Natural Healing vs. Modern Medicine: The Untold Story

How did herbal medicine, once the cornerstone of care, come to be dismissed as “alternative”? Even before America's colonization, medicine underwent a dramatic political transformation, regulating who could heal and how. Judson Carroll shares the untold story in this excerpt from Christian Herbal Medicine: History and Practice.

With the increasing secularization of education and professionalization of the study and practice of medicine, the writing was on the wall at least a century before the colonization of America.

The position of physician had not always been held in high regard. The higher echelons of the social and economic strata felt that it was beneath a person of their class to have to touch and treat the sick. Those in religious life, having a religious duty to care for the sick and the poor without regard to their status, naturally filled such roles.

But, a new upper-middle class found medicine an entry into the elite. The new doctors and surgeons, chemists and pharmacists, the men of science, became an exclusive class. They held degrees from universities that were closed to the common man. They formed professional guilds that barred the practice of medicine by those who did not belong to their organizations. But, it would be another century or two before the rule of law would have a serious impact on the practice of Herbal Medicine in homes and rural areas.

As the New World was discovered and colonized, the practice of Herbal Medicine was essential. While the Spanish and Portuguese may bring along a priest who would double as a doctor, and the British may bring along a military physician, it was a long time before towns were established by settlers and medical professionals opened permanent offices. Colonists who lived outside of major populations centers had to treat themselves.

This opened a great era of herbal and botanical exploration. The desire for both medicinal and ornamental plants from the New World was strong. Among the first major exports from the American colonies was Sassafras, believed in England and western Europe to be a treatment for venereal diseases. This opened a great interest by botanists, medical men and entrepreneurs to learn all they could of the herbs used by native peoples. Fortunes were to be made by introducing a new plant to the Old World. Cinchona bark was introduced to the Spanish as quinine, a treatment for malaria. Goldenseal for colds, flus, liver health and as a disinfectant became so popular that it was severely over harvested. Ginseng was literally used to open trade to China, a ship loaded with it from America being far too valuable for the Chinese to refuse, as they had all previous offers of trade. This sent settlers scrambling to the mountains and foothills to hunt for the root that was often as valuable as gold. And that, is just scratching the surface... the apothecaries of Europe exploded with new herbal medicines.

Threats to the Medical Establishment: Thomsonian & Eclectic Medicine

Predictably, this led to new schools of uniquely American Herbal Medicine that combined the herbal traditions and knowledge of the Old World with the herbs and their uses learned from Native American healers. The most prominent example of this new school was based around the writing and teaching of men named Samuel Thomson, who founded "Thomsonian Medicine" and Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, who founded "Eclectic Medicine". Both were self- educated men in the very America tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. The study of science, in this era, was not limited to the university. Thomson, a Unitarian was from very rural area of New Hampshire that he described as simply being a wilderness. Rafinesque had grown up both in America and France and was a contemporary of James John Audubon.

The closely related schools of Thomsonian and Eclectic Medicine integrated native herbs and Native American knowledge into American Folk Medicine. The professional medical establishment was not amused. They were more concerned with the credentials of the men than of the efficacy of their medicine. The Thomsonians and Eclectics would be accused of "quackery" and all manner of charges, most of which were false. Statements such as the following, by Thomson enraged the doctors of his day and indicated that matters would soon come to a head:

"Much of what is at this day called medicine, is deadly poison, and were people to know what is offered them of this kind they would absolutely refuse ever to receive it as a medicine. This I have long seen and known to be true; and have laboured hard for many years to convince them of the evils that attend such a mode of procedure with the sick; and have turned my attention to those medicines that grow in our own country, which the God of nature has prepared for the benefit of mankind. Long has a general medicine been sought for, and I am confident I have found such as are universally applicable in all cases of disease, and which may be used with safety and success, in the hands of the people.

"After thirty years study and repeated successful trials of the medicinal vegetables of our country, in all the diseases incident to our climate; I can, with well grounded assurance, recommend my system of practice and medicines to the public, as salutary and efficacious."

Wikipedia tells us the details of the scandals and legal actions that caused much public attention and led to the decline in popularity of the Thomsonian and Eclectic schools. Wikipedia is not a forum that is friendly toward alternative medicine. It is dominated by the medical and academic establishment, openly calling most Herbal Medicine and even well-established disciplines such as Homeopathy which is used by the primary care physicians of the British Royal Family (who live longer than most) "pseudo-science and superstition." That it gives much justification to these schools of Herbal Medicine is remarkable enough to include the following:

Thomson was born in Alstead, New Hampshire, the second-eldest of six children. His father, John Thomson, was a farmer and the family lived in a remote country area which Thomson described as a "wilderness". Both of his parents were Unitarians.

From a young age he became curious about the various plants which he saw growing in the countryside and their medicinal uses. Much of his early knowledge was acquired from a local widow woman, who had acquired a reputation as a healer because of her skill with herbal remedies. Thomson also used to sample the plants he found growing in the wild—in this way he discovered Lobelia, which became an important remedy in the system of medicine he later founded. Unaware of the medicinal properties of the plant, Thomson used to trick other boys into eating it, which caused them to vomit because of its emetic nature.

At the age of sixteen he had hoped to study with a local "root" doctor (at that time there was no official licensing of the medical profession) but his parents did not think he had the education and could not spare him from his work. Thus, he became resigned to his life as a farm laborer. At the age of nineteen, while he was chopping wood, his ankle sustained a severe injury which, despite the ministration of a local doctor, refused to heal. His condition worsened and the family feared for his life. He decided to treat the wound himself with a comfrey root and turpentine plaster—after some weeks he was able to make a recovery. 

At the age of 21, Samuel's father left for Vermont, placing Samuel in charge of the farm and leaving his mother and sister in his care. Soon after, his mother became ill with measles, and in spite of the efforts of several doctors, Samuel's mother died when the measles turned into "galloping consumption". When Samuel also became ill with measles, he cured himself using herbal remedies.

One year later, Thomson married Susanna Allen on July 7, 1790, in Keene, New Hampshire. After the birth of their first child, Susanna became very ill, and a parade of seven conventional doctors were unable to cure her. Samuel arranged for two "root doctors" to treat his wife, who returned to health the next day. Thomson and Susanna went on to have eight children.

During his wife's illness, Thomson consulted two herbalists, who treated his wife and taught Thomson some of their methods. Subsequently, Thomson used steam baths and herbs to cure one of his daughters and a son, and a few of his neighbors.

In this way, Thomson developed his own method, the "Thomsonian System", and practiced in Surry, New Hampshire, and the adjoining towns. During the first half of the 19th century, his system had numerous followers, including some of his sons. It was based upon opening the paths of elimination so that toxins could be removed via physiological processes. This was not unique to Thomson: so-called "regular physicians" used calomel, a toxic mercury-based compound, to induce vomiting and purgation. Thomson's more moderate and less toxic means attracted large numbers of followers.

.... In 1809, Thomson was accused of killing a patient, Ezra Lovett, through the administration of excessive amounts of Lobelia. He was legally charged by Lovett's father, but Thomson was acquitted when one of his defense counsel demonstrated that one of the prosecution's exhibits, labeled "Lobelia", was actually the plant marsh rosemary (Limonium), by consuming some in court. Also, the judge found no basis to establish Thomson's fault or negligence. Subsequent literature reviews have failed to demonstrate any deaths or symptoms more dangerous than emesis from even significantly larger doses than Thomson administered in the Ezra Lovett case; but, medical reviews about Thomson's trial were diverse at the time, sometimes very critical.

Thomson, however, gave his own account of this case in two of his later books, where he wrote that first he had helped the young man get better, but after carelessness at home, he told the father to seek someone else, though the father refused:

"I told the young man’s father, that it was very doubtful whether I could do any thing that would help him, but that I would try and do all I could. I found that the patient was so far gone that the medicine would have no effect, and in two hours told him that I could not help his son, and advised him to call some other advice; this was said in the presence of Elder Williams, and Mr. Raymond. Mr. Lovett made answer that if I could not help his son, he knew of none who could, and was very desirous for me to stay with him all night, which I did, and stood by his bed the whole time."

Nonetheless, and despite Thomson's acquittal, many states passed "Black Laws", restricting the practice of unconventional medicine. Black laws were labeled as such by unconventional medical practitioners as a way of comparing them with laws restricting African Americans from practicing medicine and engaging in other activities. The laws were of small practical effect and were mostly repealed by the 1820s. Thomson saw this as an attempt to destroy his personal career, as he had denounced some of the medical techniques of the time, in 1839, he wrote:

"For more than twenty years the Faculty tried to destroy the Thomsonian system by holding it up as a quackery. In Massachusetts, they began in 1808 to get the Legislature to help them put me down, and in that State and many others, laws have been passed since that time to prevent my collecting my debts, and to make medical practice, without a college diploma, a crime. But in nearly every State where these unjust laws were passed, the people have caused them to be repealed."

In 1839, he was taken again to court, blamed for Paine D. Badger's use of his system. Thomson himself published a Report of the trial of Dr. Samuel Thomson, the founder of the Thomsonian practice, for an alleged libel in warning the public against the impositions of Paine D. Badger, as a Thomsonian physician sailing under false colors, before Judge Thacher (1839), where he expressed that he was worried about the use other people could do under his name. Partly because of this, he took great care to guard his patented cures, and used legal authority to prevent others from manufacturing and selling lobelia pills, for instance. He sold rights to use his system of medicine to any family for $20. Right-holders were able to purchase Thomson's herbs and formulas, which he distributed from a central warehouse, and a copy of Thomson's book. He had sold over 100,000 patents by 1840, but this consortium was broken by Alva Curtis, who created the "Independent Thomsonian Medical Society" to train practitioners.

Illustrating another case, Thomson wrote:

"Almost every newspaper from abroad brings the name of some person setting up as a Thomsonian Doctor and passing as my agent, of whom I know nothing and who knows nothing of my system or medicines from me. A man calling himself Benjamin Thomson has just opened in Alexandria, District of Columbia, and advertises in the National Intelligencer. I know nothing of what he may do under color of my name and I wish the people there to understand it and not lay any blame to the Thomsonian system for any thing he may do....Among those who have been or are using my name and medicines without any authority from me are Charles Holman, Portsmouth, N. H.; John A. Brown, Providence, R. I.; G. Larabee at Baltimore; Clark & Wilder at Randolph, Mass."

Herbalist Michael Moore, gives a flavor criticism of the debate of the times, stating that Thomson's own perception of the controversies was "couched in seeming venal paranoia", and that:

"Thomson's movement had affected a million or more Americans, started a medical reformation that would not peak for another 50 years, and the brightest medical minds of the time were split vehemently both against and for Thomson's right to practice bitterly divided between Federalists and Republican politics...Populists and Elitists... rural and urban. The tribulations of this former pig farmer rocked the young republic for over a decade and were headlines everywhere. Because of the success of Thomson and his followers, states began, for the first time, regulating medical practice along party and class lines. Messy and fascinating stuff."

Notably, the eclectic herbalist John Uri Lloyd, in his introduction to the edition of Life and medical discoveries of Samuel Thomson, states that Thomson was involved in William Morgan's Anti-masonic controversy in New York, and argues that he was thus persecuted in part for political reasons:

"One can not now easily enter into the problems of that day concerning medicine and the practice of medicine. The passion, the dogmatism, the vituperation of the period, the suppression of free thought and investigation outside authority, is a something that can not now be expressed or readily appreciated...

MF: Is Lloyd describing the early 19th century, or the recent pandemic??

"...he was involved by Mr. Locke in the famous Morgan Masonic controversy, the raging in New York. This leads us to state than a share, and possible no small proportion, of Thomson's troubles, came also from his pronounced political activity, at a time when in American politics no toleration whatever was exhibited by one party for an adherent of the opposite political faith... Thomson's allegiance to the minority party of that date led to much of his persecution."

Thomson's system, however, was still well received by people like William Renwick Riddell in Canada; his main work passing through 13 editions, and also finding German advocates who translated his main work into the German language.

Thomson's ultimate position about his own system was stated four years before his death, when he wrote:

"I have devoted most of a long life to reducing to a safe and simple practice a system of medical treatment, that should remedy the evils with which mankind has been afflicted to an incalculable amount, ever since the introduction of mineral poisons in the fifteenth century, which have ever since, formed the materia medica of the regular doctors, as they are called, and which are given to cure sick men, though sure to kill well ones if administered to them...But I wish, while living, to see my system promulgated, if at all, in its purity, and when dead, handed down through others who will preserve it, and not let it fall back again into the pernicious practices that have so long plagued the world under high-sounding names of learned quackery. If I am to be remembered at all, for I am past the age of ambition, I want it to be as a benefactor and not as a curse to mankind; and this depends upon the fact, whether the learned Faculty on one side, from design and malice, and the ignorant Impostors on the other, from love of gain, shall abuse my system, and turn a great good into a great evil, till the people lose all confidence in the genuine by being poisoned by the counterfeit.

"I trust my life will be long enough to enable me to warn the people against these two rocks, upon which the Thomsonian practice will be in the greatest danger of shipwreck. This has been the sole object of all my warnings, published to guard against impostors. It is no longer a question that this system will be used, but how it will be used, is what most concerns the public." — Thomson (1839)

Eclectic medicine was a branch of American medicine which made use of botanical remedies along with other substances and physical therapy practices, popular in the latter half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

The term was coined by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784–1841), a botanist and Transylvania University professor who had studied Native American use of medicinal plants, wrote and lectured extensively on herbal medicine, and advised patients and sold remedies by mail. Rafinesque used the word eclectic to refer to those physicians who employed whatever was found to be beneficial to their patients (eclectic being derived from the Greek word eklego, meaning "to choose from").

Eclectic medicine appeared as an extension of early American herbal medicine traditions such as "Thomsonian medicine" in the early 19th century, and included Native American medicine. Standard medical practices at the time made extensive use of purges with calomel and other mercury-based remedies, as well as extensive bloodletting. Eclectic medicine was a direct reaction to those barbaric practices as well as a desire to restrict Thomsonian medicine innovations to medical "professionals."

Alexander Holmes Baldridge (1795–1874) suggested that because of its American roots the tradition of Eclectic Medicine should be called the American School of Medicine. It bears resemblance to Physiomedicalism, which is practiced in the United Kingdom.

In 1827, a physician named Wooster Beach founded the United States Infirmary on Eldridge Street in New York. Ten years later, in 1837, he founded the New York Medical Academy, which later became the Reformed Medical College of New York, the parent school of "Reformed Medicine."

The Eclectic Medical Institute in Worthington, Ohio graduated its first class in 1833. After local body snatching led to the notorious "Resurrection Riot" of 1839, the school was evicted from Worthington and settled in Cincinnati during the winter of 1842–43. The Cincinnati school, incorporated as the Eclectic Medical Institute (EMI), continued until its last class graduation in 1939, more than a century later. Over the decades, other Ohio medical schools had been merged into that institution. The American School of Medicine (Eclectic) in Cincinnati operated from 1839 to 1857, when it merged with the Eclectic Medical Institute.

Eclectic medicine expanded during the 1840s as part of a large, populist anti-regular medical movement in North America. It used many principles of Samuel Thomson's family herbal medication but chose to train doctors in physiology and more conventional principles, along with botanical medicine. The American School of Medicine (Eclectic) trained physicians in a dozen or so privately funded medical schools, principally located in the midwestern United States. By the 1850s, several "regular" American medical tradespersons, especially from the New York Academy of Medicine, had begun using herbal salves and other preparations.

The movement peaked in the 1880s and 1890s. The schools were not approved by the Flexner Report (1910), which was commissioned by a council within the American Medical Association. The report criticised Eclectic medical schools on the grounds that they had poor laboratory facilities and inadequate opportunities for clinical education in hospitals. In 1934, J. C. Hubbard, M.D., the president of the Eclectic Medical Association said:

"We must choose between being absorbed by the dominant section, our professional activities dictated and controlled, our policies subject to the approval of an unfriendly, prejudiced, self- constituted authority, and soon lose our identity as the Eclectic Section of American Medicine, or adapt ourselves to the general social change and retain the old Eclectic values of individual freedom of thought and action, independence in practice and the right to use that which has stood the test of experience in our service to mankind."

The last Eclectic Medical school closed in Cincinnati in 1939. The Lloyd Library and Museum still maintains the greatest collection of books, papers and publications of the Eclectic physicians, including libraries from the Eclectic medical schools.

The contemporary herbalist Michael Moore recounts:

"In 1990 I visited the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati, Ohio, where, in the basement, I found the accumulated libraries of ALL the Eclectic medical schools, shipped off to the Eclectic Medical College (the "Mother School") as, one by one, they died. Finally, even the E.M.C. died (1939) and there they all were, holding on by the slimmest thread, the writings of a discipline of medicine that survived for a century, was famous (or infamous) for its vast plant 'materia medica,' treated the patient and NOT the pathology, a sophisticated model of vitalist healing."

Major Eclectic practitioners include John Uri Lloyd, John Milton Scudder, Harvey Wickes Felter, John King, Andrew Jackson Howe, Finley Ellingwood, Frederick J. Locke, and William N. Mundy. Harvey Wickes Felter's Eclectic Materia Medica is one of several important Eclectic medical publications dating from the 1920s. It represented a last attempt to stem the tide of "standard practice medicine", the antithesis of the model of the rural primary care vitalist physician who was the basis for Eclectic practice.

Snake Oil Propaganda & Other "Public Safety" Measures

The Thomsonian and Eclectic Schools were not the only threats to the medical establishment though. Before the passage of laws outlawing so called "Patent Medicine", many Americans were not buying their medicine from pharmacies. Patent Medicines could be purchased through mail order, sold in hardware store or by the traveling "Medicine Shows" that were a very popular form of entertainment, funded by the sale of whatever patent medicine company sponsored the show. Medicine shows were great fun, small traveling circuses that also featured music and comedy - they gave rise to Vaudeville and the Grand Ole Opry.

But, what were these Patent medicines? Mostly, they were proprietary blends of herbal tinctures. Perhaps most popular were the digestive bitters. Bitters are herbal formulas that stimulate digestion, ease indigestion, gas, nausea, acid reflux and bloating, stimulate the liver and can help with blood sugar. Others were the infamous "Snake Oil". But, what was snake oil, really? It was made from Echinacea, an herb that helps the body produce hyaluronic acid - this is still the most effective treatment of the necrotizing, tissue destroying venom of poisonous snakes and certain spiders. Others were cough syrups and cold remedies that were likely much more effective than the over the counter cough syrups and cold medicines of our day. "OTC" cold "medicines" do nothing more than help with the symptoms of a cold. Many herbs are actually anti-viral and have antibiotic properties that can help prevent a cold from leading to a sinus or throat infection. Herbal cough formulas also utilize antispasmodic and expectorant herbs and can help prevent bronchial inflammation, congestion and infection. And yes, many patent medicines contained high levels of alcohol that made them popular in "dry" counties.

The medical establishment and the scurrilous newspapers of the day waged a campaign to outlaw patent medicine. They made outrageous claims about how unsafe the patent medicines were and how immoral those were who made and sold them. That is rather ironic given that the very pharmacists who campaigned against patent medicine, sold cocaine, morphine, mercury and strong poisons in their shops with no prescription needed. After the Civil War, countless veterans were hopelessly addicted to the laudanum and morphine sold by such paragons of safety and human interest.

All of this... whether valid or purely a matter of business interest, led to the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, which would be systematically expanded to regulate all prescription medicine and the practice of medicine through related agencies and the regulations that followed. Medicine "practiced without a license" would become illegal, and licenses would only be granted to those who graduated approved medical schools and practiced "allopathic" western medicine. These laws have been applied remarkably arbitrarily since. In some areas, at some times, herbalists have operated with little molestation. Other times, those who created apparently effective formulas against such diseases as cancer have been prosecuted and forced to flee the country.

The desired effect of these laws was to push Herbal Medicine out of the mainstream, to make people suspicious of herbalists and to cause them to regard herbs as dangerous, superstition. This worked pretty well for 100 years or so, especially in the larger urban centers. Herbal Medicine would live on, relatively unmolested in more remote areas, such as the Appalachian Mountains where I was born, in Mormon communities, among Native Americans and immigrant communities, especially among midwives. A lot of this was re-discovered in the 1960s-70s by hippies and others who desired a more natural way of life. Even in my lifetime though, armed federal agents have raided health food stores to check the compliance of the labels on their herbal and vitamin supplements.

As I write this book, death caused by medical malpractice, medical error and abuse, the over-prescription of drugs and drugs prescribed that are contraindicated, is the leading cause of death in America. That does not even include the side effects of vaccines.... or take into account man-made viruses that somehow escape laboratories in Wuhan China and Lyme County Pennsylvania.

But, all that was done for "public health and safety," right? Consider that during Prohibition, our own government purposefully tainted and allowed a quantity of alcohol to be sold through black market channels that caused the poisoning death of more than 10,000 American citizens. The purpose of that was to generate hysterical newspaper articles about the dangers of buying bootlegged alcohol. Meanwhile, legislation was passed that allowed Hennessy Cognac to be sold legally through pharmacies. Those who could afford fine brandy were provided a legal option. The common man faced either losing his freedom or endangering his health. This is but one example of collusion by our government, big business, the news media and the medical establishment. Put into that perspective, dandelions and burdock don't seem so scary... as President Ronald Reagan said, "The scariest words in the English language are, we are from the government and we are here to help." It is a shame that those on the liberal side of politics, who used to have bumper stickers on their cars stating, "If you think you can trust your government, ask any Indian" forgot such messages.

Native American Herbal Medicine

But, what of Native American Herbal Medicine? Well, that is a mixed bag. Some tribes mixed more easily than others with the British, Celtic and European settlers. Others remained at war well into the 1800s. Few were treated fairly or humanely.

Some, like the legendary Joe Pye (who was either a Native American herbalist or a white man who learned herbalism from Native Americans, depending on which story you read) were respected and credited for saving thousands during epidemics. Others were forcibly starved, purposefully infected with diseases, displaced, hunted and legally barred for practicing anything traditional to their culture.

Sometimes, they were considered allies of the French, Spanish, British or Americans and treated with respect. Other times, they were forced from their land and subject to genocide. During the Civil War, some tribes sided with the North and some with the South. It is ridiculous and indeed, degrading to consider to Native Americans as a general, monolithic group, as opposed to distinct and individual tribes. Moreover, not all tribes had a strong herbal tradition

The two tribes with which I am most familiar in my home state of North Carolina are the Cherokee and the Lumbee. The modern day Lumbee though, are believed to be descendant of several regional tribes, Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony and having provided refuge for escaped slaves, some African heritage. My region was also home to Catawba, Chicorah, Waccamaw, Haliwa-Saponi and likely several others. I am related to several of these tribes, grew up in The Land Of The Lumbee (Robeson County)... and although I am remarkably pale, I have been welcome in their homes, close friends and accepted as kin all my life. My herbal teacher was half Cherokee. I would not ever presume to speak of all Cherokees or Lumbees in general... no more so than I would all Scots-Irish, English or French (the majority of my gene pool). People are individuals. Furthermore, southeastern tribes are very different than northern or western tribes.

All I can say is that I have known several Native American herbalists, and all of them were Christian. I would say that most resented the treatment of their ancestors, as we all do, came to terms and found peace with the world. They were mostly Southern Baptists and Methodists... a few smalls Presbyterian churches in eastern NC and a few Anglicans in western NC. I have read there were even a few Quaker "Indian churches" at one time.

Unforgiveness is extremely harmful to the one who cannot forgive, it is a burden and a cancer on the soul. We may learn a great deal about humanity and Christian brotherhood from those like the loving and kind old people I have known in multiple Native American communities, who never turned away a stranger or judged another by appearance or wealth.