This drug, whose “physiological” action he quite correctly but very crudely describes, was Lobelia Inflata, the so-called “Indian Tobacco” (which is not tobacco), largely used even then by botanic and eclectic physicians, as it had been by the Indians before them. Of this, however, he denies having had knowledge at the time. For him it was an original discovery and for many years he did not even know its name.
Thomson continued his observations and experiments upon himself with native medicines and after a while began to treat others. He believed that he had “the gift of healing.” “I was often told,” he writes, “that I should poison myself by tasting everything I saw; but I thought I ought to have as much knowledge as a beast, for the Creator had given them an instinct to discover what is good for food and what is necessary for medicine”; which reminds us of the pious but very practical reflection expressed by Hahnemann under closely similar circumstances.
Later, after he was married and had children of his own, he called in the doctors and watched them. His young wife very nearly died of puerperal convulsions during her first confinement and would have died if, after several days, he had not dismissed the doctors (there were six of them, including two “root doctors”) and treated her himself after they had given her over to die. . . . He brought her through and she began slowly to recover.
Many illness followed in which he continued to employ two of the doctors until, to save the time and trouble necessary to get them, he let a young doctor (who had “studied with Dr. Watts” and was looking for a location) have a house on his farm, “so as to have him handy.” This young doctor lived on his farm several years. Being a good fellow and grateful, he taught Thomson all he knew about medicine. Thomson says that it was of great use to him (in part negatively) but found that whenever a child or his wife “were attacked by any trifling complaint they were sure to have a long sickness; so he (the doctor) paid his rent and keeping very easy”.
His neighbors were not slow to observe his aptitude, nor to avail themselves of it; but as he was only a farmer like themselves they felt little or no obligation to pay him for his services. In consequence he was soon spending so much time in treating the sick that he could not make a living on his farm. He was forced to either change his occupation or give up medicine.
In 1805 he left his farm and travelled about for several years, seeking more knowledge. For a time he made his home in Beverly, Mass., but later opened an office in Boston for practicing the system which he had formulated. This brought him into direct conflict with the doctors and the troubles usual in such cases promptly began and never ended as long as he lived.
Those of us who have read the Introduction to Hahnemanns Organon will appreciate the situation in which Samuel Thomson found himself. True, he had seen only a very small section of the great field of medicine, but it was enough. “I found from experience,” he says, “that doctors made more diseases than they cured.” It is greatly to the credit of this poor and unlettered backwoodsman that he early saw and appreciated not only the horrible effects of the mode of treatment then current, but realized that it was radically wrong in theory and principle and set himself about finding a better way. He did not fully solve the problem, but he took some of the first steps toward it and had a glimpse of the true solution.
Thomson was the first man in America to attack publicly the allopaths in their stronghold. In the face of almost incredible difficulties, opposition and persecution he persevered in his attempts and proved himself a foeman worthy of their steel. They ridiculed him, lied about him, threatened him with assassination, indicted and arrested him for murder, witnesses, threw him into jail and let him lie in unspeakable filth for months, starved him, brought him finally before a prejudiced judge and perjured themselves, but failed after all to make out a case, because his friends rallied around him in court and showed them up.
It was the day of the lancet and leech, of cupping glass and Spanish fly blister, of setons and issues, of moxa and cautery, of diaphoretics and diuretics, of emetics and purgatives, of irritants and counter-irritants, of evacuants and derivatives. In short, medical treatment then was hell. The most powerful and deadly drugs were used, including the mineral such as mercury, antimony, lead and zinc. All of these Thomson discarded and denounced their use. He relied mainly upon his “vegetable emetic” and the vapor bath, supplementing these with a list of comparatively harmless native vegetable medicines, many of which he gathered and prepared himself.
The list of these medicines looks strangely familiar to the homoeopathician. To mention only a few of them, using their botanical names, which Thomson did not know; Aletris, Apocynum, Arum, Asarum, Berberis, Capsicum, Ceanothus, Chimaphila, Eupatorium, Hamamelis, Hydrastis, Lactuca, Lobelia, Macrotys, Pinus canadensis, Prunus virginiana, Rhus glabra, Rumex crispus, Sanguinaria, Solanum dulcamara, Symphytum, Taraxacum, Trillium, Verbascum, Xanthoxylum–these are now all old friends of ours. Thomson knew most of them only by their common or traditional names. Many of them were in use among the aborigines and were named by Rafinesque. Others were in use by the herbalists, and perhaps a few by the doctors.
Thomson did not claim to have discovered all the drugs he used. He had learned about them when and as he could, and claimed only to have elaborated a method of his own for their use, which was a true claim.
He did not even adopt the methods and theories of the Botanic physicians and Herbalists with whom he had so much in common, but propounded a theory and carried out procedures of his own. The vapor bath was in use among the Indians. From them he probably learned much, but indirectly, for there is no reason to suppose he ever came into direct contact with them. He had many original ideas, was ingenious and practical in carrying them out, and was able to explain most of his cases and the reasons for his treatment in a rational manner. Some of his diagnostic and pathological explanations, crudely as they were expressed, are far more intelligible than those of the doctors of the period.
Thomson was particularly forceful and intelligent in combating the almost universal practice of blood-letting as shown by the following case:
“A young lady applied to me who had been much troubled with bleeding at the stomach. She stated to me that she had been bled by the doctors forty-two times in two years. So much blood had been taken from her that the bloodvessels had contracted, so that they would hold very little blood; and the heat being thereby so much diminished, the water filled the flesh and what little blood there was rushed to her face, while all the extremities were cold. This produced a deceptive appearance of health. . . . I kindled heat enough in her body to throw off the useless water, which gave the blood room to circulate through the whole system, instead of circulating, as it had done before, only in the large blood vessels.
They being much distended by not having heat enough to give it motion led the doctors into the erroneous idea that there was too much blood and they resorted to the practice of bleeding, which reduced the strength of the patient but increased the disease. There is no such thing as a person having too much blood; no more than there is of having too much bone or muscle or sinew. Nature contrives all things right. The blood may be too thick, so as not to circulate, and is liable to be diseased like other parts of the body; but how taking part of it away can benefit the rest, or tend in any way to remove the disease, is what I could never reconcile with common sense”.
Has anyone ever stated the case against the blood-letting doctors more clearly or more logically? What fault can be found with Thomsons pathology? Who can explain it better today?.
Hahnemanns teaching was very similar; but it was fifty years before this homicidal practice was abandoned by the orthodox, only to be replaced with the equally pernicious practices of vaccination, hypodermic and intravenous medication. They are still meddling with the blood. Formerly they stole it; now they pollute and poison it. Which is worse? Yet they call this “scientific progress” and plume themselves upon it!.
By a curious coincidence Samuel Thomson and Samuel Hahnemann were contemporaries. Hahnemann was born in 1755, Thomson in 1769. Both died in 1843. Probably they never heard of each other; but the two men, although differing so greatly, had much in common. Both were filled with the spirit of benevolence and altruism. Both were naturally attracted to the field of medicine. Both were interested in the action of drugs upon the human organism. Both tested drugs on healthy persons including themselves.
