History midterm

Biomedicine Lectures: Medicine in North American in the 19th Century

I. Medicine in Jacksonian America (1820-1850).

- It is not well-regulated. There were not guild practices in America; all one had to do was hang out one’s shingle. The political environment was anti-governmental intrusions in the life of the citizen.

- Proprietary System – Professors sold tickets to their lectures. Medical Schools generally consisted of 4-6 months of lectures. The better schools required two years (but during the second year, you basically repeated what you studied in the first year). There was no hands-on practice in this training. Students would get this instead during their apprenticeships.

Two important aspects to this open, unregulated environment:

1) There were no intellectual barriers to the type of medical practice.

2) It was “sectarian” - There are different kinds of medicine being practiced.

A) Allopathic medicine – conventional medicine, that is, the kind being taught in European cities. Based on the humoral model—whole body phenomenon—balance system—used bloodletting, vomiting/purging . . . .

- It became known as “heroic medicine” because it used harsh measures of bloodletting and heavy vomiting (applied very strong medicines)

- It soon became criticized by practitioners both inside and outside the allopathic medical community.

- A philosophy of “Therapeutic Nihilism” arose that argued that it was better to do nothing—bleeding and purging were of little use—the cures did more harm than good.

- During this time most medicine was still domestic (done at the home) (ex. People could buy remedies like Dr. Flint’s Quaker Bitters)

- People emphasized the maintenance of health.

B) Homeopathy – developed by the German Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), who is famous for stating that “like cures like.” This approach was a very old idea, but he did it in an unusual way. The effectiveness of a drug increased inversely to its concentration/amount of dose. The smaller the dose, the weaker the concentration, the more effective.

- This was a much more pleasant experience for the patients.

- It promoted health maintenance. – Get fresh air, eat a good diet, live a healthy life.

- This system was quickly institutionalized, in part because it looked very like allopathy, and yet it took place in different homeopathic hospitals. There were books published that taught the methods.

- It was founded in places that German immigrants settled.

Samuel Thomson (1769-1843) founded his own system based on the ideas:

1) That you need to restore the balance of the 4 (Aristotelian) elements (Earth, Air Fire, Water)

2) that herbal/plant remedies were best, those found in North America, since God put them there for us/them to use. He opposed using the minerals that came from Europe.

- some of the plant remedies were not that gentle (Thomson himself was sued for causing the death of a woman for prescribing her Lobelia, a possible toxic plant). There was however a great interest/attraction in using American plants to cure Americans.

*** Thomson sold medicine kits of plant remedies with instructions for using them. This was a great item to take with you in your covered wagon as you migrated Westward and left civilization. This became a very successful business because he would license families to do “Thomsonian Medicine” kind of like a franchise today.

C) Hydropathy (water cure) – This was a version of the European Spa treatment that was imported to the United States. It was also a system that recommended health maintenance – maintain the natural state of the body in health – good food, lots of water, exercising . . . . When you were sick, you tried to get the body to rid itself of disease – The body be assisted in getting rid of the disease by applying things to the surface of the skin.

-Water (cold or hot) and the use of friction (rubbing) were combined. Water would be poured over the patient, you could be wrapped up in wet sheets.

- There were water cure hotels and similar health establishments were founded.

II. The Social Meaning of Sectarian Medicine

- Social Meaning means the way in which these kinds of medicine are made for all people, nit just a select group.

- They are a real alternative to allopathic ideas.

- They are anti-establishment, and anti-elitist.

The appeal was that it was designed for the family physician to replace the practicing physicians outside the family (if one wanted to). That is families could do this themselves. Thomson bashes allopathic medicine because he believed his method is better: “You don’t need a fancy education, do it yourself!” “ He also said, “Nature has a college peculiar to itself.”

- This was a powerful medical ideology in a time of anti-monopolistic politics, and pro-democratic models of government.

- The Water Cure presented the notion that anyone could learn curing. They circulated a very popular, and cheap, journal “Water Cure Journal” in the U.S. which called for ignoring medical jargon – thus it also was anti-intellectual.

- The Water Cure was especially popular with women because it advertised that it could them to take control of medicine in their homes—that women could have the necessary knowledge, which connected with their roles as mothers and caretakers. It helped them to run their households and seemed to be a part of their natural sphere or “domestic economy.”