Quackery Unmasked/Chapter XVI
CHAPTER XVI.
THOMSONISM.
Perhaps no empirical scheme ever had a more vigorous inception, was nursed and propagated with more indomitable ardor, or could boast of more rapid progress, than Thomsonism. Thirty years ago, men calling themselves Thomsonian doctors might be found in almost every part of the United States. Public opinion in medical matters seemed to be shaken as with an earthquake, and rude unlettered quacks rode rampant over the country.
The author of this system (as it was called) was Samuel Thomson, who was born in the town of Alstead, in the State of New Hampshire, Feb. 9th, 1769. His parents were poor, and he suffered much from sickness and hardships during his early life. He had little or no opportunity for acquiring even the rudiments of a common school education. His minority was devoted to severe agricultural labor, and he grew up ignorant of everything that related to science, and unacquainted with the world, except the little that had passed under his immediate notice. It seems that an old lady, who lived in the neighborhood of his father, often officiated in the family as doctress. He watched her as she prepared doses from roots and herbs, and this awakened his curiosity and led him, when a small boy, to take particular notice of the wild plants which he found in the fields. On one occasion he chewed so much lobelia as to become unmistakably acquainted with its emetic power. This made a permanent impression upon his mind, and in after years he claimed to be the first discoverer of the medicinal powers of that plant, to which he gave the name of Emetic Herb. He was not, however, the first discoverer of its efficacy, as it had been known to medical botanists by the name of Lobelia Inflata long before his time, and is said to have been used by the native Indians, which gave it the name of Indian Tobacco. Thomson's first acquaintance with lobelia was made when he was only four or five years of age, but he did not calculate upon being a doctor until he was past thirty. He appears to have held book learning in light estimation, and early in life to have entertained a strong antipathy towards the liberal professions. During ten or fifteen years, whilst engaged in ordinary farming, he occasionally tried his hand at doctoring with roots and herbs, in his own or neighbors' families, and sometimes, as he said, cured rattles or croup with rattlesnake's oil. According to his account, his efforts were always entirely successful, which led him to continue and increase his exertions.
In 1813, when he was 44 years of age, Thomson had so far matured his plans and had become so elated with his supposed discoveries, that he applied in person to the Commissioner of Patents, and at length succeeded in obtaining a patent for his compositions, which secured to him the exclusive right to use certain medicinal preparations. With the help of some friends, he published a pamphlet, containing some account of his principles and practice, with directions for using his medicines. These, with the right to use the preparations, according to his directions, he sold to individuals and families for twenty dollars a Right. By this scheme, every family which purchased a Right could forever afterwards dispense with all other medical means. This patent Right gave him and his practice immediate publicity; his business increased rapidly, crowds gathered around him for agencies and Rights, and in a short time his disciples, furnished with books and medicines, might be seen threading their way over the whole country, ready to practise in every possible case of accident or disease, and to sell the whole skill to any family for twenty dollars. The income from the sale of Rights, although equally divided between the agents and himself, soon became a large revenue. If reports are correct, never was any medical treatment so successful before. Fevers, rheumatism, pleurisy, consumption, cancers, ulcers, and broken bones, all yielded to this new method and were cured. The credulous looked on in astonishment—believed, and became advocates of this scheme which they supposed was to bring about a complete millennium in medicine. And when regular physicians everywhere exposed the ignorance and danger of this new method, and cautioned the public against it, its advocates cried out, Persecution!! They placed the name of Thomson by the side of Harvey and Jenner, and called upon the public to believe that Thomson's scheme was true because the discoveries of Harvey and Jenner proved to be so!
Thomson, through ignorance, supposed that lobelia, cayenne and other articles, which he put into the hands of his ignorant agents, were always perfectly harmless and safe; but numerous sad examples soon convinced the public to the contrary. In almost every village and hamlet patients died under the Thomsonian treatment. Thomson himself was indicted for murder, and confined in prison, and was finally acquitted because the Judge charged the jury that there was no evidence of malice aforethought, and therefore the respondent could not be held guilty of wilful murder, although the patient might die by means of the treatment, because Thomson did not design to kill his patient, but was trying to cure him. Some of his agents were also arrested and imprisoned, but escaped punishment. Yet Thomson, and the thousands who had become interested in his cause, were not to be readily subdued even by the strong arm of the law. Commissioned with agencies and Family Rights for which the money had been paid, they struggled long and hard against every dictate of reason and common sense, and hundreds would never give it up until they found some other crazy bog to set their feet upon.
Being profoundly ignorant of everything relating to medical science, Thomson's theories were of the rudest kind. He said he had discovered that man was composed of four elements—earth, water, fire, and air. The first two constituted the substance of the machine, and the last two kept it in motion. Heat, he ascertained, is life, and cold is death—the stomach is the furnace, and food the fuel in health, assisted by medicine in disease. The stomach, like a fireplace or stovepipe, he supposed was liable to get foul, and clogged, and need cleaning out, and that all disease is caused by some filthy accumulation, and that all the art of cure consists in removing such accumulations and thoroughly cleansing the machine. As minerals are not generally combustible, he concluded they were unfit for fuel in the stomach, and therefore should not be used as medicines. He declared that an all-wise Creator must have furnished every part of the world with medicine sufficient for the wants of all its inhabitants. All his medical efforts were designed to maintain or increase the inward heat, or life as he called it, and he supposed that whenever this internal heat became reduced as low as the external temperature, the machine must cease to move and the patient die. He called scientific men book-doctors, and lost no opportunity to reproach and deride them. He scouted the idea of learning the art of medicine by study, and declared that study was no more necessary for a doctor than for a cook.
Bold, ardent and sincere, he was listened to with attention, and his remarks fell with force upon his hearers. His disciples saw that he was verily in earnest, and often caught the same spirit. They formed associations in various parts of the United States, which were called "Friendly Botanic Societies," and each of these sent delegates annually to a general Botanic Convention. This grand consociation met each year at some appointed place. In 1825 it met in Boston. For a time Thomson and his disciples supposed that the death warrant of legitimate medicine was sealed. Never did a class of quacks boast of success more loudly or more positively, or struggle against opposition with more determined heroism. It is supposed that there were at one time in the United States between one and two thousand Thomsonian or Botanic practitioners, besides those which had Family Rights for their own use. Itinerant practitioners spread Thomson's papers, medicines, and principles, in the South, over the far West, and even carried them into Canada. Sometimes men of wealth, learning and influence favored the scheme, and many clergymen and other literary men gave it their support.
Perhaps this strange delusion had reached its culminating point previous to 1835. Like all other delusions, having no foundation in truth it was destined to perish. Whenever the attention of intelligent, reflecting men was directed to it, they saw its absurdities and its dangers, and opposed it, and the great number of sudden deaths which took place under its operations alarmed the public, and often obliged the practitioner to fly from the scene of his exploits. As certain sagacious quadrupeds are said to quit a sinking ship, so Thomsonian doctors one after another abandoned their craft. Some returned to the anvil, some to the lapstone, and some to the plow; others stood their ground, and continued to practise in some way under other names. The out-door signs of Thomsonian doctors, and Thomsonian Infirmaries, disappeared in a trice, and the men who but a short time before were Thomsonians, had now become Improved Botanic Doctors, or Eclectics, or of the Reformed Practice, or Homœopathists, or Hydropathists, or Chrono-Thermalists, or something else; and by this process of transmigration many of the same class of men "still live." The actors are of the same class, but the play is called by a new name.
In his lifetime, Thomson's friends were ready to bestow upon him immortal honors—they declared that his system must finally supersede all other medical means, and live to bless the world forever, and carry the name of its founder in a halo of glory down to the end of time. But the sun of his medical system has set, never to rise again. The same grave that closed over his earthly remains, seems to have swallowed up the last twilight rays of his once glowing vision.
Thomson died in 1845, being 76 years of age, and from that day to the present no one has ever been known to declare himself a Thomsonian doctor. Here the drama closed; but the same actors, with numerous accessions, are still performing other farces quite as empty and quite as deceitful. The history of Thomson shows us that a single obscure individual, without friends, money or education, by means of his own invincible will, kept the medical world in commotion for nearly half a century.