Ohio History Journal

DR. ALVA CURTIS IN COLUMBUS

THE THOMSONIAN RECORDER AND COLUMBUS'

FIRST MEDICAL SCHOOL

 

By JONATHAN FORMAN, M.D.

 

In 1769, in the town of Astead, New Hampshire, was born

one Samuel Thomson. He lived and grew up as a farmer's son.

He became a keen observer of men and things. He was particu-

larly interested in all that he could learn about the healing art.

He was entirely self-taught and he learned from the Indians

about him, from the old women who "were handy with the sick"

and from the medical books sanctioned by law. He watched

closely, both the men who had studied at the colleges and admin-

istered drugs according to the prescriptions of the professors and

the less pretending, but more numerous doctors, who practiced

what was called "Domestic Medicine."

As a youngster it was his job to tend the family geese and

this gave him time to study and observe the plants. One of them

came to intrigue him very much and he finally ate of its leaves

and became very ill and vomited a great deal. This impressed

him profoundly. During the rest of his boyhood his favorite

sport was inducing other youths to try eating the leaves of lobelia

inflata. After he became a man and had a family he had abundant

opportunities for witnessing disease. Disappointed in what he

came to regard as barbarous treatment by "the legally constituted

guardians of the public health," he formed his own concept of

disease and his own system of treatment. The fundamental con-

cept of what later became Thomsonianism was that inflammation

and fever were not a disease or an enemy, that inflammation

healed and fever was a friend. He arrived at this general prin-

ciple and reduced it to practice in his own family. Five times

his own kin had been given over by the doctors to die. His own

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OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58              333

 

results were far better for he reports, "Exercising my own judg-

ment, I followed after them and relieved my family every time."

From practicing in his family circle with such success he was led

to practice among his neighbors. Finally he set up an office, first

in Beverly, Massachusetts, later in Boston, and he seems to have

acquired a large clientele and to have practiced with great success.

In his Guide to Health he says, "I attended all the 'fevers' peculiar

to our country, and always used fever as a friend and it returned

the gratitude by saving the patient." Others had discovered that

in milk cases fever is a friend but it was left for Samuel Thom-

son to maintain this doctrine consistently throughout. Not only

once a friend, but always a friend, was his doctrine, and what is

more important, he reduced it to facts. Professor Benjamin

Waterhouse, one of the original professors of the Harvard Medi-

cal School, in his last years, compared Samuel Thomson with

John Hunter:

Had John Hunter, whom I knew well, been born and bred where

Samuel Thomson was, he would have been just such another man; and had

Samuel Thomson been thrown into the same society and association as

John Hunter, he would, in my opinion, have been his equal, with

probably a wider range of thought; but both are men of talent and orig-

inality of thought.1

There must have been something to this opinion, even if

Waterhouse was in his dotage, because one finds Samuel Latham

Mitchell of Philadelphia helping Thomson to procure revised pat-

ents for his system of remedies, the original patents having been

granted to Thomson in 1813.

After his system of healing was patented he began to issue

handbills and to advertise in newspapers.  He would sell "the

rights" to his patent, limited to practice on oneself, only on one's

family, on one's community, one's township, one's county or one's

state, and finally, any place, any time. "Thomsonianism" spread

like wildfire and became a popular fad, especially in the western

and southern states. In 1820 Thomson published his new Guide

to Health and the narrative of his life, both of which went through

many editions, several of which were printed here in Columbus.

 

1 Francis R. Packard, History of Medicine in the United States (New York,

1931), II, 1237.

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334    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

A goodly number of magazines sprang up, several of which were

called Thomsonian Recorders. One of the best of these was the

Thomsonian Recorder of Columbus. As Thomson went about

the country he placed his interests in the hands of agents who

frequently promoted the sales by forming "Friendly Botanic So-

cieties."  His Ohio agent was a Horton Howard of Columbus,

the untimely death of whose daughter has been described in the

paper on "Asiatic Cholera in Columbus." As evidence of the

profitableness of all this, one finds Samuel Thomson attempting

to secure judgment in local courts here for $40,000 worth of roy-

alties which Howard had forgotten to turn over to him.

The first number of the Thomsonian Recorder dated Sep-

tember 15, 1832, included a call by Dr. Samuel Thomson for a

"United States Thomsonian Convention" of delegates from the

"Friendly Botanic Societies" to meet in Columbus, Ohio, on the

seventeenth day of December, 1832. This business of holding a

national convention was a new departure in American politics and

a new movement in action among medical men and marks the be-

ginning of pressure blocs in American legislation. Dr. Thomson

had no thought of letting the convention get out of hand. He

simply announced a desire to meet his numerous friends and to

obtain from them a knowledge of what they knew in regard to

medicinal plants, remedial procedures and the general progress of

the cause of botanic medicine. Sometime later he stated that

there was another purpose in calling this convention and that was

to communicate further with his friends in different parts of the

Union in reference to Asiatic cholera and its proper treatment.

At the Columbus Convention were many botanic physicians

who afterwards became prominent teachers of the new doctrine.

Alva Curtis, at that time in Richmond, Virginia, sent in a most

remarkable communication, setting forth his almost unbelievable

success with Thomsonian procedures. Of 200 patients suffering

with Asiatic cholera, he had lost but one; and several of them

had been in a state of collapse when he had been called. The

others presented almost as good testimony. The real message

from the convention which the public got was that treatment of

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OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58            335

Asiatic cholera by physicians of the dominant school had been

marked by an extraordinary number of fatalities whereas that by

the Thomsonians resulted in almost universal recoveries. It is

not known what effect this propaganda had on the people of the

United States as a whole. It is known, however, that the death

of three of the important proponents of Thomsonianism in Co-

lumbus, including Dr. Howard, broke the hold that physicians of

this school had on the citizens of Columbus. Personally, the

writer believes that the appearance of reformed botanics such as

Colonel Kilbourne's son-in-law, Dr. Ichabod G. Jones, with their

forceful civic personalities, had more to do with it. Such men

as Jones, as well as the advent of the homeopaths, had more to do

with this change than the failures of the Thomsonians.

The convention, however, gave great encouragement to the

Thomsonian practitioners and the real purpose of the convention

became apparent when resolutions were presented and adopted in

respect to prospective medical legislation in several states. This

new technique of concerted action through national conventions,

produced results. The Legislature of Ohio met in a few days

and repealed its Medical Act with restrictions upon the practice;

the same year Alabama extended the same rights to Thomsonian

practitioners as were enjoyed by other physicians.

This period between 1835 and 1858 was a time when the

emphasis was put upon the individual. It has been designated as

the days of the rise of the common man. Since both regular

medicine and the cults were resting upon an empirical rather than

a scientific basis, one man's opinion was as authoritative as an-

other's, and each citizen was entitled to select for himself the

system of healing which he himself thought best. The only au-

thority was that of the testimonial. There were forceful char-

acters supporting each school of healing, willing to offer strong

testimonials. It is little wonder then that the legislature abolished

its restrictions upon the practice or extended the privilege to many

of the schools of healing. So-called regular schools of medicine

later grew into a scientific discipline resting upon the histological

studies of disease made in the last decade of this period. Once

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336    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

this mass of scientific information led men to discover the actual

causes of disease (bacteria), all the cults, including the Physio-

Medic, were at a distinct loss to compete.

The second convention was held in Pittsburgh the following

October, and its success was well summarized by Dr. H. Wood of

Columbus, who said,

So long as national conventions are well attended and properly conducted

they will continue to be the most powerful engine to advance our cause and

will enable us more successfully to combat our enemies. Much good has

already been accomplished by them. Much more remains to be done. Upon

them mainly depends the success of our cause; and it is by them only that

we can maintain the concerted action so necessary to affect any object.

With this the meeting effected a permanent organization. One

of the next things to come up before the convention was an at-

tempt to establish "A National Thomsonian Infirmary." Balti-

more was picked as the city; a committee was appointed to pro-

cure an Act of Incorporation from the legislature in Maryland.

In due time a bill was prepared and favorably received by the

House of Delegates. In the Maryland Senate, however, it met

the full force of the hostile medical profession. Dr. Curtis was

very enthusiastic about the possibility of the Infirmary. Later

there were several of them opened and one of them was headed

by Dr. Curtis in Columbus. Things went along splendidly until

some of the members began to want to express their own ideas.

They then began to resent the claims of Dr. Thomson that he

should be the umpire of what is genuine and what was heterodox

in the view of others. These dissensions grew until at the 1838

convention in Philadelphia, when Dr. Thomson, in his annual ad-

dress, expressed displeasure with the divisions that were spring-

ing up within the ranks of the Thomsonian School and stated that

many who were reckoned as his followers were transcending the

boundaries until they could hardly be called his disciples. He

then gave a history of each of the several conventions and the

difficulties which each had encountered and closed with this sig-

nificant sentence: "With these considerations and with no other

object than the permanent good of us all, so far as my System of

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OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58                 337

 

Practice can contribute to that end, I ask that this Convention

may be forever dissolved."

The Convention, however, did not adopt the motion, and the

formal division which he had prophesied took place. Dr. Alva

Curtis took the leadership in forming a new organization styled

"The Independent Thomsonian Botanic Society." Those who

stayed with the founder were organized as the United States

Thomsonian Society.  Dr. Curtis was elected president of the

Independents.

Dr. Alva Curtis, while living in New Hampshire, had wit-

nessed in his own family the life of a brother made miserable and

cut short by mercurial treatment. This caused him to discard

the whole practice and embrace the Botanic. By approximately

the same experience and same mental processes he came to em-

brace Thomsonianism. He went on to develop his own ideas and

thus to be read out of the orthodox Thomsonian movement. He

took heat to be "the manifestation for life, the cause of fever,

and cold an effect or obstruction, the cause of diseases." His

agents were "lobelia, nervine, slippery elm, cayenne, bayberry,

gum, myrrh and the like, with plenty of water, of a temperature

suited to the cases, properly applied and judiciously selected, as

to time, quality and manner. With all the hygienic agencies

combined," these constituted "the true healing art--the ne plus

ultra of medication."

"We may," he explained,

discover new means of carrying them out, and new modes of application,

but the principles are the laws of man's nature and they cannot "progress".

Let these be adopted and consistently obeyed and no longer is there any

trouble about the secondary "action" of the remedies for disease; no longer

is the physician compelled to guess at the circumstances in which his "rem-

edies may be converted into poisons", nor poisons made "innocent as

breast milk"; no longer, to "lift his club and strike", nor "raise his gun and

fire at random". "Thus multiplying diseases and increasing their mor-

tality". No longer must he "grope without a clue like Homer's Cyclops

around his cave", but "emancipated from the tyranny of the school

of physic" and guided by the true Physio-Medical principles, he sees at

a glance the character and conditions of disease, knows for a certainty

the means and processes by which it may be routed, and goes to work

in a scientific manner, with the same fixedness of a principle and cer-

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338    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

tainty of success that he would bring to bear upon the practices of any

other art derived from the principles of its appropriate science. He cannot,

indeed, expect to prolong human life forever, nor to reconstruct the organs

of the body that may have been fatally marred; nor restore the function of

organs that are totally deprived of the power to perform them; but he can

learn to restore that which is capable of restoration and he is blameworthy

if he ever does anything to hasten dissolution, or to entail upon his patient

any chronic malady.

Thus, some of the differences between the Physio-Medical system and

all others, have been pointed out. It has been shown that, first, it counts

irritation, fever, and inflammation as so many modes of manifesting an in-

terruption of the free action of the vital force,--of course, not disease, but a

sanative effort. Secondly, it never seeks to diminish the power to produce

the symptoms, but always to remove what prevents an equilibrium of vital

action, whether that obstacle be a positive substance, as in retained secretions

or excretions; or a mere condition, as in cramp, tetanus, the contraction of

the surface in the incipient stages of fever, etc.

 

The Physio-Medical science is not the gift or invention of any man,

nor company, nor succession of men. It is the eternal truth and good,

science and art of God and His inestimable and unequalled gift to all who

will thankfully receive it and properly apply it.

It was the period of compulsory statutes and the whole

country was falling under the first of a series of American class

legislation.  Curtis, fond of controversy, entered the field with

tongue and pen and his communications with the first convention

of Thomsonians in Columbus attracted attention to him and his

address at the Second National Convention. His work on behalf

of the National Thomsonian Infirmary and more particularly at

the Third National Convention of Thomsonians in Baltimore

aroused nation-wide attention.  The proprietors of the Thom-

sonian Recorder in Columbus invited him to come here to be the

editor. This gave him a chance to enter into controversy with the

faculty at the Reformed Medical College at Worthington with

the orthodox Thomsonians and their beloved founder as well as

with homeopathics and what one must call "regulars" because at

this time the regular physicians were by no means the dominant

school in Columbus practice. Curtis was not content merely to

beat his opponents in controversy. He believed firmly that no

system of healing could maintain itself without schools of in-

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OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-58           339

struction and he was determined that he would establish such a

school and thereby insure the permanency of the things he stood

for. The founder, Dr. Samuel Thomson, being himself an un-

educated man, was afraid to subject his system to the regimenta-

tion of the regularly established college curriculum. He frankly

didn't believe that the healing art was that complicated and with

all due respect to modern deans one can see there was a good deal

then and possibly now in what he thought about this matter.

In 1835, Alva Curtis began to instruct students in his own

house and followed this effort by an application to the General

Assembly for an Act of Incorporation. Alexander Wilder says,

"His adversaries opposed him by artifice and calumny but they

found him able to beat them at every point, to rebut every objec-

tion, and certain to win friends and supporters in every conflict."

At one session the House of Representatives passed the measure

and at the next session the Senate enacted it, with only a few

negative votes.  (Under these circumstances the Governor had

no veto.) The "Literary and Botanical Medical Institute of Ohio"

was then incorporated on the ninth day of March, 1839, with the

powers of a university. Its medical department was opened in

Columbus in the ensuing autumn under the imposing title: "The

College of Physicians and Surgeons." Thus the citizens of Co-

lumbus were honored with the parent school of botanic medicine.

When Dr. Curtis began his College of Physicians and Sur-

geons, Dr. Samuel Thomson deprecated his conduct as being a

virtual apostasy, but the Independent Thomsonian Society had

been formed. Dr. Curtis was made its first president. In many

respects Dr. Curtis did not differ from Dr. Thomson. He in-

sisted upon his own authority and right to judge and often lec-

tured his associates magisterially for what he considered their

derelictions. While he insisted upon establishing his own col-

lege, he was very hostile to the establishment of others, insisting

that too many such institutions would defeat their own purpose.

In 1846, after one of his orations on this question, he actually

proposed that all the other schools should all sell all of their prop-

erty and merge into one strong institution and very generously

offered himself to be the chancellor.

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340   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Dr. Frederick C. Waite has given the history of the Worces-

ter Medical School which opened near Worcester, Massa-

chusetts, in March, 1846. The success of this school and the

controversies of its militant head, Dr. Calvin Newton, aroused

Dr. Alva Curtis to announce his purpose to establish a rival col-

lege in Boston. He addressed a letter to Dr. Newton "couched in

terms at once discourteous, magisterial and overbearing."  He

belabored him for having taken the name of "eclectic" for his

school and journal, charging that he did this with a purpose to

attract to him the followers of Dr. Wooster Beach. He demanded

that the college at Worcester should be united "in less than 30

days with the one he was about to establish in Boston." Dr.

Newton rebuked Curtis for his ill-breeding and vulgarity adding

a remark which was significant alike for Dr. Curtis and Dr.

Beach: "Each of these gentlemen has had the means of knowing

our position and each seems equally offended that we do not call

him Master." When the controversy that raged around the Wor-

cester School was finally settled, however, Curtis found himself

professor of the theory and practice of Medicine, a chair which

he did not accept nor did he go ahead with the formation of a

rival school. Dr. Curtis did take a chair in the Metropolitan

Medical College which was the Physio-Medico school founded

in New York City in 1857 by Dr. Joseph D. Friend, who had

obtained a charter from the legislature for that purpose, but since

this is not concerned with Dr. Curtis' activities in Columbus there

will be no digression in that direction.

The history of the Botanic Medical College of Ohio was, as

might be expected from its founder, somewhat checkered. The

institution was removed in 1841 by legislative permission from

Columbus to Cincinnati. In 1851 the charter was again amended,

the scientific and literary departments were set up in a distinct

corporation and Dr. Curtis kept sole charge of these. The medi-

cal department became the physiopathic college of Ohio. In 1859

the Physio-Medical Institute was organized and existed as such

until it was finally suspended in 1885.

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