Ohio History Journal

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THE FORMATION OF THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL

THE FORMATION OF THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL

IN CINCINNATI

 

By RALPH TAYLOR, M.D.

 

It is now more than a century since the first Eclectic College

was organized in Ohio and the century mark for the Eclectic

Medical Institute will soon be reached. It is difficult to visualize

the social, domestic and commercial life of the country when

these schools were founded. The writer doubts if one can thor-

oughly visualize Ohio without a single college of any appreciable

size, instead of one in almost every town of consequence, as now.

In those early days a very large per cent (sometimes esti-

mated as high as 90%) of the medical profession held no medical

degree. Then education consisted of "Reading medicine" under

a preceptor, and quite often doctors were launched on their pro-

fessional career after a few months of such training. Even

among the teachers in medical college were found men with no

other degree than an M. D.

Because of dissatisfaction and disappointment with the

crudity of some of such practitioners, others were seeking a

gentler and more scientific method of handling the sick. Thus

arose the so-called reform schools of which there were several in

the beginning.

The pharmacy of a century ago was also very crude and

some of the concoctions were repulsive and nauseous; they might

well have been prepared to exorcise devils. If for no other rea-

son than their insistence upon and their assistance in developing

potent and palatable medicines the smaller schools should feel

their existence as being justified.

No discussion of reform medicine in Ohio and especially of

the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, can well be separated

from the name of one man. Dr. T. Vaughn Morrow, who came

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