James Tyler Kent rejected germ theory, tho writing/teaching some 20 years after Koch’s contributions to our understanding of contagion , being heavily influenced by Emmanuel Swedenborg’s theosophy.
“The microbe is not the cause of disease. We should not be carried away by these idle dreams and vain imaginations but should correct the Élan vital.”
“The bacteria is an innocent feller, and if he carries disease he carries the Simple Substance which causes disease, just as an elephant would.”
“Many doctors have gone crazy over the vicious Microbe as being the cause of disease, and think the little fellows are exceedingly dangerous. As a matter of fact they are scavengers.
“Man cannot be made sick or be cured except by some substance as ethereal in quality as the Vital Force. It is not from external things that man becomes sick, not from bacteria nor environment, but from causes within himself.”
It would be remiss to not note that Kent’s formal medical training involved only an incomplete semester at the Eclectic Institute of Cincinnati. The notions above forced Kent to not accept Hahnemann’s conceptualization of the chronic Miasmatic diseases, and to force a “spiritual” explanation in line with the theosophy of Emmanuel Swedenborg.
I’ve written elsewhere regarding misunderstandings of Hahnemann’s apparent references to “spiritual” (“Geistartige.”)