History of the Eclectic Movement (1825-1939)

Introduction

The Eclectic movement, a defunct 19^th-century botanical medical system, operated from 1825 through 1939. The Eclectics spent more than 114 years studying North American medicinal plants. This project is based on the Eclectic materia medica.

In order to understand the Eclectic movement, it is necessary to review American medical history leading up to the 19^th century and to examine 19^th-century American medical history.

18^th Century American Medicine

Medicine in the 18^th-century North American colonies was a fusion of three primary elements: European knowledge, Native American knowledge, and improvisation. Firstly, the European colonials came to the new world with the European medical philosophies and practices. The provinces being British colonies, British medicine was the greatest influence. Secondly, the Colonials lived among Native Americans peoples who had their own system of medicine. This too was passed onto the colonials. Lastly, life in the wilderness, lacking the conveniences of Europe, required making due with what was available. (1-3)

Doctors

There were two types of doctors practicing medicine in the 18^th century, those with formal medical training and those without. Doctors with formal training were rare. According to Richard H. Shryock, “Physicians, like the upper classes did not migrate overseas.” (4) When the American Revolution occurred (1776), there were approximately 3500 doctors working in the colonies, only 400 of whom had formal medical schooling. (5) Of those that did, most were trained in Britain. (6)

The doctors without schooling, often called “country doctors,” “root doctors,” or “injun doctors,” were self-taught, learned from other country doctors, or acquired their healing knowledge from the Native Americans. As Haller states, “whether these physicians had earned degrees was less an issue than was their ability to practice medicine. The term doctor became a title of respect accorded these practitioners regardless of any claim to learning.”(8) Gevitz makes a similar statement: “the patronage of medical practitioners, however they classified themselves, was based less on education than on the ability to carry out services.” (9)

Medical Education

In the early part of the 18^th century, a young man interested in pursuing a formal medical education had two options: he could become an apprentice to a physician, or he could travel to Britain to receive training. (10)

Apprenticeship

The most common route to becoming a physician was apprenticeship. Boys between the ages of 14 and 18 were indentured for a term of three to seven years. This could be an arrangement between strangers but more often it happened within medical families. By watching and assisting, the apprentice learned how to bleed, prepare medicine, and perform minor surgery. The apprentice had access to the doctor’s one or two medical books, which were, almost without exception, published in Britain. (10-12)

Going Abroad for Medical Education

In the early 18^th century, the few young men that went abroad to study usually studied in Britain, Edinburgh being the most common destination. In 1750, there were five American graduates of Edinburgh; in 1760, there were twenty-five. (12) As the century progressed, more Americans went abroad for training. Between 1775 and 1800, an average of 12 Americans enrolled at Edinburgh each year. According to Entin, “a medical degree from Edinburgh gave a distinct advantage to young graduates and assured them of a successful career.” (13)

Medical Schools in America

In the later part of the 18^th century, medical schools began to open in America. In 1765, Dr. John Morgan (1735-1789) created a department of medicine within the College of Philadelphia. It was the first chartered medical school in the 13 colonies. (14) Morgan graduated from Edinburgh (1763) and staffed the school with other Edinburgh graduates including William Shippen, Jr. (1736-1808) and Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). (15)

The Philadelphia medical school provided an excellent education, including an apprenticeship, a two-year graded curriculum, clinical lectures, and hospital experience at the Pennsylvania Hospital (1751). By the end of the 18^th century, three similar medical colleges opened, including Kings College, Columbia University (1767), the medical department of Harvard College, Cambridge (1783), and the medical department of Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (1798). (16)

Medical Theory in 18^th Century America

The “school” taught American medical student learned British medical theory. According to Schultz, “The theory of the practice of medicine in British America came from England with little or no modification.” (6) British medical philosophy was largely based on the theories of Hippocrates (5^th Century BC) and Galen (130-200AD).

Galen’s theory was embraced by 18^th-century British medical schools, and by extension the new schools in America. He posited that health was achieved when the four humors within the body — blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile — were in balance. Disease occurred when these same humors were not in balance. Doctors deduced that the way to restore health was to balance the humors through blood letting, induction of vomiting, evacuation of the bowels, or through stimulating urination or sweating. The philosophy was called rationalism, because it was rationally deduced from Galen’s theory. It was also called humoralism and Galenic humoralism. (17.)

In addition, the 18^th-century British medical schools taught the work of Paracelsus or Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541). Paracelsus believed in a chemical basis for the universe and advocated the use of mineral drugs, including mercury, lead, antimony, iron, and arsenic. (18)

A significant element of this philosophy was that a physician treated the state of the humors and not a specific disease. The treatment of specific diseases was considered quackery. (19)

In 18^th-century America, Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) was a leading physician and major proponent of Galenic humoralism and the work of Paracelsus. He had studied in Edinburgh under one of the most famous British physicians, William Cullen (1712-1790) (20) and returned home with the intent of sharing his knowledge.

Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), like Cullen, believed disease was the consequence of an imbalance in the humors, specifically one resting in the blood vessels (21), and that blood letting resolved the imbalance. (22) He departed from Cullen in the extreme bleeding and purging he advocated. Of Rush’s regimens, Haller said, “Unlike his mentor Cullen, who had employed only moderate bleeding, Rush carried traditional humoralism to the height of therapeutic recklessness with heroic, extreme bleeding and purging, undeterred by criticism or by claims that his regimen did not reconcile with the mortality rates of his patients. (23) Rush considered extreme bleeding a cure all and followed it with the administration of ten grains of calomel (mercury) and ten grains of jalap (a botanical purgative). This treatment became known as “The Old Ten and Ten” and was widely used in America. (24)

Rush was the most famous physician of his day, was on the faculty of America’s first medical school, and taught many of America’s first university-trained physicians. His ideas were taught in medical schools and practiced by educated physicians across America. (25) The term Heroic Medicine is used to describe the medical practices of Rush and his followers and is said to have peaked in the first half of the 19^th century. (6) However, bleeding and oral mercury were used by the American medical establishment until the beginning of the 20^th century. (26)

19^th Century American Medicine

In 1807, medical education in the United States took a turn for the worse. Baltimore physicians John Davide, Nathaniel Potter, James Cocke, and John Shaw founded the College of Medicine of Maryland. The school was opened for profit, had neither affiliation with an academic institution nor a hospital, and admitted students based on their ability to pay. (27) Haller called this the “Maryland Model,” and it rapidly spread across America. Within 14 years, most of the older schools dropped admission standards, graduation standards and a graded curriculum. Standard medical education became two un-graded sessions lasting sixteen to twenty weeks, the second a repetition of the first, and no clinical experience. (28-30)

Thus, at the beginning of the 19^th century, the American medical system was in a state of disarray. American medical education was degenerating, and the training doctors did receive was in a flawed philosophy. Not surprisingly, public opinion of trained doctors deteriorated and confidence diminished. (31) American medicine was headed for a crisis. To quote Alexander Wilder, an Eclectic medical historian, “it was not reformation which the present state of medicine demanded, but, revolution.” (32)

Statesman Thomas Jefferson was on the forefront of demanding a change in course. In a letter to Caspar Wistar, dated 1807, Jefferson spoke out against doctors and their lethal, yet fashionable, treatments, complained that doctors knew little, assumed much, and damaged many. He said, “The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicines.” (33) Jefferson remarked to a friend that “whenever he saw three physicians together he looked up to see if there were buzzards in the neighborhood.” The statesman spoke out specifically against Rush and criticized him for using therapies based on an untested theory that went contrary to nature (34).

This did not represent original thinking on the part of Jefferson. When he was Minister to France (1784-89) he was exposed to the French School of medicine — a group that had broken ranks with the Rationalists. Ideas from France changed Jefferson’s thinking about medicine, and French ideas ultimately changed medical thinking in America. (35.)

New Medical Ideas from France

Following the French Revolution (1789), new hospitals and schools were created in Paris. Within these new faculties, a major rebellion against rationalism occurred. The new French School was built upon three concepts: physical examination, post-mortem examination, and statistics based on diagnosis and results. They put clinical experience and clinical results first and theory last. (36)

Along with the admittance of empirical evidence into medical practice, the French school ushered in a greater interest in specific diseases, a reduced interest in humors, distrust of heroic medical procedures, and a belief that, if left alone, the body would often heal itself. (37)

One of the implications of this philosophy was that treatments were judged from an efficacy standpoint. Pierre Louis (1787-1872), introduced the use of statistics in studying medical outcomes and determined that blood letting and purging did not work. Since the French School worked with empirical data, they were known as Empirics and their medicine Empirical medicine. (36)

Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815), American students, dissatisfied with Rationalism, studied in Paris. Paris became the major foreign centre of education for American medical students for forty years (1824-1864). When they came home, they brought empiricism with them. (36)

French Empiricism in America

By the late 1830s and early 1840s French Empiricism had a presence in America. The French school published 300 books on their theories in the 1830s, and many of these books made their way to America. (36) Two American physicians, influenced by the French School, offered the American physician an alternative to Rationalism. Dr. Elisha Bartlett and Dr. Jacob Bigelow both presented the medical public with French ideas. (37)

Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879 )

Jacob Bigelow was a visiting physician to Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard’s first professor of Materia Medica. A student of Rush, he rejected his teacher’s teachings, instead becoming a devotee of Pierre Louis. He presented Americans with the French notion that the body could heal itself. This was set forth in an address, “Discourse on Self Limited Disease,” presented to the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1835. (38-39)

Elisha Bartlett (1804-1855)

Elisha Bartlett, a Rhode Island physician, strongly influenced by the French School, disavowed rationalistic medicine, and believed in Louis’ use of statistical averages in determining treatment efficacy. He studied in Paris, dedicated his books to Pierre Louis, and encouraged students to choose Paris over Edinburgh. He made French ideas available to the American reader in his “An Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science” (1844) and “The History, diagnosis, and treatment of the fevers of the United States”(1847). He lectured on these ideas in medical schools throughout the United States. (40)

Medical Reform in America

The medical landscape began to change. Rationalism, rooted in the Galenic tradition, was being challenged by French Empiricism. Medical thinking began to move toward French ideas with acceptance of Louis’ proof that heroic medicine did not work. (132)

Americans had figured out that heroic medicine did not work and avoided old school doctors. According to Spiegel, “Individuals who became ill frequently avoided orthodox physicians because their proffered treatment was ineffective and possibly more hazardous than the illness itself.” American celebrities, including Louisa May Alcott, William Cullen Bryant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Daniel Webster, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, publicly rejected the practices of the medical establishment. (41)

The medical establishment reacted with an unwillingness to change either their thinking or medical practices. (93) They continued to defend the practices of bleeding, purging, and leaching. (41-42)

Under the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), anti-establishment by nature, the enforcement of all manner of law was relaxed. This included the restrictive medical laws that protected the medical establishment and excluded medical non-conformists. (43)

These converging factors allowed for the unrestricted development of schools of reform medicine. In reading medical texts from that period, one begins to encounter words like regular, orthodox, old school, allopath, and dominant school being used to describe the medical establishment. Words like reformer, irregular, botanic, and empiric were used to describe those who parted company with the medical mainstream.

According to Shryock, 19^th-century America was home to at least nine reform medical sects including homeopathy, Eclecticism, Thomsonianism, Chrono-thermalistism, hygiene cults, hydropathy, Christian Science, Osteopathy, and Chiropractic included. (131) Many of these sects focused on the use of botanical medicines. Reform movements associated with botanical remedies included the Homeopaths, Thomsonians, Shakers, Physico-Medicalists, and the Eclectics.

Coulter asserts that this new direction was very much in response to Rush himself. “Although physicians in the thirteen colonies made occasional use of native Medicinal plants, it was probably Rush’s rigid and systematic doctrine which provoked educated physicians, in the early nineteenth century, to set up botanical practice as a competing system.” (44) Numerous factors other than a dislike of Rush convinced reformers to concentrate on botanical remedies.

Disgust with heroic medicine

Heroic medicine made use of toxic chemicals (mercury, lead, arsenic, antimony, etc.). The reformers had seen what happened to patients treated with poisons, and they rejected the use of poisons in their new practices of medicine. (45) They were looking for non-toxic medicines and found botanical medicines to be their answer. Fortunately for them a catalogue of botanical drugs had been amassed over time by many independent researchers using numerous sources. In addition, favorable cultural and historical factors came into play.

European Cultural Belief

The English colonials arrived in North America with the belief that God provided the medicines they needed on the land on which they lived. In the Bible, (Ecclesiastes 38:4), God directs the Israelites to seek amongst the plants of the earth when in need of healing. Indeed, European theologians and naturalists taught that God provided every region with herbal medicines that would treat the conditions suffered by those living in that specific region. (46-47) Upon arrival, the colonials began looking for medicines in their midst.

Practicality Necessity

Practical necessity forced colonials to find medicines in the woods and meadows. (48) According to Gevitz, the colonials, living far away from the apothecaries of Europe, living in remote conditions, “had come prepared for self sufficiency” and “in particular, colonists would have to manage illness without the plethora of materials available through an apothecary”. (49) Physicians, according to Boorstin, also participated in the search, “Nothing was more natural than that European trained physicians, finding themselves in a new land with many unfamiliar plants, should seize the opportunity for botanical discoveries. “(50)

Trade

Like any colony, America was a source of natural resources for the European monarchies. Along with gold, silver, and spices, monarchs encouraged their colonists to seek out medicinal plants. The British crown ordered the Virginia colony to seek out medicinal plants (51-52), and as early as 1590, Virginia shipped medicinal plants to London for use in medical practice (49, 53). Collecting botanical medicines helped colonials make money.

Support from the “Old School”

When medical schools first opened in America, they encouraged the study of medical botany. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) himself was a supporter. In his book, “Medical Enquiries” (1789), Rush makes clear his view that American medicinal plants should be reviewed for their use in medicine. “Cultivate or prepare as many of them as possible, and endeavour to enlarge the materia medica, by exploring the untrodden fields and forest of the United States” (54) According to Berman, even physicians who practiced heroic medicine were “Keenly interested in scientifically developing an indigenous plant materia medica.” (55) The medical establishment encouraged medical botany.

Presence of the “Injun” Doctor and Native American Medicine

Country doctors, or “Injun” doctors, a common practitioner in America, made the materia medica of the Native Americans accessible to the general public. (56) They were called “Injun doctors” because they were largely influenced by Native American medicine. (57-59) North America was home to more than 100 different Native American Cultures that developed a complicated pharmacy long before the colonials appeared, and the Injun doctors absorbed this knowledge. (57, 60)

Botanical Medicine Cataloguers

In America, from the earliest day, there were individuals who dedicated their lives to collecting information on medicinal plants. Two such individuals were Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), and C.S. Rafinesque (1783-1840). (61)

Benjamin Smith Barton was a professor of natural history and botany at the College of Philadelphia. He wrote “Elements of Botany “(1803) and an unfinished “Collections for an Essay towards a Materia Medica of the United States” (1798-1804). He died before the book was finished, and it was completed by his nephew William P.C.Barton as “The Vegetale Materia Medica of the United States” (1817-35). (62)

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque(1783-1840), was a professor of botany at Transylvania University (79). Rafinesque spent years learning from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee tribes in the north and south, and from local healers and country doctors. His research culminated in “Medical Flora or Manual of Medical Botany of the United States, Volume One, (1828), and the Medical Flora, Volume Two(1830). (60) As well as being a plant explorer, according to Boyle, “It was his avowed purpose to reform medical practice by making botanical knowledge accessible to all.” (63-64)

For all these reasons, by the year 1830, a very large catalogue of medicinal plants and their medicinal uses had been collected. The reformers, looking for an alternative to the chemical drugs of the medical establishment, had a tremendous stockpile of plants at their disposal.

The most well known botanical medical groups were the Shakers, the Thomsonians, the Homeopaths, the Physico-medicalists, and the Eclectics. These groups were medical reformers who used botanical drugs, but there the similarities end. Each group used botanical remedies in their own way. A closer examination of these movements makes this clear.

The Shakers

The founder of the Shakers, Ann Lee (1736-1784), was born in Manchester, England. Raised in the slums of working class England, she was profoundly affected by the rampant poverty and disease there. She founded a religious cult that embraced physical as well as spiritual health. Lee moved the movement to America where the “Shakers” became involved in healing and the production of medicines, specifically medicines made from Native American plants. They learned of these plants from the Indians and settlers living near their Connecticut colonies. (65) The Shakers’ medical practice mirrored their spiritual practice, which included purification (purgatives), a dismissal of remedies solely used for beautification purposes, and the stimulation of internal organs responsible for physical purity (tonics). (66)

Thomsonian Movement

The movement was founded by Samuel Thomson (1769-1843). In 1839, Thomson had 3 million followers and according to Boyle, the movement “reached dimensions much exceeding those of any later cult.” Thomson’s goal was to “seize medicine from what he considered the monopolistic hold of educated professionals and return it to the common people.” (67)

As a child, Thomson learned from a female “country doctor,” Dr.Benson. Benson taught him how to heal using the Native American technique of sweat (steam) and puke (purgatives). He had success with healing family and friends and took up full time doctoring in 1805. He created a line of proprietary, patented botanical medications, and a book guiding their use, “New Guide to Health: Or Botanic Family Physician” (1825). For the sum of twenty dollars, anyone could become an authorized agent, or “doctor.”

Medically speaking, Thomson practiced botanical Galenic humoralism. He believed that disease was caused by “cold” and by poor digestive “fire”. By heating the body up (steam) and activating the digestive tract (puke), health could be achieved. He distinguished himself from the medical establishment in that he rejected bleeding and mercury, and used botanical medicines in their stead. (68)

Physio-Medicalism

Founded by Alva Curtis(1797-1881), this sect was known as neo-Thomsonianism, independent Thomsonianism, and Botanico-medicalism. The founder had been a Thomsonian, and indeed, one of Thomson’s deputies. The movement varied from the Thomsonians in “having a larger materia medica, in believing in scientific education for its practitioners and in not recognizing the absolute infallible authority of Samuel Thomson.” Curtis opened a school and clinic in Cincinnati, in direct competition with the Eclectic Institute. It was never a significant force in the reform movement and at its peak it had somewhere between 1500 and 2500 practitioners. The movement died when Curtis passed away in 1881. (69)

Homeopathy

The movement was founded in Germany by Samuel Hahneman(1755-1843). Hahneman developed the theory of treating like with like or similia similibus curentur. If a person suffered from runny eyes, he would treat them with an extract of onion. In addition, he experimented with using the smallest possible doses, ultimately working with almost microscopic doses.

Homeopathy was introduced into the US in 1825 by Hans Burch Gram. Initially, the number of homeopathic practitioners grew with immigration from Germany. Later, the first homeopathic school was opened in Allentown (1835). The American Institute of Homeopathy (1844) was founded to further the cause of Homeopathy in the US. The American Homeopaths made use of American herbal remedies, but they used “like to treat like,” and they used those in very small doses. (70)

The Eclectic Movement

The Eclectic Medical Movement existed, in various forms, from 1825 and until 1939. Like the other botanical reformers, the Eclectics started with the botanical data amassed in the first 200 years of American history. They spent the next 114 years re-studying American medicinal plants from their own perspective.

Michael Flannery, former Library director of the Lloyd Library and adjunct professor at Northern Kentucky University, has studied the Eclectics extensively and had this to say of the Eclectic movement: “Eclecticism can be briefly described as a nineteenth-century sectarian medical movement emerging out of Americans dissatisfaction with the harsh heroic therapies characteristic of regular (also referred to as allopathic) practitioners. Distrustful of European ideas and institutions, Eclectics promoted botanical remedies drawn primarily from America’s fields and forests rather than the chemical and mineral concoctions that formed much of the allopath’s armamentarium.” (71)

Significant Eclectics

The founder of the Eclectic movement was Wooster Beach (1794-1868). He was succeeded in leadership by John King (1813-1893) and John Milton Scudder (1829-1894). These men wrote the Eclectic textbooks and taught the Eclectic medical students. Their thoughts became Eclectic canon and guided the doctors who called themselves Eclectics.

Wooster Beach, MD

Wooster Beach (1794-1868) was born in Trumbull, Connecticut. At an early age he displayed an interest in medicine and theology. First and foremost, Beach was passionate about medical reform. In his early writings, he makes his desire for medical reform clear: “It is time that the reign of medical tyranny should cease; it has ruled the world with an iron grasp. Thousands have been the victims sacrificed at its shrine. Let revolution-revolution be the cry through mountain and glen, valley and plain, until this hydra of medical aristocracy be shorn of its fangs-until the tears shed by suffering humanity shall cease to flow!” (72)

Beach’s passion empowered a long and productive career in medical reform, spanning 1818 until the time of his death in 1868. Harvey Wickes Felter, an Eclectic medical Historian, said this of Beach: “Thoroughly dissatisfied with the current medical methods as practiced at that time so vigorously and viciously, he labored diligently and earnestly to bring about reform and establish a new school or system of medicine.” (73)

Beach investigated any and all modalities in an effort to find effective medical techniques. (74) He then wove these medical techniques into what a reform brand of medicine called “The American Practice.” “My primary object, in my labors in the field of medical reform, is now, and has ever been, to clear away the rubbish of former, as well as of present, medical theories, and amide their wreck to collect whatever materials might be found, from all proper sources, for the construction of a new edifice, resting on broader and more durable foundation.” (75)

Influences

Conviction

One of Beach’s primary influences was conviction, conviction that developed from seeing the realities of heroic medicine. Beach said, “With such facts staring me in the face, my soul was filled with indignation at these instruments of cruelty and misery, administered under the specious pretext of removing disease. I felt a deep solicitude to effect a reformation.” (76)

Botanical Physicians

Through a relative, Beach heard about a doctor named Tidd who had rejected heroic medicine and relied primarily upon botanical medicines. (77) Beach found Tidd living in rural Amwell, New Jersey, and studied with him until the doctor passed away at the age of 74. (78)

According to Porter, Tidd “obtained his medical knowledge of a German Physician of high standing; and afterward obtained much valuable information from a relative who had been taken prisoner among the Indians during the war .” (79) The “German Physician” that trained Tidd was the botanical doctor George Andrew Viesselius, also of Amwell. Viesselius focused on native botanical remedies for two reasons. Firstly, the Townsend Acts of 1767 and other non-importation agreements restricted physicians’ access to European herbs. (80) Secondly, he believed in these native remedies. Coulter writes, “The Hallmark of the Botanics was confidence in the folk medicine of the Indians and in the folk medicine of the common people generally.” (81)

Beach was influenced by other botanists and botanical physicians including Constantine Rafinesque and Elisha Smith. Elements of Rafinesques’ “Medical Flora” (1828-30) and Elisha Smith’s “The Botanic Physician” (1830) can be found in Beach’s “The American Practice.” (82) In Beach’s own words, “I have not thought it beneath me to converse with Root doctors and Indian doctors, and everyone who has professed any valuable remedy, or any improved method of treating any disease.” (81)

Medical Practice

Throughout his career, Beach was a busy practitioner. For example, between June 1827 and June 1828, he saw 2100 patients at his infirmary in New York City. In 1832, he treated 1000 victims of a cholera epidemic in the span of three months. And, according to Porter, “In the treatment of disease he became so skillful and successful that his fame spread far and wide, and he was sent for from various sections of the country to consult with distinguished surgeons and physicians in every variety of complaint.” (83)

Medical Establishment

After his apprenticeship to Tidd, Beach returned to New York. However, to practice medicine in New York required a medical license and that in turn required a diploma from an “old school” medical school. (80) “I attended a course of lectures in the University of the State of New York, during the time Dr.Post, Hossack, and Mott and others, were professors. I concluded this was best, were it only to detect the errors of the modern practice.” (84-85)

Homeopathy

Beach studied homeopathy. He was impressed with the idea of using the smallest dose possible but disapproved of the homeopathic use of mercury and arsenic, albeit in small doses. In conclusion, Beach said, “I have to state that I have very little confidence in its curative properties. It may answer as a kind of placebo to the mind where no medicine is required, or to amuse the patient while nature effects the cure; but in active diseases valuable time would be lost under it, which ought to be employed in administering efficacious remedies.” (86)

Thomsonian Medicine

Beach was well aware of Samuel Thomson and his “Puke and Steam” treatment. Beach did not hold Thomson, or his practice, in very high esteem, “The pure Thomsonians are rigid followers of Samuel Thomas, an illiterate, conceited, arbitrary, and selfish individual, who obtained a patent for curing all diseases by the use of some articles comprised in six numbers…. His theory is, that heat is life, and cold is death. And hence the more heat, the more life. Both the theory and the practice are erroneous… such a plan may cure one man, but may kill others; and such has actually been the fact.”(87)

Contribution

Beach’s contribution to the Eclectic medical movement was four-fold. He gave the movement a philosophy, a materia medica, a place to study both, and a vehicle to communicate findings to the medical public.

Beach’s Philosophy

Beach’s philosophy can be found in his book, “The American Practice of Medicine” (1833). First and foremost, Beach aimed for his system to “release the mind from the dogmas of creeds and systems, the philosophy of medical schools, as they were then taught, and to direct it to an unlimited field of inquiry.” (88) Beach’s basic philosophy was to maintain an open mind.

Beyond that, Beach’s core concepts can be found in “The American Practice” and include the following.

1. All medical sects and techniques should be studied and the effective techniques adopted.

2. All medicines are to be tested in the clinical setting and their efficacy determined there.

3. All life-endangering techniques are to be rejected, especially bleeding, purging, and the use of toxic compounds or plants.

4. Medicines should come from the plant world.

5. Medicine should work with nature and never against it and harness the bodies’ intrinsic healing capacity. (89)

These five concepts would become core beliefs of the Eclectic movement. (90)

Materia Medica

In Beach’s “American Practice,” we find the first Eclectic materia medica. It is 188 pages long and discusses the specific medical use of 116 botanical medicines. Beach lists an additional 131 botanical drugs which he suggests warrant further investigation and research.

The Physical School

Shortly after opening his Infirmary in New York (1825), Beach made plans for a clinic and a medical school. In 1827, he opened The United States Infirmary, and in 1829, the Reformed Medical Academy. (91) Beach then decided to move his school to a frontier town and secured a location in Worthington, Ohio. When the school relocated (1830) there, it became the Reformed Medical College of Ohio. The College in Worthington flourished for a number of years, enrolling and graduating students. (92)

Medical Reformer

Beach founded a journal to disseminate the findings of his movement. The Reformed Medical Journal was first published in 1832 and had the motto “The Science of medicine, like the Doric column, should stand simple, pure, and majestic, having fact as its basis, induction for its pillar, and truth for its capital.” In 1836, the Reformed Medical Journal gave rise to the Western Medical Reformer. (88)

Discussion

According to Felter, Beach’s greatest contribution was his popularization of reform medicine, which he accomplished through the publication “The American Practice” and the Reformed Medical Journal. The book, Felter said, “at once became the standard work on practice among the reformers, and received gold medals and other distinctions from foreign potentates and distinguished European physicians. It … had a large sale, and contributed greatly to the popularity of the reform movement.” (90) A contemporary historian, Wade Boyle, concurs with this earlier historian’s opinion. (93)

One of the ways Beach publicized his work was by sending examples of it to foreign dignitaries. As a consequence, he received 7 Medals of Honor from European heads of state. (126,127)

In addition, Wooster Beach routinely challenged the medical establishment and forced them to defend their practices. For example, in his inaugural address of the Worthington Academy (1831), he publicly attacked the “old school” use of mercury. The Boston Medical Journal, and old school publication, responded, “The inaugural address of the President is without exception the most weak, absurd, and contemptible affair of the kind we ever met with in print.” The editors go on to ridicule Beach for dismissing mercury, lead, and arsenic as medicines. (94) Undaunted, Beach continued his attacks on the old school’s use of mercury.

Alex Berman, a contemporary analyst of the Eclectic movement, was quite critical of Beach. “Generally speaking, one is forced to conclude, after reviewing Beach’s work on the plant materia medica, that his contribution was noteworthy mainly for its mediocrity and excessive borrowing. “ (95) Berman notes that Beach extracted parts of Elisha Smith’s The Botanic Physician, verbatim, without crediting the author, and copied engravings from the work of Bigelow, Barton, and Rafinesque.

On the other hand, Beach was very clear that “The American Practice” had been drawn from the ancient practices of medicine (Empiric, Galenic, Chemical, Botanical) and the modern practices of medicine (Allopathic, Mineral depletive, Thomsonian, Homeopathic, and Botanic) and from data gathered touring hospitals and colleges in America and Europe. (96) Beach did not allege his work to be original thinking but rather a collection of useful medical techniques gleaned from many sources.

Berman failed to mention what gave Beach’s work value. Beach chose the medicines and medical techniques that worked and rejected those that did not. Beach borrowed, but he borrowed with efficacy as his criterion, whereas the editors of the Boston Medical Journal chose to defend their use of heroic medicine and to continue using it after Louis had proven that it did not work. (36)

Transition to Eclectic

Having breathed life into a Reform Movement, given it a set of core values, built a school where the core values could be tested and studied, and created a mechanism to communicate the findings, Beach then turned his attention to his other interest, religious studies. (97) He passed the baton onto the next generation.

The Worthington Reform Medical College did not flourish for long. The town of Worthington did not grow as had been expected, and there were problems within the faculty. In time, it failed. However, the former students of Beach kept the idea of the college alive and aspired to move it to the then booming metropolis of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1844, their dream was realized.

When the school reopened in Cincinnati, it reopened with a new name. The term Reform was replaced with Eclectic.(98) The manifesto of the new college read, “Our college will be strictly what its name indicates—Eclectic—ex cluding all such medicines and such remedies as, under the ordinary circumstances of their judicious use, are liable to produce evil consequences or endanger the future health of the patient.” (99)

Dr.T.V. Morrow (1804-1850), president of the new College, and former student of Beach, gave an opening address to the incoming students (November 7, 1846) that indicates Beach’s philosophy was still in place. He concluded his welcome with this statement: “No arbitrary restraints of thought and actions will be imposed on you here to paralyze future efforts for its improvement. We ask you to carefully scrutinize its doctrines, and reject them whenever they do not commend themselves to your minds as reasonable and true.” (100)

In 1848, at the National Convention of Reform Medical Practitioners, Beach’s disciples, also dropped reform and replaced it with “Eclectic.” (98) With the Eclectic Institute open in Cincinnati, the Eclectic movement moved into its next phase of development. At this time, another student of Beach, John King, stepped onto center stage.

John King MD (1813-1893)

King was born in New York City and early displayed a talent for the sciences. According to Felter, he was given a liberal education, spoke five languages, and was especially fond of French literature. On leaving college he decided upon medicine. At a time when medical heresy was dangerous, he chose to attend Beach’s Reformed Medical College. He graduated in 1838, at the age of 25, and began his clinical practice in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1846 he moved his practice to Sharpsburg, Kentucky, corresponded with the new school in Cincinnati, and began to contribute to the Western Medical Reformer. When the National Eclectic Medical Association was formed (1848), he was named secretary and ultimately became a member of the faculty at the Eclectic Institute (1851).

One of the most prolific Eclectic writers, he wrote “The American Dispensatory” in 1853. His book would become the Eclectic textbook for the second half of the 19^th century and would go through 18 editions. He was the leading Eclectic educator, writer, and advocate at the Institute until his death from a stroke at age 80. (101)

Influences

Conviction

In a letter written to his teacher, Wooster Beach, dated June 28^th 1842, King reveals one of the greatest influences in his life: conviction for reform medicine. “And what reformer, who has witnessed the success of this system, and the failure of the others, nay, not even failure, but the miseries produced, and has a mind of any feeling whatever of any love to his fellow creatures, or who possesses the smallest spark of humanity in his breast, would not devote his whole time and energy to the holy purpose of ameliorating the condition of his afflicted fellow beings, by placing before them , and forcing upon them, that system of practice which cures, and cures when all others fail?” (102)

The French School

King was influenced by the French School of medicine. His mother was the daughter of the Marquis La Porte, who came to the United States to aid the American Revolution, and was fully conversant in French. He could read the material produced by the Parisian doctors (98) and translated their medical notes and papers for American medical Journals. (103)

Wooster Beach

King was devoted to Beach and to Beach’s “American Practice.” He took on Beach’s philosophy, and it became his own. In a letter to Beach (June 28^th, 1842), he expressed his adoration for both the man and the system: “the respect, the esteem, the admiration, the love of mankind, will always be with you, your system is destined to become the greatest and proudest ornament in the medical world.” (102)

Nature

King was strongly influenced by nature itself. Felter said this of him, “John King lived close to the heart of nature. Of her bounteous yield, he believed, could the world obtain the safest and best remedies for the cure or amelioration of the ills of the human kind. He saw wonderful possibilities in the living and life giving products of mosses and herbs, shrubs and trees.” (104)

Medical Practice

King practiced medicine throughout his career, first in Massachusetts, then in Kentucky, and then in Cincinnati. He was a popular practitioner and was reported to be quite effective. (104)

Contributions

While at the Eclectic helm, King kept Beach’s philosophy in place and refined the Eclectic materia medica. In short, he took Beach’s work and elaborated on it. Beach’s textbook, “The American Practice,” was 800 pages long. King’s updated version of his teachers’ text, “The American Dispensatory,” (1853) was more than 1300 pages long.

Maintaining Eclectic Philosophy

King was especially keen on the Eclectic philosophy of choice. Lloyd, in his biography of King, said, “His books form a library that would be difficult to duplicate, and show an endless amount of research and application.” (103) In the first page of “The American Dispensatory,” King lists 44 different books as influencing his work, books that came from every philosophical corner. (105)

In a lecture to incoming students, one can observe King passing this philosophy onto the next generation: “To be a physician in the true sense, the mind must be unrestrained and not warped by prejudice; there must be a freedom of choosing and selecting such medical views and such remedial agents, without regard to theory or devotedness to party, as have been fully demonstrated by facts and experience to be the most in accordance with nature, and the most effectual in restoring health.” (106)

He goes on to clearly define what being an Eclectic meant: “Eclecticism, unlike all sects in medicine, it admits free investigation upon all matters pertaining to the science; it does not hesitate to adopt whatever is found valuable, without regard to its origin; it combats error and supports truth and enslaves the mind to no one sided opinions.” (106)

Materia Medica

King inherited Beach’s materia medica and spent his career improving it. He had two aims: to add worthy new herbs to the materia medica and to increase knowledge regarding the existing herbs.

In regard to enlarging the materia medica, Lloyd said this of King’s effort: “No source of Knowledge was left untouched, and early in his professional career he traveled far and wide investigating the remedies employed by the laity in domestic medication. In this way he added greatly to the materia medica…. He searched “the field and forests” for untried drugs, for with Professor King it was ever a theory that America was destined to contribute largely to the medicinal agents of the world.” (107)

In regard to improving the knowledge of existing remedies, King did two things. First, he refined the clinical applications of the known remedies by encouraging physicians to write to him with their clinical findings regarding specific botanical drugs. Secondly, he worked to improve the pharmaceutical preparations of those remedies.

In regard to pharmacy, King devoted himself to improving the manners in which the herbs were prepared and delivered as medicine. The botanical or country doctors, from whom the Eclectics learned their materia medica, used botanical remedies in crude manners, teas or whiskey extractions. King championed a more sophisticated pharmacy and pioneered the production of both tinctures and extracts. (108)

Discussion

King took a rudimentary materia, and elaborated upon it, using the critical process of a French-influenced empiricist. He asked his colleagues to observe the clinical effects of remedies and report those findings to him. He then incorporated their findings in his dispensatory. By all accounts, he was a pleasant man and he, and his work, were well liked. (109)

William Procter, Jr. (1817-1874), a famous 19^th century American pharmacists, reviewed King’s American Dispensatory and said, “[It] is certainly a phenomenon in the medical history of the United States of no ordinary interest” and that it “may be esteemed a remarkable episode in the history of American medicine and pharmacy.” (110)

According to Berman, Procter’s commentary was significant in that it represented “not only a valuable critique of Botanicism and Eclecticism as seen through the eyes of one of the most distinguished pharmacists of the time, but are also among the very few dispassionate critical analyses of Botanicism to appear in nineteenth century literature.”

Boyle said of him, “King’s major contributions to botanical medicine were his pioneering work in botanical pharmacology, his landmark writings on botanical materia medica, and his distinguished service in training Eclectic physicians at the Eclectic Institute.” Boyle made the point that King’s efforts to improve the pharmacy and pharmacology of botanical drugs extended beyond the Eclectic world and into the world of “old school” practice. (111)

Berman believes that King’s motivation for improving the materia medica was practical. “The neo-Thomsonians and the Eclectics vied with regular physicians for social acceptance and public approval through scientific respectability. The development of a distinctive pharmacy of indigenous plants offered the Eclectics their strongest bid for scientific recognition.” (112)

King improved the Eclectic materia medica, and his book, “The American Dispensatory,” became the textbook of the next generation of Eclectic physicians. One such student was John Milton Scudder.

John Milton Scudder (1829-1894)

The next significant Eclectic, John Milton Scudder, was born in Hamilton, Ohio. Left fatherless, he went to work at age eight and ultimately put himself through college (Miami University). A graduate of the Eclectic Institute, he represented a new generation of Eclectic-trained Eclectics. In this new generation, Scudder stood ahead of the crowd. Felter said, “John Milton Scudder was the most conspicuous man in modern Eclecticism.” (113)

Like all Eclectics, his influences were many.

Conviction

Scudder was passionate about reform medicine. His conviction was in part due to the fact heroic medicine had killed three of his young children. (114) Scudder said of heroic medicine, “The results of this practice, and the theory upon which it was based, were very unsatisfactory, especially to the people who had to suffer the penalty-in many cases loss of useful lives… I make the assertion that the lancet has murdered thousands, and can prove it from the best authorities of old school medicine.” (115)

Eclectic Physicians and Eclectic Medicine

Following the death of his children, Scudder sought out Dr. M.L. Thomas, an Eclectic physician, as his mentor and preceptor. Scudder attended an Eclectic medical school and studied Eclectic medical books. He graduated valedictorian of his class in 1856 and was strongly influenced by King. (111)

Homeopathy

When Scudder was studying at the Eclectic Institute (1850s), homeopathy was viewed favorably. In fact, the Eclectic Institute added a chair of homeopathy and graduated the first homeopathic physicians in the west. The chair was abolished, but Scudder was exposed to homeopathy during his student years. (111)

Medical Practice

Upon graduating from the Eclectic Institute, Scudder immediately began practicing medicine in Fulton, a neighborhood in Cincinnati. Said Lloyd, “His success, both as a practitioner and money maker, was phenomenal. He formed partnerships in order to handle the immense business. At one time his office was crowded with patients and the income from practice ran into the three tens.” (112)

Contribution

The faculty of the Eclectic Institute was impressed with Scudder’s acumen, and upon graduation, he was immediately appointed Professor of Anatomy. He maintained a position there until 1894. He wrote numerous books, delivered regular lectures, and contributed to the Eclectic journal. (113) He kept the Eclectic principles alive and contributed to the evolution of the materia medica.

Maintenance of the Eclectic principles

According to Scudder, Eclectics called themselves Eclectics because they chose what they believed. They did not accept the words and ideas of others without contemplation. “The term Eclectic is derived from a Greek word which signifies to chose; we use it, however, in both the past and present tense-we have chosen, we are constantly choosing.” (114)

Benign medicine

It was an abiding Eclectic principle that the physician was to do no harm. Scudder communicated this. “It is a cardinal principle of the Eclectic system, that no medical treatment should be allowed which permanently impairs or injures the vital powers; that no such treatment is, in any case, necessary or proper, and that in the choice of remedies, we should prefer those which are safest, and calculated to act most nearly in accordance with the laws of health.” (115)

Research

Scudder, in all of his works, encouraged his readers to conduct research and characteristically gave direction for that research. After stating what was known about an herb, Scudder would end the discussion with a call to action: “I have employed it in secondary syphilis and atonic chronic inflammations with marked advantage, but have not used it for other purposes. Will some of our readers test it in the treatment of fever and inflammation to determine its analogy to the sedatives?” (116-118)

Evolution of the Materia Medica

Scudder advanced the Eclectic materia medica through the exploration of two pre-existing Eclectic concepts. Firstly, King worked to fine tune the applications of botanical remedies. Scudder went one step further and made specific medication a spoken direction of Eclecticism. Secondly, the Eclectics believed in working with the body’s own healing capacity. Scudder expanded upon this idea.

Specific Medication

While working at the Institute, Scudder conceived the doctrines and practice of “specific medication.” He began work on the concept in 1859 and published a book on the subject in 1869. The book, “Specific Medication and Specific Medicines,” was reprinted many times; its ideas become dominant doctrines of the Eclectic movement.

Scudder’s basic concept was that there were specific medicines that treated specific diseases and that it was the physician’s job to find the specific medicine for the case at hand. This went contrary to the “old school” approach that treated states of the humors and disavowed treating specific diseases. (119) Basic tenets of Specific Medication included the following.

1. There exist specific remedies that undermine specific diseases.

2. To prescribe specific medications, specific diagnosis is required.

3. Specific diagnosis first demands an understanding of health and departures from it. (120-121)

Intrinsic Healing Capacity

Scudder believed that the human body had an intrinsic healing capacity and that this capacity was powered by a force he called the “Vis conservatrix.” Disease, in his estimation, occurred when this force was inadequate. (122) Scudder also believed that there were botanical remedies that augmented this force, remedies he called tonics. Incidentally, both ideas can be tracked back to the works of Hippocrates. (123)

Scudder believed that tonics had an almost universal applicability—whenever the healing capacity of the body was needed, tonics could be used to stimulate the process. He championed their use and research into them. The tonic became an Eclectic weapon in the war against disease. By the end of the movement, the Eclectics had identified and studied 203 different botanical remedies which they asserted had this capacity.

Discussion

Contemporary historian Wade Boyle said this of Scudder, “Botanical Medicine, perhaps medicine in general, reached one of its highest points in the 19^th century in the life and practice of John Scudder. Medical historians who are generally hostile to, even shamefully prejudiced against, Eclecticism speak of him respectfully as a man of marked ability, both medical and executive.” The historian goes on to say that his work with specific medication “lifted botanical medicine to a level of scientific exactness.” (124)

Berman points out that Scudder’s “Specific Medication” shared certain elements with homeopathy and that “the adversaries of the Eclectics were to cry plagiarism” when he released his book. There were similarities. The homeopaths became very specific in their applications of medicines, and Scudder advocated the same specificity. The homeopaths used much diluted preparations, and Scudder advocated the use of the smallest possible dose. However, the homeopaths treated like with like, and Scudder used medicines to harness the body’s own healing mechanisms. (125)

Whether Scudder’s specific medication was inspired by the homeopaths cannot be known for certain. But the Eclectic application of botanical remedies became more specific under Scudder’s watch. In addition, as a consequence of his specific interest in remedies that stimulated the body to heal itself, the Eclectic materia medica contained more tonics than when he took the helm.

Scudder’s revised materia medica was passed onto the last generation of Eclectics and was in active use well into the first part of the 20^th-century.
In Conclusion

The Eclectic philosophy of choosing the effective and rejecting the ineffective, when combined with their interest in botanical remedies, made them unique. Their study of botanical remedies undaunted by dogma resulted in a well-tested materia medica. Authorities, then and now, have acknowledged the results of their efforts.

William Procter, a leading pharmacist at the end of the 19^th century, criticized the Eclectic movement for not conducting enough phytochemical tests, but commended their efforts with their materia medica. According to Procter, “there were aspects of Eclectic activity which deserved to be carefully investigated and should not be contemptuously dismissed.” (128) Coulter said of the Eclectics, “the Eclectic school issued a number of botanical works of high scientific and scholarly value” (129) According to Berman, the Eclectics “made a strong, conscious effort to synthesize the work of their less educated colleagues, to influence the growth of the plant materia medica, and to subject their plant medicinals to scientific verification.” (130) History reveals many Eclectic remedies made their way into the United States Pharmacopoeia and the National Formulary. (128)

That being said, the Eclectic Institute closed its doors in 1939, and with its closing, the movement passed into obscurity. They had waged a 114-year war against the medical establishment, and, in the end, lost.

They lost the war in part due to their refusal to fixate on any one doctrine or dogma. According to Coulter, the Eclectic movement did not stand the test of time “because of its failure to formulate a coherent therapeutic doctrine.” (135) The doctrine of choosing made them good researchers, but it did not give the movement a clear enough identity to stand the test of time.

Further, Dr. King’s adherence to the high road was not an efficient attack against the old school. Said King in a lecture to his students:

Eclecticism widely differs from other systems, and especially Allopathy, in its liberality and forbearance towards all who entertain opposite views and opinions. Eclectic students, instead of being taught to limit their thoughts and investigations within circumscribed bounds or rules, regardless of their correctness or falsity-the usual course pursued in medical teachings-are trained to cultivate and maintain the utmost freedom of mental action; to listen with patience and respect to the views and opinions of others, no matter how seriously they may conflict with their own; to test their truthfulness, and adopt them if good; or, if bad, to pass them by without regard to theories, preconceptions, sects, interests, popular favor, or anything, save a knowledge for the truth, and truth alone.” (105) Eclectics carried their leader’s sentiment, and it did not serve them in the brutal turf war of 19^th-century medicine.

Gevitz made the following remark about the natural life cycle of medical sects, “They are conceived by a crisis in medical care; their youth is marked by a broadening of their ideas; and their decline occurs when whatever distinctive notions they have as to patient management are allowed to wither. At this point, no longer having a competent raison d’etre, they die.” (136)

The Eclectics gained popularity because they provided treatments which did not kill the patients. People liked them because they did not use the lancet or mercury. When the medical establishment abandoned these practices, part of their raison d’etre ceased to exist. They helped force the medical establishment to abandon heroic medicine, and in so doing, made themselves obsolete.

The object of this thesis is to identify botanical medicines that might be useful in maintaining health. Health depends upon the body’s intrinsic healing capacity and botanical tonics allegedly contain qualities that stimulate this activity. A search for effective disease preventing botanical drugs must logically begin with the Eclectic Materia Medica. It represents 114 years of research into the subject and as Procter claimed, “there are elements in the work of the Eclectics that warrant further investigation.”

References

1. Haller, John S. Medical Protestants. Medical Protestants: The Eclectics in American Medicine, 1825.-1939. Southern Illinois University Press. Carbondale. 1993 P. 1

2. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.1

3. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.1

4. Shryock, Richard H. Medical Licensing in America, 1650-1965. John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. 1967. P.9.

5. Shultz, Suzanne M. Colonial Medical Practice: A Case Study of Thomas Cadwalader(1708-1779) Journal of Medical Biography 1995; 3:133-138.

6. Shultz, Suzanne M. Colonial Medical Practice: a case study of Thomas Cadwalader(1708-1779) Journal of Medical Biography 1995; 3:134

8. Haller, John S. Ibid. P 4

9. Gevitz, Norman. Pray Let the Medicines Be Good: The New England Apothocary in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries. Publ Am Inst Hist Pharm. 2001; P.24

10. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 4-5

11. Bell, Whitfield. Doctors of the Old School: Philadelphia Physicians of the Middle Period (From Benjamin Rush to S.Weir Mitchell.) Trans.Stud.Coll.Physicians Phila. 1995 Dec; 17:147-63

12. Shultz, Suzanne M. Colonial Medical Practice: a case study of Thomas Cadwalader (1708-1779) Journal of Medical Biography 1995; 3:133

13. Entin, M.A. Edinburgh Medical College at the End of the Eighteenth Century and the Training of North American Doctors. Proc.R.Coll.Physicians Edinb.1998; 28:218-228.

14. Roberts, Marcy Seligman. The First School of Medicine in the Country. Jama, September 18, 1987, Volume 258, No.11 P. 1479.

15. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.12-13.

16. Slawson, RG. Medical Training in the United States in the Pre-Civil War Era: The Formation of Medical Schools. Maryland Medicine. 2002 summer; 3(3): 47-48, 57.

17. Stavrakis, P. Heroic Medicine, bloodletting, and the sad fate of George Washington. Maryland Medical Journal, 1997 November/December; 46(10): P.539

18. Gevitz, Norman, Sullivan-Fowler, Micaela. Making Sense of Therapeutics in Seventeenth Century New England. Caduceus. 1995 Autumn; 11(2):90

19. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.16

20. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.20

21. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.21

22. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 22.

23. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 21

24. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 21.

25. Davies, Nicolas E. Elisha Dick, Benjamin Rush, and George Washington. JAMA, July 8, 1983, Volume 250, No.2. P.164

26. Rise, GB. Calomel and the American Medical Sects During the Nineteenth Century. Mayo Clin Proc 1973 Jan; 48(1): 63

27. Haller, John S. Ibid. P 14.

28. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.15.

29. Berman, Alex. The Thomsonian Movement and Its Relation to American Pharmacy and Medicine. Vol 25; September-October, 1951, Number 5: Page 408

30. Potter, William Samuel. Dr.Nathaniel Potter’s Contribution to Medicine and the University of Maryland. Md.Med Journal 1991 Dec; 40(12):1089-92

31. Berman, Alex. The Thomsonian Movement and Its Relation to American Pharmacy and Medicine. Vol 25; September-October, 1951, Number 5: Page 408

32. Wilder, Alexander. History of Medicine: A brief outline of medical history and sects of physicians, from the earliest Historic Period, with an Extended Account of the New Schools of the Healing Art in the Nineteenth Century, and Especially a History of the American Eclectic Practice of Medicine, Never before Published. New England Eclectic Publishing Company, Maine 1904, P. 50

33. Haller, John S. P. 23. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr.Caspar Wistar, Jr. June 21, 1807. In Paul L Ford(ed), The writings of Thomas Jefferson (10 vols New York, G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 1892-1899, IX, 81-85)

34. Cohn, Lawrence H. Contributions of Thomas Jefferson to American Medicine. American Journal of Surgery.1979 August; 138(2) P. 287

35. Cohn, Lawrence H. Contributions of Thomas Jefferson to American Medicine. American Journal of Surgery.1979 August; 138(2) P. 288

36. Baron, Jeremy Hugh. American Medical Students in 19th century Europe. Mt.Sinai Journal of Medicine, 2005, Jul; 72(4):270-3. P.270-273

37. Haller, John S. Ibid. P 26.

38. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 29.

39. Bigelow, Jacob. Dr. Jacob Bigelow on Self Limited Disease (1835).Pediatrics. 1977 October; 60(4):466.

40. Osler, William. A Rhode Island Philosopher (Elisha Bartlett) Rhode Island Medical Journal. 1987 October; 70(10):449-64.

41. Spiegel, Alan D. and Kavaler, Florence. The Role of Abraham Lincoln in Securing a Charter for a Homeopathic Medical College. Journal of Community Health, Vol.27, No.5, October 2002. P.359.

42. Rise, GB. Calomel and the American Medical Sects During the Nineteenth Century. Mayo Clin Proc 1973 Jan; 48(1): 57-63.

43. Flannery, Michael and Hill, Lister. The Early Botanical Medical Movement as a Reflection of Life, Liberty, and Literacy in Jacksonian America. J Med Libr Ass 90(4)October 2002: 442-452.

44. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982. P.88

45. Beach, Wooster. The American Practice Condensed Being the Scientific System of Medicine: on vegetable principles, designed for all classes. Moore, Wilstach, and Moore, Cincinatti, 1869. P.VI-VII

46. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.8

47. Hobbs, Christopher. The Medical Botany of John Bartram. Pharmacy in History; Volume 33(1991) No.4: P.181

48. Erichsen-Brown, Charlotte. Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. A Historical survey with special reference to the eastern Indian Tribes. Dover, New York, 1979, P.103

49. Gevitz, Norman. Pray Let the Medicines Be Good: The New England Apothocary in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries. Publ Am Inst Hist Pharm. 2001;19: P.5

50. Boostin, Daniel. The Americans: The Colonial experience. Vintage Books, New York, 1964. P. 209.

51. Haller, John S. Ibid. P.9

52. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 9 (quoting Blanton, Wyndham B. Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, P. 100-101, 105-113.)

53. Gerarde, John. The Herbal or General History of Plants gathered By John Gerarde of London, master of Chirugerie. London. 1633. P.1524-1525

54. Berman, Alex. A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Number 4. 1956. P 2. (Quoting Rush, Benjamin. Observations on the Duties of a Physician, and the Methods of Improving Medicine, Accomodated to the Present State of Society and Manners in the United States, in Benjamin Rush, Medical Enquiries and Observations (4 cols.2d ed. Philadelphia, J.Conrad and Co.1789, I. 406-407)

55. Berman, Alex. Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Winsconsin, Number 4. 1956. P 2.

56. Berman, A. Wooster Beach and the Early Eclectics. Med Bull (Ann Arbor) 1958 July; 24(7):277-86.

57. Erichsen-Brown, Charlotte. Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. A Historical survey with special reference to the Eastern Indian Tribes. Dover, New York, 1979, P.1-512.

58. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982. P.87

59. Stavrakis, P. Heroic Medicine, bloodletting, and the sad fate of George Washington. Maryland Medical Journal, 1997 November/December; 46(10): P.540

60. Borchardt, John K. Native American Drug Therapy: United States and Canada. Drug News Perspective 16(3), April 2003: 187-191.

61. Erichson-Brown, Charlotte. Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. A historical survey with special references to the Eastern Tribes. Dover Publications, New York. 1979. P. 481

62. Bell, Whitfield. Benjamin Smith Barton MD (Kiel), Journal of the History of Medicine, XXVI (1971) P. 197-203.

63. Wilder, Alexander. History of Medicine: A brief outline of medical history and sects of physicians, from the earliest Historic Period, with an Extended Account of the New Schools of the Healing Art in the Nineteenth Century, and Especially a History of the American Eclectic Practice of Medicine, Never before Published. New England Eclectic Publishing Company, Maine, 1904, P. 422.

64. Boyle, Wade. Herb Doctors: Pioneers in 19th Century American Botanical Medicine and A history of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati. Buckeye Naturopathic Press, Ohio, 1988. P.15

65. Miller, Amy Bess. Shaker Herbs. A History and A Compendium. Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1976. P.1-9

66. Idler, Ellen L. Moral Medicine: Symbolic Content in 19th Century Shaker Therapeutics. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 13(1989)19-20

67. Boyle, Wade. Herb Doctors: Pioneers in 19th Century American Botanical Medicine and A history of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati. Buckeye Naturopathic Press, Ohio, 1988. P. 11

68. Waters, E. The Herbal Medicines of the mid-19th Century Botanical Societies. Pharm.Hist(London) 2000 June; 30(2): 34-36

69. Haller, John. Kindly Medicines. A History of the physio-medicals in American Medicine. New York State Journal of Medicine. Feb; 1993: P.140

70. Thomas, P. Homeopathy in the USA. British Homeopathic Journal (2001)90, 99-103.

71. Flannery, Michael A. John Uri Lloyd. The Great American Eclectic. Southern Illinois University Press. Carbondale. 1998. P.xiii

72. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P. XX

73. Felter, Harvey Wickes. History of the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845-1902. Alumnal Association of the Eclectic Institute. Cincinnati. 1902. P 5

74. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.81

75. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.V.

76. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.81 Quoted from Beach, Wooster, “The Rise, Progress, and Present State of the New York Medical Institution and Reformed Medical society of the United States”, published by the author, 1830.

77. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.81 Quoted from Beach, Wooster. “The Rise, Progress, and Present State of the New York Medical Institution and Reformed Medical society of the United States”, published by the author, 1830.

78. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.82

79. Porter, A.H. quoted in Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.IX.

80. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 69.

81. Coulter, Harris L. Divided Legacy: A History of the Schism in Medical Thought. Volume III, Science and Ethics in American Medicine” 1800-1914, Three Volumes, Wehawken Book Company, Washington DC, 1973. P.88.

82. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.5

83. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.XII. (Quoting Porter, A.H.)

84. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. (Quoting Porter, A.H.)

85. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.83

86. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P. XIII

87. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.IX

88. Beach, Wooster. (Quoted in Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 71 quoted in Firth, The Origin of the American Eclectic Practice of medicine, and Its Early History in the State of New York, Transaction, Eclectic Medical Society of New York, X(1878) 171.)

89. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.X

90. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P. 83

91. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P. 82 Quoting Wilder, Alexander. “Wooster Beach”. Eclectic Medical Journal, 1893, P.113-121.

.

92. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P. 83

93. Boyle, Wade. Herb Doctors: Pioneers in 19th Century American Botanical Medicine and A history of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati. East Palestine, Ohio. Buckeye Naturopathic Press. 1988. P. 7-9

94. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982. P.90-91

95. Berman, Alex. . A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Number 4. 1956. P 7.

96. Beach, Wooster. Ibid. P.V-XX

97. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P. 83

98. Lloyd, John Uri. Biographies of John King, Andew Jackson Howe, John Milton Scudder. Bulletin of the Lloyd Library of Botany, Pharmacy, and Materia Medica. Cincinatti, 1912. P.4

99. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P. 21

100. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. P.26

101. Felter, Harvey Wickes. P. 13-115

102. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P. 11

103. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P.6

104. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P.11

105. King, John. The American Eclectic Dispensatory. Moore, Wilstach, and Keys. Cincinnati, 1854. P.X

106. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P.48. (Quoting King, John. “Lecture to incoming students at the Eclectic Institute”. )

107. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. Page 11

108. King, John. Ibid. P.VIII

109. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P. 49 (Quoting lecture of John King).

110. Berman, Alex. . A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Number 4. 1956. P. 11-13.

111. Boyle, Wade. Herb Doctors: Pioneers in 19th Century American Botanical Medicine and A history of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati. Buckeye Naturopathic Press. 1988. P. 24

112. Berman, Alex. The Eclectic Concentrations and American Pharmacy (1847-1861). Pharmacy in History. Vol.XXII, No.3, 1980. P.91-103

113. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. Page 118

114. Felter, Harvey Wickes. Ibid. Page 118

115. John Milton Scudder. The Eclectic Physician. Twenty First Edition, Fifth Revision. Cincinnati. John K.Scudder. 1887. P.28-32

116. Scudder, John Milton. Specific Medication and Specific Medicines. Fifth Edition. Cincinnati. Wilstach, Baldwin, and Co. Cincinnati. 1874. P.vii.

117. Scudder, John Milton. Ibid. P.106

118. Scudder, John Milton. Ibid. P. 165

119. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 16

120. Scudder, John Milton. Ibid. P.10

121. Scudder, John Milton. Ibid. P.15

122. Scudder, John Milton. The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Tenth Edition, revised and rewritten. Published by the author. Cincinnati. 1883. P. 48

123. Scudder, John Milton. Ibid. P. 25

124. Boyle, Wade. Ibid. P. 28-29

125. Berman, A. Wooster Beach and the Early Eclectics. Med Bull (Ann Arbor) 1958 July; 24(7): 282

126. Haller, John S. Ibid. P. 72.

127. Berman, Alex. A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Winsconsin, Number 4. 1956. P. 13. (Quoting from “Comments, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal” XXVIII (1843) 304

128. Berman, Alex. The Eclectic Concentrations and American Pharmacy(1847-1861). Pharmacy in History. Vol.XXII, No.3, 1980. P.100.

129. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982. P.93

130. Berman, Alex. . A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Number 4. 1956. P 7.

131. Berman, Alex. The Thomsonian Movement and Its Relation to American Pharmacy and Medicine. Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Vol XXV; Number 5, Sept-Oct, 1951, P. 406

132. Linceum, Jerry Bryan. Medical Controversy in the Nineteenth-Century America South: Botanics vs.Allopaths. Caduceus 1994 Winter; 10(3):131-44.

133. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982. P.93

134. Lloyd, John Uri. Ibid. P.48. (Quoting King, John. “Lecture to incoming students at the Eclectic Institute”. )

135. Green, Barton. Gloom or Boom for Chiropractic in its Second Century. A comparison of the demise of Alternative Healing Professions. Chiropractic History Volume 14, No.2.1994: 25

Reference List

Baron, Jeremy Hugh. American Medical Students in 19th century Europe. Mt.Sinai Journal of Medicine, 2005, Jul; 72(4):270-3. P.270-273

Beach, Wooster. The American Practice Condensed Being the Scientific System of Medicine: on vegetable principles, designed for all classes. Moore, Wilstach, and Moore, Cincinatti, 1869.

Bell, Whitfield. Benjamin Smith Barton MD (Kiel), Journal of the History of Medicine, XXVI (1971) P. 197-203.

Bell, Whitfield. Doctors of the Old School: Philadelphia Physicians of the Middle Period (From Benjamin Rush to S.Weir Mitchell.) Trans.Stud.Coll.Physicians Phila. 1995 Dec; 17:147-63

Berman, Alex. The Thomsonian Movement and Its Relation to American Pharmacy and Medicine. Vol 25; September-October, 1951, Number 5: Page 408

Berman, Alex. A Striving for Scientific Respectability: Some American Botanics and the 19th Century Plant Materia Medica, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Contributions from the History of Pharmacy Department of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Number 4. 1956. P 2.

Berman, Alex. Wooster Beach and the Early Eclectics. Med Bull (Ann Arbor) 1958 July; 24(7):277-86.

Berman, A. Wooster Beach and the Early Eclectics. Med Bull (Ann Arbor) 1958 July; 24(7): 282

Berman, Alex. The Eclectic Concentrations and American Pharmacy(1847-1861). Pharmacy in History. Vol.XXII, No.3, 1980. P.100.

Bigelow, Jacob. Dr. Jacob Bigelow on Self Limited Disease (1835).Pediatrics. 1977 October; 60(4):466.

Boostin, Daniel. The Americans: The Colonial experience. Vintage Books, New York, 1964.

Borchardt, John K. Native American Drug Therapy: United States and Canada. Drug News Perspective 16(3), April 2003: 187-191.

Boyle, Wade. Herb Doctors: Pioneers in 19th Century American Botanical Medicine and A history of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati. Buckeye Naturopathic Press, Ohio, 1988.

Cohn, Lawrence H. Contributions of Thomas Jefferson to American Medicine. American Journal of Surgery.1979 August; 138(2) P. 287-288

Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1914 North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California, 1982.

Davies, Nicolas E. Elisha Dick, Benjamin Rush, and George Washington. JAMA, July 8, 1983, Volume 250, No.2. P.164

Entin, M.A. Edinburgh Medical College at the End of the Eighteenth Century and the Training of North American Doctors. Proc.R.Coll.Physicians Edinb.1998; 28:218-228.

Erichsen-Brown, Charlotte. Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. A Historical survey with special reference to the eastern Indian Tribes. Dover, New York, 1979.

Flannery, Michael A. John Uri Lloyd. The Great American Eclectic. Southern Illinois University Press. Carbondale. 1998.

Flannery, Michael and Hill, Lister. The Early Botanical Medical Movement as a Reflection of Life, Liberty, and Literacy in Jacksonian America. J Med Libr Ass 90(4)October 2002: 442-452.

Felter, Harvey Wickes. History of the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845-1902. Alumnal Association of the Eclectic Institute. Cincinnati. 1902.

Gevitz, Norman. Pray Let the Medicines Be Good: The New England Apothocary in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries. Publ Am Inst Hist Pharm. 2001;

Gevitz, Norman, Sullivan-Fowler, Micaela. Making Sense of Therapeutics in Seventeenth Century New England. Caduceus. 1995 Autumn; 11(2):90

Gerarde, John. The Herbal or General History of Plants gathered By John Gerarde of London, master of Chirugerie. London. 1633.

Green, Barton. Gloom or Boom for Chiropractic in its Second Century. A comparison of the demise of Alternative Healing Professions. Chiropractic History Volume 14, No.2.1994: 25

Haller, John S. Medical Protestants. Medical Protestants: The Eclectics in American Medicine, 1825.-1939. Southern Illinois University Press. Carbondale. 1993

Haller, John. Kindly Medicines. A History of the physio-medicals in American Medicine. New York State Journal of Medicine. Feb; 1993: P.140

Hobbs, Christopher. The Medical Botany of John Bartram. Pharmacy in History; Volume 33(1991) No.4: P.181

Idler, Ellen L. Moral Medicine: Symbolic Content in 19th Century Shaker Therapeutics. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 13(1989)19-20

King, John. The American Eclectic Dispensatory. Moore, Wilstach, and Keys. Cincinnati, 1854.

Lloyd, John Uri. Biographies of John King, Andew Jackson Howe, John Milton Scudder. Bulletin of the Lloyd Library of Botany, Pharmacy, and Materia Medica. Cincinatti, 1912. P.4

Linceum, Jerry Bryan. Medical Controversy in the Nineteenth-Century America South: Botanics vs.Allopaths. Caduceus 1994 Winter; 10(3):131-44.

Miller, Amy Bess. Shaker Herbs. A History and A Compendium. Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1976.

Osler, William. A Rhode Island Philosopher (Elisha Bartlett) Rhode Island Medical Journal. 1987 October; 70(10):449-64.

Potter, William Samuel. Dr.Nathaniel Potter’s Contribution to Medicine and the University of Maryland. Md.Med Journal 1991 Dec; 40(12):1089-92

Rise, GB. Calomel and the American Medical Sects During the Nineteenth Century. Mayo Clin Proc 1973 Jan; 48(1): 63

Scudder, John Milton. Specific Medication and Specific Medicines. Fifth Edition. Cincinnati. Wilstach, Baldwin, and Co. Cincinnati. 1874.

Scudder, John Milton. The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Tenth Edition, revised and rewritten. Published by the author. Cincinnati. 1883.

Scudder, John Milton. The Eclectic Physician. Twenty First Edition, Fifth Revision. Cincinnati. John K.Scudder. 1887.

Roberts, Marcy Seligman. The First School of Medicine in the Country. Jama, September 18, 1987, Volume 258, No.11 P. 1479.

Shryock, Richard H. Medical Licensing in America, 1650-1965. John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. 1967.

Shultz, Suzanne M. Colonial Medical Practice: A Case Study of Thomas Cadwalader(1708-1779) Journal of Medical Biography 1995; 3:133-138.

Slawson, RG. Medical Training in the United States in the Pre-Civil War Era: The Formation of Medical Schools. Maryland Medicine. 2002 summer; 3(3): 47-48, 57.

Spiegel, Alan D. and Kavaler, Florence. The Role of Abraham Lincoln in Securing a Charter for a Homeopathic Medical College. Journal of Community Health, Vol.27, No.5, October 2002. P.359.

Stavrakis, P. Heroic Medicine, bloodletting, and the sad fate of George Washington. Maryland Medical Journal, 1997 November/December; 46(10): P.539

Thomas, P. Homeopathy in the USA. British Homeopathic Journal (2001)90, 99-103.

Waters, E. The Herbal Medicines of the mid-19th Century Botanical Societies. Pharm.Hist(London) 2000 June; 30(2): 34-36

Wilder, Alexander. History of Medicine: A brief outline of medical history and sects of physicians, from the earliest Historic Period, with an Extended Account of the New Schools of the Healing Art in the Nineteenth Century, and Especially a History of the American Eclectic Practice of Medicine, Never before Published. New England Eclectic Publishing Company, Maine 1904.