CHRIS DAY

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the news that Chris Day passed away peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday 18th April after a period of illness.

Words seem inadequate to describe what Chris meant to veterinary homeopathy in the UK and in fact worldwide. There can be few of us that haven’t been inspired or influenced by him during our own homeopathic journeys. He was one of a handful of homeopathic vets in the 1960’s and 70’s alongside George McLeod, Frances Hunter and John Saxton who brought homeopathy into modern veterinary practice. He opened the Alternative Veterinary Medicine Centre near Oxford, a ground breaking practice where a holistic approach and the use of homeopathy was at the centre of all that he did. He spread the word about homeopathy enthusiastically and energetically, giving hundreds of talks to the general public and also teaching generations of new homeopathic vets. He was one of the founder members of the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) and the Homeopathic Physicians Teaching Group (HPTG), he also served as the Veterinary Dean of the Faculty of Homeopathy for many years and secretary of BAHVS for over 25 years and was president of BAHVS from 2017 - 2020

Chris’s death really does mark the end of an era for veterinary homeopathy in the UK, he was a truly unique individual; passionate, determined, forthright in his views, a man of a piercing intellect and capacious intelligence who helped bring homeopathy into modern veterinary practice and who inspired the next generation of vets by giving them the confidence to practise homeopathy in their own ways. At this time, as we are all reeling from the shock of his death, the world does seem a lesser place without him, the gap left by his absence almost too much to contemplate but the dreadful sense of loss is tempered by the knowledge that he will continue to guide us in the legacy he left with his work and his teaching and he will always be a presence in our lives. It would give him the greatest of pleasures to see homeopathy grow and flourish, so go on we must and continue spreading the word as he did throughout his life and we should take courage from his example.

Our thoughts are with Shelagh his wife and all his family.

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