Ohio History Journal

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SHAKER MEDICINES

SHAKER MEDICINES

 

by HARRY D. PIERCY, M.D.*

 

When I began the study of this aspect of Shaker industry, I was

soon impressed with the large volume of material available. As I

read I became more and more interested, because I found here the

reflection of the therapeutic means and methods used to heal the

sick in the remote past. In the famous Papyrus Ebers, dating about

1552 B.c., are found the names of many herbs and mineral products

that have been used by physicians from that early day down to

our own time. It cannot be said that any revolutionary change

occurred in the methods and materials of therapeutics until the

advent of the twentieth century.

This paper deals with herbal medicines in general use in the

nineteenth century. The vast number of vegetable products-root,

stem, bark, leaf, blossom, and fruit-with relatively few exceptions

owed their virtues more to traditional use than to proven therapeutic

effectiveness. The extraction and assay of the active principles of

these herbs awaited the day of the physiological laboratory and the

development of analytical and synthetic chemistry, conspicuous con-

tributions to the healing art of the twentieth century.

I have lived long enough to have had touch with the nineteenth

century, and having been, so to speak, raised in a drug store, I

became familiar with herbs, fluid extracts, and the bladder filled

with crude opium, at a very early age. This experience of my early

youth permits a somewhat nostalgic approach to this subject, but

the miracle drugs and the improved diagnostic methods of the

present day give no occasion to regret the passing of empiric

medicine and the coming of the day when the sick of each generation

are better treated than those of the one just past.

The Shakers were a remarkable people. No other social-religious

experiment has left so large a volume of records of all sorts-day

by day diaries, letters, pamphlets, and books. No other social-

 

* Harry D. Piercy is a physician of Cleveland. His article was given as a paper at

the seventeenth annual meeting of the Ohio Academy of Medical History at the Ohio

State Museum, May 1, 1954.

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