'I think Dr. Cleaveland's little Pellets and Powders are helping me'
19th Century Medicine
To combat the ill health and deadly diseases that laid people low in the 1800's, there was - not much. Most American doctors of that period had little formal training:
'Minimally-trained doctors opened their own medical schools as moneymaking ventures encouraged by a growing commercial and acquisitive social climate. To entice students they eliminated most of the academic requirements that had been traditional. They seldom offered any laboratory experience or taught anatomy or even required literacy for admission. To compete, even the colleges with medical schools reduced their requirements. The diploma mills were encouraged by a public that abhorred government regulation or any interference with the rights of the common man to do as he wished.' [1]
Even physicians in Europe, where medicine was more advanced, had only vague, and generally incorrect, ideas about what caused disease. There were some effective drugs, for example chloroform was used during the Civil War to render wounded soldiers unconscious during surgery.[2] But in the 19th century, medical knowledge had really not advanced much beyond the practices of the Middle Ages. Treatment of sickness relied on a combination of folk remedies and patent medicines containing various herbs, alcohol, and opium, combined with the patient's trust in the doctor's ability to cure.[1]
Folk medicine in America has many roots, especially in the southeastern states. Spanish Christians brought Old World medical theories, based on the four 'humors' of the body (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), to Florida and coastal Georgia. These ideas mixed with Native tribal knowledge about use of local curative herbs, and later with practices brought by slaves from Africa.[1,3] A famous example of adoption of Native herbal remedies by European colonists is that of the purple-flowered Joe Pye weed, a member of the composite (sunflower) family. Legend has it that a Native American healer in New England, named Jopi in his tribal tongue and called Joe Pye by the settlers, used a decoction brewed from this plant to treat fevers.[4] Joe Pye weed grows all over the eastern United States, as far south as Florida, and is still used today by herbalists as a therapy for urinary tract infections and kidney stones. In the 1860's folk medicine became even more important to the Confederacy:
'The Civil War found the South in a blockade, including a medical blockade. Nothing got in and nothing got out. Regular physicians returned to using herbs as first line medicine at home and on the battlefield. Some of the most useful herb books ever found were written by Civil War physicians.' [5]
In the letters, Loulie suggests a folk treatment: "Your Captain told us that Mr. Mathews had a shocking cough, so you must spread some of that mutton sewit and pine gum on a piece of rag and put it on his chest." (# 21 Dec. 27 1861) She means suet, or lard, and the aromatic gum, or resin of the southern yellow pine; application to the chest is a pre-pharmaceutical version of Vicks VapoRub. Pine resin is antimicrobial, and outdoor enthusiasts know that it can be used to dab on small wounds or to remove splinters.[6]
List of 'Roots, Herbs, and Bark' requested for Confederate Army doctors for use in treating wounded and sick soldiers.
Along with herbal folk therapies, patent medicines proliferated. These concoctions, usually made from cheap ingredients and sold as 'miracle cures', were not actually patented, as legal patents for chemical formulations were not available in the U.S. until 1925.[7] Nate swore by one of these in curing a cough: " When you see Mrs. Mumford please give her my kindest regards, and tell her that I do not think I have coughed more that half a dozen times since she gave that dose of ……. Balsom. I am not jesting about it, I am in earnest." (# 13 Nov 1st 1861) This was likely one of the patent nostrums prevalent in the 19th century that contained tree resins, for example Holland’s Balsam of Spruce, Solomon’s Balm of Gilead and the Balsam of Mecca.[8] Other patent drugs contained alcohol, opium, or cocaine, all legal at the time.[7] The Coca Cola soda brand famously (or infamously) started as a cocaine-infused medicine, formulated by a wounded Confederate soldier from Georgia, Colonel John Pemberton, by mixing coca leaf extract with sugar syrup and kola nut extract. Col. Pemberton had become addicted to morphine to combat his pain, and wanted to develop a less powerful substitute. Cocaine was not made illegal in the U.S. until 1914.[9] My own father, Ralph Dunwody Brown, Nate's youngest grandson, was plagued with irritable bowel syndrome and swore by paregoric, tincture of opium, as a remedy for diarrhea. Paregoric was sold at pharmacies as an over-the-counter drug until 1970.[10]
Doctoring offered not much more relief from illness than did available medicines. In the absence of science-based understanding of disease, three different brands of medical doctors vied for patients in the 1800's.[11] Regular doctors represented the establishment; they had some training at medical schools, and the best came from European institutes. The regular physicians still mainly derived diagnoses and treatments from the archaic Greek and Arabic 'humor' theories of body malfunction. Since these therapies often didn't work (no wonder why!) professional doctors had no advantage over other prevailing medical theories, the chief of which was homeopathy. Some non-professional doctors followed idiosyncratic approaches based on herbal drugs; these were called eclectics. The eclectics did not value formal education, they basically winged-it with what they picked up from various medical traditions.
Loulie was quite enamored of homeopathy, as were many at that time: "Since I last wrote you, Eula and I have been down to Atlanta to consult an eminent homeopathic Physician about my side, and her 'ambilicus' (navel). He made an examination, and pronounced my liver very much out of order, and said my spine was affected, gave me some medicine to last for fifteen days…" "… and then you know my aversion to taking medicine, I knew that the Homeopathic style was much more agreeable to the taste, I mean in taking physic." (#34 July 9 1862) " By the way the Homeopathic books speak of such dreams, and has a remedy for it, gives medicine that will cure it, so when you come you can study and cure your friend when you get back." (# 39 July 26, 1862)
Homeopathy, a medical practice that still has adherents today, is based on the principal of 'like cures like'; from the American Institute of Homeopathy:[12]
'The word Homeopathy, which comes from the Greek, through Latin into English, literally means “like disease”. This means that the medicine given is like the disease that the person is expressing, in his totality, not like a specific disease category or medical diagnosis.'
The other operating principal of homeopathy is that of 'the minimum dose', in which it is proposed that the greater a drug is diluted, the more potent it becomes, even if diluted so much that scarcely any amount of the original drug remains.[12] Considering that medicines proscribed by professional doctors in the 1800's included calomel, mercuric chloride, toxic both to bacteria and to their patients [13], and quinine, a bitter extract from tree bark that caused headaches and sweating [14], it is no wonder that Loulie and her friends preferred homeopathic 'pills and powders' which, if not effective, at least tasted better, had no adverse side effects, and probably often produced a 'cure' just from a placebo effect or from an illness taking its course to recovery.[14]
Homeopathy was promoted by a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann in the early 19th century. A follower of Hahnemann, Hans Gram, brought the practice to the United States in 1825, and the American Institute of Homeopathy was founded in 1844. Medical institutions devoted to homeopathy quickly sprang up.[15] In fact:
Dr. I. Tilsdale Talbot founded the New England Female Medical College of Massachusetts in 1848. This homeopathic institution later merged with Boston University, which continued to teach homeopathic medicine well into the twentieth century.' [16]
Loulie's physician, Dr. Cleaveland, was likely trained at one of these schools.
Loulie and Nate also worried about the health of their slaves: " Those little negroes that you left sick have been quite ill. I sent for Dr. Boroughs to see them yesterday, but they were so much better that your mother told him he need not come again unless sent for.' (# 6, Aug. 5 1861) " I saw Tom Harrison on yesterday. He is just from Thomas and says we have lost four little negroes, and Pa has lost one so you see he have had very bad luck. Both of Violet's children have died, Mealius Joe and Charlotte's baby." (#45 Sept. 26 1852). While it was not uncommon for doctors to come to plantations to treat slaves, usually less costly folk treatments were used by the mistress or the slaves.[17]
[1] http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/149661 Breslaw, Elaine G. 2012. Lotions, Potions, Pills and Magic: Heath Care in Early America. New York University Press.https://www.amazon.com/Lotions-Potions-Pills-Magic-America/dp/1479807044
[2] http://www.history.com/topics/ether-and-chloroform
[3] Meyer, C. 1995, American Folk Medicine. Meyerbooks, Glenwood, Illinois http://www.spiritofchange.org/Summer-2015/The-Roots-of-Southern-Folk-Medicine/ Light, Phyllis D. A History of Southern and Appalachian Folk Medicine. Journal of the American Herbalist Guild Vol. 8:27-37.http://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/files/journal/Southern%20Folk%20Medicine.pdf
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrochium http://7song.com/blog/2012/01/the-eupatorium-story-joe-pye-weed-boneset-and-white-snakeroot-part-two/
[5] http://www.spiritofchange.org/Summer-2015/The-Roots-of-Southern-Folk-Medicine/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine
[7] http://thequackdoctor.com/index.php/hollands-balsam-of-spruce
[8] http://bearmedicineherbals.com/pine-pitch-salve.html http://www.naturalnews.com/048353_pine_trees_natural_medicine_survival.html
[9] http://www.livescience.com/41975-does-coca-cola-contain-cocaine.html http://www.livescience.com/41975-does-coca-cola-contain-cocaine.html
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paregoric
[11] What was the dominant medical sect in the United States during the 19th Century?http://dailyhistory.org/What_was_the_dominant_medical_sect_in_the_United_States_during_the_19th_Century%3F
[12] http://homeopathyusa.org/homeopathic-medicine.html
[13] http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/beautiful-black-poison/
[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy/
[16] http://www.drmasiello.com/homeopathy/history-of-homeopathy/
[17] Sullivan, Glenda 2010. Plantation Medicine and Health Care in the Old South. Legacy Vol. 10:Article 3. http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=legacy