Kate Kelly - Old World and New - Early Medical Care, 1700-1840 (The History of Medicine) (2009) PDF

History
tHe
of
Medicine
Old WOrld
and neW
early Medical care,
1700–1840
History
tHe
of
Medicine
Old WOrld
and neW
early Medical care,
1700–1840
Kate Kelly
OLD WORLD AND NEW: Early Medical Care, 1700–1840
Copyright © 2010 by Kate Kelly
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kelly, Kate.
Old world and new: early medical care, 1700–1840 / Kate Kelly.
p. cm. — (The history of medicine)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8160-7208-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4381-2753-8 (e-book)
1. Medicine—History—18th century. 2. Medicine—United States—History—
18th century. I. Title.
R148.K45 2010
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Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction xiii
1 MediCine in searCh of Better answers 1

Different Views on Restoring Health 2
Preferred Method of Treatment: Bloodletting 4
Mesmerism Becomes a Popular Method of Healing 7
The Salem Witch Trials 10
Science Advances through Phrenology 14
The Psycograph 17
Homeopathy Comes into Vogue 18
Conclusion 19
2 advanCeMents in Midwifery,
anatoMy, and surgery 21
Midwifery Begins to Change 22
The Chamberlen Family Secret 23
William Hunter (1718–1783): Notable Obstetrician 27
John Hunter (1728–1793): British Anatomist
and Surgeon 29
The Early Use of Anesthesia 33
Procuring Bodies for Study 34
The Doctors’ Riot 35
Conclusion 37
3 Changes in Battlefield MediCine 38

The State of Battlefield Medicine 39
The First Modern Military Surgeon 42
Larrey’s Other Accomplishments 47
The Importance of Triage 48
Improvements in Military Medicine 50
Medical Care during the Revolutionary War 53
Joseph Lister (1827–1912): Develops Method of
Antiseptic Surgery 57
Conclusion 59
4 Curtailing the Spread of Disease 60

Sir John Pringle (1707–1782): A Wise Observer 61
James Lind Solves the Problem of Scurvy 64
Typhus: What It Is and How It Spreads 64
The Dilemma of Smallpox 65
Efforts to Prevent Smallpox 67
Edward Jenner Champions a New and Safer Method 69
Smallpox Today 70
Conclusion 71
5 Learning from Yellow Fever 72

Yellow Fever in the New World 74
Yellow Fever Outbreak in Philadelphia (1793) 74
What They Thought Caused Yellow Fever 77
The Legacy of Benjamin Rush 80
Rush’s Contributions to Mental Health 81
Heroic Medicine 82
Walter Reed, M.D. (1851–1902): An Enlightened
Approach 84
Conclusion 86
6 Early American Medical Care 87

Early American Physicians 89
The Age of Heroic Medicine 91
The Medical Significance of George Washington’s Death 93
The Discovery of Iodine 95
Medicines Become Products 96
The Story behind the Balsam of Life 98
Bringing an End to the Trade 102
Conclusion 105
7 Early Thoughts on Digestion and

Respiration 106
What They Ate 107
What They Knew about the Body 108
The Digestive Process in Action 108
Beaumont Seizes an Opportunity 110
The Early Work of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) 112
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794): The
Father of Modern Chemistry 113
Practical Science 114
Conclusion 115
8 The Importance of Public Health 116

Early Awareness 117
Urban Crowding 119
A Lack of Sanitation 119
Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821): Early Leader in
Public Health 120
Children in the Workplace 121
Other Reformers: Bentham, Chadwick, and Shattuck 123
John Snow and Cholera 124
Conclusion 128
Chronology 129
Glossary 132
Further Resources 135
Index 140
prefaCe
“You have to know the past to understand the present.”

—American scientist Carl Sagan (1934–96)
T he history of medicine offers a fascinating lens through which

to view humankind. Maintaining good health, overcoming
disease, and caring for wounds and broken bones was as impor-
tant to primitive people as it is to us today, and every civilization
participated in efforts to keep its population healthy. As scientists
continue to study the past, they are finding more and more infor-
mation about how early civilizations coped with health problems,
and they are gaining greater understanding of how health practi-
tioners in earlier times made their discoveries. This information
contributes to our understanding today of the science of medicine
and healing.
In many ways, medicine is a very young science. Until the mid-
19th century, no one knew of the existence of germs, so as a result,
any solutions that healers might have tried could not address the
root cause of many illnesses. Yet for several thousand years, medi-
cine has been practiced, often quite successfully. While progress
in any field is never linear (very early, nothing was written down;
later, it may have been written down, but there was little intra-
community communication), readers will see that some civiliza-
tions made great advances in certain health-related areas only to
see the knowledge forgotten or ignored after the civilization faded.
Two early examples of this are Hippocrates’ patient-centered heal-
ing philosophy and the amazing contributions of the Romans to
public health through water-delivery and waste-removal systems.
This knowledge was lost and had to be regained later.
The six volumes in the History of Medicine set are written
to stand alone, but combined, the set presents the entire sweep
of the history of medicine. It is written to put into perspective
viii
Preface ix
for high school students and the general public how and when
various medical discoveries were made and how that information
affected health care of the time period. The set starts with primi-
tive humans and concludes with a final volume that presents read-
ers with the very vital information they will need as they must
answer society’s questions of the future about everything from
understanding one’s personal risk of certain diseases to the ethics
of organ transplants and the increasingly complex questions about
preservation of life.
Each volume is interdisciplinary, blending discussions of the
history, biology, chemistry, medicine and economic issues and pub-
lic policy that are associated with each topic. Early Civilizations,
the first volume, presents new research about very old cultures
because modern technology has yielded new information on the
study of ancient civilizations. The healing practices of primitive
humans and of the ancient civilizations in India and China are
outlined, and this volume describes the many contributions of
the Greeks and Romans, including Hippocrates’ patient-centric
approach to illness and how the Romans improved public health.
The Middle Ages addresses the religious influence on the prac-
tice of medicine and the eventual growth of universities that pro-
vided a medical education. During the Middle Ages, sanitation
became a major issue, and necessity eventually drove improve-
ments to public health. Women also made contributions to the
medical field during this time. The Middle Ages describes the
manner in which medieval society coped with the Black Death
(bubonic plague) and leprosy, as illustrative of the medical think-
ing of this era. The volume concludes with information on the
golden age of Islamic medicine, during which considerable medical
progress was made.
The Scientific Revolution and Medicine describes how disease
flourished because of an increase in population, and the book
describes the numerous discoveries that were an important aspect
of this time. The volume explains the progress made by Andreas
Vesalius (1514–64) who transformed Western concepts of the
structure of the human body; William Harvey (1578–1657), who
Old World and New
studied and wrote about the circulation of the human blood; and
Ambroise Paré (1510–90), who was a leader in surgery. Syphilis
was a major scourge of this time, and the way that society coped
with what seemed to be a new illness is explained. Not all beliefs
of this time were progressive, and the occult sciences of astrology
and alchemy were an important influence in medicine, despite
scientific advances.
Old World and New describes what was happening in the col-
onies as America was being settled and examines the illnesses
that beset them and the way in which they were treated. How-
ever, before leaving the Old World, there are several important
figures who will be introduced: Thomas Sydenham (1624–89)
who was known as the English Hippocrates, Herman Boerhaave
(1668–1738) who revitalized the teaching of clinical medicine, and
Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821) who was an early proponent of
the public health movement.
Medicine Becomes a Science begins during the era in which
scientists discovered that bacteria was the cause of illness. Until
150 years ago, scientists had no idea why people became ill. This
volume describes the evolution of “germ theory” and describes
advances that followed quickly after bacteria was identified,
including vaccinations, antibiotics, and an understanding of the
importance of cleanliness. Evidence-based medicine is introduced
as are medical discoveries from the battlefield.
Medicine Today examines the current state of medicine and
reflects how DNA, genetic testing, nanotechnology, and stem cell
research all hold the promise of enormous developments within
the course of the next few years. It provides a framework for teach-
ers and students to understand better the news stories that are
sure to be written on these various topics: What are stem cells,
and why is investigating them so important to scientists? And
what is nanotechnology? Should genetic testing be permitted?
Each of the issues discussed are placed in context of the ethical
issues surrounding it.
Each volume within the History of Medicine set includes an
index, a chronology of notable events, a glossary of significant
Preface xi
terms and concepts, a helpful list of Internet resources, and an

array of historical and current print sources for further research.
Photographs, tables, and line art accompany the text.
I am a science and medical writer with the good fortune to be
assigned this set. For a number of years I have written books in
collaboration with physicians who wanted to share their medi-
cal knowledge with laypeople, and this has provided an excel-
lent background in understanding the science and medicine of
good health. In addition, I am a frequent guest at middle and high
schools and at public libraries addressing audiences on the history
of U.S. presidential election days, and this regular experience with
students keeps me fresh when it comes to understanding how best
to convey information to these audiences.
What is happening in the world of medicine and health tech-
nology today may affect the career choices of many, and it will
affect the health care of all, so the topics are of vital importance.
In addition, the public health policies under consideration (what
medicines to develop, whether to permit stem cell research, what
health records to put online, and how and when to use what types
of technology, etc.) will have a big impact on all people in the
future. These subjects are in the news daily, and students who can
turn to authoritative science volumes on the topic will be better
prepared to understand the story behind the news.
aCknowledgMents
T his book and the others in the series were made possible
because of the guidance, inspiration, and advice offered by
many generous individuals who have helped me better understand
science and medicine and their histories. I would like to express
my heartfelt appreciation to Frank Darmstadt, whose vision and
enthusiastic encouragement, patience, and support helped shape
the series and saw it through to completion. Thank you, too, to the
Facts On File staff members who worked on this set.
The line art and the photographs for the entire set were pro-
vided by two very helpful professionals. The artist Bobbi McCutch-
eon provided all the line art; she frequently reached out to me from
her office in Juneau, Alaska, to offer very welcome advice and
support as we worked through the complexities of the renderings.
A very warm thank you to Elizabeth Oakes for finding a wealth
of wonderful photographs that helped bring the information to
life. Carol Sailors got me off to a great start, and Carole Johnson
kept me sane by providing able help on the back matter of all the
books. Agent Bob Diforio has remained steadfast in his shepherd-
ing of the work.
I also want to acknowledge the wonderful archive collections
that have provided information for the book. Without places such
as the Sophia Smith Collection at the Smith College Library, first-
hand accounts of the Civil War battlefield treatment or reports
such as Lillian Gilbreth’s on helping the disabled after World War
I would be lost to history.
xii
introduCtion
Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things

considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of
their discoveries.
—Benjamin Franklin
A t the beginning of the 18th century, the world was poised for
great change. Societal shifts—from changes in attitude and
a willingness to question to the very real expansion of geographic
boundaries—were occurring everywhere. The revival of interest
in ancient Greece and Rome that began in the 1500s eventually
broke the dominance that the Catholic religion had exerted in west-
ern Europe during the Middle Ages, and this enabled people to ask
new questions and be open to alternative answers. Explorers were
returning from lands never imagined with reports of peoples and
samples of plants and other products that sparked scientists, phy-
sicians, and merchants to look for new uses for both old and new
substances. Agricultural techniques improved, requiring fewer
people to grow food and freeing more to migrate to cities.
Science was forever changed by the realization that Aristotle’s
method of deductive reasoning (a process that accepts a hypoth-
esis and then builds the case to support it) was less helpful with
“real life.” Galileo and his contemporaries realized, in nature
and in human health, it was enormously difficult to determine
“simple true statements” about how things worked. With a major
push from Sir Francis Bacon, the scientists of the day adopted
inductive reasoning, which is the deductive method in reverse. In
inductive reasoning, a scientist starts with many observations of
nature and through this fact-gathering process creates observa-
tions that can be tested to prove how nature works. Since 1600, the
inductive method has been incredibly successful in investigating
nature, surely far more successful than its originators could have
xiii
xiv Old World and New
imagined. The inductive method of investigation has become so

entrenched in science that it is often referred to as the scientific
method.
In addition, scientific progress in specific fields was leading to
new developments. From practical “aids” such as the development
of the steam engine (1698) to inevitable advances like new—and
more treacherous—ways to use gunpowder, change was occurring
rapidly. And as the relatively new invention of the printing press
began to be used for printing information beyond books, such
as broadsides and maps and pamphlets with medical advice, an
increasing amount of material was being written in the vernacu-
lar, making the information available to more and more people.
This era was known as the Enlightenment, a time when skepti-
cism ruled and experimenting was smiled upon and philosophers
believed that reason would trump all.
This period of history also brought about impressive achieve-
ments in scientific understanding that pertained to medicine.
The documentation of anatomy progressed rapidly, and there was
greater understanding of how certain bodily systems worked (the
workings of the vascular system being the most notable). Scien-
tists expressed great hope for the future, with some proclaiming
that because scientific knowledge was growing so rapidly dis-
ease would soon be completely eradicated. Yet the actual cause
of illnesses still stymied them. Though microscopes provided the
capability of seeing “little animalcules,” no one had drawn a line
between the presence of what we now know as bacteria and dis-
ease. Also, there were many misguided theories about cause and
effect, which led scientists down paths that kept them from more
relevant discoveries.
Old World and New: Early Medical Care, 1700–1840 illuminates
what occurred during the Enlightenment to affect future develop-
ments in medicine. The back matter of the volume contains a chro-
nology, a glossary, and an array of historical and current sources
for further research. These sections should prove especially help-
ful for readers who need additional information on specific terms,
topics, and developments in medical science.
Introduction xv
Hindrances to good health came about with the increasingly

mobile society. As worldwide trading grew, diseases began to spread
widely and often virulently, with waves of epidemics greatly wors-
ening mortality rates of the period. Warfare erupted frequently,
leading to an increase in death and a greater number of wounded,
and the Industrial Revolution led to a greater number of injuries to
workers as well as higher levels of air pollution and waste runoff
that affected the area’s water. As population in urban areas grew,
the health problems posed by poor sanitation increased, and the
urban poor suffered particularly. Despite the fact that the scientific
method was beginning to lead to new learning, it would take a long
time before it had an impact on people’s health.
Chapter 1 provides a fascinating look at the approaches to medi-
cine that were used early in the 1700s. Mesmerism, phrenology,
and bloodletting were the fads of the day, and these methods will
be explained. The advances made in midwifery, anatomy, and sur-
gery are outlined in chapter 2; the Chamberlen “family secret”
(forceps) made a big difference in the birth experience, and its
story is particularly fascinating. Chapter 3 outlines the major
progress made in battlefield medicine. For the first time, soldiers
were treated on the battlefield or carried off the battlefield by medi-
cal personnel, and this was to make a big difference in survival
rates. In an era when physicians had no idea how disease spread,
they still made valiant efforts to keep people from catching dis-
eases, and that topic will be discussed in chapter 4. Chapter 5 is a
focused look at yellow fever, its impact on the nation’s then capital
(Philadelphia), and how physicians went about treating it. Chapter
6 outlines early American medical care, from the qualifications of
the physicians who practiced medicine to what became a major
industry—patent medicines. No one really understood the diges-
tive process until this era, and how they learned about the way
the body processes food is an interesting story that is presented in
chapter 7. Chapter 8 addresses the very important issue of public
health. Communities were beginning to realize how important it
was that they take organized steps to improve the health of their
citizens, and this chapter will explain what they did.
xvi Old WOrld and neW
This book is a vital addition to the literature on the history of

medicine because it puts into perspective the medical discoveries
of the period and provides readers with a better understanding of
the accomplishments of the time. While physicians of this era did
not yet know the cause of disease, they had begun making many
advances that were to be key to medical improvements to come.
1
Medicine in search
of Better answers
T he advent of the 18th century brought about what is referred

to as the Enlightenment, a period when the educated and pro-
fessionals among the citizenry of Europe were willing to question
old standards in everything from religion to science. In the pro-
cess, this elite group began turning away from much of the beliefs
in the magical or miraculous and toward a more scientific and
rational way of thinking. Lifestyles were changing, and this, too,
spurred new progress. As farming methods improved, fewer people
were needed to produce food, so more people migrated to the cities
where industry was expanding and offering an increasing number
of jobs. Those who did not work producing goods were able to find
employment as shop attendants or in other service positions that
were needed because of the growing urban population. In addition,
explorers were actively traveling the globe, and colonial settlements
were popping up in distant parts of the world. Trade with people on
faraway continents introduced new plants for food and medicines,
while at the same time importing new diseases.
In the world of medicine, the discovery about the workings of
the heart by William Harvey and the advancement in anatomical
studies by Vesalius in the preceding era had created a new baseline
1
Old World and New
for medicine. Optimism about this new progress prevailed, and

there were predictions from scientists that all disease would one
day be eradicated. However, this was overly optimistic, as they
were still a very long way from any sort of understanding about
what caused disease and continued allegiance to the theory that
correcting imbalances would cure almost everything.
This chapter highlights several of the most popular healing
methods of the time. Bloodletting remained a frequently used
process for restoring health, and two pseudoscientific doctrines
relating to medicine emerged from Vienna in the latter part of the
century and attained great popularity. Mesmerism was a mode of
healing introduced by Franz Anton Mesmer that involved mag-
netization (and the power of Mesmer’s presence). Phrenology
was another system that was explored as a serious effort to better
understand the workings of the brain. These approaches did not
prove to be medically significant, but their invention, their accep-
tance, and their ongoing use provide deeper understanding of the
state of medicine in the 18th century.
During this era, patients were more likely to be overtreated
than undertreated. In this time of excessive bloodletting, Samuel
Hahnemann developed the concept of homeopathy, and his method
will be explained.
Different Views on Restoring Health

Almost all scientists and physicians who lived during this time
believed that the root of all problems lay in imbalances. There
were many lines of thought as to what was out of balance and what
do to about it. Physicians and scientists from all over Europe came
up with differing theories as to how to bring about cures.
The Dutch professor and physician Herman Boerhaave (1668–
1738) continued to be very influential; his 1708 textbook Insti-
tutiones medicae was an important contribution to medicine.
Boerhaave will long be appreciated for bringing up to date and
organizing the medical information of the time and for realizing
that medical students would learn a great deal more if some of
Medicine in Search of Better Answers
the lessons took place at patients’ bedsides. However, his overall

explanation of the causes of disease was misguided. This well-
respected professor believed bad health resulted from mechanical
imbalances, and he classified disorders in two categories: Some
resulted from an imbalance of “solids” (like tuberculosis); others
resulted from an imbalance of “blood and humours.” (Blood clots
were an example of this type of imbalance.) Cures were usually
both simplistic and ineffective. Bloodletting was used to rebalance
“solid” imbalances; milk and iron were prescribed for other types
of problems.
German physician and chemist George Ernst Stahl (1660–1734)
believed that “animism” (the soul) was at the heart of everything.
He felt that the psyche directed the body and regulated physiology.
For Stahl, disease was the soul’s attempt to reestablish bodily order.
Others had different theories. Boissier de Sauvages (1706–67)
believed the body was a machine, and disease was nature’s effort
to expel “morbid” matter. In Edinburgh, John Brown (ca. 1735–
88), a Scottish physician and essayist, believed that all diseases
could be classified as either increasing or decreasing “excitement”
on the body, and that treatments should be planned accordingly.
He was among the few who spoke out against bloodletting, and his
chief remedies were alcohol and opium.
Scottish professor of medicine William Cullen (1710–90) and
his followers believed that life was a function of nervous energy,
and disease was disturbance in this life force, but he felt that dis-
ease could be classified in the following four major divisions:
■ febrile diseases
■ neuroses, or nervous diseases
■ diseases produced by bad bodily habits
■ local diseases
Cullen, however, fully acknowledged that an understanding of

how disease transferred to a person was still missing: “We know
nothing of the nature of contagion that can lead us to any mea-
sures for removing or correcting it. We know only its effects.”
Old World and New
Though vigorous debate continued about the cause and clas-

sification of disease, one opinion was shared, and that was for the
need for treatment.
Preferred Method of Treatment: Bloodletting

Because imbalances were still thought to be a large part of any dis-
ease, bloodletting remained firmly entrenched. Medicinal bloodlet-
ting had been practiced since the Stone Age when early humans
believed that evil spirits could be removed through the drawing
of blood. The practice became even more prevalent when the ever-
influential Galen, the second-century Greek physician, theorized
that having a plethora of blood was dangerous and caused bad
health. By the 1700s, bloodletting was commonly used as part of
regular health maintenance as well as a healing method to remove
“useless” blood to remedy inflammation, hemorrhaging, fevers,
and a multitude of other illnesses.
As physicians continued to recommend bloodletting, the “art
and science” of it became increasingly important, and physicians
formulated specific methods they felt would make the bloodlet-
ting more effective. Physicians decided that the proper site for the
blood draw depended on the problem that was to be cured and
made very serious evaluations as to the quantity of blood to be
removed. As the medical professionals began to understand more
about the circulatory system, arguments about the selection of the
proper site increased. Some physicians believed that the site of
the bloodletting should be on the side opposite the lesion. Others
chose a site close to the source of the problem “in order to remove
putrid blood and attract good blood” to the area. The amount to
be removed was carefully decided and just as carefully measured
as a vein was opened and blood flowed into a bowl.
The use of leeches was popular during this period, and this
practice, too, had ancient origins. Egyptian tombs show illustra-
tions of the use of leeches from as early as 1500 b.c.e., and the
Chinese write about it in documents dating to the first century c.e.
Galen often recommended the use of leeches to correct any imbal-
ance of the four humors, and physicians used leeches for several
thousand years because they believed it could remedy complaints
like headaches and gout. Just as the physician gave careful thought
to the opening of a vein, they also carefully considered how and
where to use leeches. They felt they had some understanding of
how much each leech consumed, so they prescribed both the num-
ber of leeches to be used and where they should be placed. Leeches
drop off when they are full, so this gave surgeons an added feeling
of confidence in using them.
Leeches were used for epilepsy, hemorrhoids, obesity, tuber-
culosis, and headaches. If a person was suffering a particularly
debilitating headache, leeches were applied inside the nostrils.
Edinburgh surgeon John Brown (1810–82) wrote of treating him-
self for a sore throat by having six leeches and a mustard plaster
placed on his neck. Then he had a dozen leeches placed behind
his ears, and he reported removing 16 ounces (0.47 l) of blood by
venesection.
Leeches were so popular that apothecary shops kept a bowl
filled with live leeches, just as they kept on hand other medici-
nal mixtures. By the early part of the 19th century, the use of
leeches reached a peak. The type of leech that was so popular in
Europe, the Hirudo medicinalis, had been hunted to extinction
so they had to be imported. In North America, a native type of
leech was available, but American diseases were thought to be
particularly virulent, and the European leech was considered to
be more effective so there was also an American market for the
Hirudo medicinalis.
By the 1830s, the practice of bloodletting finally declined some-
what. Physicians were beginning to see that patients who were
bled did not necessarily recover more fully than those who under-
went other treatments.
Modern Day Medicinal Use of the Leech

In 1884, John Haycraft, a professor of physiology at the University
of Wales, made an interesting discovery. He found that blood in
the leech gut did not coagulate. While this information had no
Old World and New
practical use at the time, scientists frequently benefit much later

from the small discoveries made by those who preceded them, and
this was what occurred here. In the 1950s, a German scientist
Fritz Marquardt was able to isolate the anticoagulant hirudin from
leech pharyngeal glands, and, with this additional knowledge,
physicians began to reintroduce the possibility of using leeches
in medicine.
By the 1980s, there were two groups of surgeons who found
that leeches were particularly helpful in their work. The first
group were doing complex reattachment surgery—reattaching
fingers and ears or large sections of scalp, all of which depend
on reestablishing blood flow to an area—and this is not easy to
accomplish. The surgeon needs to reconnect as many arteries and
veins as possible, and, if not enough veins are reconnected, the
blood may pool in the reattached organ or limb, preventing fresh,
oxygenated blood from entering and restoring health to the reat-
tached part.
The second group who were excited about the possible prom-
ise of leeches were plastic surgeons who face a similar dilemma,
needing to restore blood flow to an area. Physicians learned that
when leeches are applied to tissue they remove blood and secrete
several compounds that have vasodilator, anticoagulant, and clot-
dissolving properties. This prevents the tissue from dying and
allows the body to reestablish healthy blood flow to the reattached
part. Leeches are also particularly helpful for use with burn vic-
tims in attaching donor skin flaps to new areas as they drain blood
clots and improve adhesion to a recipient site. The use of leeches
has known risk, however. About 20 percent of surgical patients
who receive leech treatment get infections. These infections can
generally be prevented if antibiotics are given.
In a continuing effort to find other ways that leeches might
be helpful, doctors have been experimenting with using them to
reduce knee pain in people with arthritis. Additional studies are
needed before this becomes an accepted practice.
In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration granted a French
firm permission to market leeches for medicinal purposes. In the
future, scientists anticipate the use of live leeches will probably

be replaced by a synthetic drug. The new techniques of molecular
biology coupled with pharmaceutical companies’ interests in ben-
efiting from this type of invention probably spells the end of the
use of live leeches.
Mesmerism Becomes a Popular Method

of Healing
Physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815) popularized a healing
method that was based on his belief that all things were connected
by a subtle and mobile fluid that pervades the universe. When
this fluid within the body is blocked, the result is disease. Mesmer
became quite well known, and, although leading scientists investi-
gated and rejected his theory, it had no effect on his popularity.
Mesmer began his medical studies in 1759 at the University of
Vienna. His doctoral dissertation, which borrowed heavily on the
work of an English physician and friend of Newton’s, concerned
the influence of the planets on the human body and disease, a sub-
ject that was to be the underpinning of much of Mesmer’s work.
Mesmer believed that people contained magnétisme animal, and it
was this force that had to be kept flowing smoothly. (This term is
frequently translated as “animal magnetism,” which today refers
to sex appeal. Experts stress that this is an incorrect translation.
The term animal, as Mesmer used it, refers to the Latin word ani-
mus, meaning “breath” or “life force.”)
Mesmer’s early work was influenced by a Jesuit healer who
“cured” people using a magnetic plate. Mesmer theorized that this
worked because of the universal fluid that flowed through every-
thing. As early as 1774, Mesmer had a young patient swallow a
preparation containing iron, and then Mesmer attached magnets
to various parts of her body. The patient reported that she could
feel a mysterious fluid running through her body, and for sev-
eral hours she was relieved of her symptoms. Mesmer claimed he
had restored the flow of magnétisme animal and in so doing had
brought about a cure.
Old World and New
Contemporary painting of 18th-century mesmerism (Massimo Polidoro)
This treatment method had its complications, so Mesmer

worked to simplify the process. When healing one-on-one, he
sat directly in front of the patient with his knees against the
patient’s knees. Pressing one of the patient’s thumbs into the
palm of his own hand, Mesmer gazed into the patient’s eyes
and used his other hand to wave over the patients’ shoulders.
Sometimes he waved a magnetized pole over the patient, but
increasingly he used only the power of his hands to help restore
the movement of the bodily fluid. Sometimes, he also pressed his
fingers into the area below the patient’s diaphragm for as long
as an hour or two. Treatments generally concluded with music,
but it should not be assumed that these sessions ended peace-
fully. Mesmer believed that when ill, a person got worse before
getting better, so a fever might have gone higher or an insane
person might have experienced a fit of madness before showing
signs of improvement.
Mesmer’s first practice was in Vienna, but he soon was forced
to move on. He claimed he had restored the sight to a blind musi-
cian, but when this claim proved false, the community turned
against him. Mesmer moved to Paris in 1778 and established a
practice in a wealthy neighborhood. He hoped for the approval
of a scientific organization to add credibility to his work, but his
requests to the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society
of Medicine were both turned down. However, a well-respected
French physician Charles d’Eslon became his follower, which
added to Mesmer’s credibility.
Mesmer soon had a waiting list of patients so he devised ways to
treat groups of people collectively. One of the methods enabled him
to heal as many as 20 people at a time. For this purpose, Mesmer
created a large barrel-like vessel (Mesmer called it a baquet) that
had iron rods of different heights attached. The baquet was filled
with glass bottles arranged in a radial pattern sitting in water
on a bed of crushed glass, pounded sulfur, and iron filings; each
rod had magnets at its base. The patients were each assigned to
hold onto one of the rods, and the rod was selected for the patient
based on area of illness—those with headaches were given a rod
that could be placed against the head; those with gastric distress
used a rod that could be placed on their midsection, etc. (When
Mesmer updated this invention he added a Leyden jar that served
(continues on page 12)
10 Old World and New
The Salem Witch Trials
A fear of witchcraft pervaded both Europe and the colonies,

and communities often accused healers of practicing sor-
cery. A local healer—almost always a woman—was victim-
ized, perhaps because of an unfortunate result with one of
her patients or sometimes because a community simply
turned against her. The healer would be suspected, accused,
put through a trial of sorts, and beheaded, hung, burned, or
drowned, depending on the spirit of the times.
The Salem witch trials, known for many reasons includ-
ing The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s award-winning 1954 play,
are significant to the history of medicine because they
exemplify the attitude specific to that era, toward illness and
healing. In Salem, the accused were not actually the town’s
healers. They were young children who were exhibiting odd
behavior, and the town healer determined that they were
possessed.
Salem witch trials

Medicine in Search of Better Answers 11
To fully understand the circumstances, it is helpful to know

that during the late 17th century, life in Salem was very unset-
tled. At that time, the Massachusetts colony (of which Salem
was a part) lacked both a charter and a governor, so there
was a high level of general uneasiness. Some members of the
Puritan community were also very upset about the group’s
selection of their first ordained minister. When the minister’s
daughter, the minister’s niece, and another young girl, all
between the ages of nine and 12, began exhibiting strange
behavior (screaming, throwing things, complaining they were
being cut with knives, etc.), it was very unnerving to the peo-
ple of the community. At that time, the possibility of witch-
craft was plausible. The Puritans believed that God punished
all sinners with illness or calamity, and physicians were some-
times pressured into these types of diagnoses, particularly if
the beliefs of the patient’s family and friends were so strong
that they were convinced that the person was possessed.
In most communities, the first call for help at this time
would have been to a woman healer. Salem, however, had
a man who served as the town physician though his exact
training is unknown. When the physician Dr. William Griggs
could find no physical ailment to explain the girls’ behavior,
he determined that they were “under an Evil hand.” Dr. Griggs
expressed powerlessness to help the girls, so the community
looked outward for the witches who must have been causing
the spell. When the girls’ conditions seemed to worsen, the
community focused on an Irish washerwoman and a female
slave as the likely suspects. However, the community out-
rage did not stop there. Over the next few months, 20 people
(14 women and six men) were executed for witchcraft, and
between 175 and 200 people were imprisoned, including a
(continues)
(continued)
four-year-old girl who, without awareness, implicated her
mother. The little girl then confessed to being a witch herself
so that she would not be separated from her parent.
Recent scholars have offered various theories as to the
girls’ behavior. Many felt it was hysteria, though a few have
looked for illness that might have caused their reactions. One
scientist posited that the girls might have ingested bread that
was made of moldy grain; one particular kind of mold con-
tains a chemical compound that can have a hallucinogenic
effect. Most scientists discount this theory, but one book
offers another idea. A Fever in Salem by Laurie Winn Carlson
suggests that those who acted bewitched may have suffered
from encephalitis lethargica, a disease with somewhat simi-
lar symptoms. Still others have suggested that the girls had
Huntington’s chorea.
The theories will undoubtedly continue to be explored, but
in the meantime there is no diminishment of fascination with
the witches of Salem. The community reactions were not sur-
prising considering the lack of information about diseases,
about healing, or about any kind of mental problems—includ-
ing hysteria—from which the girls may have been suffering.
(continued from page 9)

as a battery, and the force emanated through the metal rods. When
a patient touched the rod, they got a jolt, which must have been
presented as part of the cure.)
While Mesmer surely understood that he was running a profit-
able business, he took into account those who could not pay for
his services. At the Hôtel Bullion, he had three rooms set aside
for treating paying guests and one additional room for people who
could not afford to pay him. Patients were assigned to their rooms
and given specific places to sit. After everyone was in place, Mes-
mer entered the room wearing a flowing lilac-colored silk robe and
ornate gold slippers. His arrival often sent people into hysterics.
If someone became very upset, Mesmer’s valet had to remove the
person to what was a soundproof, padded room; frequently several
in the group had to be removed.
His business grew to the point that he was seeing 200 people
or more a day, yet the demand still exceeded what he could satisfy.
The press referred to it as “Mesmeromania.” To satisfy patients—
and line his pockets—Mesmer created and sold a baquet for home
use, and he started the Society of Universal Harmony where he
trained others in his method. By 1789 (the beginning of the French
Revolution), the society had graduated 480 people. Mesmer also
magnetized several trees around Paris and announced that they,
too, were healing.
Mesmer appealed to the high society of the day, and the king’s
wife attended sessions. When rumors began that hinted that Mes-
mer was actually conducting sexual orgies, the king was compelled
to investigate. Louis XVI decided that the best person to inves-
tigate was Benjamin Franklin, a well-respected American who
understood science and was currently in Paris as the American
ambassador to France. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (see chapter
7), Jean-Sylvain Bailly, and Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who cre-
ated the guillotine (the device that would later bring an end to
both Lavoisier and Bailly), were asked to serve on the panel with
Franklin. Because Mesmer was so popular, the king did not charge
the panel with investigating Mesmer’s practice. They were simply
charged with examining whether a new force in physics had been
discovered, as Mesmer claimed.
Mesmer was alarmed by the investigation and refused to coop-
erate, so the panel worked with his devoted follower Dr. D’Eslon.
The first method the men devised for testing mesmerism was to
experience the process. Franklin had long suffered from gout, so
he attended a session but reported no improvement. Next they
examined the healing process of magnetized trees. One tree in
Franklin’s garden was magnetized, and a young boy, age 12, was
asked to identify the one that had the strongest magnetic force. The
boy walked toward a tree, claimed he felt the force, and promptly
fainted. Unfortunately for Mesmer, the boy had gravitated toward
the wrong tree.
Though discredited, mesmerism continued to be used in vari-
ous forms and with different practitioners. In 1841, Dr. James
Braid (1795–1860) witnessed mesmerism and developed what is
now known as hypnotism. (The system used by Mesmer did not
involve hypnotism although it is sometimes indicated that it did.)
Science Advances through Phrenology

In the 18th century, the function and the workings of the brain
were a mystery. When Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) began study-
ing the skull and how it related to the brain—what became known
Based on the work of Franz Gall, phrenology became very popular. It

was thought that a person’s skull could be felt carefully by a trained
phrenologist who could then explain that person’s personality traits.
as phrenology—it caught the interest of the scientific community.

Over time, he theorized that the contours of the skull were a guide
to an individual’s mental faculties and character traits, and this
idea became quite popular. While Gall’s theory was misguided,
his work is notable because he was one of the first to consider the
brain to be the source of all mental activity.
The practice of phrenology came to involve feeling the bumps
in the skull to determine a person’s psychological attributes. Phre-
nologists were trained to run their fingertips and palms over the
skulls of their patients to feel for enlargements or indentations.
Gall taught that each bump or indentation was indicative of a spe-
cific trait ranging from the ability to see well to the likelihood of
being very devout.
Gall’s Life
Franz Gall was born in Baden, Germany, and as a second-born
son he traditionally would have joined the priesthood. Gall
decided to study medicine instead, and he began to develop his
theory that each person’s external characteristics were symp-
tomatic of individual talents. He concluded that prominent eyes
indicated a powerful memory, and Gall came to believe that the
brain consisted of 27 different “organs,” each corresponding to a
discrete human faculty. The cranial bone conformed in order to
accommodate the different sizes of these particular areas of the
brain in different individuals, so a person’s capacity for a par-
ticular personality trait could be determined by using a caliper to
measure the part of the skull that covered that part of the brain.
Gall eventually created a mind map with traits and correspond-
ing numbers. As a phrenologist felt the skull, he could refer to
a numbered diagram showing where each functional area was
believed to be located.
Gall’s ideas were condemned by both science and religion. Sci-
ence felt he had no proof; religion felt the theory was contrary to
a belief in God. Because of this disapproval, Gall left his teach-
ing position in Austria in 1805 with colleague Johann Spurzheim
(1776–1832). He scheduled lectures elsewhere in Europe that were
very well attended, and in 1807 Gall and Spurzheim decided to

settle in Paris. He unsuccessfully sought admission to the Acad-
emy of Sciences. Then, Gall was denounced by Napoléon, the rul-
ing emperor, and this made Gall a celebrity among the intellectual
class, who embraced him.
Though Gall started a book about the subject and the first two
chapters were made public in 1791, he never completed it. How-
ever, he did many lectures on the topic and also wrote a detailed
letter about his ideas. Johann Spurzheim took Gall’s theory of cra-
nioscopy and refined it into a system that he taught regularly and
came to call phrenology. Spurzheim successfully spread the ideas
of phrenology to the United Kingdom and the United States where
the term was popularized.
While phrenology was rejected by mainstream academia, many
people still consulted phrenologists. It varied from being a fair-
ground entertainment to being written about as serious science.
The phrenological analysis was used to predict the kinds of rela-
tionships and behaviors to which a patient was prone. In its hey-
day from the 1820s to the 1840s, phrenology was often used to
predict a child’s future, to assess prospective marriage partners,
and to provide background checks for job applicants.
Spurzheim was not Gall’s only follower; he influenced many.
Two Scottish brothers George Combe (1788–1858) and Andrew
Combe (1797–1847) founded the Phrenology Society of Edinburgh,
and George wrote a lot on phrenology. In addition, two Ameri-
can brothers Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811–96) and Orson Squire
Fowler (1809–87) started a phrenological firm and publishing
house devoted to information on phrenology. In the United States,
the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher actively promoted it as a source
of psychological growth, and it caught on with the British prime
Minister David Lloyd George as well.
Though the theory makes little sense today, Gall made signifi-
cant contributions to neurological science. He was the first to sug-
gest that character, thoughts, and emotions were not located in
the heart but in the brain. Because phrenology was so popular,
this became a belief that was much more widely accepted than it
The Psycograph
Phrenology was largely abandoned in Europe by the lat-

ter part of the 19th century, but there were still believers
elsewhere who devoted time and energy to this “science.”
American businessman Henry C. Lavery and a partner
Frank P. White from Superior, Wisconsin, took their life sav-
ings—White contributed $39,000 that had been invested in
the 3M Company—to finance research to create a machine
that would evaluate a person’s skull to assess personal
characteristics.
Twenty-six years later they had a machine they were
satisfied with. The Psycograph consisted of 1,954 parts,
including a hoodlike device with 32 probes that touched the
person’s head. The machine was preloaded with 160 possi-
ble statements, and the “score” the person received varied
since there were an almost unlimited number of possible
combinations. To be analyzed, the subject sat in a chair con-
nected to a headpiece (like hair dryers at beauty salons).
When the operator pulled the lever to activate the machine,
the probes sent back signals that identified appropriate
statements for each part of the head and its related trait.
The operator then presented the person with the “personal
diagnosis.”
According to Bob McCoy, curator of the Museum of Ques-
tionable Medical Devices, Lavery and White’s company built
33 machines that were leased to entrepreneurs throughout
the country for a $2,000 down payment plus $35 a month
rent on the machine. They were popular attractions for
theater lobbies and department stores, as they were good
traffic builders during the Great Depression, and business
flourished. In 1934, two entrepreneurs set up a machine at
the Chicago Exposition, the Century of Progress, and they
netted $200,000!
otherwise would have been, and it paved the way for new think-
ing on this topic.
Homeopathy Comes into Vogue

In a day when “no treatment” or “too little treatment” was tanta-
mount to “neglect,” physicians operated with the understanding
that the more they did the better off the patient would be.
Healing in the 18th century often consisted of multiple blood-
lettings alternating with purging of the body, and pharmaceutical
“prescriptions” of the time still involved medicines like Galen’s
Venice treacle, that was made of 64 substances including opium,
myrrh, and viper’s flesh. People often died from the treatment pro-
cess alone. George Washington was among those who probably
died of his cure. (See chapter 6.) With the supervision of three
distinguished physicians, Washington was bled, purged, and blis-
tered until he died about 48 hours after complaining of a sore
throat (1799).
At a time when prescriptions were lengthy and doses were
large, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), a German physician,
presented a system that was in stark contrast to the “more is
better” philosophy, and his system of homeopathy gained many
followers. Homeopathy (homeo for “similar,” pathy for “disease”)
is a natural, noninvasive system of medical treatment involving
minute doses of drugs, and it was based on the theory that sub-
stances that cause certain symptoms in a healthy person can—in
small amounts—cure those symptoms in a person with the dis-
ease. Homeopathy is often incorrectly used to refer to any form of
alternative medicine, and while true homeopathy takes a holistic
approach to health, it is designed to help the body heal itself, not
to suppress or control symptoms.
Samuel Hahnemann was born in Saxony to a family of porce-
lain painters, but he showed a remarkable ability in languages,
and, by age 20, he was said to have mastered English, French, Ital-
ian, Greek, and Latin, and he translated and taught while gaining
his medical education. After settling with his wife in a mining
area of Saxony, Hahnemann gave up practicing medicine in 1784

because he was concerned that the treatment methods were cruel
and ineffective. His ability with language and his knowledge of
medicine made him the perfect candidate to translate the famed
Edinburgh professor William Cullen’s lectures on the Materia
medica into German (see chapter 2 for more about William Cul-
len). Hahnemann was puzzled by Cullen’s comment that cinchona
was effective at treating malaria because it was an astringent, but
Hahnemann, who often wrote about chemistry, knew that malaria
did not respond to other forms of astringents. This led him to
experiment on himself by taking some of the cinchona bark to see
what happened. He observed that he soon exhibited symptoms
similar to the disease. Hahnemann experimented with other sub-
stances and determined that “like cures like” (similia similibus
curantur). This led him to develop a homeopathic principle that a
disease could be cured by a drug that would produce in a healthy
person symptoms similar to that of the disease (1796). Hahne-
mann concluded that by using a drug to create artificial symptoms,
this empowered the vital force of the body to neutralize and expel
the original disease.
In working out his theory, Hahnemann deduced that the key
to stimulating healing rather than a toxic response had to do with
using minute amounts of the drugs diluted in other compounds. In
1810, Hahnemann explained his theory in Organon of the Medical
Art. He returned to Leipzig to teach his new medical system but
was soon driven out of town by irate apothecaries who disliked
his advocacy of a reduction in the use of drugs. He re-settled in
Paris where he continued to practice homeopathy undisturbed.
Homeopathy did not become popular in America until 1825,
and its rise in the United States will be discussed in chapter 6.
Conclusion
While this era began with many elements that involved cling-
ing to the clinical methods of the past—mysticism and the fear
of witchcraft among them—there were also early signs of sound
20 Old WOrld and neW
scientific thinking in physics, chemistry, and the biological sci-

ences. These were converging to form a rational scientific basis
for every branch of clinical medicine. Men like Franz Gall and
Samuel Hahnemann may not have had the correct answers to
medical assessment and healing, but they were beginning to lead
the way so that new doors would open and progress in clinical
medicine could continue.
2
advancements in Midwifery,
anatomy, and surgery
B y the 18th century, medical schools were becoming much more

common. The University of Leiden in the Netherlands had
grown to rival the one in Padua, and more universities were add-
ing a medical curriculum to their regular offerings. After Scot
John Monro attended Leiden where he prepared to become a sur-
geon in the army, he returned to Edinburgh determined that Edin-
burgh should soon have a medical program. John still sent his son
Alexander to Leiden (where he studied under the well-respected
Hermann Boerhaave), but when Alexander returned, he was
appointed professor of anatomy at Edinburgh. This was the start
of what became a very well-regarded medical program responsible
for educating many of the leaders in the field.
During the 17th century, female midwives continued to be the
mainstay of childbirth, even though male physicians were some-
times consulted when the circumstances were particularly dif-
ficult. This custom began to change as men opted to come into
the field. Two of the most prominent of this period were William
Smellie and William Hunter, whose brother John Hunter went on
to excel in the field of surgery. This was an area that was begin-
ning to expand, although there was still no anesthesia to numb
21
pain and no one understood the importance of sterility in guard-

ing against infection.
Anatomy was not seen as vital to the teaching of medicine
and thus, students who wanted to study the body had to sign up
for classes from a private institution. Even then there were chal-
lenges—cadavers were difficult to come by. During the 17th cen-
tury, anatomy was studied by a very small group, so the need for
bodies could be more or less met by judges willing to sentence
some people to “death and dissection.” (One judge who admired
the work of Vesalius, the great anatomist, timed his executions
to suit the convenience of Vesalius’s dissection schedule. More
executions were scheduled for the winter months because the cold
weather helped preserve the remains for longer.)
During the 18th century, two unrelated trends began that affected
the availability of bodies for study. Just as the number of medical
and private anatomy schools began to increase, Europe experienced
a drop in capital punishment. By the 19th century, statistics showed
that in the United Kingdom only 55 people were executed one year,
and yet, with the expansion of medical schools, as many as 500 bod-
ies were needed each year. As explained later in the chapter, body
snatching became a necessary part of the process.
This chapter will discuss the changing practices in midwifery
and the art of surgery as practiced by the Hunter brothers, as well
as the methods used for procuring bodies for anatomical study.
Midwifery Begins to Change

While women had long turned to other women for help during
childbirth, this began to change during the mid to late 1600s.
There were still serious issues to consider—men were still not
supposed to see women disrobed even for medical reasons and
they did not really have a lot of helpful information since women
had for so long been the ones who handled childbirth. However,
the practice of a male physician standing by to advise the midwife
during a difficult childbirth must have established them as author-
ity figures who could be helpful.
Advancements in Midwifery, Anatomy, and Surgery 23
One of the women who felt strongly about having a physician

present was the duchess de La Vallière, who was at the court of
Louis XIV when she gave birth in 1663, according to material
provided by Alastair McIntyre, director of the Scottish Studies
Foundation. Because she was fearful of what was about to hap-
pen to her, she called in Julien Clément, a well-respected surgeon.
Clément was secretly ushered in to her living quarters to oversee
the birth, and the king, whose child it was, was said to have hid-
den behind the curtains during the birth process. (She was Louis
XIV’s mistress and bore him four children.) The mother’s face was
covered with a hood to offer a semblance of privacy. Clément was
said to attend all of her subsequent births, and his attendance at
important court births began to change the custom of who over-
saw childbirth. (Two of the four children born to the duchess were
eventually legitimated, which increased her standing in society.)
Over time, more men, called accoucheurs, were appointed to jobs
in lying-in hospitals. This was the beginning of men being chiefly
in charge of the birthing process.
By the 18th century, more men were attending women in child-
birth. The leading obstetrician in London was William Smellie
(1697–1763). His well-known Treatise on the Theory and Practice
of Midwifery, published in three volumes between 1752–64, con-
tained a good explanation of the various stages of the labor pro-
cess, and he wrote the first systematic discussion on the safe use of
obstetrical forceps (see “The Chamberlen Family Secret” below),
which saved countless lives. He also devised a method that helped
turn a breech baby for an easier birth. Smellie placed midwifery
on a sound scientific footing and helped to establish obstetrics as
a recognized medical discipline. The well-regarded physician Wil-
liam Hunter was soon to follow.
The Chamberlen Family Secret

While William Smellie was the first to write of the use of forceps
in childbirth, it was suspected at that time—and has since been
proven—that a family by the name of Chamberlen had created
something similar that helped

ease childbirth. The design
of the instrument was kept
secret and used only by family
members, who served as mid-
wives, for at least 100 years.
Forceps were a revolutionary
instrument that significantly
reduced the mortality rate for
women and their fetuses in
difficult deliveries by chang-
ing the position of the fetus in
the uterus to make the deliv-
ery safer and easier. Before the
invention of forceps, difficult
deliveries usually ended with
an abortion of the baby or
the death of both mother and
First created and used by the fetus. If the mother died, then
Chamberlen family, forceps greatly
sometimes cesarean sections
improved the odds of a safe birth for
both mother and child. The family were successfully performed
did not share their secret for many to save the baby.
years, but, by the 18th century, While the idea that a family
other physicians were using the
implement.
withheld this type of improve-
ment from others is certainly
not to their credit, the Cham-
berlens encountered resentment from the medical establishment
for their stance that midwives should organize separately, which
would have diminished the power of the College of Physicians.
The antagonism between the college and the family may have left
the brothers in no spirit to share their knowledge.
Peter Chamberlen (the elder) was the first Chamberlen who
helped women through childbirth. He was born in Paris in 1560,
the son of a Huguenot barber-surgeon. The family soon had to
flee France for religious reasons, and they settled in Southamp-
ton where another son, also named Peter, was born. Both sons
followed in their father’s footsteps and became barber-surgeons,
and they became known for their skills at helping with difficult
births. Peter the elder moved to London in 1596 and became sur-
geon and accoucheur to Queen Anne, wife of James I, and he was
soon joined by his brother. Peter the elder was eventually commit-
ted to prison for prescribing medicines that were contrary to the
rules of the College of Physicians. The Lord Mayor interceded, and
he was released. Then, the College of Physicians tried to have the
younger Chamberlen put in prison to make up for the elder getting
out, but their plan did not come to fruition.
Exactly which family member developed the obstetrical for-
ceps and the year in which it was done are shrouded in mystery
because the family carefully guarded their secret. Biographers
write that the Chamberlens would arrive by carriage at the house
of the expectant woman. They brought with them a wooden box
so big that it had to be carried by two people. The box was adorned
with gilded carvings, and it was rumored to contain a complicated
machine that would help with childbirth. The laboring woman
was blindfolded so that she could not see the secret device, and the
Chamberlens requested that family members step out of the room
before they set up for the birth process; then the door was locked.
The Chamberlens were either showmen or people’s imaginations
ran wild, as those nearby reported that they heard ringing bells
and other sinister sounds as the secret was put to work.
Peter the younger fathered another Peter who went into the
family business and served Queen Henrietta Maria. His reputation
was such that he was asked by the czar of Russia to attend a family
birth; Charles I did not give permission. This Peter Chamberlen
also worked to create a Corporation of London Midwives, but this
move also met with great resistance from the College of Physi-
cians and other midwives who decided they preferred remaining
independent.
His son, Hugh, continued the family tradition. It seems that
in 1670 he visited Paris, hoping to sell the family secret to the
French government. François Mauriçeau, a well-respected obste-
trician in France, asked Hugh to oversee the delivery of a baby
of a dwarf with a very deformed pelvis, perhaps as some sort of
test. Hugh was unable to provide effective help. Whether Hugh
failed to make the sale to the French because he failed to save the
dwarf or because Mauriçeau had no respect for him is unknown;
some sources report that Mauriçeau accused Chamberlen of being
a swindler and was aghast that the family would keep such an
important invention a secret.
Chamberlen seemed to hold no ill will toward Mauriçeau, and
he brought back a copy of Mauriçeau’s very excellent book on
obstetrics. In 1672, Hugh translated and arranged to publish it,
including the following apology:
My father, brothers and my self (tho’ none else in Europe as I

know) have, by God’s blessing and our industry, attain’d to and
long practis’d a way to deliver women in this case (obstructed
labour), without any prejudice to them or their infants: tho’
all others (being oblig’d for want of such an expedient to use
the common way) do and must endanger, if not destroy one or
both with hooks . . . I will now take leave to offer an apology
for not publishing the secret I mention we have to extract chil-
dren without hooks, where other artists use them, viz., there
being my father and two brothers living that practise this art.
I cannot esteem it my own to dispose of, nor publish it without
injury to them.
The book, complete with his own apologetic explanation,

brought Hugh to prominence, and he established a very success-
ful practice and was appointed as a physician in ordinary to King
Charles II. Hugh had no male heir, and obstetrician William
Smellie believes that because of this Hugh let the secret leak out.
Certainly by 1733, forceps were being used. The English physician
Edmund Chapman wrote about the design and use of the obstet-
rical forceps, and historians feel his account accurately reflected
the device that the Chamberlens used though there was no proof
of this for a very long time. Then in 1813, the floorboards in the
attic of the home in which Peter Chamberlen used to live were
lifted and five pairs of obstetric forceps were revealed. His wife,
Ann, had evidently hidden them at the time of his death, 130 years
earlier. Reportedly, they were remarkably well designed and had

a cranial curve for grasping the head. These instruments are now
in the possession of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gyn-
aecologists in London.
William Hunter (1718–1783): Notable Obstetrician

William Hunter was the first of two remarkable brothers who
were to make important contributions to medicine. William began
with a specialty in physiology
and anatomy and ran a well-
respected school of anatomy in
London; he later devoted his
practice to obstetrics.
William had intended to
go into the ministry, but the
well-respected physician and
University of Glasgow profes-
sor William Cullen spotted
William’s abilities and encour-
aged him to go into medicine. A
strong relationship developed
between the two men, and Cul-
len invited William to join his
practice to eventually take over
the surgical duties. The two
men agreed that Hunter should
go to Edinburgh and London to
further his medical knowledge.
While away, the young man
The study of anatomy was still not
discovered the excitement of part of the curriculum at most medical
studying anatomy and, with schools, so those who wished to
Cullen’s blessing, stayed in study the human body had to pay to
attend classes at a separate school
London to pursue his opportu-
that specialized in these courses.
nities. He soon began lecturing William Hunter ran one such school
on both anatomy and surgery of anatomy.
for an organization of navy surgeons. He went on to serve as sur-

geon-accoucheur at Middlesex Hospital (1748) and the British
Lying-in Hospital (1749). To firm up his credentials, he returned
to the University of Glasgow in 1750 to obtain his degree. (At that
time, the degree of doctor of medicine was granted when the candi-
date presented certificates from other doctors of medicine that veri-
fied his qualifications and, most important, paid an agreed-upon
sum for the degree.) In 1764, he was appointed physician to Queen
Charlotte Sophia. When the Royal Academy finally added anatomy
to their medical curriculum, they turned to William Hunter to
serve as the first professor in that field.
Hunter’s greatest work was Anatomia uteri umani gravaidi
(The anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures),
published in 1774. Within Hunter’s text were schematic illustra-
tions similar to those created by the 15th-century artist, Leonardo
da Vinci, showing the various stages of the developing embryo
within the uterus.
Hunter’s knowledge of anatomy made him of value within
the field of natural history, too, and when French academicians
returned from the United States with bones from what was pre-
sumed to be an elephant found along the banks of the Ohio River,
Hunter concluded that it was not an elephant but an animal incog-
nitum (probably the mammoth of Siberia).
William lived for his work. In 1783, he suffered a particularly
severe case of gout that had kept him bedridden. One morning he
felt a little better, so he decided to get up and give the introductory
lecture on surgery at his school. By the end of the lecture, he was
so exhausted he fainted and had to be carried out of the lecture
hall by servants. A few days later, he died.
Hunter himself contributed greatly to the improvement in stud-
ies of anatomy as well as advancements in obstetrics, but he also
developed pupils who had great influence in the field. William
Shippen moved to the colonies and taught anatomy and midwifery
in Philadelphia from 1763, and he helped establish the domination
of male accoucheurs in North America. Shippen also introduced
other changes. He believed women should give birth in rooms
that were light and airy, and breast-feeding was encouraged. The
light, airy rooms eventually made way for light, airy, and sanitary
rooms, and the idea of breast-feeding was a return to the past that
benefited both mother and baby.
John Hunter (1728–1793): British Anatomist

and Surgeon
John Hunter’s background made it quite surprising that he emerged
to be the preeminent surgeon of his day. The 10th and last child,
John was much indulged. He attended only a few years of elemen-
tary school, obtaining no further education after these early years.
Then, at the age of 20, he wrote to his older brother, William, and
asked if he could come to London and assist at William’s anat-
omy school. (Anatomy was not considered part of medical school
so it was taught through private institutions; classes were small
because not many students could pay for the additional education.)
William quickly agreed to his
brother’s visit, and, shortly
after he arrived, John was
given an arm from a cadaver
and told to isolate the muscles.
John excelled at this, and, after
a second “test,” he was taken
in for further instruction by
William and his assistant.
Over time, John began to han-
dle most of the dissections for
the school, though his lack of
education made him a poor lec-
turer. In 1749, John also began
attending at the Chelsea hospi-
tal where he saw firsthand the
nature of illness and injuries. John Hunter was one of the
preeminent surgeons of his day;
In the late 1750s, John engraved by W. Holl (National Library
Hunter’s health began to suf- of Medicine)
fer, and it was determined that he was spending too long in the
autopsy rooms, so, in 1760, he pursued an appointment to be a
staff surgeon in the military. England was involved in wars on
several fronts at the time, and first John was sent to Belle Île, a
small island off the coast of France, and later he was transferred
to Portugal, where he helped with the wounded. His war-related
experience was later reflected in his Treatise on the Blood, Inflam-
mation and Gun-Shot Wounds, which was not published until 1794,
the year after his death.
When he returned to London, he continued doing surgery
and dissections, but, during his free time in the military, he had
become fascinated with the animals and natural history of the
areas where he was stationed. This fascination continued, and he
acquired an assortment of animals to study (including leopards,
jackals, goats, and rams), as well as ducks and geese so that he
could gather their eggs to conduct embryological studies. While in
the military, John had undertaken embryological studies of eels,
so he also made arrangements with a fishmonger to bring in eels
every month as he continued to attempt to identify the eels’ ova-
Surgery was still usually taught by one physician giving a lecture while
another person demonstrated what should be done using a cadaver.
ries. Because he had no more powerful tool than the naked eye
for his dissections, he was never able to achieve this goal. Hunter
helped found the Royal Veterinary College and did notable work
on animals as diverse as whales and opossums.
In the winter of 1773, John became annoyed that others were
teaching his surgical methods, sometimes incorrectly, so he decided
to organize a lecture series to teach his systematic principles of
surgery. Because lecturing made him so uncomfortable, his biog-
rapher, Everard Home, wrote that he had to take 30 drops of lau-
danum (opium) before each lecture.
Bodies were not easy to come by, and even esteemed physi-
cians such as the Hunters had to resort to underhanded means to
obtain bodies. (See “Procuring Bodies for Study” on page 34) In
1783, John Hunter was said to have bribed an undertaker £500
for a particularly noteworthy specimen—the corpse of an Irish
giant who was so oversized that he had been a circus attraction.
The giant had wished to be buried at sea, but Hunter bribed the
right people, was able to conduct some study of the cadaver, and
eventually put the skeleton on display.
By the end of his career, John Hunter had many accomplishments.
He was first to use surgical ligation to correct an aneurysm (1785);
wrote Natural History of the Human Teeth (two volumes, 1771 and
1778), which advanced dentistry; studied and wrote about digestion
delivering a paper, On the Digestion of the Stomach after Death, to the
Royal Society in 1772. He studied comparative anatomy, the lym-
phatic system, and examined inflammation and gunshot wounds.
He also studied venereal disease. There are conflicting reports on
how his study was conducted. Some say he injected diseased pus
into a nephew and observed the fellow’s reaction over time. Another
report had it that he injected himself with infected pus and then had
to delay his marriage until he had undergone a cure. (There actually
was an unexpectedly long—three years—delay between his engage-
ment and his marriage, but no one knows the reason.)
John was committed to improving medical education and insti-
tuted a medical society, Lyceum Medicum Londinense. In 1783, he
purchased a home that was large enough to house his growing col-
lection of specimens and also built rooms for conducting classes.
By 1792, he had turned all lecturing duties over to Sir Everard
Home so that he could perform surgery and write. The part of
the home he dedicated to his collection became a comprehensive
museum of comparative anatomy featuring items from Belle Île
and Portugal as well as local specimens. At the time of his death,
the museum contained some 14,000 preparations, most of which
had been prepared by Hunter himself.
Biographer Everard Home eventually burned many of John
Hunter’s notes. Some biographers feel that his own work was heav-
Operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. This is

a reenactment of the first operation under anesthesia (ether), which took
place on October 16, 1846. Daguerrotype by the famed Southworth &
Hawes partnership of Boston (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division)
ily based on Hunter’s work and therefore he could not afford for
people to see Hunter’s original notes.
The Early Use of Anesthesia

Prior to 1846 and the introduction of anesthesia, surgery was
almost always limited to the extremities and superficial parts of
the body. Anything else would have been too painful. However,
the introduction of anesthesia did not lead to an immediate accel-
eration of surgical advances as there were still many other aspects
of medicine that needed to be understood, such as how to con-
trol infection and pathology
so physicians had some idea of
what they were accomplishing
surgically.
There were two forms of
anesthesia that came into use
in the 1840s: One was nitrous
oxide (often called laughing
gas) and the other was ether,
which became the more popu-
lar for surgery. Nitrous oxide
was first used with dental
patients, and, over time, it
became more commonly used
by dentists than physicians.
(Some dentists today still use
it.) For surgical patients, ether
was often administered by
having a patient breathe into a
cloth saturated with ether, and As physicians experimented with
this method of drug delivery substances more efficient than alcohol
was used into the 20th cen- to render a patient unconscious during
surgery, one of the intoxicating agents
tury. Because physicians were
tried was chloroform, administered
in disbelief that surgery could by this type of inhaler and first used
be accomplished without caus- in the mid-19th century.
ing pain to the patient, these early operations with the patient
under ether were frequently performed in front of audiences.
Procuring Bodies for Study

While the days since Leonardo da Vinci had to study anatomy by
candlelight in a well-hidden location so that no one would know
he was doing dissection were in the past, things had only advanced
a little. People understood the necessity of studying the human
body, but that did not mean that cadavers were easy to come by.
With a decrease in capital punishment, professors and students
had to explore underground ways for getting bodies. As a result,
a full-fledged profession developed for people who were willing
to procure cadavers for pay. Calling themselves resurrectionists or
resurrection-men, these fellows came up with several methods for
obtaining bodies.
The poorhouses were valuable sources, so the resurrectionists
developed contacts who would notify them when someone died.
Other men employed women who could claim a body by arriving
at a poorhouse acting the part of a grieving relative. Bribing ser-
vants to give up a master’s body and putting stones into the coffin
instead was also sometimes done.
Other resurrectionists trolled cemeteries for what they needed.
In New York and Philadelphia, public officials and burial ground
employees were routinely bribed for entrance to the potter’s fields
to get bodies. Graves of black people were more readily raided than
those of white people, but white bodies were not safe, either. Res-
urrectionists would arrive in the dark of night. They dug quickly
with a wooden spade to avoid the clanging sound of a metal one.
They mastered the art of unearthing just one end of the coffin
and then using a crowbar to open and break the top (the weight
of the earth on the other end of the coffin lid helped them snap it
off). A rope was then put around the body so it could be dragged
out. Resurrectionists prided themselves on leaving clothing and
jewelry behind; body-snatching was a misdemeanor while thievery
of the belongings upgraded it to a felony.
The Doctors’ Riot
At City Hospital in New York on April 13, 1788, a young boy

peeking through the hospital window became concerned
that the body the physicians were dissecting was that of his
recently deceased mother. He reported this to his father, a
mason, who led a group of laborers to the cemetery to check
on the grave, and, when they opened it, the grave was empty.
The group then moved on to attack the hospital. The states-
men John Jay and Alexander Hamilton arrived and tried to
calm the mob, but they were stoned for their efforts. For their
safety, the medical students were jailed.
Recently, a contemporary account of this event was found
in a collection of papers belonging to John Marshall at the
Institute of Early American History in Williamsburg, Virginia,
and it was reprinted in the Bulletin of the New York Academy
of Medicine. The letter, quoted below, was written by a colo-
nel in the militia reporting to Governor Edmund Randolph on
what was happening:
We have been in a state of great tumult for a day or two

past—The causes of which as well as I can digest them
from various accounts, are as follows. The Young stu-
dents of Physic, have for some time past, been loudly
complained of, for their very frequent and wanton tres-
passes in the burial grounds of this City. The Corpse of a
Young gentleman from the West Indias, was lately taken
up—the grave left open, & the funeral clothing scatterd
about . . . The cemeteries have been watched carefully.
Then: On Sunday last, as some people were strolling by
the hospital, they discovered a something hanging up at
one of the windows, which excited their curiosity, and
making use of a stick to satisfy that curiosity, part of a
(continues)
(continued)
man’s arm or leg tumbled out upon them. The cry of bar-
barity &c was soon spread—the young sons of Galen fled
in every direction—one took refuge up a chimney—the
mob raisd—and the Hospital apartments were ransacked.
The mob reassembled on Monday and more destruction
followed.
Despite these difficult circumstances, change did not

really occur in this practice until the 1820s.
Body-snatching presented a terrible problem for the families of

the deceased. They commonly set up watch over the body until
burial and then someone would station themselves near the grave
for a few days to be certain it was not dug up after burial. However,
the body snatchers were quite artful; they sometimes tunneled into
a recent grave after digging a hole 15–20 feet (4.6–6.1 m) away. The
end of the coffin was then removed and the corpse was pulled out
through the tunnel.
Medical students were often responsible for procuring their
own bodies, and documents indicate that the procurement of bod-
ies was actually quite stressful. One fellow wrote: “No occurrences
in the course of my life have given me more trouble and anxiety
than the procuring of subjects for dissection.” With his friends
at Harvard, this fellow, John Collins Warren, Jr., created a secret
anatomic society in 1771 called Spunkers, whose purpose was to
conduct anatomic dissections.
The first law that was somewhat helpful in delivering bodies
for use by medical students was the Murder Act of 1752, and it
stipulated that the corpses of executed murderers could be used
for dissection. In 1810, a society was formed to begin to push for
an alteration in the law since there were not enough bodies. The
final straw came in the late 1820s when two resurrectionists,
Burke and Hare, in Edinburgh decided the way to get truly fresh
corpses, which commanded more money, was by murder. This
and the “London Burkers” that followed (London Burkers were
body snatchers who continued the practice of Burke and Hare and
murdered victims so they would have bodies to sell to anatomists)
stressed the importance of passing the Anatomy Act of 1832,
which allowed that unclaimed bodies and those donated by rela-
tives could be used for the study of anatomy. Anatomy teachers
also needed to be licensed by this rule. All these new laws led to a
decrease in the practice of body-snatching.
Conclusion
“Don’t think, try the experiment,” were favorite words of John
Hunter, and that well explains the spirit of the times when it came
to issues of anatomy, surgery, and childbirth. The physicians were
pushing forward to learn more, and, while not all the things they
learned provided them with helpful answers, the work they did
certainly began to point them in a new and improved direction.
3
Changes in Battlefield Medicine
T hroughout the 17th century, little thought was given to caring

for the wounded on the battlefield. During earlier times when
swords and arrows created most of the battle injuries, individu-
als took care of their own wounds or they might be helped by a
fellow soldier. Most had to walk off the battlefield themselves as
there was no method for transporting them at that time. Many
of the badly wounded were simply left to die; some who were not
fatally wounded but were not mobile could not help themselves
and eventually died of hunger or thirst lying in the spot where
they were injured. A doctor or barber-surgeon might be sought
out later to provide additional aid, but this occurred only after the
battle was over.
At this same time, medical knowledge in Europe was begin-
ning to increase. Physicians now understood the circulatory and
respiratory systems, the microscope was being used to learn more
about the functions of the body, and discoveries in chemistry and
physics were occurring with some regularity. Surgical instruments
were greatly improved, and, with the invention of the printing
press, the experience of other physicians could be written down
and read about by others.
However, despite these advances, treatment of regular
patients—as well as wounded soldiers—was about the same. The
38
Changes in Battlefield Medicine 3
ligation method used by the Romans was still used to control

bleeding from the arteries, and not until the 18th century was
there progress in amputation. With the advent of deadlier ways
to use gunpowder, more serious wounds were occurring and the
results were devastating. Sometimes the wounds themselves were
fatal because the bleeding was not stopped quickly enough; other
times the gunpowder and other unclean projectiles would settle
into the wound, causing deadly infections. Salves, ranging from
all sorts of potions to dung, were placed on wounds, and many
of the treatments were useless, some even harmful. Sometimes
gunshot wounds were treated by applying a mixture to the sol-
dier’s weapon, and the concoctions were often so dangerous that
sometimes this was preferable to putting these concoctions on the
wound.
It became very clear that these methods of self-aid and incon-
sistent professional attention after battle were inadequate. Change
was afoot. This chapter will explain the state of battlefield medi-
cine in the early 1700s and introduce innovators like Dominique-
Jean Larrey, the first modern military surgeon, who addressed
getting treatment to the soldiers on the battlefield and helped
bring about new treatments. Europe’s armies saw many types of
improvements as the century wore on, but few of these changes
were possible for the ragtag group that made up the army during
the Revolutionary War.
the state of Battlefield MediCine

By the early 1700s, the men on the battlefield were aware that
certain medical improvements were vital if any of the soldiers
were going to survive. Bandaging and wound-dressing became a
skill that many learned. They applied pressure with sponges or
sometimes applied styptics to stop minor bleeding. Once the sol-
diers got off the battlefield, physicians were devising new ways
to help them. One of the devices created during this time was a
surgical tool for removing musket balls. However, no one under-
stood the importance of sterilization so the statistics on survival
Hippolyte Delaroche: Napoléon Crossing the Alps, Paris, 1848 (Musée

du Louvre, P.d.)
showed little improvement. A French surgeon, Jean-Louis Petit

(1674–1750), invented a screw tourniquet that was very helpful in
controlling bleeding, and the device made thigh amputations possi-
ble. The screw tourniquet actually had quite a long life, and it was
used for the next 160 years—until after the American Civil War.
Pierre-Joseph Desault (1744–95), a military surgeon, developed a

technique for treating traumatic wounds by removing the dead
tissue that usually removed the source of the infection. Percival
Pott (1714–88), a British mili-
tary surgeon, reduced the risk
of infection in head wounds by
developing a method for drain-
ing the wounds. As amputa-
tions became somewhat safer,
military surgeons gave greater
emphasis to preparing limbs
for prosthetics. The death rate
from amputation remained
high until methods were devel-
oped in the 19th century to
control infection and shock.
John Pringle (1707–82),
the physician general to the
British forces in 1740, identi-
fied jail fever, ship fever, and
hospital fever as being one dis-
ease, now known as epidemic
typhus. This discovery had a
great impact on the military
and will be fully discussed in
chapter 4.
Though Pringle was only
in active service for six years,
the observations he made dur-
ing this time were key to the
world of medicine. A very sim- Larrey made improvements in the
ple request by Pringle made a methods used for amputations, and
big difference to the soldiers— he also established a 24-hour rule. To
Pringle asked that every man be successful, amputations needed
be done quickly, and no more than
be issued a blanket, something 24 hours should pass before the
that had not been done before. surgery was completed.
He also established that military hospitals needed to be recognized

as a neutral territory so that medical help could be located nearer
the battlefield without threat of attack.
Other physicians and surgeons also began to write about ways
to keep armies healthy. In 1764, Richard Brockelsby (1722–97),
an English physician, wrote a book on controlling contagious dis-
eases in military hospitals. In 1794, the Scottish surgeon John
Hunter’s (see chapter 2) treatise on gunshot wounds was pub-
lished. In it, Hunter argued against additional bloodletting after
a gunshot wound.
The First Modern Military Surgeon

Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766–1842) can be credited with intro-
ducing field hospitals, ambulance service, and first-aid practices
to the battlefield. He saved countless lives during the Napoleonic
Wars and created a model for casualty transport that would serve
armies well into the 20th century.
Dominique-Jean Larrey was born in a small village in the Pyr-
enees and was orphaned at the age of 13. The uncle who raised
him was chief surgeon in Toulouse, and Larrey’s career choice was
dictated by the opportunity to apprentice under his uncle. Larrey’s
apprenticeship lasted six years, and he showed remarkable abil-
ity so he was sent to Paris to further his studies at the Hôtel-
Dieu. Larrey shifted his plans when he got to Paris and joined
the French navy instead. He became chief surgeon on a frigate
traveling to North America. In 1792, he was in France when war
broke out, and he became an assistant surgeon in the French army
on the Rhine.
During one of Larrey’s first experiences in battle (campaign
of the Rhine, 1792), he noted the problems with caring for the
wounded: “The wounded were left on the field, until after the
engagement, and were then collected at a convenient spot, to
which the ambulances speeded as soon as possible; but the num-
ber of wagons interposed between them and the Army and many
other difficulties so retarded their progress that they never arrived
in less than 24 or 36 hours, so

most of the wounded died for
want of assistance . . .” quotes
Captain José M. Ortiz from
Larrey’s memoirs in an article
on Larrey in the U.S. Army
Medical Department Journal.
Larrey was not writing
about an isolated case; the
problem was widespread. In
1788, France had issued a royal
ordinance requiring the cre-
ation of better transportation
for the battle wounded, and,
in 1792, a National Conven-
tion was set up to discuss it.
In 1793, representatives from
the commission offered a prize Dominique-Jean Larrey by Anne-
Louis Girodet-Trioson (The Yorck
for the transportation design Project)
that best fit the commission’s
specifications. However, after
eight months, the commission had not yet seen a design they were
satisfied with.
Those on the battlefield had to take a more practical approach,
and so Larrey simply set about looking for a solution. In 1797, he
was appointed to aid in the medical affairs of the military cam-
paign in Italy, and this gave him the opportunity to test a theory
he felt would work. During his time on the battlefield, Larrey had
observed an operation—a horse artillery—that the French army
had perfected to a high degree. First used by the Swedish during
the Thirty Years’ War, this artillery unit featured mounted sol-
diers on horseback who could mobilize quickly to swoop in and
bring additional firepower to supplement the infantry wherever
needed. By the 18th century, King Frederick the Great adopted
the method for use in Prussia in 1759, and he insisted that his
men drill relentlessly so that they understood the importance of
Larrey realized that to work efficiently on the battlefield, physicians

needed to be well organized.
mobility and speed in their operations to bring in more power-

ful firepower quickly. Soon other armies were using the system,
but the largest and most efficient system was organized by the
French revolutionary army. Larrey had plenty of opportunity
to observe the speed and efficiency by which the well-practiced,
mounted crew could operate. He thought if he could introduce a
similar system to aid battlefield medical care, it would really make
a difference.
He realized that a well-organized casualty transport system
was key. His rank permitted him to gather a legion of 340 men,
made up of officers, sub-officers, and privates. He broke the unit
into three groups of 113 men, each commanded by a chief sur-
geon, and arranged for each division to have 12 light and four
heavy carriages; each carriage was manned by a crew of seven.
Everyone had a specific assignment. One fellow was the bearer
of surgical instruments, another carried surgical dressings; 25
foot soldiers accompanied the group to care for the wounded.
According to Captain Ortiz’s article, it is known from Larrey’s

memoirs what the various soldiers were assigned to carry: each
surgeon “carried a small cartouche box . . . divided into several
compartments, containing a case of portable surgical instru-
ments, some medicines, and articles necessary for affording
immediate assistance to the wounded, on the field of battle. . . .”
Officers were also given courier bags that attached to the saddles
that contained field dressings (this was instead of pistol holsters).
Others were there to solve other types of problems. There was a
farrier (blacksmith), a saddler, and a bootmaker to help get the
men moving again.
Each division had 12 light carriages; some had two wheels for
use on level ground; some had four wheels for getting through
more rugged terrain. The ambulances traveled in a set order, and
procedures were outlined for what to do with the dead. Larrey
described his basic ambulance as follows: “The frame . . . resem-
bled an elongated cube, curved on the top: it had two small win-
dows on each side, a folding door opened before and behind. The
floor of the body was moveable; and on it were placed a hair mat-
tress, and a bolster of the same, covered with leather. This floor
moved easily on the sides of the body by means of four small roll-
ers; on the sides were four iron handles through which the sashes
of the soldiers were passed, while putting the wounded on the
sliding floor. These sashes served instead of litters for carrying the
wounded; they were dressed on these floors when the weather did
not permit them to be dressed on the ground.
The larger ambulances were drawn by four horses and had
two drivers. They also had a compartment in the back to carry
food for the horses and could carry four men with some effort.
The window allowed for ventilation. Compartments on the sides
of the carriage provided storage for medicine and materials for
bandaging. In addition, items such as a handcart could be attached
to the carriage.
Adaptations were always necessary. In rugged areas, mules
were needed for carrying supplies as the carriages could not be
weighed down. In the deserts of Egypt, camels were used to help
with transport, and camels mostly replaced the other pack animals
as well since they were more useful in the desert.
Larrey had planned the ambulance corps so that they could
follow the most rapid guard within the army. The corps could also
separate into smaller divisions, and since every medical officer
was mounted and commanded a carriage, they were quickly able
to reach the wounded with all the necessary supplies. In 1799,
in Egypt where Larrey’s flying ambulance corps operated, it was
reported that none of the injured were left for more than a quarter
of an hour without being dressed. Larrey’s ambulances were com-
manded with the control and coordination of a seasoned field com-
mander and their speed and flexibility permitted them to travel
where needed.
Larrey was not alone in experimenting with ways to get injured
men off the battlefield. Another French military physician Baron
F. P. Percy also introduced a casualty transport system. Percy’s
method worked from the concept of being a mobile hospital. Medi-
cal professionals were transported to an area near a battle, and
litter bearers went out to pick up the wounded and bring them to
the chosen location. Larrey’s method involved providing initial
treatment before transport, which ultimately was more effective,
The earliest ambulance did not have anything as elaborate as shock

absorbers. By the American Civil War, they had begun to explore ways
to make travel more comfortable for the patients. Ambulances with these
types of cots would have been rare and were probably used only for
injured officers.
Because travel was slow, this type of tented ambulance provided a way
to travel greater distances with a patient.
but Percy was the first to introduce a “regularly trained corps of

field litter bearers, soldiers regularly formed and equipped for the
duty of picking up the wounded and carrying them on stretchers
to the place where means of surgical aid were provided.” This
was a dangerous and physically strenuous assignment for the
men involved, but also militarily significant because it relieved
the common infantryman of the arduous task of caring for their
wounded.
Both men created specialized ambulance corps and greater
mobility for their physicians, and the guidelines they used to evac-
uate men were the basis on which military systems were later
developed in Korea and Vietnam with helicopters.
Larrey’s Other Accomplishments

As the French began to improve their survival rates, the English
were still faring poorly. Experts debate how much this had to do
with the flying ambulance and how much this had to do with
the superior surgical skills of the French physicians. Larrey was
known as a great commander as well as a great physician. He
participated in 25 campaigns and 60 battles, and in 1801 Larrey

became the surgeon general of the Imperial Guard, Napoléon’s
elite personal reserve corps.
The Importance of Triage
Triage is a method used to sort out patients by the sever-

ity of their conditions. This permits health care workers to
help as many people as possible by providing the care that is
most important immediately. While most sources report that
the first organized use of triage occurred in World War I and
was implemented by French doctors, this is discounting the
fact that Dominique-Jean Larrey was the first to introduce
a system of dispensing care that was not based on military
rank. Larrey also established a rule for the triage (from the
Old French word meaning “to sort”) of war casualties, treat-
ing the wounded according to the seriousness of their inju-
ries and urgency for need of medical care, regardless of their
rank or nationality. Enemy soldiers were treated just as the
French and their allies were.
In general, triage divides victims into the following three
basic categories:
1. Those who are likely to live, regardless of what care

they receive;
2. Those are likely to die no matter what is done for
them;
3. Those for whom immediate care will make a
difference.
During Larrey’s time, the level of medical expertise was still

not very advanced, but men could make an educated guess
based on blood loss and number and location of the wounds
a soldier had received. Implementing this type of method
was a huge improvement over commanders who had minor
During his time in the military, Larrey made many notable

observations. He realized that when a limb is badly damaged in
battle, the speed of amputation can make the difference between
injuries being treated before enlisted men who were more

seriously—but not fatally—wounded.
In today’s military, they have refined triage so that very
initial emergency care is conducted as quickly as possible
but then patients are rapidly sent on to another station where
they can be cared for more extensively. The frontline team
may also specify which patients are moved out first and, if
there is a choice of destinations, they will note where each
patient is to be sent based on each person’s particular needs.
This organized system of interim medical care permits the
emergency workers on the front line to address more of the
injured in a shorter span of time.
After the initial triage at a disaster or on a battlefield,
the next level of medical personnel makes a more detailed
examination and also classifies the patients in the order that
they should be helped. Ethical issues arise during this pro-
cess. In an emergency situation—often with inadequate sup-
plies—treating someone who is unlikely to live takes time and
resources away from someone who may make it, yet making
the decision that someone is past all hope places medical
personnel in a quandary.
Today’s lay and emergency personnel are trained to use
a S.T.A.R.T. (Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment) model of
managing major accidents or natural disasters. This system
divides people into four groups: the deceased; the injured
who can be helped by immediate transportation; the injured
whose transport can be delayed; and those with minor inju-
ries who need help but their needs are less urgent.
life and death, and this, to a large degree, was what drove his cre-
ation of the ambulance system. A few years later, he established a
24-hour principle that set the standard that an amputation should
occur within 24 hours of a limb being shattered. Larrey was also
the first surgeon to successfully amputate a leg at the hip, and he
made many contributions in the treatment of leg fractures.
Larrey was a fellow who achieved recognition during his life-
time. Larrey was popular with the men because the very sight of
the flying ambulance corps provided the men with hope—the first
time their personal fears had been addressed. When Napoléon’s
troops were fleeing Russia over the last bridge crossing the Ber-
ezina River in 1812, Baron Larrey was specially lifted overhead
by the crowd of troops so that he could get safely across before the
other men.
At Waterloo, the duke of Wellington noted Larrey and ordered
his soldiers not to fire in his direction to give him time to gather
up the wounded. Napoléon himself was a fan of Larrey and once
commented: “If the army ever erects a monument to express its
gratitude, it should do so in honor of Larrey.”
Improvements in Military Medicine

At the beginning of the century, the pattern of military medical
care remained essentially as it had been in the previous century.
By midcentury, however, all major European governments had
moved toward providing food and medical care to all soldiers who
were serving in the military. This included whatever was needed
to maintain the health of the troops.
Food, Shelter, and Uniforms

Most soldiers who entered the military were coming out of poor
living circumstances, so any regularly provided meals meant an
improvement in their stamina. By the mid-18th century, govern-
ments were beginning to pay closer attention to providing enough
food regularly, but the quality and quantity of food was often
less than promised. Sometimes the government contracts were
manipulated by fraud;
other times, pressure
to reduce government
expenses affected the
quantity or quality
of food purchased for
troops in the field.
In addition to pro-
viding the men with
regular meals, the
military began build-
ing barracks that were
designed to house the
troops when they were
at their home base.
(Before this, armies
used to rent out inns or
place troops in homes
of residents.) The first
British barracks were
introduced in Ireland
in 1713 due to a short-
age of barns and inns.
New clothing for
the soldiers was a A leg amputation from Principles and Practice
worthy investment. of Modern Surgery (1860) by Robert Druitt
(American Civil War Surgical Antiques)
Health practitioners
soon learned that those
entering the military needed to be bathed, and, because of lice
infestations, it was a good idea to simply burn the clothing they
were wearing on arrival. New clothing provided something for the
men to wear, and a preplanned color provided easy identification
on the battlefield. Because battles at that time were much more
confrontational, ready identification was considered a plus until
the Americans instituted the ambush style of attack where being
able to lurk in the background was advantageous.
Unfortunately for the men, the uniforms were designed for the
benefit of the country paying the bill. The priorities for select-
ing uniforms were affordability and making the men identifiable.
The companies that made the uniforms frequently worked with
cotton. The price for cotton was low, but the cloth provided lit-
tle warmth and no protection against cold or rain. Tight buttons
and belts often restricted breathing. Many units were assigned to
wear tight stockings, which restricted the blood flow and provided
insufficient padding to the bottoms of the soldiers’ feet. The shoes
themselves were not created for miles and miles of walking, and
they provided little protection from frostbite and trench foot. The
headgear selected was sometimes heavy, and none provided protec-
tion from shell fragments and bullets.
Better Health
The custom of putting new soldiers through a physical examina-
tion resulted from the fact that governments began noticing that
those who joined the military tended to be underfed and often
bug-infested. At first, each company commander was ordered to
give a quick examination to each new recruit. In 1726, the French
army began assigning a physician to conduct the examinations,
and, approximately 40 years later (1764), they began assessing the
recruits for physical fitness. The Prussian government instituted
regular physical examinations of all soldiers in 1788, and, in 1790,
the British army finally fell in line with what the other countries
were doing and added mandatory medical examinations for those
entering the British army.
As previously discussed, few armies organized transport sys-
tems to move the wounded off the field. It often took several days
for the injured to reach the closest hospital (usually a nearby
house or barn commandeered for this purpose), and it was not
unusual for a third of the patients to die in transit from the
front to the rear hospitals. More and more armies were begin-
ning to organize mobile field hospitals that could be located near
the battles, but few had enough staff to adequately address the
injuries that were occurring on the battlefield. Military hospitals
remained unsanitary,
and disease continued
to be the major threat
to military manpower.
In 1743, after the
Battle of Dettingen,
the last time a British
monarch personally led
his men into battle, an
agreement was made
to declare medical per- Field Hospital after the Battle of June 27—
sonnel noncombatants Savage Station, Virginia, June 30, 1862 (The
and to give wounded Civil War Home Page)
enemy soldiers medi-
cal treatment and return them after they recovered from their
injuries. This created a need for more medical personnel in order
that there would be enough staff to treat soldiers from both sides
of the battlefield.
Medical Care during the Revolutionary War

Whatever gains might have been made on behalf of soldiers by the
European countries, these advances were totally absent for the mot-
ley assortment of men who gathered to form the American army to
fight in the Revolution. The men were not well fed, and no one had
any understanding of germs or the spread of disease. They lived in
close quarters and suffered malnutrition and fatigue. During this
period, more Americans died from illness than died in combat.
The military attempted to regulate cleanliness of the camps
and provide bedding and a balanced diet, but it was far from ideal.
In fact, soldiers often went weeks without changing their clothes.
Diseases ran through the camps at a rapid pace.
On the American side, anyone with medical knowledge was
pressed into service to help tend to the injured or the sick. Each
regiment brought its own physician, but these hometown doc-
tors varied in ability. Only a handful had graduated from the
10-year-old Philadelphia
Medical College, and another
group—fewer than 300—were
mainly graduates of European
medical schools where admis-
sion requirements included a
knowledge of the classics and
enough money to pay for the
degree, which was heavy on
theory and light on any clini-
cal training.
Besides caring for those
wounded in battle, the camp
surgeon was responsible for
caring for the camp’s diseased
soldiers. The camp surgeon
was constantly on the alert for
unsanitary conditions in camp
that might lead to disease.
Common diseases suffered by
Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in soldiers were dysentery, fever,
the field of nursing. Her observations and smallpox, brought about by
of the care of the wounded during the bad sanitation. Hospitals were
Crimean War led her to campaign for
set up temporarily, usually in
better treatment for patients. (Photo
by Perry Pictures, Library of Congress a local home near the camp. If
Prints and Photographs Division) soldiers were sent on to an offi-
cial hospital, they were often
overcrowded, lacking in supplies and cleanliness, which increased
the death rate.
The most common type of surgery was the removal of musket
balls from wounds or the bandaging of stabs from bayonets. In
cases where the bone was damaged so severely that a limb could not
be saved, the surgeon performed an amputation without anesthe-
sia or any type of sterilization. Before an amputation, officers were
generally offered rum or brandy to numb the pain, but enlisted
men did without. Two fellow soldiers or two medical personnel
would hold the patient on the table, and a tourniquet was placed
four fingers above the line where the limb was to be removed.
Then the surgeon used his amputation knife to cut down to the
bone of the damaged limb. Arteries were moved aside by tacking
them away from the main area with crooked needles. The surgeon
used a bone saw; a small one was used on arms, a bigger one to
remove a leg above the knee. A good surgeon could make the cut in
about 45 seconds. Then arteries were buried in tissue skin flapped
over and sutured. The stump was bandaged with linen, and the
patient, whose temperature generally plummeted and went into
shock, was stabilized when possible. Only 35 percent of the people
who went through this procedure survived.
The Continental Congress created the hospital department for
the army. The original department consisted of administrators
and a corps of physicians for the Continental army. The army
physicians did not wear uniforms until 1816, and they were not
given military rank until 1847. Over time this department began
to establish acceptable treat-
ments of injuries and illnesses
and a formalized list of quali-
fications for physicians.
Dr. Benjamin Church
(1734–78) is a name that
frequently surfaces in writ-
ings about the Revolutionary
War. He was an active mem-
ber of the Sons of Liberty and
counted John Adams, Samuel
Adams, John Hancock, and
Paul Revere among his col-
leagues. He was the first physi-
cian on the scene at the Boston
Massacre of 1770 and tended
to the wounded and dying. He
was a well-respected member Dr. Benjamin Church (National Library
of the Boston Committee of of Medicine)
Correspondence that helped push for the Revolution and, because

he was a physician, he was appointed to be the director of the
Continental army hospital in Cambridge in 1775.
Paul Revere was one of the first to be suspicions of Church.
When information from a secret meeting Church and Revere had
attended was leaked to British officers, Revere became concerned,
but it took several more years before Church’s status as a spy was
revealed. Church had crossed military lines, saying he had to get
more medical supplies, and he claimed to have been detained and
questioned by General Thomas Gage while on the other side. Over
time, word leaked out that Church had actually sought out Gage,
and later he was caught sending coded messages to a British naval
commander. The Americans court-martialed him, and in 1778 he
was deported to the West Indies. His ship was lost at sea.
Other Challenges of the Battlefield

Concern about air quality during battle is not a modern problem.
As early as the Revolutionary War in the United States, soldiers
were plagued by bad air that made it difficult to breathe. In the
1700s, great amounts of dust and dirt were stirred up by the troops
Though earlier devices had been created to reduce the amount of smoke
or noxious air breathed in by soldiers or firefighters, this device was
created in 1854 by Scottish chemist John Stenhouse. It used charcoal to
filter smoke or noxious gases.
Joseph Lister (1827–1912):

Develops Method of Antiseptic Surgery
By the middle of the 1800s, postoperative sepsis infections

accounted for the death of almost half of the patients under-
going major surgery. A chemist by the name of Justin von
Liebig determined that sepsis occurred when the injury was
exposed to air, so starting in 1839, he advocated that wounds
should be covered with plasters.
British surgeon Joseph Lister was skeptical of this expla-
nation and von Liebig’s recommendation. Lister had devoted
a good number of years to studying inflammation of wounds
at the Glasgow infirmary, and went on to eventually be the
surgeon in charge of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. During
his work, Lister noted that 45 to 50 percent of the amputa-
tion cases in the male accident ward were dying of sepsis
(1861–65).
Lister suspected that a cleaner environment might be
helpful. He began wearing clean clothes when he went in to
perform surgery. (This was not the norm for the day; sur-
geons frequently considered it a badge of honor to appear
in a blood-spattered apron.) He also washed his hands
before each procedure. At first, Lister made no noticeable
progress.
Then he became aware of work being done by Louis Pas-
teur, a chemist who was later to make great strides in under-
standing the cause of disease. Pasteur’s work suggested that
decay came from living organisms that affected human tis-
sues, and Pasteur advocated the use of heat or chemicals to
destroy the microorganisms. Lister determined that Pasteur’s
microorganisms might be causing the gangrene that so often
plagued surgery patients and decided that chemicals would
be the best way to stem the spread of microorganisms dur-
ing and after surgery. He read that carbolic acid was being
(continues)
(continued)
used to treat sewage in some places, so he created a solution
of carbolic acid and began to spray surgical tools, surfaces,
and even surgical incisions with his newly created mixture.
For the next nine months, his patients at the Glasgow Royal
Infirmary remained clear of sepsis.
At first, London and the United States resisted this theory;
though they quibbled less about the theory of germs, they
disagreed with the use of carbolic acid. To overcome this
resistance, Lister arrived to become chair of clinical surgery
at King’s College where he began performing surgery under
antiseptic circumstances, and, without much delay, his meth-
ods were accepted. Within just a few years, other surgeons
began using Lister’s antiseptic methods, and, in 1878, Robert
Koch demonstrated that steam could be used for sterilizing
surgical tools and dressings. (Koch was to go on to make
many other discoveries.)
While the methods of sterilization have changed over the
years, the concept of antiseptic surgery is still vital to suc-
cess in these procedures.
marching through the countryside, and cannons and muskets emit-

ted noxious smoke. Battles would end with the air so dark that it
was difficult to see, let alone to breathe. During the early 19th cen-
tury, several different inventors worked on devising a “gas” mask
that could be used for military purposes. Early masks were simple
pieces of fabric that covered the mouth and nose with the hope of
screening out harmful materials from the air. Then in the early
1800s, chemists realized that charcoal could be used to remove
bad odors. A thin layer of charcoal was sometimes sprinkled over
decaying meat, and this lessened the bad smell. Over time, several
scientists began working with a way to use the charcoal in a gas

mask, a technique that Scottish chemist John Stenhouse perfected
in 1858, before the Civil War. This type of mask also was soon
used in various industries where workers needed masks to filter
out some of the pollutants.
Conclusion
The changes that occurred in medical care on the battlefield were
of vital importance to the soldiers, and the new ideas and inven-
tions that were tested on the battlefield proved helpful in medi-
cal treatment for the general population. From the necessity of
treating the wounded soon after an injury to the process of ster-
ilization, these new methods were to have a lasting impact on the
world of medicine.
4
Curtailing the spread of disease
C holera, plague, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, malaria,

typhus fever, typhoid fever, influenza, and, probably, gonor-
rhea and leprosy were among the diseases that circulated during
the 18th and early 19th centuries. At the time, physicians were
baffled by how illness traveled. The theory of miasma was pop-
ular, but there were other ideas as well. The Italian physician
and scholar Girolamo Fracastoro (who had written an epochal
description of syphilis, giving the disease its name) published On
Contagions and the Cure of Contagious Diseases in 1546. Fracas-
toro proposed that many diseases are caused by transmissible, self-
propagating, disease-specific agents, which propagate themselves
in tissues of the infected host and caused disease. Fracastoro also
suggested that illness could spread by direct contact (person-to-
person) or indirectly (by touching surfaces previously touched by
the ill). But for 150 years, Fracastoro’s ideas on this subject had
been ignored, and no one picked up on it now.
Some countries were beginning to be more interested in study-
ing the pattern of disease, knowing that that could be helpful. By
early in the 15th century, the Italian boards of health instituted
a system of death registration, first for contagious diseases and
subsequently for all diseases. In London in the 17th century, they
started maintaining these types of records as well. These were
60
Curtailing the Spread of disease 61
definite steps forward, as was the spotting of “little animalcules”

by the Dutch cloth merchant Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, but no
one was pursuing the idea that minute organisms might be caus-
ing disease.
Nonetheless, they were highly motivated to try to find ways to
halt the spread of illness. Diseases like smallpox, yellow fever, and
malaria often struck communities with a vengeance, and everyone
wanted to find ways to end the spread of disease.
This chapter examines the work of Sir John Pringle that may
have helped pave the way for the work of Louis Pasteur, and it
discusses how the people of the day came to understand what to do
about typhus, smallpox, and scurvy. The fact that no one under-
stood the nature of what caused illness makes their progress all
the more remarkable.
sir John pringle (1707–1782): a wise oBserver

The Scotsman Sir John Pringle is always mentioned in passing as
a “founder of military medicine,” but his contributions are worth
more than passing attention. He lived and worked in a world that
did not yet know about bacteria and disease, yet Pringle’s work
was one of the contributing factors that helped pave the way for
Louis Pasteur and his development of “germ theory.”
Pringle was the son of a baronet and intended a mercantile
career. However, he happened to hear the well-known Herman
Boerhaave give a lecture on medicine, and he was hooked. He took
up the study of medicine and began his practice in Edinburgh. In
1742, he was appointed physician to the British army, and three
years later he became physician-general of the army.
In 1752, after he had returned to private practice, there was a
serious outbreak of what was called jail fever, which caused the
deaths of prisoners. Some of the prisoners had been brought to
court, and they were so contagious that several judges as well as
the Lord Mayor became ill and died. This spurred Pringle to write
to Richard Mead about “The Hospital and Jayl-Fevers,” in which
he noted that diseases that spread in hospitals and that circulated
in jails were related forms of the same illness, and he identified it

as typhus. He traced the illness to soldiers who had fought in the
Battle of Culloden, who then transmitted the illness to English
troops who soon fell ill as well.
Pringle saw that people living in close quarters—hospitals and
jails—caused infections to spread. Based on his observations,
Pringle wrote Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752),
the first English text on military medicine, which could also be
applied to other environments. He offered sound advice on pre-
venting infections in places like hospitals, addressing the prob-
lems of hospital ventilation and camp sanitation by advancing
rules for proper drainage, adequate latrines, and the avoidance of
setting up camps near marshes. He suggested that military hospi-
tals be treated as sanctuaries, mutually protected by everyone.
Though no one including Pringle understood how typhus spread
Pringle made specific suggestions that he thought might reduce
this disease that decimated military units. He recommended that
when men entered the military their clothing should be burned,
and new clothing should be provided at public expense. He also
suggested that prisoners should be bathed and put in clean clothes
before a court appearance. Regular washing of bedding and cloth-
ing were also recommended. All these suggestions would have
been helpful.
Typhoid fever and typhus are frequently confused. Both were
prevalent at this time, but they are two distinct illnesses that travel
in very different ways. While typhus travels via lice that spread
the disease to humans, typhoid fever comes from ingestion of food
or water contaminated with feces from an infected person. (See
the following sidebar “Typhus: What It Is and How It Spreads” on
page 64) Like typhus, typhoid fever was difficult to avoid when
troops were traveling from place to place and setting up temporary
camps.
Pringle’s ideas were well received, and James Lind, another
Edinburgh physician discussed later in this chapter, began to
introduce these ideas to the Royal Navy, and Richard Brocklesby
took the ideas to the army.
Curtailing the Spread of Disease 63
Both typhus and typhoid fever were prevalent in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Typhus was transmitted by lice and fleas. Typhoid (as depicted
in the illustration) was transmitted via contaminated food.
As he continued to work and observe, Pringle broke rank with

the majority of people who felt that there was an “Epidemick Con-
stitution” (meaning that certain people were predisposed to become
ill) and that miasma was the cause of illness. Pringle’s fourth edition
of his book describes how he thought people become ill, and he puts
forward the possibility that those who were beginning to think that
“animalcula” caused illness might want to further investigate it.
His later edition of the book also recommended the application
of antiseptics (the use of strong acids) for cleaning surgical areas.
Joseph Lister, another Scotsman (see chapter 3), was to later make
more progress in this area. (It is not clear whether he knew of
Pringle’s work.)
James Lind Solves the Problem of Scurvy

Many health problems plagued people of this era, but not all of
them required medicinal cures. This was before any understand-
ing of the necessity of a balanced diet or the value of certain
Typhus:
What It Is and How It Spreads
During the 19th century, typhus spread during many of the

wars that were fought and killed many of the soldiers. Ireland
experienced a major epidemic in 1816–1819, in the late 1830s,
during the 1840s, and during the Irish famine.
It is now known that typhus is a disease that comes from
bacteria borne by lice. The lice live on mice and rats and
transfer to humans, usually those who are living in over-
crowded environments where it is often unclean. Typhus is
also referred to as jail fever, hospital fever, ship fever, and
famine fever, all appropriate labels. The illness begins with
a severe headache and high fever, accompanied by a cough,
severe muscle pain, falling blood pressure, sensitivity to
light, and often stupor or delirium. A rash appears on the
chest about five days after the fever begins.
In America, typhus epidemics occurred in Philadelphia in
1837 and in Baltimore, Memphis, and Washington, D.C. between
1865 and 1873. An epidemic in Concord, New Hampshire, killed
the son of Franklin Pierce (14th president of the United States).
Typhus also was present during the Civil War though typhoid
fever (a very different illness, caused by the ingestion of con-
taminated food) was a bigger concern at that time.
Today, the disease can be treated with antibiotics, though
additional fluids and oxygen are often needed to bring a per-
son back to good health. The connection between lice and
the spread of typhus was not found until 1909, at which point
a vaccine was developed that has helped prevent infection.
itamins (nutrition is discussed more fully in chapter 7), so there

v
was little understanding about the importance of what one ate.
This became a particular problem during the 17th and 18th centu-
ries when explorers started one- and two-year journeys to explore
other lands. Though it was very difficult to travel with adequate
food supplies, the tradition was that a slightly better store of food
was set aside for the captain. On long journeys, the captain often
found that his crew became useless, suffering from stomach dis-
tress, blotchy skin, and bleeding gums that led to tooth loss. It
was frequently fatal. (During the potato famine, the Irish also
suffered scurvy, as potatoes provided some nutrients that helped
guard against the disease.)
As early as 1614, the physician John Woodall, the surgeon
general of the East India Company, wrote a book that noted that
scurvy was a result of a dietary deficiency, and he recommended
fresh food, including fruits like oranges and lemons.
However, it was not until 1747 that James Lind, a Scottish naval
surgeon who came to be referred to as “the father of naval hygiene,”
formally proved that scurvy could be treated and prevented by sup-
plementing the diet with citrus fruits. Lind ran what is considered
an early clinical trial that proved that lemon juice could prevent
scurvy. Lind divided a dozen scurvy sufferers into six groups of
two, treating each pair with a different remedy for 14 days. The sail-
ors given two oranges and a lemon each day recovered best. In 1753,
Lind published Treatise of the Scurvy, and decades later the British
navy adopted Lind’s advice; scurvy was more or less eliminated.
The first explorer to circumnavigate the globe without losing
a single man was Captain James Cook (1728–79). He took great
quantities of pickled sauerkraut that could be stored better than
fresh fruit and maintained a fair degree of ascorbic acid. When-
ever they neared land, Cook also made a point of sending his men
off in search of fresh food to supplement their diets.
The Dilemma of Smallpox

Smallpox had existed for centuries. Smallpox may have emerged
as early as 10,000 b.c.e., although it is difficult to assess what
occurred prehistory. It went through differing waves of viru-

lence; sometimes it was a mild illness known as variola minor; at
other times it became more severe and few recovered—that strain
was referred to as variola major. Epidemics frequently flared
in areas as diverse as Asia, North Africa, Europe, and eventu-
ally America, where it was particularly devastating because the
natives of North and South America had never experienced the
disease so no one had immunity. In the late 1400s in Europe,
syphilis began to appear and was known as the Great Pox, so
the term smallpox came to distinguish the illness that had long
plagued humanity.
The symptoms of smallpox appear about a week or two after a
person is exposed to an infected person or a contaminated object.
The victim develops a high fever and suffers from a pustulous full
body rash. Those who survived the illness gained lifelong immu-
nity, but smallpox killed 30–50 percent of those who became ill
with it.
During the 16th century, the smallpox strain in Europe was
a mild one, and people frequently had smallpox but rarely died
of the disease. Then in the 17th century, a new strain emerged,
and epidemics began to kill hundreds and thousands of people.
Physicians had many different theories about it, but nothing
was curative and nothing halted the spread of the illness. At
this time, one in three who contracted the disease died, and
those who survived were often badly disfigured. In addition,
this was the age of exploration, so as explorers expanded their
range and trade routes extended their paths, smallpox traveled
along with the explorers, traders, and soldiers. The virus was
very capable of maintaining its strength; it traveled via human
carriers but also was spread by clothing and objects touched by
those who were ill. During the 18th century, the disease killed
an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year (including five reign-
ing monarchs) and was responsible for a third of all blindness.
Over 80 percent of children who became ill died, and among the
adult population smallpox killed between 20 and 60 percent of
those who became ill.
Efforts to Prevent Smallpox

The Chinese may have been the first (960 c.e.) to use scrapings
from smallpox scabs or pustules to inoculate people so they would
not get ill. This method was eventually used in Turkey and North
and West Africa. One of the early Westerners to note the practice
was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), the wife of the
British ambassador to Turkey. She had lost a brother to smallpox,
and she herself was badly scarred from a bout with the disease.
When Lady Montagu arrived in Turkey with her young
children, she was very interested in the method used locally to
guard against the disease. She
observed that the Turkish
women held gatherings in Sep-
tember and would invite old
women to stop by to offer var-
iolation to protect against the
disease. The women healers
brought scrapings from those
who had had the disease. They
then selected and cut into four
to five veins on each person
and used a needle to insert a
bit of the smallpox virus and
bound the wound with a hol-
low bit of shell.
Following variolation the
person became ill; a few people
died from the process, but most
had only a light case of the ill-
ness. Some remained sick, and
during a two- to three-week
period the person who was
variolated was contagious.
This placed the community at
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, painting
a slightly higher risk than an by Charles Jervas (National Gallery
actual outbreak; when people of Ireland and The Yorck Project)
came down with smallpox under normal circumstances, they were

too sick to move about, so they infected very few during the time
they were contagious.
Lady Montagu had her children inoculated while in Turkey,
and in 1721 when she returned to England she promoted inocu-
lation as a way to keep people safe. For the most part, the Brit-
ish community was disapproving. Then a few months after her
return, a smallpox epidemic arose in London, and everyone was
frightened. The king was very fearful for his family and was
aware of Lady Montagu’s experience. When he asked his doctors
to variolate the royal family, the royal physicians pronounced
the procedure dangerous. The king decided the best course of
action was to test the method on others first, and he selected
six condemned prisoners to be variolated. (This may have been
the first use of humans in experimental trials.) The prisoners
suffered mild cases of smallpox, but all fully recovered within
two weeks of the exposure and were granted full pardons. The
king then tested this on children in an orphanage, and finally
suggested his own two daughters be inoculated. This, of course,
made it all the rage.
The variolation technique was also used in North America
in 1721. It was widely criticized in the beginning, but officials
began to note that only six people died out of 244 who were vac-
cinated, while 844 people died out of 5,980 cases of smallpox in
non-vaccinated people. This was clear evidence that vaccination
worked.
Fifty years later, George Washington was concerned about vac-
cinating, knowing that his men would be ill immediately after-
ward. However, by 1777, a smallpox outbreak occurred, and,
when Washington saw the devastation to his army brought about
by the illness, he ordered that all men who had not had small-
pox should be vaccinated. George Washington was aware that
the British reportedly used smallpox to help decimate the Native
Americans during the French and Indian War in 1763, and so he
also decreed that letters from Boston were to be dipped in vinegar
to “cleanse them.”
Edward Jenner Champions a New

and Safer Method
By the late 1700s, a British country physician Edward Jenner
(1749–1823) championed vaccination using the cowpox virus to
prevent the closely related disease of smallpox. Jenner was not
the first to come up with this idea. A Dorset farmer—and sev-
eral other people from similar backgrounds—had induced immu-
nity in their families with cowpox during a smallpox epidemic in
1774. However, Edward Jenner deserves credit for understanding
the process and translating it into something that could be used
by others. (Jenner studied under the great Scottish surgeon John
Hunter, whose advice was always “Don’t think, try the experi-
ment,” which make his actions very understandable.)
The Cow-Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation! Print

(color engraving published June 12, 1802, by H. Humphrey, St. James’s
Street. A British satirist shows Edward Jenner vaccinating frightened
young women, and cows emerging from different parts of people’s
bodies. The cartoon was inspired by the controversy over using “cowpox”
to inoculate against smallpox. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division)
Smallpox Today
Despite the creation of a vaccine in 1796, not everyone was

vaccinated. Thus, smallpox continued to flare up in vari-
ous communities upon occasion. By the 1930s, however,
the cases of smallpox fell dramatically in the United States
and nearly disappeared during World War II. The last small-
pox case in the United States occurred in 1949, and routine
childhood vaccinations ended in 1972. Five years later, a
man in Somalia was the last person in the world to catch
smallpox from another human being (he survived). Through
an extraordinary international effort, smallpox became the
first disease to be completely eradicated.
An unfortunate incident occurred in Birmingham,
England, in 1978. A medical photographer Janet Parker con-
tracted the disease while working at the University of Bir-
mingham Medical School, and she died on September 11,
1978. Shortly after, the scientist responsible for smallpox
research at the university committed suicide. Based on this
In the late 1790s, Jenner noted that dairymaids of Glouces-

tershire who had had cowpox (a mild illness) claimed that they
would not get smallpox. Jenner took cowpox matter from a milk-
maid Sarah Nelmes and vaccinated a young boy James Phipps in
both his arms with material from the milkmaid. Phipps suffered
fever and some uneasiness but no great illness. Later Jenner inocu-
lated Phipps with the type of smallpox scabs that were being used
in variolation, but Phipps—unlike other subjects—did not become
sick at all. Jenner tried it again, and still Phipps showed no sign of
illness. Jenner tested this on several other people and determined
that it worked. In 1798, Jenner wrote An Account of the Causes and
Effects of the Variolae Vaccine. The medical establishment was slow
to accept the theory, but finally, in 1840, the British government
banned variolation and provided vaccination free of charge. The
accident, all stocks of smallpox were destroyed or stored at

one of two World Health Organization (WHO) reference labo-
ratories (one in the United States and one in Russia) where
they are to be guarded. In 1986, WHO recommended destruc-
tion of the virus, but this did not occur. In 2002, WHO decided
against final destruction. Though there is a risk in keeping
the virus around, destroying it would prevent the ability to
manufacture vaccine in an emergency.
Laboratories in the United States and Russia still maintain
tubes of the virus, though many object to this, fearing that it
might be stolen and used as a biological weapon. This became
a bigger concern after the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. In December 2002, George W. Bush received a smallpox
vaccination as a beginning push for health care workers to be
vaccinated in the event of a biological attack. The campaign
fizzled out by the end of 2003 because of problems with the
vaccine and a diminishing of public fear of an attack.
idea caught on in other countries, and, in 1803, Spain sent an

expedition to the Americas to vaccinate its subjects against the
disease. The Spanish reached as far as Santa Fe and vaccinated
many settlers and Pueblo Indians.
Conclusion
Though no one yet understood the nature of contagion, scientists
and physicians—and nonprofessionals such as Lady Montagu—
were beginning to make some progress in finding ways to prevent
illness. While variolation and vaccination were high-risk experi-
ments when first begun, they eventually proved effective. Else-
where, simple matters of cleanliness and healthy eating began to
improve the health of the people of the day.
5
learning from yellow fever
Y ellow fever is an acute viral disease that has caused several

devastating epidemics. The transmission of the illness is pri-
marily done by mosquitoes, something that was not understood
before 1900. Today, the illness continues to occur in Africa and
South and Central America and parts of the Caribbean. According
to the World Health Organization (WHO) in a 2001 report, yellow
fever still causes 200,000 illnesses and 30,000 deaths each year in
unvaccinated populations.
Like some other illnesses, childhood cases are generally milder
than those suffered by an adult, and those who recover from the
illness are immune. Symptoms of yellow fever generally do not
emerge until three to six days after exposure, and then there are
two phases of the disease. The first is what is termed acute, charac-
terized by fever, muscle pain (largely a backache), headache, shiv-
ers, nausea, and vomiting. Then the symptoms disappear, and the
person feels better.
In 15 percent of the cases, the illness enters a toxic phase within
24 hours. Fever reappears, and several organs may be affected. The
patient appears jaundiced, and bleeding can occur from the mouth,
nose, eyes, or stomach, and kidney function deteriorates. Half of
the patients who enter this phase die within a two-week period.
72
learning from Yellow Fever 73
The others recover without significant organ damage. Treatment

for yellow fever is symptomatic and supportive; since it is a viral
illness there is no remedy at this point. Because there is no specific
treatment for the virus, getting people vaccinated is the key to
eradicating the illness.
By the 18th century, yellow fever was one of the most feared
diseases in the Americas, because it was so devastating. While
mild cases were easily mistaken for influenza or malaria, the more
virulent cases caused damage to the heart, kidneys, and liver and
often led to death. Statistically, it was not as devastating as tuber-
culosis or smallpox, but it struck with such ferocity that people
were very fearful. In the New World, Philadelphia was one of the
areas most affected by yellow fever. Doctors were uncertain of the
cause, and this led to more fear.
This chapter will present information on yellow fever in the New
World and how society treated it. The misunderstandings of the
cause of the illness led to some bizarre solutions, and the esteemed
physician Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) was one who had question-
able theories about the disease. Until the cause of the disease was
determined, it was very difficult to eradicate, but finally—in the late
1800s—the puzzle pieces fell in place so that yellow fever could be
better contained.
Philadelphia port (Philadelphia Water Department)

Yellow Fever in the New World

Yellow fever existed as early as the fall of Rome, but its reach and
devastation expanded with the increase in travel by explorers and
conquerors visiting new lands. One of the first major outbreaks
during this period occurred in Havana, Cuba, in 1762–63. Euro-
pean and colonial troops arrived in massive numbers to take over
the area, in which large numbers of people had no immunity to
the disease. The illness struck in epidemic proportions in coastal
and island communities in the region, and it recurred frequently
over the next 140 years.
How the disease spread was unknown at this time. Scientists
today know that the reason the disease occurred primarily in
coastal and port cities was because it is spread by mosquitoes, so
the more moist the climate, the higher the insect population. The
Aedes aegypti mosquito, the type of mosquito that carries yellow
fever, breeds in freshwater and does well in a populated environ-
ment, so some insects may have found freshwater sources on ships
traveling in the area, which resulted in the spread of the disease.
Yellow fever was also prevalent in Africa, so as explorers arrived
in the Americas with slaves, those ships, too, may have been car-
riers of the disease.
Yellow Fever Outbreak in Philadelphia (1793)

Outbreaks occurred in many American port cities, but the one in
Philadelphia in 1793 was particularly notable, killing more than 10
percent of the population within a few months. It was the largest
yellow fever epidemic in the history of the United States. In the
1790s, Philadelphia had a population of about 55,000 people and
was the nation’s capital. The summer of 1793 was unusually dry
and hot, and because the water levels of streams and wells were
low, the shallow, standing water made a perfect breeding ground
for insects. By July, the city residents were noting that there were
an unusual number of flies and mosquitoes around town.
Philadelphians traded actively with the West Indies, and politi-
cal turmoil there led to a large amount of refugees from the area
Learning from Yellow Fever 75
arriving in Philadelphia to escape what was happening in their

own countries. The Caribbean refugees brought yellow fever with
them. While a few mosquitoes may have traveled on shipboard,
the arrival of sick people from the Caribbean resulted in infecting
the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that resided in Philadelphia. Once
they sucked the blood of a person with the illness, these local mos-
quitoes could then spread the virus to other humans. The disease
was first noticed in July, and the numbers grew steadily. Victims
initially experienced pains in the head, back, and limbs, accom-
panied by a high fever. These symptoms would often disappear,
leaving a false sense of security. In a percentage of victims, the
disease would announce its return with an even more severe fever
and turn the victim’s skin a ghastly yellow while he vomited black
clots of blood. Death soon followed.
Though there had been previous outbreaks of yellow fever, the
size of the population and the virulence with which the disease
spread caused a high degree of panic. The congressional session
was concluding and the nation’s leaders were leaving town, but
Benjamin Rush, along with other professionals, recommended
that as many people as possible leave the city in order to avoid the
illness. Those who stayed in Philadelphia responded to the panic
by barricading themselves in their houses.
The number of victims taken by the illness grew from 10
a day in August to 100 a day by October, and there were not
enough hospitals or physicians to tend to the sufferers. Philadel-
phia banned newly arriving ships, and the port area was quaran-
tined, but other parts of the city continued to operate. The post
office was open (but mail delivery was halted); most markets
remained open; and in the beginning the churches continued to
hold services.
There were a good number of well-respected physicians in Phil-
adelphia at the time, and they were in vehement disagreement as
to the correct way to treat the illness. The majority felt that yel-
low fever should be treated with stimulants including wine and
Peruvian bark and the sick people should be bathed in cold water.
Benjamin Rush, the city’s leading physician and a signer of the
U.S. Declaration of Independence, felt differently. He believed that

calomel (mercury) purges and copious bleeding with the lancet
were the best treatments for the illness.
Mayor Matthew Clarkson wanted to respond to the circum-
stances, and he worked with the citizenry to establish orphan-
ages, distribute supplies to city residents, and to collect corpses.
He also arranged for a temporary fever hospital at an abandoned
estate called Bush Hill. Volunteers helped take care of the ill, and
the creation of a hospital was made possible by Stephen Girard, a
local philanthropist who volunteered to help convert a mansion
so that the poor could be taken care of. Bush Hill turned out to be
much more successful at curing the ill. Since yellow fever was a
virus, some people were able to recover from it. Thus, those who
were not put through copious bleedings and purging fared well
with palliative care.
A few early frosts in October began to slow the spread of the dis-
ease, and by early November the number of cases finally dropped
to zero. Scientists today know that the cold weather killed off the
mosquitoes, but, at the time, no connection between the disap-
pearance of the insects and a reduction of the disease was made.
Business resumed, and Congress resumed its session on schedule
in December.
Help from the African-American Community

At the urging of Benjamin Rush, the support of Philadelphia’s
free black community was enlisted, because it was believed that
African black people were immune. Philadelphia’s black commu-
nity put aside their resentment over the way they were usually
treated, and they dedicated themselves to working with the sick
and dying in all capacities, including as nurses, cart drivers, and
grave diggers.
As the weather cooled, the disease subsided, and the deaths
stopped. Then accusations began against the black citizens, who
had worked so hard to save the sick and dying, of actually being
the cause of the spread of the disease. The attack was led by
Mathew Carey, whose pamphlet attacked many in the black com-
munity. A response to the pamphlet was published by two of the

men who had helped organize the black people, Richard Allen
and Absalom Jones.
Despite Rush’s belief that blacks could not contract the disease,
240 of them died of the fever.
What They Thought Caused Yellow Fever

Today, physicians know that fever is a symptom of some other
malfunction in the body, but, at the time, it was believed that if the
fever could be eradicated, then all would be well. The spirit of the
day also dictated that searching for a “cause” of an illness was a
waste of time—the search for a cause of illness was referred to as
a “great abyss.” They felt that as long as they addressed the fever,
it did not matter exactly what caused it.
During the late 1700s, a few scientists were beginning to
develop thinking that could have led to an understanding of germs
causing illness, but no one ever made the leap. The Philadelphia
Gazette printed several letters from “Animalcule” who wrote of
minute insects causing disease, but no one else picked up on it.
The esteemed Rush noted the plethora of insects during bouts of
the epidemics, but he felt that the bad air, the miasma, brought
them along with the disease.
The general understanding of the cause of almost all illnesses
was the theory of miasma, or bad air. (Scientists were beginning
to be aware that a dog bite could carry rabies, and a snake bite
could kill, but the thought that a very small insect could carry
anything lethal to a human being had not yet occurred to them.)
Dr. William Cullen, a well-respected professor at Edinburgh who
taught many students and influenced their beliefs, taught that
fevers were caused by the miasmatic air from marshes acted upon
by heat. When Philadelphia experienced an outbreak of dengue
fever, Rush felt Cullen’s theory was proved. During its occupation
of the city during the Revolutionary War, the British army cut
down all the trees that had purified the winds blowing up from
the marshes, and Rush felt that the dengue fever came from the
Epidemics of yellow fever were common in the Americas. This map shows
the cities that were particularly hard hit in North America in the 1790s
and the early 1800s.
marshes. Ironically, both dengue and yellow fever are spread by

the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Benjamin Rush wrote exhaustively on the appearance of yellow
fever. He correctly described the exact stages of the disease, and,
with the 1793 epidemic, Rush noted that the hot summer weather
had contributed to the bad air. He also felt certain that the specific
reason the disease reappeared at this time was because of “morbid
vapors” coming from coffee beans that were rotting near the dock:
“Mrs. Bradford had spent an afternoon in a house directly oppo-
site to the wharf and dock on which the putrid coffee had emitted
its noxious effluvia, a few days before her sickness, and had been
much incommoded by it . . .” He then noted that Mrs. Bradford’s
sister had been exposed when she visited the house to see her
sister, and two young boys had spent whole days in a “compting
[counting] house” near where the coffee was exposed, and they
too had become ill.
Other physicians less powerful than Rush offered that the dis-
ease was being brought to Philadelphia by ships from the West
Indies where the disease occurred frequently. Though there was
disagreement on the cause—and generally speaking they felt the
cause was immaterial to the treatment—Rush and others did push
for sanitary reform that could have helped improve the situation,
although nothing was done differently until several years later.
Theories of Contagion
Once yellow fever occurred in a community, the transmission of
the disease was confusing. While scientists and physicians under-
stood that by observing the nature of the illness and the way that
it spread one could tell them a lot about a disease, yellow fever was
baffling. Physicians in the 18th century defined contagion as some-
thing that someone else had that could be transmitted “within a
distance of 10 paces.” Many people who had no contact with those
who were ill with yellow fever came down with the illness; those
who cared for the sick did not always get it, and the outbreaks
ended with cold weather. Physicians also noted that people who
fled did not carry the disease with them.
Those who believed it was contagious undertook to inoculate
themselves with blood, vomit, or saliva of yellow fever patients.
(They knew that vaccinating against smallpox had been success-
ful; see chapter 4.) Those who believed it was contagious felt the
sick were to be feared, and, as a result, the sick often died of neglect
because no one would go near them to offer help.
In some circles, the arguments became political. Federalist

physicians believed yellow fever was contagious and had been
imported from Haiti by French refugees. They felt that blaming
miasma—local conditions—was unpatriotic. They advocated quar-
antine, limiting trade, and felt that healing would take place if they
gave patients quinine and wine. Jeffersonian (Republican) doctors
did not feel yellow fever was contagious. They felt yellow fever
arose from unsanitary local conditions, and they fought against
quarantine regulations and restrictions on trade.
Noah Webster (1758–1843), who is best known as an American
lexicographer, sent questionnaires about the nature of the illness
to physicians in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Norfolk, and
New Haven. In 1796, he published results and his conclusions—A
Collection of Papers on the Subject of Bilious Fever, prevalent in the
United States for a Few Years Past.
In Europe, they used other cures for yellow fever, but they
were not necessarily milder. The well-regarded French clinician
P. C. A. Louis (1787–1872) detailed what was done to a patient
under French care: Day one, the patient was given a large dose of
castor oil, an enema, and several doses of calomel while leeches
were applied to his temples. On the second day, the patient received
calomel and then was bled by leech and lancet. On the third day,
he was given several enemas and 25 drops of laudanum; he died
before the end of the third day.
Some 18th-century scientists opted to further investigate the
disease and explored the chemistry of the vapors from the disease,
but they really did not know what they were looking for. Some
doctors decided that tasting the black vomit would provide helpful
information, and they did so—and survived. Though they did not
learn anything about the chemical composition of the disease, this
process did prove that vomit did not transmit the fever.
The Legacy of Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush presents an interesting puzzle for historians. He
figures prominently in the discussion of yellow fever because he
Rush’s Contributions
to Mental Health
There are those who argue that Rush’s approach to clinical med-
icine was correct—that he observed what was happening and
acted accordingly, and this placed science in the United States
on an improved path. However, all agree that Rush did not do
well at divining how disease should be treated. Bloodletting
was not the correct answer. The clinical contributions of Ben-
jamin Rush will continue to be debated, but there is one area
where Rush had a more positive impact, and that was in the
field of mental health. He is sometimes referred to as the father
of American psychiatry, and his image appears on the Ameri-
can Psychological Association (APA) seal. He published the first
textbook on the subject in the United States, Medical Inquiries
and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812).
Rush was notable for his time in believing that mental ill-
nesses could be cured. Mental patients at that time were often
locked up or beaten, and Rush helped society move away from
this horrific type of treatment as he listened to the patients.
Unfortunately, as with his faith in bloodletting, Rush devel-
oped some questionable practices with these patients as well.
He believed mental illness could be forced out of a person,
and so one of his treatments for psychiatric illness involved
tying a patient to a board and spinning it rapidly so that all the
blood would go to the person’s head. He also devised chairs
that were suspended from the ceiling, and attendants were
assigned to supervise and swing and spin the mentally ill
patient for hours. A tranquilizer chair he created in 1811 locked
a person into a chair in a place where all light could be cut off,
much like the sensory deprivation tanks of today.
On a more positive note, Rush was the first to understand
the nature of addiction and further carried the idea that absti-
nence was the only cure.
wrote a great deal about the dis-

ease, studied it carefully, and
bravely stayed in Philadelphia
throughout times when the
disease ran rampant because
he was dedicated to caring
for those who were sick. He
wrote copiously about illness,
shared his research freely, and
encouraged research by others,
and he was the first to identify
the fever that was spreading
as yellow fever. He convinced
others that “something had to
Benjamin Rush (Dibner Library of the
History of Science and Technology) be done” for the ill, since their
deaths were not an order of the
“hand of God.” He also paved
the way toward better treatment of those who suffered mental ill-
ness (see the previous sidebar, “Rush’s Contributions to Mental
Health”).
In addition to all these attributes, Rush was a true American
hero. He was an important American political leader who had
been vital to the break with Britain for independence. He was a
member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declara-
tion of Independence and held many different government posi-
tions to help keep the young country on solid footing. He was also
appointed treasurer of the United States.
Yet his practice of “heroic medicine,” bleeding and purging the
ill and dosing them with calomel, undoubtedly caused the deaths
of many who might have gotten better if they had simply been
permitted to ride through the dreadful illness.
Heroic Medicine
In treating one of his early cases of “bilious fever,” he was called
to see Polly, wife of Thomas Bradford. Rush switched from mild
herbal purges to a harsher chemical calomel or mercurous chlo-

ride. He then had a bleeder take out 10 ounces (0.30 l) of her blood
to cure the inflammation, and Polly recovered. Rush went on to
continue this type of treatment with others. He believed that
patients should eat little and then be subjected to vigorous purges
with calomel and jalap, and bleeding until the patient fainted. He
sometimes removed a quart (0.95 l) of blood at a time and repeated
this type of bleeding two or three times within a two-day period
if the person did not get better. He believed that draining up to
four-fifths of a person’s total blood would be all right.
Rush was not alone in his belief in this type of heroic medicine.
A British contemporary Dr. William Buchan wrote in his book
Domestic Medicine:
In this and all other fevers, attended with a hard, full, quick
pulse, bleeding is of the greatest importance. This operation ought
always to be performed as soon as the symptoms of an inflamma-
tory fever appear. The quantity of blood to be taken away, how-
ever, must be in proportion to the strength of the patient and the
violence of the disease. If after the first bleeding the fever should
rise, and the pulse become more frequent and hard, there will
be a necessity for repeating it a second, and perhaps a third, or
even a fourth time, which may be done at the distance of twelve,
eighteen or twenty-four hours from each other, as the symptoms
require. If the pulse continues soft, and the patient is tolerably
easy after the first bleeding, it ought not be repeated.
Rush became an ideal target for a British journalist in the United

States. William Cobbett (1763–1835) established Porcupine’s Gazette
and attacked Rush in print for his “heroic treatments.” Cobbett
undertook studies of the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic and
accused Rush of an unnatural passion for taking human blood.
Cobbett wrote that many of Rush’s patients actually bled to death.
According to Cobbett, Rush’s method was “one of those great dis-
coveries which have contributed to the depopulation of the earth.”
(continues on page 86)
Walter Reed, M.D. (1851–1902):

An Enlightened Approach
Major Walter Reed was a U.S. Army physician who made

many contributions to medicine; one of the most signifi-
cant being that he helped devise a way to prevent yellow
fever. This was a major step forward in biomedicine, and his
work eventually made the construction of the Panama Canal
possible.
Reed completed his medical training for his first degree in
1869 at the age of 17 and went on to enroll at New York Uni-
versity’s Bellevue Hospital Medical College to get a second
medical degree. He interned at several different hospitals
and worked for the New York Board of Health and then took
an assignment with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where he
was primarily assigned to posts in the western parts of the
United States. Later, he completed advanced work in pathol-
ogy and bacteriology.
During the Spanish American War, the U.S. military
became highly aware of the problems of yellow fever; thou-
sands of American soldiers who fought in this war became
ill or died from it. In 1899, Reed was sent to Cuba to study
army encampments and the spread of disease, and, the fol-
lowing May, he was specifically assigned to examine tropical
illnesses, including yellow fever. In Cuba, Reed’s commission
conducted a series of experiments on human volunteers,
some of whom were medical personnel. To Reed’s great sad-
ness, Jesse William Lazear, Reed’s own assistant, died from
the testing the group was conducting.
Reed’s commission eventually identified that mosquitoes
led to the spread of yellow fever. While Reed is usually cred-
ited with this discovery, Reed himself credited the Cuban
physician Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay (1833–1915). By the end of
Reed’s time in Cuba, the

U.S. Army Yellow Fever
Commission confirmed
Finlay’s theory, and they
also demonstrated that
it could not be transmit-
ted by clothing or blan-
kets, something that was
beginning to worry army
officials.
Reed’s conclusions
led other scientists to
devise ways to reduce
the mosquito popula-
tion so that work could
continue in the Panama
Canal Zone, something Walter Reed (National Library of Medicine)
that had been impossi-
ble up until this time. From 1881–89, the French who were
working to construct the pathway through North and South
America suffered a very high death toll from disease; as
many as 22,000 workers were estimated to have died dur-
ing that period. As the United States began to conquer the
mosquito, they saw a drop in both yellow fever and malaria.
Finally, significant work on the Canal was possible.
Reed returned from Cuba in 1901 and died in 1902. In
1909, Congress ordered construction of Walter Reed Gen-
eral Hospital, which is now known as the Walter Reed Army
Medical Center. It is the army’s primary medical center on
the east coast.
(continued from page 83)

Rush sued for libel, and the popularity of Benjamin Rush, as
an American hero, combined with no science to prove that he was
wrong, led the jury to find in favor of Benjamin Rush. Cobbett was
fined $5,000, a very considerable sum for that time.
ConClusion
Yellow fever was a baffling disease, and, since 18th-century physi-
cians had no understanding of how it spread, they were particu-
larly inept at devising treatments. While Benjamin Rush will long
be a name that is associated with important events concerning
American history, he lived at a time when the links between cause
and disease were not well understood. It was not until the turn
of the 20th century that answers were assembled in such a way
that diseases could be better contained. As a result, world travel
gained a shortcut as ships could finally make their way across the
isthmus of Panama.
6
early american Medical Care
M edicine in early America was much like it had been in

Europe just after the Middle Ages. The country was made
up of agricultural communities, and, although a few physicians
arrived in America after studying in Edinburgh or London, the
number of trained medical professionals was very small. In some
towns, pharmacists were available to prescribe and sell remedies.
Surgical issues were taken care of by barber-surgeons, some of
whom traveled from community to community to pull teeth and
set bones.
Most of the family health care was overseen by the women in
the family. Although they rarely received any type of formal educa-
tion, these women filled the roles of doctor, nurse, and pharmacist
for family, servants, and neighbors. Childbirth generally required
the help of others who had been through it, and, according to the
historian Susan Norwood, women of colonial times were often
pregnant and childbirth was a frightening time—many mothers
and babies did not survive.
Home remedy books offered guidance on medical issues, and
those who were literate might turn to The Housekeeper’s Pocket-
Book by Sarah Harrison or Every Man His Own Doctor by John
Tennant or Primitive Remedies by John Wesley. Wesley’s remedy
involved a healthy diet, fresh air, plenty of exercise, and simple
87
medicines. Medicinal recipes were also contained in many cook-

books of that time. Those who could not read obtained informa-
tion from family members.
Medicinal herbs were popular in the colonies. Many had heard
of Dr. Nicolas Culpeper of England whose thinking on herbal cures
was still well regarded, but the colonists also noted how the Native
Americans used plants for specific things. The young women of
the colonies learned from their mothers how to grow the herbs
they needed. A few specialty items needed to be obtained from
apothecaries. One of the more popular remedies available from
apothecaries was calomel, a form of mercury. Today, mercury is
known to be a neurotoxin, but it was years and years before any-
one knew it was dangerous to use. Europeans who visited Amer-
ica often went home and discussed the terrible state of American
health. Many experts feel this was due to the amount of mercury
that was consumed in this country.
At the beginning of the 1700s, there was little understanding of
the importance of personal hygiene and its role in keeping people
healthy. By the middle of the 19th century, the middle and upper
classes began to think that washing one’s hands and face in the
morning was a good idea, and women began to change their skirts
a little more often. (Up until this time, women tended to wear the
These were the tools apothecaries and healers used to crush, grind, and
mix substances into medicinal cures.
Early American Medical Care 89
same thing without washing their clothing, so the skirt dragged

around in the dirt, and it rarely was washed.) Despite these changes,
few people brushed their teeth, which contributed to a high rate of
tooth loss and gum problems, and the custom of washing babies’
diapers did not occur until just before the Civil War.
This chapter will examine the state of early American medical
care, from the theory behind “heroic medicine” to the qualifica-
tions and training of the physicians who came to America right
through and including the creation, popularity, and use of patent
medicines.
Early American Physicians

In 1775, there were approximately 3,500 practicing physicians in
the colonies. Some had been trained at the Pennsylvania Hospi-
tal in Philadelphia, the first medical college to open in America
in 1768. This institution was followed by King’s College (now
Columbia University), which opened two years later in New York.
Because these colleges accepted only a handful of doctors for train-
ing, most American doctors were trained through apprenticeships,
receiving seven years of training before they were officially con-
sidered physicians. While these doctors were highly trained by the
The monoscope was an early form of a stethoscope that was used to

listen to sounds from the chest of someone who was ill.
standards of their time, their services were not available to all of

the general population. Many people lived too far away from any
doctors to use their services, and other people did not have access
to doctors because of social customs or beliefs. For these reasons,
other types of healers often assumed the role of caring for the
injured or sick.
Around the time of the Revolutionary War, a movement of
“Thomsonians” cropped up. The group was named after the phy-
sician Samuel Thomson (1769–1843), who gave up an orthodox
practice based on bloodletting to develop a much simpler theory
based on steam baths and the Indian herb, lobelia. If a person con-
sumed enough, the result was a purging of their system.
As the number of physicians began to increase, it became neces-
sary to limit who could practice medicine. In 1806, the nation’s first
licensing law, the Medical Prac-
tices Act, was passed in New
York State. This did not place
specific limits on who could be
a healer, but it restricted who
had legal rights if there was a
problem. The Medical Practices
Act permitted only licensed
physicians to recover their
fees in court, and, if caught,
unlicensed practitioners were
fined $25 for practicing with-
out a license. The New York
Journal of Medicine praised this
movement and noted that this
would suppress empiricism
and encourage the growth of
The importance of oral hygiene was regular practitioners. However,
beginning to be understood, but not this did not happen quickly.
everyone practiced it. This type of
America represented the land
set would have belonged to a dentist
(or barber-surgeon) who treated an of freedom, and lay practitio-
upper-class clientele. ners campaigned against the
new law. In 1807, the Medical

Practices Act was modified so
significantly that it was virtu-
ally repealed, and eventually
the law was abolished in 1844.
This same pattern of lawmak-
ing and repeal followed in Con-
necticut and Massachusetts as
well as a good number of other
states. Finally in 1847, the
American Medical Associa-
tion (AMA) was created and
provided a national platform
to promote the interests of the
profession. Although the AMA
became an important organi-
zation, by the end of the 19th
century, state licensing agen-
cies finally gained strength and
could regulate what was hap-
pening in their states.
The field of dentistry offi- These were very crude tools that a
cially established itself before barber-surgeon or tooth puller would
the Civil War. The first Amer- have used to extract a tooth during
the early 19th century.
ican dental journal was pub-
lished in 1839, and in 1840 the
Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and the American Society of
Dental Surgeons were founded.
The Age of Heroic Medicine

During the age of heroic medicine (1780–1850), educated profes-
sional physicians aggressively practiced bloodletting (venesection),
intestinal purging, vomiting, profuse sweating, and blistering.
Massive doses of drugs were used in the belief that “more was
better.” Physicians originally treated diseases like syphilis with
salves made from mercury. These medical treatments were well-

intentioned and often well accepted by the medical community,
but were actually harmful to the patient. (The term heroic medi-
cine was used pejoratively about 100 years later by Oliver Wendell
Holmes. He realized that it was the patient who needed to be
heroic, not the physician.)
There was no real ability to run clinical trials at this time,
and when a scientist did try to prove something did not work it
was never well accepted. One who tried to prove that bloodletting
was pointless was the French physician Pierre-Charles-Alexandre
Louis (1787–1872), who used a numerical system to collect infor-
mation from hospital patients to evaluate therapeutic methods.
His studies of venesection showed that it was ineffective if not
harmful, but they had little impact. Critics blamed those who
were running the studies and doing the diagnosis. The spirit of
the day led many to argue that the reason venesection was not
working was because it was not being done aggressively enough.
By 1825, homeopathy finally caught on in the United States.
This medical theory that honored natural healing with an empha-
sis on nutrition and exercise and recommended the use of minute
amounts of medicine was a response to the heroic movement.
Medical Tools of the Day

The average 18th-century physician had little in the way of either
equipment or understanding to aid him in distinguishing one spe-
cific disease from another. The concept of a standard body tempera-
ture had only been suggested, the body’s heat-regulating mechanism
was not understood, and Fahrenheit’s recently developed mercury
thermometer was not commonly used by physicians.
The stethoscope was not invented until 1814 by René Laën-
nec, who practiced medicine in Paris. In 1819, he wrote about the
many and curious sounds of the heart and lungs that can be heard
using his instrument. About the same time, Leopold Auenbrug-
ger, a Viennese physician, discovered the use of “percussion”—the
use of the fingers to tap on the chest—to investigate diseases of
the chest. He was the son of an innkeeper and had learned this
method to judge the level of wine in his father’s casks.
A “pulse watch” had been developed in 1707, but it also was

largely ignored by physicians, who preferred describing the pulse
to counting it. The use of percussion to aid in diagnosis, however,
was beginning to become more widely understood because of the
work of Leopold Auenbrugger.
The Medical Significance of George

Washington’s Death
George Washington’s death is very instructive concerning how medi-
cal issues were perceived and treated at the end of the 18th century.
No man was more revered, so the treatment he received would have
been the best available at the time. While there is some disagreement
as to the cause of his illness, medical professionals are in agreement
that the actions taken would not have led to any sort of cure.
On December 12, 1799, Washington spent several hours inspect-
ing his farms on horseback, in snow and hail and freezing rain. The
following day he noticed his voice was hoarse and his throat sore,
but he went out again to mark trees that needed to be cut. During
the early morning hours of Saturday, December 14, Washington
awoke and felt quite poorly and was having difficulty breathing.
He would not let Martha summon help until sunrise. The maid
arrived to light the fire and reported that he was in serious respi-
ratory distress. His aide, Colonel Lear, was summoned, and Lear
sent for the estate overseer who prepared a medicinal mixture of
molasses, vinegar, and butter, but Washington was unable to swal-
low it, so they decided that bloodletting was a remedy that would
be helpful. The overseer opened one vein, though Martha, who did
not believe in venesection, objected. His feet were then bathed in
warm water.
By midmorning, Washington’s physician, Dr. James Craik, arrived,
and he also sent for two other prominent physicians, Dr. Gustavus
Richard Brown and Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick. Dr. Craik created a blis-
ter of cantharides (dried beetles) to place on his throat and took out
20 ounces (0.59 l) of blood from two separate bloodlettings.
Dr. Dick arrived at 3:00 p.m. and took out 32 ounces (0.9 l)
more of blood from Washington’s forearm. Dr. Brown arrived, felt
Washington’s pulse, and the three physicians decided that tartar

and calomel should be administered rectally.
By late afternoon, Washington began to realize that nothing
was working, and he calmly began giving Colonel Lear instruc-
tions as to what to do after his death. At 8:00 p.m., the physicians
applied blisters and poultices of wheat bran to his legs. Dr. Dick
wanted to perforate Washington’s trachea to improve his breath-
ing, but it was a very new procedure and the other physicians
discouraged it.
A few minutes before 10:00 p.m., Washington asked the time
and then, according to an eyewitness account written by Martha
Washington’s grandson (by her previous marriage to Daniel Cus-
tis), George Washington Parke Custis, who was with the family
at the time of death, “He spoke no more—the head death was
upon him, and he was conscious that ‘his hour was come.’ With
surprising self-possession he prepared to die. Composing his form
at length, and folding his arms on his bosom, without a sigh, with-
out a groan, the Father of his Country died.”
Because of Washington’s importance to the country, there
were many contemporary reports on his death, including a
detailed description of the treatment that was written by Drs.
Craik and Dick and published in the Times of Alexandria on
December 19, 1799. This has permitted modern scholars and
medical professionals to examine the details of his illness as well
as to consider his treatment. While some reports say that Wash-
ington died of acute laryngitis that became pneumonia, others
feel his illness was quinsy, a peritonsillar abscess, which is a
recognized complication of tonsillitis and consists of a collection
of pus beside the tonsil. Others wrote of “acute inflammatory
edema of the larynx.” These diagnoses might explain the early
difficulty with both breathing and swallowing. In addition, the
case may have been complicated by infection from streptococcus
or some other type of bacteria that would have been difficult to
wipe out without antibiotics. In 1997, an otolaryngologic pub-
lication published a piece that noted that it was acute bacterial
epiglottitis, which can obstruct the airflow and cause a suffocat-
ing death.
The Discovery of Iodine
Iodine was discovered in the early 19th century by a fellow

named Bernard Courtois whose family business made saltpe-
ter, which was important in the manufacture of gunpowder.
Courtois was working to isolate sodium carbonate from sea-
weed so that it could be used to create saltpeter, and when
he added too much sulfuric acid he created iodine. Intent on
what he was making, he did not stop to explore what had hap-
pened, but he gave samples to several of his friends, includ-
ing Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), a well-respected chemist,
and another chemist, Humphry Davy (1778–1829). Gay-Lussac
announced that the substance was either a new element or a
compound of oxygen, and, around the same time, Davy sent a
letter to the Royal Society of London stating that he had found
a new element. A large argument erupted between Davy and
Gay-Lussac over who identified iodine first, but both scientists
eventually acknowledged Courtois was the first to isolate it.
Iodine is important in
two ways to the study of
medicine. It is an essential
trace element needed by liv-
ing organisms; animals and
humans need iodine for their
thyroid hormones to func-
tion properly. In addition,
elemental iodine was discov-
ered to be helpful in sanitiz-
ing things—an advance that
was going to become more
and more important as sci-
Sir Humphry Davy made many important entists learned how impor-
contributions to chemistry during his
tant cleanliness in wound
lifetime, including discovering the
elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. care and surgical procedures
(National Library of Medicine) would be.
Regardless of how serious Washington’s illness was, all agree

that the treatment methods chosen—typical for the day—were
ineffective and possibly harmful. Some go as far as to suggest that
it was the treatment that killed him.
Dr. Vibul V. Vadakan, a Los Angeles pediatric hemato-
oncologist, has done detailed studies of Washington’s treatment,
and his study reveals that 82 ounces (2.4 l) of Washington’s blood
was removed during a 13-hour period. Taking into consideration
Washington’s height and weight, Vadakan notes that the blood
removed would have been more than half his blood volume during
a short time. This would have led to preterminal anemia, hypo-
volemia, and hypotension. His calmness at death leads Vadakan to
note that he was likely in shock from blood loss.
Medicines Become Products

Patent medicines originated in England during the 1600s as propri-
etary medicines manufactured under grants, or “patents of royal
favor” to those who provided medicine to the royal family. These
medical tonics were sometimes referred to by their Latin name,
nostrum remedium (our remedy), and this was then condensed
down to nostrums. Those who received a royal patent were given
the exclusive right to make a particular remedy.
To apply for a patent, the remedy needed to be unique, but
there were no standards concerning whether it was effective or
safe. One of the first patent medicines was Robert Turlington’s
“Balsam of Life.” (See the following sidebar, “The Story behind
the Balsam of Life” on page 98) Some of the other remedies
sold to the public included Anderson’s Pills, Lockyear’s Pills,
Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops, Daffy’s Elixir Salutis for “colic
and griping,” and Dr. John Hooper’s Female Pills. As the British
moved to America, they brought the concept of patent medicines,
with them, and these cure-alls were sold by postmasters, gold-
smiths, grocers, and tailors.
After the American Revolution, royal endorsement became
valueless, and because getting a patent required listing the ingre-
dients, many owners never

applied for a real patent.
Instead, they registered dis-
tinctive trade names so that
they could claim exclusive
ownership over whatever it
was they were selling.
Eventually—by the 19th
century—all medical prep-
arations came to be known
as patent medicines. All
featured “colorful names
and colorful claims.” Many
promised magical healing
cures while others referred
to some type of medical dis-
covery. The experts usually
did not exist, and the names
were selected to conjure an
exotic locale or to promise
an incredible cure. Those
who sold the medicines and
masqueraded as the experts
usually claimed to be Indian
or Oriental as these people
were thought to have mys-
tical knowledge. A few
claimed Quaker heritage
because the Quakers were
known to be scrupulously
honest. Sometimes, snake
oil salesman was used to
describe these fellows.
While the term now has a
Miraculous Cure, an advertisement for
connotation that is not com- Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People,
plimentary, its original use an old patent medicine
The Story behind the Balsam of Life
The British merchant Robert Turlington invented a balsam

for which he obtained a patent from King George II in 1744.
According to records of the British Patent Office, Turlington’s
unique patent medicine consisted of 27 ingredients, and the
patent gave him the right to “make, use, exercise, and vend”
the said specific balsam. Patents also provided patent hold-
ers with proprietary rights over the product, which could
involve pursuing imitators or anyone who claimed to be sell-
ing his product but were actually selling a substitute.
Turlington’s Balsam of Life quickly gained fame and was
used in households everywhere; it was particularly popular
in the American colonies. Though there were stiff penalties
for violating the terms of a royal patent, the increased popu-
larity of Turlington’s Balsam encouraged others to pirate his
idea. Some copied the bottle and distributed their own brew,
others bought up used Turlington bottles and filled them
with their own concoctions.
Turlington had a lot at stake, and so he actively pursued
his right to maintain control of the product. Originally the
Balsam was packaged in a relatively simple medicine bottle,
but Turlington realized a unique bottle design would make
the Balsam more difficult for imitators to copy. In 1754,
he selected a blown molded bottle that was slightly pear-
shaped; the name Balsam of Life appeared in embossed let-
tering. The new design was much more difficult to copy.
Turlington’s successors were able to maintain the reme-
dy’s popularity, and the product sold for many years. Much
later, however, the Balsam of Life was affected by the U.S.
Pure Food and Drug Act passed by Congress in 1906, and
the company stopped selling the Balsam under its longtime
name. They continued to market the medicine, but gave it
another name—Compound Tincture of Benzoin (a.k.a. tinc-
ture benzoin compound).
stems from the most common claim of

patent medicines—that they contained
oil extracted from a snake.
Patent Medicine Ingredients

Patent medicines rarely contained what
they said they did. Most did not even
contain anything that was even close
to what was claimed. A medicine called
Vital Sparks was rock candy rolled in
powdered aloe. Tiger Fat proclaimed that
it was made from backbones of Royal
Bengal tigers but was actually made of
Vaseline, camphor, menthol, eucalyp-
tus oil, turpentine, wintergreen oil, and
paraffin. Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root was
made with unspecified “roots found in
swamps” and was touted as helpful to
the kidneys. Some medicines for “female
complaints” actually contained pen-
nyroyal, tansy, and savin—ingredients
that could cause an abortion. One called
Liver Pads, to cure problems of the liver,
consisted of fabric with a dot of glue on
it. The glue itself was laced with cayenne
pepper and, when it was pressed against
the stomach, the body’s heat melted the
glue, and, as the pepper permeated the
skin, it created a burning sensation that
people interpreted as curative. Kickapoo Indian Sagwa,
Others were far from harmless. Jake- Blood, Liver, and Stomach
Regulator, an old patent
leg, an extract from Jamaican ginger,
medicine advertisement
was a patent medicine that was later
doctored with a chemical that affected
the nerves; some who drank it lost use of their hands and feet.
Most medicines contained a high alcohol base; some contained
cocaine, opium, or morphine, and while these ingredients may have
Like most advertisements for patent medicines, this one promises a

miraculous cure for drunkenness if Boston Drug is taken.
temporarily numbed a patient’s pain, there was no control or super-

vision over their creation and no authoritative guidance on their
dosage, meaning that they could be dangerous. Many people became
addicted to those that had opiates or alcohol or cocaine. One, Kopp’s
Baby Friend, was sweetened water and morphine, and while it was
guaranteed to “calm your baby,” there are no statistics on how many
infant deaths it caused.
Prohibition was a wonderful boost for the patent medicine
business. Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was approxi-
mately 15–20 percent alcohol, and Dr. Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters
contained 44.3 percent alcohol, which made it more potent than
80-proof whiskey. Prohibition forced many alcoholic drinks to be

for “medicinal use” only.
How They Were Sold

In earlier times, people who practiced healing or those who ran
apothecary shops were the primary purveyors of patent medi-
cines. While there have always been quacks and charlatans, the
era of patent medicines changed all that—these remedies were the
first major product sold via advertising, and the guise of a medi-
cal professional was dropped in favor of the professional huck-
ster—the medicine man. The experts who “invented” the cure-alls
frequently did not even exist. In some cases, however, real people
may have felt that they had a real cure.
For the most part, it was all about the sale, and patent medicines
led to the growth of the newspaper industry. Benjamin Franklin’s
Pennsylvania Gazette ran an ad as early as 1731 for the “Widow
Read’s Ointment for the Itch,” which had been created by Frank-
lin’s mother-in-law. Later, a fellow named Guy Gannett eventually
had a chain of newspapers (not related to the current Gannett
newspapers) that started in Maine with a publication called Com-
fort to promote Oxien, made from the African baobab tree.
Free almanacs also became a way of promoting patent medi-
cines. One of the first to use this method was William Swaim
who ran a six-page ad for his panacea; in the 1832 Farmer’s and
Mechanic’s Almanac. The ad was a treatise on the benefits of
Swaim’s Panacea, which carried the subtitle: “Being a Recent
Discovery for the Cure of Scrofula or King’s Evil (primary tuber-
culosis), Mercurial and Liver Disease, Deep-Seated Syphilis,
Rheumatism, and all disorders arising from a Contaminated and
Impure State of the Blood.” The ad featured cases illustrating
the success of the remedy that largely consisted of sarsaparilla,
oil of wintergreen, and mercury. Swaim’s use of the almanac to
promote his product was a first and became widely copied. Free
almanacs began to be created to tout the benefits of whatever drug
was being backed by the almanac. Dr. David Jayne launched a
Medical Almanac and Guide to Health in the 1840s to push such
medicines as Jayne’s Sanative Pills, Jayne’s Vermifuge, and Jayne’s

Alternative. Dr. Jayne’s Alternatives promised to cure at least 25
different illnesses, ranging from cancer to skin problems.
Later on, medicine shows became a popular way to sell the
medicines. Medicine men traveled from town to town to present
circus and vaudeville-style entertainment. Four to five times dur-
ing each hour of entertainment, the medicine man interrupted
the performers to present a sales pitch. After the show the entire
group moved on to the next town. With this kind of operation,
they did not have to worry about whether the medicine worked
because they moved on to the next community before customers
had time to become outraged.
By 1881, the medicine show sales techniques were perfected,
and the most successful shows were produced by John E. “Doc”
Healy and “Texas Charlie” Bigelow for the Kickapoo Indian Medi-
cine Company. The entertainment was halted four to five times
each hour so that the pitchmen could talk about the medicine. A
shill would be in the audience, buy the product, and then declare
himself cured. Salesmen who circulated through the crowd would
only carry a few bottles with them so that they could make a big
show of “selling out” and having to run backstage for more prod-
uct. It was a highly effective sales technique for products with
little curative merit, though customers may have been sedated
from them; some became addicted. In 1859, $3.5 million of patent
medicines were sold; by 1904, the earnings rose to $74.5 million.
Bringing an End to the Trade

By end of the 19th century, Americans were finally becoming
skeptical. Some physicians had always spoken out against these
medicines, feeling that they did not work and kept people from
seeking legitimate help. The temperance movement also cam-
paigned against patent medicines because of the amount of alcohol
in them, and, over time, a public sentiment began to favor laws
that disclosed the ingredients. Manufacturers were concerned at
the very real thought of lost revenue, and in 1881 they formed the
Proprietary Association, a trade association of medical produc-

ers. The Association received support from the press, which had
grown dependent on remedy advertising. The newspaper and mag-
azine business benefited greatly from the advertising income, and
the patent medicine makers had a clause in their advertising con-
tracts that noted that if the medicines ever became regulated, the
advertising contract would be considered void. This was enough
to quiet the one group that might have been the logical people to
bring attention to what was happening.
Finally in 1892, Ladies’ Home Journal made a bold move and
quit accepting ads for patent medicines. The muckraker and
reporter Samuel Hopkins Adams, a writer for Collier’s Weekly in
the early 1900s, wrote “The Great American Fraud,” which pub-
licized the problems and the deaths that had occurred from pat-
ent medicines. When the article appeared in 1905, this spurred a
campaign against patent medicines and their false claims, noting
the high quantity of alcohol and opiates were “undiluted fraud.”
With strong support from President Theodore Roosevelt, a
Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in Congress in 1906, cre-
ating the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The original
act paved the way for public health action against unlabeled or
unsafe ingredients, misleading ads, quackery, and other rackets.
It did not ban the ingredients or the sale of the medicines; it only
stated that they had to be accurately labeled. The Pure Food and
Drug Act of 1906 imposed regulations on the labeling of products
containing alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, chloro-
form, cannabis, and similar ingredients. It required that products
containing any of those substances be labeled with the substance
and quantity on the label. Use of the word cure for most medi-
cines was nominally prohibited. Soon, cure was replaced by rem-
edy and other terms.
The Pure Food and Drug Act was strengthened with the pas-
sage of the Sherley amendment in 1912. According to the FDA
Web site, Congress enacted the Sherley amendment to prohibit
the labeling of medicines with false therapeutic claims intended
to defraud the purchaser, a standard difficult to prove. The use of
the word cure was largely curtailed, and this is for all intents and
purposes the end date for patent medicine bottles for human use
that are embossed (or labeled) with cure. However, enforcement
was still not specified, and some use of the term most likely did
occur after 1912–13, although not likely embossed on bottles after
this point. One of the first patent medicines prosecuted in 1913
was William Radam’s Microbe Killer, whose bottles claimed boldly
to “Cure All Diseases.”
A number of patent medicines were still available as late as the
1950s, sold under slightly different names, and today a few of these
medicines have morphed into something that is still on shelves:
Smith Brothers Cough Drops, Geritol, Absorbine, Bromo-Seltzer,
Carter’s Little Pills, Luden’s,
Phillips Milk of Magnesia,
Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable
Compound, Vicks VapoRub.
Among the products that are
still available in soft drink
form but began life as a pat-
ent medicine are Hires Root
Beer, Coca-Cola (the original
contained cocaine), 7-Up, Dr.
Pepper, and tonic water (which
still contains quinine).
Ironically, Louis Pasteur’s
scientific germ theory of dis-
ease was introduced to Amer-
ica by patent medicine sellers.
One of the main ones was
William Radam, a Prussian
Louis Pasteur made many contri- émigré who lived in Texas.
butions to science and medicine. He was interested in Pasteur’s
One of his early discoveries was a discovery of the microbe, and
process now known as pasteuriza-
Radam developed a medica-
tion. Engraving by Heliogre Dujar-
din (Dibner Library of the History of tion to fight these entities. He
Science and Technology) patented the Microbe Killer in
1886. While it was extremely popular at the time, a later chemical

analysis revealed that it was 99 percent water and therefore of no
clinical value.
Conclusion
The state of early American medicine was quite poor. Physi-
cians lacked formal education and had little clinical training and
their misunderstandings about the nature of disease led them to
assume that more was better—a treatment that was helpful only
if the patient was lucky. Patent medicines offered an opportunity
to improve the state of medicine, but because the profit motive
quickly outweighed any true interest in healing, the concoctions
were thrown together in such a way that people either invested
in mixtures that were little more than water or they purchased
something that calmed them—and possibly addicted them to the
medicine.
Patients who were tended to at home by loved ones and encour-
aged to rest and eat well were sometimes fortunate. However, their
fate depended largely on the virulence of whatever it was that had
laid them low. Survival was a matter of good fortune.
7
early thoughts on digestion
and respiration
T oday, physicians know that people need to be able to breathe

clean air, get exercise, and eat well-balanced meals, but dur-
ing the 18th and early 19th centuries, there were many misun-
derstandings about what contributed to good health, and these
misunderstandings were largely rooted in ignorance of the bodily
processes.
Though studies of anatomy identified the work done by the
lungs, no one really understood how the body used air. However,
they had their theories about good air and bad air. During the
day, a fresh breeze blowing through the house was thought to be
a tonic; at night, it was unhealthy, and people covered their win-
dows and locked their doors at night to keep out the bad air.
Proper nutrition was also a big mystery. During the Revolu-
tionary War, Washington felt that the reason his men were sick
so much of the time was that they were eating too much meat and
not enough vegetables. The military response was to add sugar
to the few vegetables they had to feed the men. It was thought
that this would make the food more palatable, but since sugar
can suppress the immune system, the idea was far from helpful.
However, both Washington and Napoléon’s outfits offered apple
106
early Thoughts on digestion and respiration 107
cider vinegar and honey for soldiers to drink and, while they had
little understanding of why it was healthful, it actually would have
provided both vitamins and energy that would have helped keep
the soldiers going. Food values and how the body processed food
was not well understood.
This chapter outlines what people at this time understood
about nutrition and the digestive and respiratory processes. An
army surgeon and a gunshot victim led the way to better under-
standing of digestion. Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern
chemistry, made important contributions to understanding
respiration.
what they ate

During the 1700s, the caliber of food was poor, particularly in
urban areas. Meat rose in popularity, but it was difficult to trans-
port in large quantities. Fresh fruit was also difficult to obtain,
so the wealthy tended to be the primary consumers of anything
fresh. There were also many misunderstandings about food prepa-
ration. The British thought anyone who ate uncooked fruit would
get indigestion or even the plague. Another misunderstanding
involved food and cleanliness. No one thought to wash what they
ate. Fruit sold by vendors needed to look good, so one quick solu-
tion that was sometimes used was a little saliva from the fruit
vendor; then he probably buffed the fruit on his largely unclean
pants or shirt.
In the American colonies, life was not much better. The fami-
lies who lived on farms worked hard. In the early settlements, poor
families ate from trenchers filled from a common stew pot. The
stews would have included pork, sweet corn, and cabbage or other
vegetables and roots that were available.
As life became a little more refined, they would have eaten
three meals. The caloric energy generated by a breakfast of corn-
meal mush and molasses (washed down with cider or beer) would
be used up quickly. By the 19th century, coffee, tea or chocolate
were enjoyed by the fortunate.
The midday meal was generally the biggest meal of the day.
While the affluent families would eat at home, stews were usu-
ally carried into the fields to feed the slaves and laborers. Supper,
served at the end of the day, generally consisted of leftovers from
dinner. Supper was generally more like a snack than a full meal,
and, if times were difficult, it might have been gruel (a mixture
made from boiling water with oats or cornmeal). Ale, cider, or
some variety of beer were always served.
What They Knew about the Body

The idea that the body required constant nourishment went back
hundreds of years, but the first controlled studies of the metabolic
process in humans were undertaken by the 16th-century Italian
physician Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). He saw the body as a
machine and became interested in studying weight and its rela-
tion to food intake. Santorio created a balanced scale system that
was big enough for him to sit in, and, over a 30-year period, he
studied himself carefully. He described how he weighed himself
before and after eating, sleeping, working, sex, fasting, drinking,
and excreting.
While his findings ultimately did not have scientific value, his
achievements were in the empirical methodology he used for the
experiment. He was one of the first to pay such careful attention to
gathering and evaluating data. (A better understanding of metabo-
lism did not occur until the beginning of the 20th century when
Eduard Buchner discovered enzymes. At this point it was pos-
sible to separate the study of the chemical reactions of metabolism
from the biological study of cells, and this marked the beginning
of biochemistry.)
The Digestive Process in Action

In the early part of the 19th century, scientists realized that the
stomach was key to the digestive process, but no one understood
how it processed food—whether the food was ground up by the
Early Thoughts on Digestion and Respiration 109
stomach, heated up so that

it melted into a liquid form,
or changed chemically. The
military surgeon William
Beaumont (1785–1853) was
presented with a unique oppor-
tunity to study digestion, and
he took full advantage of it.
William Beaumont was
born in Connecticut and
trained to be a doctor. Because
there were few medical schools
in America, the most common William Beaumont’s studies of how
way to study medicine involved Alexis St. Martin processed food
studying under an established were early steps in understanding
doctor, which Beaumont did human digestion.
with the local doctor in Lake
Champlain. Beaumont was
accepted as a physician by 1812, and he enlisted in the army as a
surgeon’s mate. He was assigned to a regiment in Plattsburgh, New
York, where he took care of soldiers who were mainly suffering
illnesses caused by the wet and windy weather. In April 1813, the
regiment moved into battle, and the problems became more seri-
ous. In addition to battle wounds that often required amputations,
the men also encountered more troublesome illnesses including
dysentery, pleurisy, and pneumonia. Beaumont’s treatment meth-
ods primarily involved wine, opium, mercury, and snakeroot. He
used wood resin and turpentine for those suffering from rheuma-
tism pain. Trephination was still used for pain relief as well, and
Beaumont occasionally provided relief by cutting a small hole in
the skull.
Later on, Beaumont was serving at Fort Mackinac, Michigan,
when fate was to change two men’s lives forever. A young French-
Canadian voyageur (canoe paddler and trader) named Alexis
St. Martin had stopped into the American Fur Company at Fort
Mackinac for supplies when a musket discharged accidentally just
2.5 feet (0.76 m) from where St. Martin was standing. Beaumont,
the fort doctor, was summoned right away, and he found that St.
Martin had a hole bigger “than the size of the palm of a man’s
hand.” In addition, part of the young man’s lung was damaged
and two ribs were broken. Beaumont did all he could to repair the
wound, but the injury was so great that Beaumont felt St. Martin
would be lucky to live 36 hours.
To everyone’s amazement, St. Martin pulled through. The
nature of the wound meant that he could no longer paddle canoes,
so Beaumont hired him as a handyman to work at the fort. A year
later, St. Martin was doing well, but the wound had still not com-
pletely closed. An opening into the stomach about 2.5 inches (6.35
cm) in circumference remained. Food and drink oozed out unless
the area was bandaged.
Beaumont Seizes an Opportunity

For three years, the two men continued their separate lives at the
fort; Beaumont tended to medical duties and St. Martin helped
with whatever needed to be done. When Beaumont was trans-
ferred to Fort Niagara, he took St. Martin with him. At about
this time, it occurred to Beaumont that he might be able to learn
a lot about digestion by studying the French-Canadian. With St.
Martin’s agreement, Beaumont developed some experiments.
One of them involved tying a silk string around different types
of bite-sized morsels. Beaumont used various types of meat, stale
bread, and cabbage, and he inserted the food directly into the
hole, and then pulled it out via the string after various peri-
ods of time—one hour, two hours, and three hours. That day’s
experiments ended after five hours when St. Martin complained
of stomach distress.
A few days later, Beaumont wanted to study digestion in and
out of the stomach to see how gastric juices worked. (He did not
know about the contributions of saliva.) Beaumont checked the
temperature of the young man’s stomach—it was 100°F (37.8°C).
He also withdrew some of the gastric juice and put it in a test tube.
Keeping the test tube gastric juices at the same temperature as St.
Martin’s stomach, he introduced the same type of meat into both
“test environments.” He found that meat could be digested in the
stomach in about two hours; the meat in gastric juice in the test
tube took about 10 hours to digest. In September, St. Martin went
back to Canada where he married and began raising what grew to
be a large family.
Beaumont continued his army service, and, after stints in
Green Bay, St. Louis, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Beau-
mont was reunited with St. Martin who agreed to return—for a
fee—to continue the experiments. St. Martin and his family joined
Beaumont in 1829, and the experiments continued. During this
visit, Beaumont decided to observe “normal digestion.” St. Martin
would eat and then go back to work, and Beaumont would take
samples from St. Martin’s stomach at various times. This experi-
ment showed Beaumont that milk coagulates before the digestive
process, and vegetables take longer to digest than other foods. He
also noted that if St. Martin was stressed, digestion took longer.
In 1832, Beaumont took a leave from the military and traveled
with St. Martin to Washington. This time, Beaumont used oys-
ters, sausage, mutton, and salted pork to test digestion. In 1833,
Beaumont wrote about what he had learned, publishing Experi-
ments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of
Digestion.
The death of one of his children caused St. Martin to return to
Canada, and, though the two men expected to get together again, St.
Martin started asking for sums that exceeded what Beaumont could
pay, and, as a result, the two men never worked together again.
Beaumont died before St. Martin; St. Martin lived to be 86, 58
years after the gunshot accident. St. Martin maintained a warm
relationship with Beaumont’s family until his own death in 1880.
St. Martin’s family felt St. Martin had suffered enough, and they
did not want him to become a medical curiosity. They let his body
decompose for several days and then buried him in the Catholic
churchyard in a deep, unmarked grave and placed heavy rocks on
top of the coffin to prevent anyone from performing an autopsy.
Through the work of scientists such as Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier,

physicians were beginning to understand more about the respiratory
process.
Many years later, a committee finally persuaded one of St.

Martin’s granddaughters to disclose the location of the grave, and,
in 1962, a plaque was placed on the church wall nearby, stating
Alexis St. Martin’s contribution to medical history.
The Early Work of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)

Louis Pasteur was a giant among scientists, and his discoveries of
germs and his work in vaccination will be discussed in a future
volume of this series. However, early on, he made a great contribu-
tion that eventually would have a positive effect on public health
by improving the quality of what people consumed.
Pasteur was born in 1822 in eastern France. He was not a par-
ticularly good student in elementary school, but one teacher saw
possibilities and worked with him to teach him to take a very
careful approach to his work. He went on to secondary school,
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
(1743–1794):
The Father of Modern Chemistry
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was one of the leaders in the

amazing discoveries that were occurring in chemistry. In his
work, Lavoisier developed an understanding of the chemi-
cal reactions of both combustion and respiration. This work
resulted in the identification of oxygen, which was a vital
discovery that could help with a better understanding of the
workings of the body.
In 1777, Lavoisier identified that respiration involved the
intake of oxygen and the exhalation of carbon dioxide. He
went on to figure out ways to measure the oxygen intake for
different activities. Further proof of Lavoisier’s oxygen the-
ory came when Lavoisier successfully decomposed water
into two gases; he named them hydrogen and oxygen and
later reformed them into water. As he continued his work,
Lavoisier explored more about the passage of gases through
the lungs and established that oxygen was indispensable for
the human body.
Though unusual for the day, Lavoisier’s wife, Marie-Anne
Pierrette Paulze, became his colleague. She learned English
so she could translate the work of English scientists for
Lavoisier, and she developed skills in art and engraving and
provided the illustrations for his books. She also left draw-
ings that showed the devices with which he worked.
Though Lavoisier is considered the greatest chemist of
his time, he was caught up in the government turmoil of the
day. He was put to death (by guillotine) by the revolution-
ary government for being a member of the hated tax bureau-
cracy of the earlier regime.
This was the device Lavoisier used to disprove the theory that humans
relied on phlogiston in order to live. The process involved heating
mercury for 12 days and releasing it slowly. Once Lavoisier ascertained
the phlogiston did not result from this process (as others said it would),
it cleared the way for him to identify oxygen and carbon dioxide.
followed by the Ecole Normale in Paris, thinking he would train

to be a teacher. Chemistry became the subject of his focus, and
he graduated with a master of science in 1845. He began work
toward a doctoral degree, and he thrived at the detailed work nec-
essary in the laboratory. (The teacher who had encouraged careful
and well-organized work habits is perhaps responsible for one of
Pasteur’s greatest qualities.) He went on to become professor of
chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, and he married and
started a family.
Practical Science
At the age of 32, Pasteur became part of a program where science
faculty was expected to help apply their theoretical knowledge
to work to solve the practical scientific problems of business and
industry. Pasteur found this very exciting and spent two years
establishing a faculty to work with him in applied science. His
own research had to do with the process of fermentation—the
process which is used to produce alcohol from sugar but which
can also result in milk going sour. Chemists of the time could not
explain why this was a good thing with wine but a bad thing with
milk.
Pasteur proved that fermentation took place only when small
living things called microbes were present. Pasteur discovered that
spoilage organisms could be made inactive in wine by applying
heat at temperatures just below its boiling point. The process was
later applied to milk and remains an important part of keeping
milk supplies safe. Pasteur’s findings helped established a new
branch of science—microbiology.
Conclusion
While there were still many unknowns about the respiratory and
digestive processes, the 1700s and early 1800s were a time when
scientists and physicians were beginning to put together some
important pieces. No one could have dreamed of the opportunity
given to Beaumont to learn about the inner workings of human
digestion, and he and St. Martin contributed greatly to progress in
this area. The study of respiration took a new leap forward with
Lavoisier’s work. From here, scientists could begin to study how
oxidation takes place within the body—something they could not
have learned without Lavoisier.
8
the importance of public health
T oward the end of the Middle Ages, communities—particu-

larly those in northern Italy—had encountered such prob-
lems with the spread of plague and other illnesses that many of
the cities had established permanent boards of health that could
establish quarantines, issue health passes, arrange for the burial of
plague victims, and see that victims’ homes were fumigated. Most
boards worked closely with the local physicians who often advised
them. Over time, some of the communities provided their boards
with responsibilities for controlling the cleanliness of streets and
marketplaces, in addition to maintaining adequate water supplies
and sewage systems. Some cities placed the professional activities
of physicians and surgeons and the monitoring of activities by
beggars and prostitutes under the purview of the health boards
as well. However, many of the boards of health ceased to be taken
seriously during the 17th century when the plague’s virulence less-
ened. At the time, towns did not seem to suffer from a lighter level
of public health vigilance.
Not all cities in Western Europe had official health boards,
but most implemented some measures that were helpful in con-
trolling illnesses. Port cities regularly insisted on quarantine of
sailors on newly arrived ships. Since miasma was still a popular
theory of what made people sick, this led to some improvement
116
The Importance of Public Health 117
in sanitation as the population was motivated to get rid of odifer-

ous things. Most communities tried to bury their dead quickly,
and, while there was interest in getting rid of waste, few places
had devised an efficient method for disposing of it. (Waste was
frequently dumped into rivers and streams from which towns
drew their freshwater.) What to do with the sick was always a
problem. Towns frequently supported housing sick people with
little money in “pest houses” as a way to halt contagion and get
rid of a problem.
Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821), a leading clinician, medical
educator, and hospital administrator, was one who recognized
that public health was the key to solving many problems, and
he dedicated his life to working toward creating governmental
regulations and programs that protected the population against
disease and promoted health. The actions that he advocated
ranged from measures of personal hygiene and medical care
to environmental regulation and social engineering. He was
joined by other reformers who improved public health in their
countries.
This chapter outlines the work of Frank and others like him
who recognized a community problem and would not let go until it
was solved. The work of John Snow, a British physician who made
important contributions to the history of medicine as he unraveled
the mystery of cholera, is explained.
early awareness
The period from 1750 until the mid–19th century was a time of
unprecedented industrial, social, and political development. As
the Industrial Revolution picked up steam and an ever-increasing
number of people began to settle in the cities, the city governments
were not prepared to handle the influx of so many people. Dis-
eases like consumption, dysentery, smallpox, and typhus spread
quickly through crowded communities. Many of the poor died
from being undernourished, and the severe winters frequently led
to illnesses from which those with little means did not recover.
Soon the death rates

in urban areas began
to exceed birth rates,
and only the influx of
people from the coun-
tryside kept the popu-
lation growing.
The urban poor
as a group also saw
a decline in their life
expectancy. In the
industrial town of
Manchester, England,
in 1842, a member of
the gentry could expect
The first sanitary commission in the United to live to age 38, but a
States was formed in 1861 to promote clean factory worker’s life
and healthy conditions in the Union army
camps. They staffed some field hospitals
expectancy was only
and attempted to educate the military and 17 years! Outside the
government concerning cleanliness and city, a craftsperson
healthy living. or laborer—the type
of person who would
have taken a factory job—could expect to live to 38 years. These
same types of statistics were reflected in infant mortality: In the
upper and middle classes, the death rate for babies was 76 per
1,000 births; for the unskilled laboring class, 153 deaths per 1,000
births was the norm. If poor children lived beyond toddlerhood,
they generally suffered from issues related to poor nutrition. Rick-
ets (softening of the bones) was particularly prevalent because of
poor diets.
The historian Roy Porter, author of The Greatest Benefit to
Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity, compares the industrial
cities of that time with today’s Third World shantytowns and refu-
gee camps, with gross overcrowding, pollution of the water supply,
and cesspools that frequently overflow, causing waste to run down
the streets. The problems in these communities can be outlined
by discussing two particular issues that plagued most cities: over-

crowding and poor sanitation.
Urban Crowding
Housing for the majority of people who lived in the 19th century
was incredibly bad. Many houses were poorly built, to the point
of being unsafe. The rooms did not have lights or ventilation, and
many had a dank or damp feel. Most people had to live in group
housing, and, if a family did have their own space, they generally
had only one bed that everyone slept in together. (It was called
bundling.) Most houses had a fireplace that was used for cooking
and for heat.
Between the dampness and the close quarters, the living envi-
ronment encouraged the spread of diseases, and paying for medical
care was unthinkable for most. Governments were not prepared to
play a role in overseeing social welfare, so up until the first quar-
ter of the 19th century, most forms of public medical assistance
were provided by charitable organizations, idealistic doctors, and
clergymen who simply volunteered to help out.
A Lack of Sanitation
The streetscape and general town environment were shared by
rich and poor, and sanitation was poor. The exposure to disease-
carrying waste products became larger, as did the problem of
unclean air. Noxious gases from burning coal and other types of
industrial progress often caused a black or gray overlay to the air.
In London, as in most cities in western Europe, very little was
done to address these health concerns other than to force the more
unsanitary industries such as leather tanning, glue-making, and
candle-making out of the city into areas that were slightly less
populated.
Eventually, outbreaks of large-scale infectious diseases began
to force change. In the 1830s, typhus and cholera became rampant,
and governments and local councils began to pay attention to the
appalling conditions and the

risks posed by contaminated
wells, the lack of sewage sys-
tems, and people living in
overcrowded housing. (See
“John Snow and Cholera” on
page 124)
Lack of Job Safety

No factory owner and few
town administrators gave a
thought to protecting workers This shows the type of lung damage
from dangerous job conditions. that occurs to those who work in
Part of the problem was a lack mines. Scientists were just beginning
to realize that workplaces created
of knowledge. The people of unique hazards for workers. Very
the time had no idea that work- little was done about it at the time.
ing in a mine did damage to the
lungs nor that the chemicals
used in tanning posed a long-term health threat. As a result, no
one paid much attention to creating safer working conditions. If
someone was severely injured on the job, he was let go and expected
to pay all medical costs himself. If he could not do so, then he likely
received no care. The public sentiment of the time was that govern-
ment should not interfere with employment practices or raise taxes
in order to help the poor, as that was a violation of personal free-
dom. It took until the end of the 19th century before governments
began to step in with laws and aid to protect workers.
Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821): Early Leader in

Public Health
Johann Peter Frank is without a doubt one of the most influen-
tial figures in the early history of public health and community
medicine. He was a physician who taught at several different uni-
versities and also worked as director of sanitation in Lombardy
(1786) and as a sanitary officer to the Vienna hospitals (1795).
Children in the Workplace
During the 18th and early 19th century, poor children were
sent to work at a very young age. Some ran errands, swept
roads, or sold flowers on the street. Many worked alongside
their parents, sewing clothes or helping to make shoes that
the family would sell. As the Industrial Revolution required
more and more workers, many children began to work in fac-
tories, often running dangerous machinery. Hours were long
and pay was poor.
Most poor children were in terrible health. They were
often malnourished, and rickets (softening of the bones) was
prevalent because of inadequate diets.
Sometimes children were sought out for jobs because
being small was helpful in doing the work. Chimney sweeps
loved having small children to go up into the chimneys to
clean them. In factories, cotton-spinning machines were
best operated by tiny fingers, and, because children learned
quickly, they were put to work in these jobs. Factory opera-
tors often looked for children between the ages of six and 12
for this type of work.
The first effort to advocate for children came from chari-
table groups who organized missions where they provided
employment—but it was thought, better employment—for
children. While this may have kept the children from nefarious
factory bosses who exploited them, it still prevented them
from attending school or obtaining more helpful training.
Over time, governments began to put laws in place that
were somewhat protective. In England, the Factory Act of
1833 proclaimed that children could not work until the age of
nine and that children between the ages of nine and 13 could
work only 48 hours a week. This was the first of several child
labor laws to be enacted, but misuse of children continued
into the 20th century.
At one point he was personal

physician to Czar Alexander I
(1805–08). Frank’s work made
him very concerned about pub-
lic hygiene, and he undertook
to devise codes of hygiene.
Early in his career he began
working on a massive treatise,
System einer vollständigen
medicinischen polizey (A com-
plete system of medical policy).
This occupied him through-
out his life, and, when it was
published (1779 to 1827), it
filled nine volumes. It was the
first thorough treatise on all
aspects of public health and
Johann Peter Frank (National Library
of Medicine)
hygiene, providing guidelines
on an orderly method to keep
communities clean. Frank’s
system dealt with water supply and sanitation, food safety, school
health, sexual hygiene, maternal and child welfare, and regulation
of aspects of public behavior. In addition, the treatise documented
existing laws and proposed further regulations regarding conduct
that affected people’s health. He urged international regulation of
health problems and advocated that one of the responsibilities of
government was to protect the health of its citizens.
In his hospital work, Frank stressed the importance of keeping
accurate statistical records for hospitals, and it may have been this
system for maintaining health data that permitted Ignaz Semmel-
weis (1818–65) to demonstrate the connection between puerperal
sepsis and unsanitary obstetrical practices.
In addition to his nine-volume System, Frank wrote a seven-
volume textbook on internal medicine and made important clini-
cal discoveries, including the distinction between different types
of diabetes.
Other Reformers: Bentham, Chadwick,

and Shattuck
In England, the social reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
was also pushing for a more humanitarian social philosophy. He
believed that society should be organized for the greatest benefit
of the greatest number of people (known as utilitarianism). He
advocated for prison reform, various sanitary measures, and the
establishment of a ministry of health and birth control.
The British government official Edwin Chadwick (1800–90)
was a disciple of Bentham and worked to help Bentham’s ideas
become a reality. Chadwick had been secretary of England’s Poor
Law Commission, and he took the lead in advocating for trying
to decrease the spread of disease among the poor, particularly
the working poor. The resulting publication, General Report on
the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Brit-
ain (1842), is considered one of the most important documents of
modern public health. His report included figures to show that in
1839 for every person who died of old age or violence, eight died
of specific diseases. (These statistics help explain why during the
second and third decades of the 19th century nearly one infant in
three in England failed to reach the age of five.)
In his work, Chadwick documented the life expectancy of vari-
ous social classes, the status of housing of the working population,
the lack of adequate supplies of water, and the existence of poor
sewage disposal. He also noted the unhygienic circumstances of
most workplaces, the economic impact of unsanitary conditions,
and the evidence for the beneficial health effects of preventive
measures.
Chadwick’s report was widely circulated and carefully consid-
ered, and over time legislation began to be introduced that provided
for better sewage, adequate clean water supplies, regular refuse
removal, and ventilation for homes and in factories. Chadwick also
fought for laws that might help reduce workplace injuries.
In the United States, the reformer Lemuel Shattuck observed
the impact that Chadwick was having, and Shattuck put in place
the mechanism for a similar survey with recommendations based
on what was learned. The Report of a General Plan for the Promo-
tion of Public and Personal Health (1850) put forward 50 recom-
mendations and a model for state public health laws.
In England and America, these reports began to have definite
impacts on the governments, establishing a framework for an
improvement in the field of public health.
John Snow and Cholera

As previously noted, a more mobile population led to a greater
spread of illness as diseases from other countries arrived with
explorers, travelers, and traders as they returned home. In 1816,
cholera—an acute disease that is characterized by violent stomach-
related problems—began to spread rapidly from India to the ports
of the Philippines, China, Japan, the Persian Gulf, and then north
toward the Ottoman and Rus-
sian Empires, killing thousands
of people. The first outbreak of
Asiatic cholera, as it is some-
times referred to, in Britain
was at Sunderland on the Dur-
ham coast during the autumn
of 1831. The disease traveled
north to Scotland and south
toward London. By the end
of that outbreak, 52,000 lives
were lost. Then in 1832, Lon-
don experienced another out-
break that killed 7,000 people.
In The Healthy Body and
Victorian Culture, Bruce Haley
quotes local doctors:
. . . cholera was something

John Snow (National Library of outlandish, unknown, mon-
Medicine) strous; its tremendous rav-
This was the type of map John Snow used to identify the location of
those who died from cholera. Using that information, he was able to trace
cholera back to the pumps that were supplied with water from a company
that took the liquid from a polluted part of the Thames.
ages, so long foreseen and feared, so little to be explained . . .

its apparent defiance of all the known and conventional pre-
cautions against the spread of epidemic disease . . . recalled the
memory of the great epidemics of the Middle Ages.
Symptoms of cholera are nausea and dizziness that lead to vio-

lent vomiting and diarrhea. Extreme muscle cramps follow with
an insatiable desire for water, followed by a sinking stage when
the pulse rate drops and lethargy sets in. Near death, the patient
displays the classic cholera look, which features puckered blue lips
in a face that becomes very skeletonlike.
John Snow (1813–58), a British physician, was particularly
puzzled by cholera, but he also was exploring a completely differ-
ent theory about the spread of illness. Snow believed that disease
could be carried by contaminated food or water, and in 1849 he
published a small pamphlet “On the Mode of Communication of
Cholera.” Most professionals still believed that disease was trans-
mitted by contaminated vapors. While a few scientists took note
of Snow’s idea that the Cholera poison was being spread by con-
taminated food or water, he was largely ignored.
Then in 1854, England experienced a terrible outbreak of
cholera, and Snow set about investigating the epidemic and map-
ping out the locations of those who were dying of the illness. At
the time, the London public received water from two water com-
panies. One took water from the Thames, upstream of the city;
the second company also took water from the Thames, but their
source was downstream of the city. The cases of cholera seemed to
be clustered around the pumps and wells that collected their water
from the downstream source. Snow also noted that one particular
water pump seemed to be in the center of an extraordinarily high
outbreak of the disease. According to his map, there were up to
500 deaths from cholera during a 10-day period near a pump at
Cambridge and Broad Streets.
As a first step, Snow suggested that public officials remove the
pump handle from the Broad Street pump, and, to everyone’s great
surprise and relief, the number of cases in the area near the Broad
Street pump began to drop quickly. While later scientists would
verify Snow’s suspicion that the causative factor for the spread of
cholera was an unknown agent in the water, the decrease in cases
after the change of the pump handle likely had to do with the fact
that people did not wash their hands often. The pump handle must
have been highly contaminated.
As Snow pushed for cleaner water, other scientists were work-
ing to explain what Snow suspected. In 1883, the chemist Robert
This sketch, titled Death’s Dispensary, was drawn by George Pinwell in

1866, about the time John Snow published his studies that showed the
source of cholera to be the water supply. (Public Health Image Library,
Centers for Disease Control)
Koch identified Vibreo cholerae. But even before Koch’s contribu-

tion, Snow’s work was absolutely vital to establishing a new prec-
edent for how to look for the cause of disease. As a result of this
work as well as other contributions to medicine, Snow is often
referred to as the father of epidemiology.
ConClusion
During the mid-19th century, Europe was experiencing a time of
great unrest. Revolutions in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and
the Habsburg Austrian Empire created harsh living conditions for
most of the population, which eventually brought greater focus
to the issues involved in public health. The Irish Potato Famine
(1845–51) also contributed to additional awareness of the need
for reform. When Ireland’s crops failed, it caused the deaths of
1 million people, with another 1 million leaving the country in
coffin ships to try and escape the great hunger. While few were
particularly concerned about the poor, leading citizens and gov-
ernments began to realize that something needed to be done to
improve life for everyone. Slowly, new public health laws began
to be put in place.
Chronology
1630s Plants such as Peruvian bark, tobacco, and

cinchona begin to be imported from the New
World and used as medicines.
1683 Leeuwenhoek sees “little aminalcules.”
162 Salem witch trials
1700s Men begin to take on role of midwives, called
accoucheurs.
1708 Institutiones medicae by Herman Boerhaave
published
1733 Forceps begin to be used by people other than
the Chamberlens.
170 Sir John Pringle identifies typhus.
17–106 Patent medicines are extraordinarily popular.
177 James Lind runs clinical trial and proves that
citrus fruits prevent scurvy.
172 John Pringle publishes the first English text on
military medicine, Observations on the Diseases
of the Military.
Britain passes the Murder Act, which some-
what eases availability of bodies for dissection.
1763 Smallpox-infected blankets were distributed
by the British to Native Americans, start-
ing an epidemic; there is disagreement about
whether it was intentional.
1770–3 Surgeon John Hunter is at his peak.
177 William Hunter publishes his seminal work
on pregnancy.
1777 Lavoisier identifies that respiration involves
intake of oxygen.
1788 People riot at the hospital over doctors’ use of
bodies for study.
12
1790–1810 Leeches are so popular that Europe has to

import them.
1790s Mesmerism becomes the rage.
Samuel Hahnemann objects to bloodletting
and begins teaching homeopathy.
1793 Philadelphia experiences devastating yellow
fever epidemic.
1796 Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination.
1797 Larrey develops concept of flying ambulance
corps.
Larrey implements the use of triage to priori-
tize treatment of the wounded.
1799 The death of George Washington, in spite
of—or because of—medical care
Benjamin Rush wins libel suit against
writer William Cobbett, who has attacked
him in print for Rush’s copious “medicinal”
bloodletting.
1800 Humphry Davy identifies nitrous oxide.
1806 First American medical licensing law passed;
abolished 1844
1811 Elemental iodine discovered
1816 René Laennec invents the stethoscope.
1820–40s Phrenology becomes popular.
1825 Homeopathy becomes popular in America.
1832 The Anatomy Act passed by Britain, further
easing availability of bodies.
1841 Dr. James Braid develops hypnosis.
1842 First surgical operation using anesthesia
1847 American Medical Association (AMA) formed
1850s William Beaumont begins experiments to
understand digestion.
1860s Lister experiments with ways to create sterile
environment.
Chronology 131
1862 Pasteur refines what becomes known as

pasteurization.
1899–1901 Walter Reed heads a commission that finally
determines that yellow fever is spread by mos-
quitoes; this provides a way to diminish the
contagion.
1906 United States passes Pure Food and Drug Act.
1978 Last case of smallpox; person died after acci-
dental exposure.
1980 Leeches begin being used again in surgery.
glossary
accoucheur one that assists at a birth; an obstetrician

acute being, providing, or requiring short-term medical care (as for
a serious illness or traumatic injury)
blister an elevation of the epidermis containing watery liquid
caliper any of various measuring instruments having two usually
adjustable arms, legs, or jaws used especially to measure diam-
eters or thickness—usually in pl.
calomel a white tasteless compound, formerly used in medicine as a
purgative—called also mercury chloride
cantharides a preparation of dried beetles (as Spanish flies) used in
medicine as a counterirritant and formerly as an aphrodisiac
cartouche a box for cartridges
coagulate to cause to become viscous or thickened into a coherent
mass; to clot
deductive reasoning of, relating to, or provable by deduction
edema an abnormal infiltration and excess accumulation of serous
fluid in connective tissue or in a serous cavity—called also
dropsy
empirical originating in or based on observation or experience
epidemiology a branch of medical science that deals with the inci-
dence, distribution, and control of disease in a population
farrier a person who shoes horses
felony a grave crime formally differing from a misdemeanor under
English common law by involving forfeiture in addition to any
other punishment
frigate a light boat propelled by sails
gout a metabolic disease marked by painful inflammation of the
joints and usually an excessive amount of uric acid in the blood
homeopathy a system of medical practice that treats a disease espe-
cially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that
would in healthy people produce systems similar to those of the
disease
132
Glossary 133
hypotension abnormally low blood pressure

inductive reasoning of, relating to, or employing mathematical or logi-
cal induction
jalap a dried tuberous root of a Mexican plant ((Ipomoea purge
syn. Exogonium purge) of the morning-glory family; also, a pow-
dered purgative drug prepared from it that contains resinous
glycosides
jaundice yellowish pigmentation of the skin, tissues, and body fluids
caused by the disposition of bile pigments
laudanum any of various preparations of opium
leeches any of numerous carnivorous or bloodsucking usually fresh-
water annelid worms that have typically a flattened segmented
body with a sucker at each end
lying-in hospital hospital for childbirth
miasma a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease;
also, a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere
misdemeanor a crime less serious than a felony
nostrum a medicine of secret composition recommended by its pre-
pared but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness
panacea a remedy for all ills or difficulties, a cure-all
patent medicine a packaged nonprescription drug that is protected by
a trademark and whose contents are incompletely disclosed; also,
any drug that is a proprietary
phrenology a study of the conformation of the skull based on the
belief that it is indicative of mental faculties and character
plethora a bodily condition characterized by an excess of blood and
marked by turgescence and a florid completion
potter’s field a public burial place for paupers, unknown persons,
and criminals
poultice a soft, usually heated, and sometimes medicated mass
spread on cloth and applied to sores or other lesions
quarantine a restraint upon the activities or communication of peo-
ple or the transport of goods designed to prevent the spread of
disease or pests
quinsy an abscess in the tissue around a tonsil usually resulting from
bacterial infection and often accompanied by pain and fever
resurrectionist body snatcher; people who robbed graves for bodies

to sell to medical schools for dissections, i.e., William Burke and
William Hare
shill to act as a promoter
styptic tending to check bleeding
tartar a poisonous efflorescent crystalline salt of sweetish metallic
taste formerly used in medicine as an emetic and expectorant
vaccine a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated
organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is adminis-
tered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular
disease
variolation the obsolete process of inoculating a susceptible person
with material taken from a vesicle of a person who has smallpox
vasodilator dilation or relaxation of the blood vessels
venesection cutting of a vein
further resourCes
aBout sCienCe and history

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999. Diamond places
in context the development of human society, which is vital to
understanding the development of medicine.
Dubus, Allen G. Man and Nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978. Includes quotes from Vesalius
that were very helpful in understanding his work.
Hazen, Robert M., and James Trefil. Science Matters: Achieving Sci-
entific Literacy. New York: Doubleday, 1991. A clear and readable
overview of scientific principles and how they apply in today’s
world, including the world of medicine.
Internet History of Science Sourcebook. Available online. URL:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/science/sciencebook.html.
Accessed July 9, 2008. A rich resource of links related to every
era of science history, broken down by disciplines, and exploring
philosophical and ethical issues relevant to science and science
history.
Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science, Second Edition.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. A helpful explanation
of the beginning of science and scientific thought. Though the
emphasis is on science in general, there is a chapter on Greek and
Roman medicine as well as medicine in medieval times.
Roberts, J. M. A Short History of the World. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1993. This helps place medical developments in context
with world events.
Silver, Brian L. The Ascent of Science. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998. A sweeping overview of the history of science from
the Renaissance to the present.
Spangenburg, Ray, and Diane Kit Moser. The Birth of Science: Ancient
Times to 1699. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2004. A highly
readable book with key chapters on some of the most significant
developments in medicine.
13
About the History of Medicine

Ackerknecht, Erwin H., M.D. A Short History of Medicine, Revised Edi-
tion. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 1968. While there
have been many new discoveries since Ackerknecht last updated
this book, his contributions are still important as they help the
modern researcher better understand when certain discoveries
were made and how viewpoints have changed over time.
Bell Jr., Whitfield J. “Doctor’s Riot, New York, 1788.” Bulletin of the
New York Academy of Medicine 47, no. 12 (December 1971): 1,501–
1,503. This article contains a firsthand account of the riot that
took place over physicians dissecting cadavers.
Bishop, W. J. The Early History of Surgery. London: The Scientific
Book Guild, 1960. This book is dated but helpful on the history
of surgery.
Buchan, William. Domestic Medicine, Second Edition. London: Royal
Society, 1785. Available online. URL: http://www.american
revolution.org/medicine.html. Accessed January 10, 2009. Provides
a contemporary account of the medical beliefs of the late 1700s.
Carlson, Laurie Winn. A Fever in Salem. Chicago, Ill.: Ivan R. Dee
Publishers, 1999. A new interpretation of what might have
affected the girls who were thought to be under a witch’s spell.
Chambers, Robert, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scots-
men. Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London: Blackie and Son, 1856.
Available online. URL: http://www.electricscotland.com/
history/other/hunter_william.htm. Accessed January 10, 2009.
This resource provides excellent information on the Scottish phy-
sicians, William and John Hunter.
Clendening, Logan, ed. Source Book of Medical History. New York:
Dover Publications, 1942. Clendening has collected excerpts from
medical writings from as early as the time of the Egyptian papyri,
making this a very valuable reference work.
Dary, David. Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific 1492–
1941. New York: Knopf, 2008. This is a brand new book that
has been very well reviewed; Dary is a western historian, and he
outlines the medical practices in the United States from 1492 on.
Davies, Gill, ed. Timetables of Medicine. New York: Black Dog & Lev-
enthal, 2000. An easy-to-assess chart/time line of medicine with
overviews of each period and sidebars on key people and develop-

ments in medicine.
Dawson, Ian. The History of Medicine: Renaissance Medicine. New
York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2005. A heavily illustrated short
book to introduce young people to what medicine was like during
medieval times. Dawson is British so there is additional detail
about the development of medicine in Britain.
Dittrick Medical History Center at Case Western Reserve. Avail-
able online. URL: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/dittrick/site2/.
Accessed October 31, 2008. This Web site is a helpful resource to
link to medical museum Web sites.
Duffin, Jacalyn. History of Medicine. Toronto, Canada: University
of Toronto Press, 1999. Though the book is written by only one
author (a professor), each chapter focuses on the history of a sin-
gle aspect of medicine, such as surgery or pharmacology. It is a
helpful reference book.
Dunn, Peter M. “The Chamberlen Family (1560–1728) and Obstet-
ric Forceps.” Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fetal and Neona-
tal Edition 81, no. 3 (November 1998): F232–F234. This is an
enlightening perspective on the Chamberlen family and why they
maintained their secret.
Fenn, Elizabeth Anne. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic
of 1775–82. New York: Hill & Wang, 2001. This is a scholarly
book that describes the devastating impact of smallpox in North
America.
Haeger, Knut. The Illustrated History of Surgery. Gothenburg: AB
Nordbok, 1988. This is an academic book that is very helpful in
understanding early surgery.
Haley, Bruce. The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. Haley’s book provides
insightful comments about how the Victorians felt about health
care and taking care of themselves.
Kennedy, Michael T., M.D., FACS. A Brief History of Disease, Sci-
ence, and Medicine. Mission Viejo, Calif.: Asklepiad Press, 2004.
Michael Kennedy was a vascular surgeon and now teaches first
and second year medical students an introduction to clinical medi-
cine course at the University of Southern California. The book
started as a series of his lectures but he has woven the material

together to offer a cohesive overview of medicine.
Loudon, Irvine, ed. Western Medicine: An Illustrated History. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997. A variety of experts contribute
chapters to this book that covers medicine from Hippocrates
through the 20th century.
Magner, Lois N. A History of Medicine. Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor &
Francis Group, 2005. An excellent overview of the world of medi-
cine from paleopathology to microbiology.
Ortiz, Jose P. “The Revolutionary Flying Ambulances of Napoleon’s
Surgeon.” U.S. Army Medical Department Journal (October–
December 1998): 17–25. Larrey’s contributions to the military are
outlined, and Ortiz refers to many primary sources in this article.
Porter, Roy, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. In essays written by
experts in the field, this illustrated history traces the evolution
of medicine from the contributions made by early Greek physi-
cians through the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and 19th
and 20th centuries up to current advances. Sidebars cover parallel
social or political events and certain diseases.
———. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Human-
ity. New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1997. Over his lifetime,
Porter wrote a great amount about the history of medicine, and
this book is a valuable and readable detailed description of the
history of medicine.
Rosen, George. A History of Public Health, Expanded Edition. Bal-
timore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. While seri-
ous public health programs did not get underway until the 19th
century, Rosen begins with some of the successes and failures of
much earlier times.
Rush, Benjamin, M.D. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His “Trav-
els Through Life” Together with His Commonplace Book for 1789–1813.
Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. This provides
Benjamin’s Rush’s perspective on medicine of his day.
Selwyn, S. “Sir John Pringle: Hospital Reformer, Moral Philosopher
and Pioneer of Antiseptics.” Medical History (July 10, 1966): 266–
274. This provided an enlightening portrait of John Pringle.
Simmons, John Galbraith. Doctors & Discoveries. Boston: Hough-

ton Mifflin, 2002. This book focuses on the personalities behind
the discoveries and adds a human dimension to the history of
medicine.
Toledo-Pereyra, Luis H. A History of American Medicine from the
Colonial Period to the Early Twentieth Century. Lewiston, N.Y.:
Edwin Mellen, 2006. This is an academic book that provides very
valuable information about colonial America.
United States National Library, National Institutes of Health. Avail-
able online. URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/. Accessed July
10, 2008. A reliable resource for online information pertaining to
the history of medicine.
Vadakan, Vibul V., M.D., FAAP. “The Asphyxiating and Exsangui-
nating Death of President George Washington.” The Permanente
Journal 8, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 76–79. Vadakan takes a clinical
look at the treatment of George Washington’s last illness.
Other Resources
Collins, Gail. America’s Women 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Help-
mates, and Heroines. New York: William Morrow, 2003. Collins’s
book contains some very interesting stories about women and
their roles in health care during the early days of America.
index
Note: Page numbers in italic Hunter, William 27–29

refer to illustrations; m indicates procuring cadavers for 22,
a map; t indicates a table. 34–37
Anatomy Act (1832) 37
anesthesia 32, 33, 33–34
a animalcules 61, 63
Adams, Samuel Hopkins 103 animal magnetism 7
Aedes aegypti 74, 78 animism 3
African Americans 76–77 antiseptics and antiseptic
almanacs 101–102
methods
ambulance corps 43–47, 46,
iodine 95, 95
47
Lister, Joseph 57–58
American Civil War 53, 118
Pringle, John 63
American Medical Association
APA (American Psychological
91
Association) 81
American Psychological
Aristotle xiii
Association (APA) 81
Auenbrugger, Leopold 92
American Revolutionary War
53–56, 58–59
American Society of Dental
Surgeons 91 b
amputations 41, 41, 49–50 Bacon, Francis xiii
Anatomia uteri umani Bailly, Jean-Sylvain 13
gravaidi (Hunter, The Balsam of Life 98
anatomy of the human Baltimore College of Dental
gravid uterus exhibited in Surgery 91
figures) 28 baquet 9, 12–13
anatomy barber-surgeons 87
Hunter, John 29, 29–33 barracks 51
10
Index 11
battlefield medicine 38–59. Braid, James 14

See also military medicine brain function 14, 14–18
ambulance corps 43–47, Broadstreet pump 125m, 126
46, 47 Brockelsby, Richard 42
American Civil War 53, 118 Brown, Gustavus Richard
American Revolutionary 93–94
War 53–56 Brown, John 5
amputation 41, 41, 49–50, Buchan, William 83
51 Buchner, Eduard 108
bandaging and wound- Bulletin of the New York
dressing 39, 41 Academy of Medicine 35–36
Beaumont, William 109–
110
gas masks 56, 56–59 c
hospitals 52–53, 53 cadavers 22, 34–37
Hunter, John 30 calomel 83, 88
Larrey, Dominique-Jean carbolic acid 57–58
42–50, 43 carbon dioxide 113
tourniquets 40–41, 41 Carey, Mathew 76–77
triage 48–49 Carlson, Laurie Winn 12
Beaumont, William 109–111 cartouche boxes 45
Beecher, Henry Ward 16 Chamberlen family 23–27
Bigelow, “Texas Charlie” 102 Chapman, Edmund 26
black lung disease 120 character and personality
blistering 91 traits 14, 14–18
bloodletting (venesection) 2, child labor 121
4–7, 82–83, 91–92, 93–94, chloroform 33
96 cholera 124–128, 125m, 127
boards of health 116 Church, Benjamin 55, 55–56
body-snatching 34–37 cinchona bark 19
Boerhaave, Herman 2–3 cities, growth and problems of
bone nippers 41 117–120
City Hospital (New York) deductive reasoning xiii

35–36 Delaroche, Hippolyte 40
Civil War, American 53 dengue fever 77–78
Clarkson, Matthew 76 dentistry and dental hygiene
Clément, Julien 23 90, 91, 91
coagulation 5–6 Desault, Pierre-Joseph 41
Cobbett, William 83, 86 Dick, Elisha Cullen 93–94
A Collection of Papers on the digestive processes 108–112,
Subject of Bilious Fever, 109
prevalent in the United diseases, causes of 2–4. See
States for a Few Years Past also contagion
(Webster) 80 dissections 22, 34–37
College of Physicians 24, 25 doctor of medicine degrees
Combe, George and Andrew 16 28
contagion 60–61, 79. See also doctors. See physicians
epidemics Domestic Medicine (Buchan)
Cook, James 65 83
Corporation of London
Midwives 25
Courtois, Bernard 95 E
The Cow-Pock–or–the Edinburgh medical program
Wonderful Effects of the New 21
Inoculation (Humphrey) 69 embryology 30
Craik, James 93–94 empirical methodolgy 108
Cuba 84–85 Enlightenment 1–2, xiv–xv
Cullen, William 3, 19, 27, 77 epidemics
public health and 116–117,
120–121
D smallpox 65–71
Davy, Humphry 95, 95 current policies 70–71
death registrations 60–61 Jenner, Edward, and
Death’s Dispensary (Pinwell) vaccination for 69,
127 69–71
Index 143
Montagu, Mary F
Wortley, and Factory Act (1833) 121
variolation 67, 67–68 famine fever (typhus) 41,
spread of 66 61–63, 63, 64
typhoid fever 62, 63 fermentation 115
typhus (jail fever, hospital A Fever in Salem (Carlson) 12
fever, ship fever, famine Finlay, Carlos Juan 84
fever) 41, 61–63, 63, 64 Food and Drug Administration
yellow fever 72–86 (FDA) 6–7, 103
mosquitoes and 72, foods 107–108
74–75, 84–85 forceps 23–24, 24
Philadelphia epidemic Fowler, Lorenzo Niles, and
73, 74–77 Orson Squire 16
Reed, Walter, and Fracastoro, Girolamo 60
building the Panama Frank, Johann Peter 117, 120,
Canal 84–85, 85 122, 122
symptoms and course Franklin, Benjamin 13–14, xiii
of 72–73
theories on cause of
77–79 G
transmission of 79–80 Gage, Thomas 56
treatment of 80, 82–83, Galileo xiii
86 Gall, Franz Joseph 14, 14–16,
U.S. outbreaks (1793– 18
1855) 78m gas masks 56, 56–59
epidemiology 128 gastric juices 110–111
d’Eslon, Charles 9 Gay-Lussac, Louis 95
ether 33 General Report on the Sanitary
experimental trials 68, 92 Condition of the Labouring
Experiments and Observations Population of Great Britain
on the Gastric Juice and (Chadwick) 123
the Physiology of Digestion germ theory of disease 61, 63,
(Beaumont) 111 104–105
Girard, Stephen 76 hypnotism 14

Glasgow Royal Infirmary 57–58 hysteria 12
The Greatest Benefit to
Mankind: A Medical History
of Humanity (Porter) 118 I
Griggs, William 11 imbalances 2–3
inductive reasoning xiii–xiv
Industrial Revolution 117, 121,
H xv
Hahnemann, Samuel 2, 18–19 Institutiones medicae
Haley, Bruce 124–125 (Boerhaave) 2–3
Haycraft, John 5–6 iodine 95
health restoration, views on
2–4
J
The Healthy Body and Victorian
jail fever (typhus) 41, 61–63,
Culture (Haley) 124–125
63, 64
Healy, John E. “Doc” 102
jalap 83
herbs, medicinal 88
Jayne, David 101–102
heroic medicine 18, 82–83, 86,
Jenner, Edward 69, 69–71
91–92, 93–94, 96
hirudin 6
Hirudo medicinalis 5 K
holistic treatments 18 Kickapoo Indian Medicine
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 92 Company 102
Home, Everard 31, 32–33 King’s College (Columbia
homeopathy 2, 18–19 University) 89
home remedy books 87–88 Koch, Robert 126, 128
hospital fever (typhus) 41,
61–63, 63, 64
hospitals 42, 52–53, 53 L
Humphrey, H. 69 Ladies’ Home Journal 103
Hunter, John 29, 29–33, 37, 42 Larrey, Dominique-Jean 39,
Huntington’s chorea 12 42–50, 43
Index 145
laughing gas (nitrous oxide) 33 Mauriçeau, François 25–26

Lavery, Henry C. 17 McIntyre, Alastair 23
Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent de medical assistance 119
13, 113, 114 Medical Inquiries and Observa-
Lazear, Jesse William 84 tions upon the Diseases of the
leeches 4–7 Mind (Rush) 81
Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van 61 Medical Practices Act (1806)
lice 62, 64 90
Liebig, Justin von 57 medical schools 21, 28, 35–36,
life expectancy 118, 123 89–90
like cures like (similia medical tools 89, 92–93
similibus curantur) 19 medicinal herbs 88
Lind, James 62, 64–65 medicine shows 102
Lister, Joseph 57–58 mental health 81
Lloyd George, David 16 mercury 83, 88, 92
London Burkers 37 Mesmer, Franz Anton 2, 7–9,
Louis, P. C. A. 80, 92 12–14
Louis XIV (king of France) mesmerism 2, 7–14, 8
23 miasma 60, 77
Louis XVI (king of France) Microbe Killer 104–105
13 microbiology 115
lungs 106, 113 midwifery 21, 22–24. See also
obstetrics
military medicine
M food, shelter, and uniforms
magnétisme animal (animal 50–52
magnetism) 7 Lind, James, and scurvy
malaria 19 64–65
Marquardt, Fritz 6 mobile field hospitals 52–
Marshall, John 35–36 53, 53
Massachusetts General nutrition 106–107
Hospital (Boston) 32 physical examinations
Materia medica (Cullen) 19 51–52
Pringle, John, and typhus occupational health and safety

61, 62 120, 121
U.S. sanitary commission On Contagions and the Cure
118 of Contagious Diseases
monoscopes 89 (Fracastoro) 60
Monro, John 21 “On the Mode of Communica-
mortar and pestle 88 tion of Cholera” (Snow) 126
mosquitoes 72, 74–75, 78 oral hygiene 90
Murder Act (1752) 36 Organon of the Medical Art
musket balls 39 (Hahnemann) 19
Ortiz, José M. 43
oxygen 113
N
Napoléon Crossing the Alps
(Delaroche) 40 P
neurological science 16, 18 panacea 101
newspaper industry 101 Panama Canal 84, 85
New York Journal of Medicine Parker, Janet 70
90 Pasteur, Louis 57, 61, 104,
Nightingale 54 104, 112, 114–115
nitrous oxide (laughing gas) pasteurization of milk 115
33 patent medicines 96–105
Norwood, Susan 87 advertisements for 97, 99,
nostrums (nostrum remedium) 100, 101–102
96 Balsam of Life story 98
nutrition 64–65, 106–107, currently available 104
107–108 and germ theory of disease
104–105
ingredients 99–101
O medicine shows 102
Observations on the Diseases of regulation of 102–104
the Army (Pringle) 61 salesmen 97, 99
obstetrics 23–24, 27–29 types of 96–97
Index 147
Paulze, Marie-Anne Pierrette Pringle, John 41, 61–63

113 printing press xiv
Pennsylvania Hospital Prohibition 100–101
(Philadelphia) 89 Proprietary Association 103
percussion 92, 93 psychographs 17
Percy, F. P. 46–47 public health
personal hygiene 88 Bentham, Jeremy 123
personality and character boards of health 116
traits 14, 14–18 Chadwick, Edwin 123
pest houses 117 crowding 119
Petit, Jean-Louis 40 death registrations 60–61
Philadelphia yellow fever Frank, Johann Peter 120,
epidemic (1793) 73, 74–77 122, 122
phlogiston 114 increasing urban
phrenology 2, 14, 14–18 population 117–118
physicians occupational health and
College of Physicians 24, safety 120, 121
25 sanitation 119–120
doctor of medicine degrees Shattuck, Lemuel 123–
28 124
early American 89–91 Snow, John, and cholera
heroic medicine 18, 82– 124–128
83, 86, 91–92, 93–94, 96 urban poor life expectancy
licensing 90–91 118
medical schools 21, 28, pulse watches 93
35–36, 89–90 Pure Food and Drug Act 98,
Pinwell, George 127 103–104
plastic surgery 6 purging 82–83, 90, 91–92
Porcupine’s Gazette 83, 86 Puritans 11
Porter, Roy 118
Pott, Percival 41
Primitive Remedies (Wesley) Q
87–88 quarantines 116
R Shippen, William 28–29

Radam, William 104–105 similia similibus curantur (like
reattachment surgery 6 cures like) 19
The Report of a General Plan for skeleton 27
the Promotion of Public and smallpox 65–71
Personal Health (Shattuck) current policies 70–71
124 Jenner, Edward, and
respiratory processes 112, vaccination for 69, 69–71
114–115 Montagu, Mary Wortley,
resurrectionists (resurrection- and variolation 67,
men) 34 67–68
Revere, Paul 56 spread of 66
Revolutionary War (American) Smellie, William 23
53–56, 58–59 snake oil salesmen 97, 99
rickets 121 Snow, John 124, 126–128
Rush, Benjamin 75–76, 76–77, Society of Universal Harmony
77–79, 80–83, 82, 86 13
Spurzheim, Johann 15–16
St. Martin, Alexis 109–112
S Stahl, George Ernst 3
Salem witch trials 10–12 S.T.A.R.T. (Simple Triage and
sanitation 119–120 Rapid Treatment) 49
Santorio, Santorio 108 Stenhouse, John 56, 59
sauerkraut 65 stethoscopes 89, 92
Sauvages, Boissier de 3 stomach 108–111, 109
scientific method xiv surgery
scurvy 64–65 amputations 41, 41, 54–55
sepsis 57–58 anesthesia 32, 33, 33–34
Shattuck, Lemuel 123–124 antiseptic methods 57–58,
Sherley amendment 103–104 63, 95, 95
shills 102 Hunter, John 29, 29–33
ship fever (typhus) 41, 61–63, leeches and 6
63, 64 teaching 30, 31
Index 149
Swaim, William 101 University of Leiden 21

Swaim’s Panacea 101 U.S. Army Medical Department
System einer vollständigen Journal 43
mediscinischen polizey U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act
(Frank, A complete system of 98, 103–104
medical policy) 122 U.S. sanitary commission 118
T V
temperance movement 102 vaccination 69, 69–71
thermometers 92 Vadakan, Vibul B. 96
Thomson, Samuel 90 variola major 66
Thomsonians 90 variola minor 66
tourniquets 40–41, 41 variolation 67–68
Treatise on the Blood, venesection (bloodletting) 2,
Inflammation and Gun-Shot 4–7, 82–83, 91–92, 93–94,
Wounds (Hunter) 30 96
Treatise on the Theory and veterinary medicine 30–31
Practice of Midwifery
(Smellie) 23
triage 48–49 W
Turlington, Robert 98 Walter Reed Army Medical
typhoid fever 62, 63 Center 84
typhus (jail fever, hospital Washington, George 18, 68,
fever, ship fever, famine 93–94, 96, 106–107
fever) 41, 61–63, 63, 64 water contamination 62,
125m, 126, 127, 128
Webster, Noah 80
U Wesley, John 87–88
uniforms 51–52 White, Frank P. 17
University of Birmingham WHO. See World Health
Medical School 70 Organization (WHO)
University of Glasgow 28 witchcraft 10, 10–12
Woodall, John 65 Reed, Walter, and building

World Health Organization the Panama Canal 84–
(WHO) 71, 72 85, 85
symptoms and course of
72–73
Y theories on cause of 77–79
yellow fever 72–86 transmission of 79–80
mosquitoes and 72, 74–75, treatment of 80, 82–83,
84–85 86
Philadelphia epidemic 73, U.S. outbreaks (1793–1855)
74–77 78m

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History

Copyright © 2010 by Kate Kelly

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

Facts On File, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Excerpts included herewith have been reprinted by permission of the copyright

Text design by Annie O’Donnell

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

H0M-Old&New.FNL.indd 4 12/3/09 5:28:39 PM

1 MediCine in searCh of Better answers 1

3 Changes in Battlefield MediCine 38

4 Curtailing the Spread of Disease 60

5 Learning from Yellow Fever 72

6 Early American Medical Care 87

7 Early Thoughts on Digestion and

8 The Importance of Public Health 116

“You have to know the past to understand the present.”

T he history of medicine offers a fascinating lens through which

terms and concepts, a helpful list of Internet resources, and an

Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things

imagined. The inductive method of investigation has become so

Hindrances to good health came about with the increasingly

This book is a vital addition to the literature on the history of

T he advent of the 18th century brought about what is referred

for medicine. Optimism about this new progress prevailed, and

Different Views on Restoring Health

the lessons took place at patients’ bedsides. However, his overall

Cullen, however, fully acknowledged that an understanding of

Though vigorous debate continued about the cause and clas-

Preferred Method of Treatment: Bloodletting

Modern Day Medicinal Use of the Leech

practical use at the time, scientists frequently benefit much later

future, scientists anticipate the use of live leeches will probably

Mesmerism Becomes a Popular Method

Contemporary painting of 18th-century mesmerism (Massimo Polidoro)

This treatment method had its complications, so Mesmer

The Salem Witch Trials

A fear of witchcraft pervaded both Europe and the colonies,

Salem witch trials

To fully understand the circumstances, it is helpful to know

(continued from page 9)

Science Advances through Phrenology

Based on the work of Franz Gall, phrenology became very popular. It

as phrenology—it caught the interest of the scientific community.

very well attended, and in 1807 Gall and Spurzheim decided to

Phrenology was largely abandoned in Europe by the lat-

Homeopathy Comes into Vogue

area of Saxony, Hahnemann gave up practicing medicine in 1784

scientific thinking in physics, chemistry, and the biological sci-

B y the 18th century, medical schools were becoming much more

pain and no one understood the importance of sterility in guard-

Midwifery Begins to Change

One of the women who felt strongly about having a physician

The Chamberlen Family Secret

something similar that helped

My father, brothers and my self (tho’ none else in Europe as I

The book, complete with his own apologetic explanation,

earlier. Reportedly, they were remarkably well designed and had

William Hunter (1718–1783): Notable Obstetrician

7 Early Thoughts on Digestion and

He also established that military hospitals needed to be recognized

itamins (nutrition is discussed more fully in chapter 7), so there