and agents, all bound by contract and all selling only bottles bearing his registered trademark (a castle crest, with the words “RIMEDI ELETTROMIOPATICI DEL CONTE CESARE MATTEI BOLOGNA” on the genuine mark), with buyers explicitly warned that lookalike products from unauthorized sellers were counterfeit (Gliddon, 1892). The system found an institutional foothold in London, where it formed part of the treatment offered at St Saviour’s Cancer Hospital from 1873, even as the wider medical profession dismissed it as quackery (Wellcome Images object description, Bologna medicine chest, 1871-1885). Mattei died in 1896; his own brand outlived him by decades; a 1930 eighth-edition London guidebook was still being published under the imprint “Count Mattei’s Remedies,” even though, per the same catalogue record, mainstream medical opinion had by then generally moved on from his ideas.