Many settlers came to Victoria with practical knowledge and experience with treating the sick, including a knowledge of homœopathy. One such person was William Ruse from the Suffolk village of Stradbroke, who came to Melbourne in 1852 and eventually settled in Cheltenham (then Beaumaris). He acted as a lay homœopathic prescriber of homœopathic medicine in the district.

His grand-daughter writes that he “brought with him from England a large book on Homœopathy and a case of Homœopathic medicines. He was not a doctor in the modern sense but whenever a settler was ill, William Ruse was sent for and out came his little bottles of aconite, belladonna and bryonia, etcetera. In almost all cases his treatment was successful ….” Mr Ruse was among the founder members of the Church of Christ in Cheltenham and donated part of his land to the Church.

© Barbara Armstrong