Ohio History Journal

264 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

may be legitimately inferred that the booking of Robinson was

calculated to serve a double purpose. First, to stimulate interest

in Thomsonianism and second, by this interest, to increase the sale

of botanic supplies. Such procedure, of course, was not uncom-

mon in the day when medical schools competed fiercely for candi-

dates, when body-snatching was the rule rather than the exception,

and when a dozen or more scientific and medical philosophies

were challenging the authenticity of one another.

Robinson's first lecture was scheduled for Saturday, June 27,

1829, at candlelight in Talbert's schoolroom. Admission was not

exorbitant, but was high enough for the times. A single lecture

cost the earnest seeker after health via the Thomsonian method

the sum of 25�; gentlemen and ladies were charged $1.50 for

the entire course of fifteen talks, and practitioners were forced to

pay $3.00.2 Talbert's school was just one of about fifty private

institutions located in Cincinnati during the late twenties and

stood on Fifth Street between Vine and Race streets.³Although

the school was mentioned briefly in a description of Cincinnati,

there was no mention that it was used at times for private lectures.⁴

Apparently, however, Robinson, backed by the two steam

doctors, delivered his lectures according to schedule, and pre-

sumably the early residents of Cincinnati came to hear him, al-

though there seems to be no testimony to indicate the number who

actually attended either single lectures or the entire course. Neither

is there evidence to show how local physicians of other schools

of thought responded to this series of addresses. It might be

relatively safe to assume that some residents turned out either

from curiosity or from illness to hear Robinson, and that a few

physicians might also have been present. Such conclusions, how-

ever, are mere conjecture.

There is no doubt that illness ravaged the Queen City popu-

lation and that then, as now, the laity hurried from one school

of medicine to another in the hope of securing relief from either

real or imaginary pain. Daniel Drake pointed out in an early

2 Cincinnati Emporium, June 22, 1829.

3 Charles T. Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati (Chicago, 1904), 1, 545.

4 B. Drake and E. D. Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati. 1827), 43.

OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58 265

work the diseases to which the Miami Valley resident fell prey.

Although Drake expressed the belief that the Miami country was

generally healthy, he also said that Cincinnati and environs offered

a variety of typical frontier diseases, including "pulmonary con-

sumption," cholera, croup, and bilious and typhus fevers.⁵ He also

described the typical training of a back-country physician during

the early years of the century.⁶A case, for these reasons, could be

made to support the hypothesis that probably the prevalent interest

in health among the people of a frontier community and the

curiosity of at least some physicians resulted in a fair attendance

at Robinson's series of addresses.

There is, however, another bit of evidence that seems to sup-

port the hypothesis that not only were the residents of Cincinnati

and surrounding country more than mildly interested in Robinson's

remarks, but that pioneers throughout a rather large area of Ohio

exhibited some curiosity.

On September 17, 1829, Horton Howard, a Columbus printer

and publisher, attested that he had just published Robinson's lec-

tures as delivered in Cincinnati. The volume, an octavo running

to 199 pages, was entitled A Course of Fifteen Lectures, on Med-

ical Botany.⁷It seems impossible to determine today either how

many copies of this work were printed or how well it was re-

ceived by the practitioner and the public. That it must have

attracted more than ordinary attention is evidenced by the fact

that at least six editions were published.⁸It is entirely possible

that when all the volumes in the long-delayed Ohio Imprints

Inventory are published, other copies--and perhaps editions--will

be located in the State and elsewhere. It is worthy of note, how-

ever, that Sabin in his monumental directory does not list the

volume.⁹ Even if other copies should be located, Robinson's

series of lectures still would be considered a rarity.

5 Daniel Drake, Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of Cincinnati and the

Miami Country (Cincinnati, 1815), 179-86.

6 Daniel Drake, Discourses (Cincinnati, 1852), 52-6.

7 A Course of Fifteen Lectures, on Medical Botany, Denominated Thomson's New

Theory of Medical Practice; in Which the Various Theories that Have Preceded it

Are Reviewed and Compared; Delivered in Cincinnati, Ohio [nine lines of verse],

Columbus: Printed and Published by Horton Howard. 1829. Covington Collection

(Miami University Library, Oxford, Ohio).

8 Surgeon-General's Office, Index-Catalogue of the Library (Washington, 1891),

XII, 265; ibid. (Washington, 1909), 2 Ser., XIV, 660.

9 Joseph Sabin, Dictionary of Books Relating to America (New York, 1868-1936).

266 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

After the first edition of 1828, a second was published in Bos-

ton by J. Howe in 1830. In the same year still another edition

was brought out in Columbus. Five years later, J. Pike and

Company of Columbus printed another of 205 pages and, at the

same time, a 216-page variant was produced in Boston by J. Q.

Adams. In 1834, that is between the time that Howe in Boston

printed an edition and that Pike and Adams brought out their

editions dated 1835, Howe in Boston published still another

variant edition. To sum up: the original edition was printed in

Columbus in 1829; this was followed by Columbus and Boston

editions in 1830 which, in turn, were followed by another Boston

edition in 1834; in 1835, still another edition was printed in Co-

lumbus and another in Boston. As far as can now be determined

Robinson produced only one other work devoted to medicine. In

1832 he wrote and had published in Cincinnati a thirteen-page

pamphlet entitled A Lecture Introductory to a Course on the

Science of Life.

The fact that Robinson delivered his talks in June in Cincin-

nati and published them in September in Columbus, leads to some

interesting speculations, particularly as few biographical details

now are available. Who was Samuel Robinson? Was he a physi-

cian in the sense that he had been tutored in the time-honored

manner or had attended a medical college of his day? Where was

the place of his birth and when was he born? Was he one of

the steady stream of emigrants who trekked into the Northwest

Territory during the early years of the nineteenth century? Or,

was he a native Buckeye who had been impressed by the new

system of botanic healing? Perhaps he was only a traveling lec-

turer who earned his living, as did so many glib talkers of his

day, by snaring the gullible public with honeyed words? Did he

settle in Ohio, or did he follow the frontier as it pressed west-

ward into the trans-Mississippi region? Was he the author of

other medical volumes? Why did he speak in Cincinnati and

publish in Columbus? When and where did he die?

The majority of these questions can not now be answered

with assurance, but the Cincinnati directories offer a few tangible

OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58 267

clues. In 1828 and in 1831, a Samuel Robinson was listed, al-

though he was not characterized as a physician. In 1829, a

Samuel Robinson, described as a "lecturer" on historical subjects,

was boarding at D. Davenport's. In 1831, a Samuel Robinson,

"lecturer on philosophy and history," was boarding at W. Porter's.

In 1834, an unidentified Samuel was listed. Before and after

these dates there are no possible entries.¹⁰Until more intensive

research is completed there seems little hope of knowing more.

Fortunately, however, the lectures themselves shed some light

upon the author. Robinson, in his preface to the reader, said that

a "combination of causes" induced him to examine the system of

medical botany and to deliver his series of lectures. He described

himself as "but a pioneer in a path unknown" whose only purpose

was to aid in relieving the maladies of the human race by direct-

ing the sick to a "mode of practice safe and salutary, at once

within the reach of their attainments and pecuniary resources."11

In addition, Robinson consistently speaks of physicians as if he

were not one of them.12 Indeed, Robinson does not describe him-

self upon the title page of his volume as a physician as he most

assuredly would have done had he the slightest claim to the title.

Then again, he apparently thought it desirable or perhaps neces-

sary to append a sort of bibliography to his book wherein he listed

some seventy-six authors, ranging from the Greeks to the mod-

erns, whom he had consulted in the preparation of his lectures.13

It seems a safe assumption that the average frontier physician

would have been unfamiliar with many of these citations. The

evidence that Robinson was more learned than the average physi-

cian is indicated again in the text. His lectures abound with his-

torical, philosophical and classical allusions and seem devoid of the

scientific language and medical vocabulary of even the average

doctor of his day. Robinson spoke glibly enough of mercury,

arsenic, corrosive sublimate, white vitrol, antimony, tartar emetic,

iron and opium, but a careful examination of the text lends cre-

dence to the belief that he spoke of them as a foreigner rather

10 Eleanor S. Wilby to Edgar W. King, Cincinnati, March 16, 1942.

11 Samuel Robinson, A Course of Fifteen Lectures, iii.

12 Ibid., iv.

13 Ibid., [200].

268 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

than as a scientist who had actually used an elementary materia

medica.14 One can almost observe him hard at work paraphrasing

and rearranging the words of the authorities whom he laboriously

consulted. Then again, his knowledge of even the rudimentary

anatomy of his day aids to build the case against his being a

practitioner. There is still further evidence. Although Robinson,

from time to time, quotes case histories, he never speaks of a case

that he treated and only once does he mention a case that came

under his own observation.15 This exception occurs when Robin-

son is speaking of surgery and says he saw a patient perish be-

cause the operator was inattentive, lacked a firm hand, "a fixed

eye and a determined soul."¹⁶As it was not uncommon for a

layman to be present or even in attendance in the crude surgical

theater of the frontier home during early days, it is entirely

conceivable that Robinson did witness such an event, but even

here it is clearly understood that he was not the operator, and it

seems doubtful that his presence was any more than as an in-

terested witness. The preponderance of evidence, then, seems to

indicate that Robinson was not a medical man.

If Robinson was not a physician, what was he? There is no

doubt that he was highly educated, extremely well read and that

he possessed a literary style which, although florid, was equal, if

not superior, to that of the common man. His book abounds with

literary, philosophical and metaphysical allusions. At times, his

prose is tinctured with religion, but there is little internal evidence

to indicate that he was a clergyman. No evidence at present

exists to show that he knew anything about the law except in an

academic sense and he does not write as a schoolmaster although,

at times, his language is obtuse enough to be that of a professor.

It is obvious that he was not engaged in trade and commerce.

The process of elimination, then, seems to leave only one field of

activity.

Robinson probably was the historical and philosophical lec-

turer who was boarding in Cincinnati in 1829 and 1831. As the

14 Ibid., 116.

15 Ibid., 118-9.

16 Ibid., 66.

OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58 269

OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58 269

directories prior to 1828 list no Samuel Robinson, it seems safe

to assume that he arrived in the Queen City about 1827 or early

in 1828. Again, it seems fairly safe to assume that he came from

the East and that he had been well-trained in the standard classical

curriculum of his day. As the Cincinnati directory did not list

Robinson in 1839, it seems a logical inference that the lecturer

left Cincinnati sometime after he delivered his series of lectures

in June, 1829, and moved to Columbus where he had his book

published in September. He may have remained in Columbus

for several months and might even have gone elsewhere, but it

appears that he was again in Cincinnati in 1831, and perhaps in

1832. What happened to him after that must be the subject

of further research.

Robinson's lectures added nothing really new to a knowledge

of what constituted the Thomsonian system of botanic medicine.

When summing up the three important results of what Robinson

believed to be the essence of the Thomsonian system, he said

briefly that "it removes obstructions, restores the appetite, and

invigorates the powers of life."17He continued to describe the

effects of botanic medication upon the patient as like a sound and

refreshing sleep after which the sick man "rises restored and

strengthened, like a giant refreshed by wine!"

That Robinson's lectures met opposition in some quarters,

probably among physicians alien to the Thomsonian school, can

not be doubted. The author himself hints broadly at criticism

when he writes: "We are sometimes forced into opposition with

our best friends; it is extremely painful. I was often, since the

commencement of these Lectures, on the very point of abandoning

them forever, and wished I had never begun the subject; but as

I progressed, and witnessed the salutary results of this new prac-

tice, I did verily believe that I was serving God and my country,

in striving to diffuse a knowledge of its doctrines."18

It is entirely possible, although perhaps not probable, that

Queen City opposition to Robinson's championing of the Thom-

sonian system prompted him to forsake Cincinnati and travel to

17 Ibid., 193.

18 Ibid.

SAMUEL ROBINSON: CHAMPION OF THE

SAMUEL ROBINSON: CHAMPION OF THE

THOMSONIAN SYSTEM

By PHILIP D. JORDAN, PH.D.

Thomsonian medicine, as a system of medical botany, cre-

ated a decided stir both among physicians and the laity during

the nineteenth century when so many curious panaceas were being

sponsored by scientific groups and by social organizations. The

Thomsonian school was represented in Ohio, not only by scores

of physicians, but also by medical journals dedicated to the dictum

that the "flora of our country will yet so enlarge and establish

her dominion as to supercede the necessity of all other remedies."

There is small need to describe in general or in detail the influence

of "Dr." Samuel Thomson upon the history of medicine in Ohio.

That has been done elsewhere.

From time to time, however, the medical historian interested in

the annals of Thomsonianism in the Buckeye State finds supple-

mentary evidence that, if properly interpreted, sheds additional

light upon a particularly colorful chapter in the history of science.

The following discussion presents another fragment which may fit

into the smaller picture of the Thomsonian system in Ohio as well

as into the larger frame of reference of the narrative of medicine

in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century.

In June, 1829, two "steam doctors" of Cincinnati, named

Willis and Wilson, inserted advertisements in Queen City news-

papers announcing that a Samuel Robinson had been engaged to

deliver a series of lectures upon the rapidly-growing Thomsonian

system of botanic medicine.¹ As both Willis and Wilson had been

advertising botanic medicines imported from the East for sale and

had been dispensing this herbal pharmacopoeia both in wholesale

and in retail lots to the profession as well as to the layman, it

1 Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, June 11, 1829.

(263)