[5] His treatment regimens were met with scepticism by medical orthodoxy: The electrohomeopathic system is an invention of Count Mattei who prates of "red," "blue," and "green" electricity, a theory that, in spite of its utter idiocy, has attracted a considerable following and earned a large fortune for its chief promoter.
All of the committee members were sceptical, but "we were all steadfastly resolved, if we should find ourselves mistaken, and if Mattei’s potions really should cure cancer in some inconceivable way, that we would admit our error and make known the true state of the case.
Some developed slowly, others more rapidly: but one, which had presented an unbroken surface at the outset, very soon became deeply ulcerated and excavated, and even the Matteists themselves were obliged to admit that “it seemed to be getting worse.” ... Matteism, in the deliberate judgment of the committee, consists exclusively of vulgar, unadulterated, unredeemed quackery... Mr. Stokes analysed the “electricities", and found them to yield no other reaction than that of plain distilled water.
This process of "fixing the electrical principle" is carried on in the secret central chamber of a Neo-Moorish castle which Count Mattei has built for himself in the Bolognese Apennines...
Allied to his theories and therapies were elements of Chinese medicine, of medical humours, of apparent Brownianism, as well as modified versions of Samuel Hahnemann's homeopathic principles.