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The medical system of the noted New England
empiric, Samuel Thompson, was introduced into Warren
County about 1826. It was termed the Botanic system, or Thompsonian system.
Steaming a patient for the purpose of producing perspiration was such
an important branch of the practice that the followers were frequently
called steam doctors. They were also popularly termed herb or root doctors.
The practitioners purchased Dr. Thompson's "New
Guide to Health, or Botanic Family Physician, containing a complete system
of practice upon a plan entirely new," with a patent right to the
system, and, without any previous course of study, they were prepared
for the practice of medicine. The system was extensively introduced in
Ohio between the years 1825 and 1835. Dr. Thompson's
book and patent right to the system were sold at $20, and the publishers
of the book at Columbus, Ohio, put forth the statement that Thompson's
agents disposed of 4,319 copies in three and a half years preceding 1832,
and that Dr. Thompson's share of the proceeds of his Western agency for
that time was $17,500. The most important article used in Dr.
Thompson's practice was lobelia, which he called the emetic herb,
and the medicinal virtues of which he claimed to have discovered. The
following extract from the " Botanic Physician" gives the doctor's
prescription of a stock of medicines for a family: "One ounce of
the emetic herb, two ounces of cayenne, one-half pound bay-berry root
bark in powder, one pound poplar bark, one pint of the rheumatic drops.
This stock will be sufficient for a family for one year, with such articles
as they can easily procure themselves when wanted, and will enable them
to cure any disease which a family of common size may be afflicted with
during that time. The expenses will be small and much better than to employ
a doctor, and have his extravagant bill to pay."It is impossible
to learn at this |
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time how many of the practitioners of this empiricism were
to be found in this county. They were probably most numerous in Ohio about
1832. Their practice was by no means confined to the less intelligent portion
of the inhabitants, but their system soon fell into contempt The Physio-Medical
School of Therapeutics of later years, whose medical college was at Cincinnati,
acknowledged its indebtedness to the labors and discoveries of Samuel
Thompson, and paid greater respect to his memory than any other
modern medical school. The name of Elder Wilson Thompson,
an early Baptist preacher at Lebanon, who practiced medicine, as well as
divinity, has been associated with the Thompsonian Botanic System, but his
practice does not seem to have been identical with that of Samuel
Thompson.
The earlier regular doctors were of the heroic school, and made liberal
use of the lancet and calomel. In their treatment, they relied on purging,
bleeding, blistering and salivation. The quantities of calomel sold by
druggists to some physicians of the last generation, as shown by accounts
still in existence, are sufficient to startle the modern scientific practitioner.
The medical system of Hahnemann was not introduced into the United States
until 1825, and it did not have practitioners in Warren County until twenty-five
years later. Thomas W. Cuscaden, M. D., who died at Lebanon
in 1861, aged thirty years, was probably the first resident homoeopathist
in the county. Of recent years, there have been six or seven homoeopathic
physicians practicing in the county.
The Eclectic School of Medicine has never had numerous representatives
in Warren. Mrs. K. L. V. Anton, M. D., of this school,
who commenced the practice with her husband, James Anton,
M. D., at Lebanon in 1859, was the first female physician with a diploma
in the county. |