FOLK MEDICINE, HEALTH FADS, AND FAITH HEALING Jonathon Erlen

1
FOLK MEDICINE, HEALTH FADS, AND FAITH HEALING
Jonathon Erlen
2
Today we will discuss a widespread answer to the
public's active distrust of the community doctors
during the 19 th century. This 3-prong effort
can best be summarized as "medicine without
physicians", and is comprised of 3 distinct
elements folk medicine,
also known as domestic medicine various types of
health fads, and different forms of faith
healing. In our short time today I will try to
summarize the general nature and wide spread
impact of these major l9th century health
movements in America, many of which have their
current counterparts.
3
Americans have always practiced
do-it-yourself medicine. You have seen it,
I'm sure, in your own families and probably tried
your hand at it occasionally without realizing
that you are practicing some form of folk
medicine. There are several basic reasons why
Americans have, and still, to a certain extent,
currently rely on folk home cures. First,
pioneer Americans had strong beliefs in their own
abilities in almost all areas, including health
care. This self-calling on a physician for
assistance as a sign of personal weakness and
failure.
4
Secondly, throughout the 19th century, and even
today in some states, large segments of the
populace have no or very limited access to
doctors and professional forms of health care.
Rural America, then and now, was forced to be
self-reliant in the area of medicine. Now we
have to add to this number the over 40 million
Americans without adequate health insurance.A
third factor favoring folk home medicine was the
sincere belief by some individuals that they
possessed actual knowledge of how to best treat
certain health care
5
Finally, as we have described in detail, there
was considerable distrust of the regular
physician by much of the American citizenry,
particularly in the 19th century, thus forcing
this part of the general public to seek
alternative ways to handle their health
problems. These individuals could turn to 5
major sources for home folk medical practices.
First, as we have just mentioned, were the family
or local oral folklore traditions.Secondly, the
19th and the early 20th centuries have abounded
with a ready supply of patent medicines and
foodstuffs, which anyone could easily procure and
use to conjure up their own forms of home cures,
from the local grocery stories to GNC today.
6
When we look at the history of self-help folk
medicine in the U.S., we find that probably the
first major self-help medical manual came from
Great Britain during the colonial period. This
work, entitled Domestic Medicine, was written by
William Buchan in Edinburgh, with the 1st.
edition appearing in 1769. This small volume was
readily accepted by the colonists. Buchan
stressed the preventative aspects of health care
for children's diseases, while for adults he
suggested moderate changes in diet, exercise, the
virtues of fresh air, temperance, and abstinence
from excessive passions. His less harsh,
inexpensive cures were very popular in late
colonial and Revolutionary America.
7
Following the Revolutionary War various American
authors published revised editions of Buchan's
book, adding additional chapters covering
supposed unique American diseases, such as yellow
fever. These home medical manuals were
particularly popular in rural America, as many of
their herbal remedies were readily available out
in the fields. These books warned about the
hazards of consulting quacks, and, by the 1830's,
also warned the public against the use of strong
drugs, such as calomel, and excessive bleeding,
which were the main therapeutics of the
traditional physicians of that era.
8
Besides these offshoots of Buchans Domestic
Medicine, there was another type of self-help
medical text which received great public support.
This work, instead of being only a substitute
for the doctors assistance, totally rejected the
value of all physicians and their supposed
medical wisdom and told the readers to be their
own doctors. In the colonial era probably the
best known of these types of works was entitled
Primitive Physick, written in 1747 by a man
better known in religious than medical circles,
John Wesley. should avoid all doctors and their
harsh cures, and should return to earlier folk
cures for common ailments.
9
This type of self-help medical manual appealed to
the anti-intellectualism and anti-professional
attitudes sweeping the U.S. during the Jacksonian
era, 1828 into the 1840's. This was an era when
Americans proudly bragged about being
self-sufficient, so that everyone could in fact
be their own doctor. Throughout the rest of
the 19th century a more powerful national
movement fostered the growth of self-help folk
medicine. The rapid physical growth of the U.S.,
with various new frontiers being opened by
farmers, cattle and sheep ranchers, and gold and
silver prospectors, created a situation where
much of the expanding West was forced to be
self-reliant because of a lack of physicians
willing to leave the eastern cities, not unlike
today with the lack of physicians to practice in
some parts of rural America.
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By the turn of the 20th century, self-help
medical manuals had changed their format, now
focusing on personal hygiene and the handling of
emergencies, rather than providing recipes for
cures. There are 4 main reasons for this altered
function of traditional folk medicine. First
was the rise of the patent medicine business,
which will be the focus of our next class.
Generally, we can say that these patent medicines
replaced the older-type self-help books in the
minds of the public, who came to rely on these
medicines instead of their own home brewed cures.
11
While self-help folk medicine appealed to the
largest percentage of the public trying to avoid
traditional doctors, another form of alternative
health care became and has remained intensely
popular among segments of the American public.
We cannot open a newspaper or watch TV without
seeing an advertisement for 1 or more types of
health fads, such as diet control pills or health
spas for physical fitness. Nearly all the
current health fads have their roots firmly
planted in the 19th century. What I propose to
do now is to outline some basic principles common
to most of the health fads begun in the 19th
century, and then examine in-depth a few of the
most wide-spread, some of which are still with us
today.
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Let me begin by defining what I mean by the
concept of health fad. This term is usually
applied to a relatively simplistic, 1-step
measure promoted to improve and/or insure ones
health. Therefore, if you follow the 1
prescribed practice, whatever its nature, you not
only will be free of whatever diseases currently
afflict you, but you will also remain in good
health as long as you continue to practice the
particular health care fad.
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While various types of health fads have always
appealed to mankind, we find that health fads
tended to flourish during periods of general
reform ferment or social optimism. Thus in
America, interest in health fads was at its
height during the Jacksonian era, 1830's and
1840's, and the Progressive Era, 1890's to 1920.
Closer to our own time, much of the renewed
interest in natural foods, diets, and physical
fitness can be directly traced to the turmoil of
the Vietnam War era in the 1960s. Conversely,
public interest in and support for health fads
diminished during the Civil War period and the
years of the Gilded Age, 1875 to 1895, and the
Great Depression, when the public's attention was
narrowly focused on goals other than health.
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What general principles can we apply to the
diverse number of health fads, particularly
during the 19th century? We can begin by stating
that at that time Americans had a great need for
hygienic reform. We will spend several sessions
examining American public health concerns later
in this course, but, for now we can generalize
and say that 19th century Americans, perhaps
because of their frontier nature of living, did
tend to overeat, excessively drink, and smoke
heavily, all factors which lead to poor health.
15
Support for health fads was generated by, as we
have noted, the widespread distrust of
traditional doctors and their treatments by the
general public. Surely it was preferable to
follow a simple, relatively painless regime
promoted by 1 of the various health fad leaders,
rather than subscribe to the tortuous
prescriptions of the physicians of that
day.Particularly with diseases medicine could
not successfully treat, which were the vast
majority, health fads found a ready audience. We
see this point well illustrated today, with the
popular interest in laetrile as a cure for both
cancer and AIDS. Health fads in many cases,
similarly to quackery, did and do appeal to the
desperate and the uninformed.
16
Looking at more specific central themes involved
with the acceptance of health fads during the
first half of the 19th century, we can say that
good health and hygiene was perceived by the
general public, not only as a worthwhile goal for
the individual, but, also, as a moral obligation
that these people owed to both the American
nation and to God. Americans believed that by
creating a physically sound, if not superior
population, this country would secure its
rightful greatness in the world. Belief in the
need for physical health among the populace would
be altered by the end of the 19th century to the
pre-Eugenics concepts that opposed immigration
from non-Western European countries and opposed
equal rights for the physically handicapped and
the mentally retarded.
17
We really need to consider most 19th century
American health fads as part of an American
hygienic religion. Health reform ideology in the
first half of the 19th century drew much of its
inspiration from contemporary Christianity, which
had broken away from the harsher Calvinistic
views that had said disease was God's punishment
to mankind for earthly sins. After the second
Great Awakening in American Protestant religion
in the early 19th century, God was now perceived
as a loving father figure who wanted mankind to
use their reasoning powers to perfect their
health.
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When we look at the variety of individuals who
created and promoted health fads, we can see some
marked similarities in these fascinating people.
Many of these individuals were well educated and
kept up with the limited scientific advances of
their times. Yet these people were convinced
that science alone could not lead to their end
goal namely, the perfectibility of the human
race, and so they developed their own health
regimes.Also, many of these so-called health
reformers were actually former health sinners,
who had abused their health to the point where
traditional medicine was helpless. It was in
their hour of desperate need that they discovered
their miraculous cure-all health fads and went on
to spread their discovery to the eager masses.
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Now that we have outlined the general nature of
health fads, let us look in more detail at a few
of the more popular approaches to health care,
some of which are still evident in today's
society. Let's begin by discussing the wide
spread acceptance of hydropathy, known during the
19th century as the "water-cure". Hydropathy as
it was practiced in 19th century America, was
based on 2 principles the free administration of
cold water taken in large doses, both internally
and externally and the excitation of
perspiration, or sweating. The use of cold water
in health practices can be traced back to the
Hippocratic Corpus, and the Roman baths made
frequent use of this supposed curative. The
health records of 18th century England and Europe
show that cold water was applied in various forms
to heal the sick.
20
It fell to a simple Silesian peasant, however, to
originate the form of hydropathic therapy that
proved so popular in 19th century America.
Vincenz Priessnitz was born July 4, 1799, in
Silesia and received a traditional agricultural
education on his father's farm, including the
folklore about cold water's curative properties.
In 1816 he was thrown from a horse and injured so
severely that the local physician gave up on his
case. Priessnitz began treating himself with
cold water, managed to cure himself, and by 1830
had developed his water-cure techniques. He
opened a water-cure clinic in his home, and, by
1842, he was successfully touring Europe
promoting his hydropathic health fad.
21
Although Americans had experimented since the
1700's with the use of cold water in healing,
Priessnitz's ideas were readily adopted when they
crossed the Atlantic to the U.S. in the 1840's.
Several water-cure journals were established,
along with 2 medical schools featuring
hydropathic theory and practices. Hundreds of
hydropathic practitioners emerged throughout
America, and many health spas and mineral
springs, usually located in rural locations,
advertised their miraculous curative abilities.
Testimonials of these miracle cures appeared in
Americas leading newspapers.
22
There were several different methods to apply the
water-cure. One method was the water girdle,
which was made of 3 yards of towering that was
soaked once every 3 hours in cold water. Besides
this standard approach to the water-cure
practitioners made use of all manner of baths,
many only immersing the supposed sick portion of
the individual. Priessnitz instructed his
patients to be careful of their diets, eating
only cold foods, and to avoid liquor and
stimulants such as coffee, tea, and spices.
Patients were also to drink large amounts of cold
water, from 5 to 40 tumblers/day.
23
Another extremely popular health fad in
ante-bellum America illustrates the close
connection between science and religion during
this period. Christian physiology is the label
we can apply to the health care teachings of 1 of
the most prominent health reformers of that
period, Sylvester Graham. Graham was born in
Connecticut in 1794, and lost both his parents
early in his life. By the age of 16 he showed
symptoms of consumption, what we now call
tuberculosis, but recovered, only to suffer a
nervous breakdown at the age of 29. Following
these years of poor health he became a
Presbyterian minister and a lecturer for the
Pennsylvania Temperance Society.
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Graham now found his life's work as a health
reformer. He read several of the accepted
anatomy and physiology texts of that era and
became convinced that various forms of
over-stimulation directly caused all ill-health.
This view nicely conformed to the Christian
concerns over the perceived decadence in American
society, so Graham combined the minister's push
for Christian spiritual perfection with his own
amateur physiological theories to create
Christian physiology.
25
Graham was particularly adamant about the need to
abstain from engaging in "excessive" sex, both in
terms of the actions themselves and even the
desire to have sex. In warning about the
physiological dangers of sexual intercourse in
his 1833 publication, Chastity, in a Course of
Lectures to Young Men, Graham described these
problems thusly (quote Whorton p. 93). He
recommended that married couples should limit
these activities to not more than once/month, and
should be even more limited as they aged least
they harm their health.
26
While we do not see advocates of Sylvester
Graham's physiological theories today, another
ante-bellum American health fad still prospers
today. Are any of you vegetarians in your
dietary preferences? The belief in vegetarianism
has been in existence since the earliest
civilizations. Early Christian doctrines favored
vegetarianism in order to promote humane
treatment of animals, and because of Biblical
passages outlawing the eating of flesh, such as
Genesis 129. This belief in the inhumanness of
eating animals became very popular during the
17th and 18th centuries, but by the 19th century
advocates of vegetarianism sought sounder
scientific rationales for their limited diets.
27
It is interesting to note here the response made
by vegetarians and other health reformers when
one of their leaders died at an early age. The
explanation was usually put forward that the
death was caused, not by the failure of the
health faddists efforts, but from the inherited
weaknesses of these individuals because their
parents had failed to follow the proper health
regime during their lives.
28
The 1850's saw a drastic decline in health
reformers' activities and their ability to
attract the public's interest and support, as the
optimism of the Jacksonian era gave way to the
harsh cynical concerns over slavery and the
problems of national unity. The Civil War, the
decade of Reconstruction, and the following 1 and
one-half decades of blatant materialism, known as
the Gilded Age, left little room for earlier
health fads to flourish. The very gradual
advances in medical therapeutics, with the end of
many heroic treatment methods, also removed a
major stimulus for the previous types of health
fads.
29
With the Progressive Movement in American
society, which we can date roughly from the early
1890s to 1920, we find a new type of health
reformer promoting altered forms of health fads.
These new hygienic reformers sought now to meet
the different needs of a rapidly industrializing
American community that faced supposed new health
hazards, particularly those created by the flood
of immigrants from non-western European nations.
Health concerns fostered by Social Darwinian
literature and American business's emphasis on
efficiency at all costs, promoted new definitions
of appropriate health and lifestyles in American
society.
30
Health reformers were swept up in the Progressive
era's concerns over promulgating a healthy
American race, and in their literature we can see
the background for the Eugenics movement that
swept over the U.S. and Western Europe prior to
W.W.II. There was a generally perceived need to
promulgate the solid Christian Anglo-Saxon White
stock that had supposedly made America great.
Various health reformers warned about the dangers
of allowing invalids to have children, least they
breed inferior Americans.
31
Horace Fletcher was born in Lawrence, MA in 1849.
His cure-all health technique was dubbed
Flecherism, and called for the individual to
slowly chew each bite of food until all of the
flavor was gone. For an onion, this might
require several minutes of constant chewing to
render each bite tasteless. As farcical as this
concept sounds, Fletcher achieved a fair amount
of success in winning converts to this idea
because he was such a physiological marvel. He
was tested, time and again, by Americas leading
scientists and, even in his 50s, tests at Yale
University showed him to have greater endurance
than Yale's best athletes.
32
A more recognizable name, particularly to those
of us who eat cereal, is that of Dr. John Harvey
Kellogg, who was born in 1852. Kellogg was a
sickly child who suffered with tuberculosis,
recovering to become a follower of the teaching
of Sylvester Graham and espousing staunch support
for the vegetarian cause. He became an M.D.,
though always practicing on the fringes of the
regular medical community. Kellogg developed his
system of "biological living" at his Battle
Creek, Michigan Sanitarium, which had previously
been a 7th Day Adventist center for healing.
33
I want to mention one final health fad from this
period, since it is still very present today,
namely, the tremendous interest in physical
fitness. Weight lifting became a popular health
fad in the last third of the 19th century,
spurred on by the renown of George Windship, the
19th century Charles Atlas, who built himself up
from a frail Harvard freshman to be known as "the
Roxbury, Hercules". Tell the story of Bernarr
McFadden and the origins of the aroebics
movement-followed by Jack LaLane, etc. The
drive to promote physical fitness in the U.S.
lead to over 270 colleges instituting exercise
courses as part of their curriculums.
34
The final segment of the publics 3-prong effort
to avoid traditional physicians and handle their
own health problems was faith healing, a concept
still very evident today. Those of you who know
about Katherine Koulman here in Pittsburgh, or
have read Elmer Gantry, or watch Sunday morning
or the Christian Broadcasting System TV
programming, can readily see the enduring impact
of this non-scientific approach to health care.
While various religions, as we have seen, have
played a major role in different societies
health practices, the end of the 19th century in
the U.S. saw a new role being played by religion
in its relationship to health care.
35
By the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th
century there were a number of religious sects
that claimed to have the power to spiritually
heal the physical problems of the human body. We
can group these various religious sects under the
general heading of "mind-cure" and say that they
appealed primarily to white, native-born
Americans of Protestant, middle class
socio-economic background, who were sufficiently
educated so that they could read the books which
comprised the basis for these different mind cure
sects.
36
There were 3 major reasons why mind-cure became
so widely popular in America of that
era. First, for many people, the traditional
Protestant churches were loosing much of their
dynamic appeal and did not seem to meet the needs
of modern, industrializing America. Mental
healing religious cults appealed to these
disillusioned individuals, providing them with a
religion that appeared more in-tune with their
times.
37
We can summarize the general nature of mind-cure
by saying that it refers to a faith in and the
practice of the belief that the human mind has
control over the body to the point that it can
prevent and even cure diseases and disabilities
through the techniques of right or positive
thinking. One of the earliest leading proponents
of this self-help approach to medicine was the
pseudo-healer Franz Anton Mesmer, who lived in
Europe from 1734 to 1815. His techniques using a
form of animal magnetism to rid the body of
illness. His teachings were extremely popular
throughout 19th century Europe and the U.S.
38
This belief in the power of suggestion and
auto-suggestion was widely lectured upon in
America, inspiring the likes of Phineas Parkhurst
Quimby, an itinerant clockmaker, to take up the
art of mental healing. Quimby's importance in
mind-cure is that he was first the healer, and
then the teacher of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder
of Christian Science. Eddy had lived a
sickly, unhappy life until she met Quimby. At
the age of 41, she wrote a note to Quimby,
employing his assistance.
39
After 2 weeks with Quimby, Eddy, for the first
time in her life, declared that she was fully
healthy. She briefly studied under Quimby,
copying entire sections of his writings, and
these plagiarized sections became the foundation
for her 1875 publication, Science and Health,
which is the still the bible today for Christian
Scientists.