THE MEDICAL JOURNALS OF THE PERIOD,
1835-1858
By JONATHAN FORMAN, M. D.
The period which we are describing today
was one in which
the American public was very critical of
the medical profession.
To the general charges of fraud and
futility was added that of
hearsay. In order to save the
physician's fee "family medical
books" were frequently bought and
sold. Patent medicines were
coming in at a pace parallel to the
growth of newspapers in which
they could be advertised.
One New York firm was spending $100,000
a year for ad-
vertising as early as 1840. The element
of fear towards doctors
and all of their works was, of course,
an old one fostered by the
character of hospitals and the vague
suspicions formerly held
that doctors experimented upon the
poorer patients. Equally
morbid was the ancient but popular
aversion to dissection and
post-mortem examinations. This was
strengthened by an instance
of a crime in the United States similar
to the "Burking" murders
in Edinburgh (1828) when sixteen persons
were killed and their
bodies delivered to Doctor Robert Knox
for classroom purposes.
Then there was the common fear of being
buried alive which was
almost universal, closely associated
with the fear of dissection.
This continued up until embalming became
the common practice.
At the beginning of the period there was
a growing sentiment
on the part of the people fostered by
the Thomsonians, Reformed
Botanists and the Homeopathic physicians
against the use of huge
doses of mineral drugs, especially
mercury. An ounce of calomel
was commonly advised. These with the
strenuous bleeding made
up the regular treatment of the day. In
1845, the citizens of
Westmoreland County, near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, petitioned
their legislature to forbid the
employment of mercury for med-
icinal purposes. It was denied on the
interesting ground that mer-
cury was dangerous only if abused.
Nothing was said about the
right of laymen to legislate on a
medical matter.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The outstanding feature of this period
was the appearance
of cheap transportation, postage, and
printing. These were essen-
tial to the development of medical
societies and publications. It
became increasingly easy to go to
meetings at some distance, to
correspond with those one met there and
to publish medical jour-
nals. In the earlier years we saw that
medical journals were es-
tablished by medical schools. There was
also a tendency for them
to represent geographical areas--an
element due to postal costs.
The critic of present day morals--a
product as he says of the
movie and the automobile--will be
surprised to learn that the
American physician of 1850 was much
given to charging the sup-
posedly prim public with immorality. The
increasing resort to
contraceptives and abortion, the doctors
of the day claimed was
becoming a national scandal. We find the
transactions of the
Ohio State Medical Society contained
many a warning against the
immorality of the times. In the good old
days such things were
unheard of but in this period they were
common even among the
genteel and the church-going. Religious
weeklies and newspapers
in general were carrying many
advertisements, all of them along
the line of this: "Dr. ............
's Female Pills, one dollar a
box, with full directions. Married
ladies should not use them.
Sent by mail." These advertisements
increased in numbers and
blatancy until finally in 1858, we find
one New England weekly
offering for only three dollars,
"The only safe and sure preven-
tion from pregnancy."
This was truly a period of popular
medical ferment. Thou-
sands were buying the patent rights to
treat themselves, their
families or their neighbors with the
Thomsonian system. J. C.
Gunn's Domestic Medicine; or, the
Poor Man's Friend, published
in Louisville in 1840, ran no less
than 100 editions. Hydropathy
spread over the land with the
development of a dozen spas here
in Ohio. This period was the zenith of
quackery the world over.
For instance, there were living in
London, five men in 1849 who
had made $1,000,000 or over each from
the sale of quack rem-
edies. Nearly every conceivable type of
humbug preyed upon the
American public--nostrums, magnetism,
mesmerism, herb doctors,
OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-1858 363
etc. Many have attributed this
"wonder-gaping" complex to the
newness of the country, but Europe was
just as gullible in this
period as America.
The profession was very conscious of its
shortcomings. Many
professional soul-searching papers
appeared in the medical litera-
ture under the captions: "The
Present Position of the Medical
Profession"; "To What Cause
Are We to Attribute the Dimin-
ished Respectability of the Medical
Profession in the Estimation
of the American Public?"
Regular physicians began, in increasing
numbers, about 1850,
to condemn the routine use of calomel
and to counsel moderation
in blood-letting, while some of this was
due to the critical methods
introduced into therapeutics abroad, especially
in Paris, much of
it came about in response to growing
popular demands.
These were the days of social reforms,
the days of the be-
ginnings of temperance and prohibition
movements, women's
rights, and Grahamite dietary propaganda
which came out from
Massachusetts with the rush of cultured
expansion from New
England. Here in Ohio it at once assumed
a tendency to blend
with Thomsonism. Today it is only
remembered by its imperish-
able monument in Graham bread and Graham
crackers.
The most important medical advance of
the period was the
revolution in the methods which made
possible the series of bril-
liant discoverings which put regular
medicine back in the full con-
fidence of the American public.
"For the first time in the history
of medicine," said Wellington
Hooker, in his inaugural address
as he accepted the chair of physics at
Yale in 1852, "the medical
world is without a dominant theory. It
is a glorious era for our
science." Thus was the stage set
for the anatomical pathologist,
to be followed by the bacteriologist and
the physiological chemist.
These are the men who gave the public
confidence in medicine as
a science and in medical men so far as
they are scientists.
The important thing is that when the
period opened one
healer was as good as another. All
knowledge was empirical.
Today medicine is on a systematic
inductive basis, while all the
healing cults make their appeals only to
the emotions of the gul-
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
lible. Thus it is not exactly luck but
rather logic that this period
of greatest scientific progress should
have set in just when the pro-
fession's stock was lowest. The results,
however, were the pro-
fession's most pertinent answer to
popular criticism. This crit-
icism itself was but another expression
of the same forces that
made for critical research in
medicine--both expressed the rel-
atively critical spirit of the time.
In Ohio we had, as we told you last
year, our first medical
journal in The Ohio Medical
Repository, a semi-monthly begun in
1826 by Doctor Guy W. Wright and Doctor
James M. Mason.
Both being western graduates and
intensely patriotic with every-
thing pertaining to the western country,
their ambitions were to
give the western profession a western
medical journal edited by
and for western doctors. Mason retired
after one year. Doctor
Daniel Drake taking his place, the
magazine became a monthly
under the title, The Western Medical
and Physical Journal. Drake
soon became the sole owner and editor
and issued it under the
new name of The Western Journal of
the Medical and Physical
Sciences. In 1839, Drake took the journal to Louisville where it
was subsequently combined with the Louisville
Journal of Medi-
cine and Surgery, as the Western Journal of Medicine and Sur-
gery.
When the Willoughby Medical School was
moved to Colum-
bus the Ohio Medical and Surgical
Journal was begun by Doctor
John Butterfield. The first volume was a
success both profession-
ally and financially. That volume still
remains as a model to those
of us who are charged with the
responsibility of getting out a
medical journal useful to men in
practice.
When illness prevented Butterfield's
return to the editor's
desk Doctor S. Hanbury Smith took over
his duties. In the min-
utes of the faculty of the Starling
Medical College in 1849, we
find a motion, "that the Ohio
Medical and Surgical Journal be
vested in the Faculty of the Starling
Medical College and that the
dean so arrange it to have it published
by the year and that
S. Hanbury Smith be appointed editor for
one year beginning
January 1850." It soon
became evident that the faculty had ex-
OHIO MEDICAL HISTORY, 1835-1858 365
tended a beautiful gesture to
Butterfield's widow but that it was
not prepared to withstand the troubles
that are bound to come
with the publication of a medical
journal, and so in the minutes
of the faculty meeting of January, 1851,
we find that they passed
the following resolution.
"Resolved: That the Dean be
directed to pay Riley and
Company the sum of one hundred and fifty
dollars as part due on
the publication of the Journal and that
all interest be transferred
to Professor R. L. Howard on condition
that he assume all re-
maining and further liability,"
which proposition was accepted.
Smith left the faculty to become
superintendent of the Lunatic
Asylum, and Richard L. Howard, professor
of surgery and Co-
lumbus' first surgeon, became the next
editor. Upon Howard's
death Doctor John Dawson of the
Department of Anatomy took
over the editorship. This is the same
Dawson who later became a
distinguished resident of Cincinnati.
With Volume X (1858-1859)
Doctor John W. Hamilton became
co-editor.
The Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal
followed pretty
closely with the pattern of the times
which we described here last
year. Its conduct presented three
problems to its editors. First,
the promotion of its own school and the
elevation of medical
standards. The first step was to get
every "doctor" to become
an "M. D."--a distinction
which was sharply drawn between those
who had attended a medical college and
those who had not. The
current controversy was the subject of
student fees, and the ex-
changes were sharp on the point, both
Cincinnati and Columbus
blaming Cleveland, and Columbus blaming
Cincinnati for lower-
ing tuition costs and taking the
student's personal note for the
whole amount.
Secondly, the quacks were treating about
two-thirds of the
people when this period began. The
feeling was bitter and the
"regular" profession
maintained its position through solidarity
and organization. The Ohio Medical
and Surgical Journal did
not go as far as most of the journals
did in this matter. Howard
in Volume III laid down a policy which
was followed surprisingly
close. He said, "No man can write
or speak or even think in ac-
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0HIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tive opposition to any form of quackery,
without being himself
corrupted and degraded thereby. . . .
Violent and vituperous de-
nunciation never yet demolished or even
injured a bad cause."
Thirdly, there was the business of
reprinting from other
journals, such as we described at the
end of our paper last year.
Naturally there was a good deal of
feeling about the use of too
much foreign material in the journals
and the use of English text
with a few comments on it by the
professor whose name appeared
on the title page. It was as Oliver
Wendell Holmes said, "Most
American writing consists of simply
putting British portraits of
disease in American frames."
The special committee of the American Medical
Association
on medical literature considered this
problem at each annual ses-
sion and noted less and less offense.
The Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal
was frequently com-
plaining about the reprinting of its
articles in other journals with-
out proper credit. Both of these faults
tended to correct them-
selves under the pressure of the
American Medical Association.
As we look back upon American medical
journalism of this
period (1835-1858), we can agree with
the report on medical
literature made in 1858 by the special
committee of the American
Medical Association, headed by Alonzo B.
Palmer, M. D., who
recently came to Ann Arbor's faculty
from a large practice in
Chicago with the title of
"Professor of Materia Medica, Thera-
peutics, and Diseases of Women and
Children," when they re-
ported:
In conclusion, the committee would say
that if, as the sentinels placed
upon the walls of our Medical Zion, they
were asked in relation to its litera-
ture, "What of the night?" the
response must be, "The morning cometh."
The darkness which has hung over that
literature is breaking away. There
is at last dawn in the East and though
the charm of day may roll on but
slowly, the full effulgence will come at
last.