Allopathic medicine and allopathy is a system of medical practice which aims to combat disease by the use of remedies which produce effects different from those produced by the special disease treated.^[1] When used properly, it refers to the conventional medical practices in use during one specific era of history. Allopathy is a historical term that is widely used "as a referent to harsh medical practices of ... [a specific] era which included bleeding, purging, vomiting and the administration of highly toxic drugs."^[2] It was practiced in America from the period of the American Revolutionary War till about 1876, which marks the start of preventive medicine. Allopathic medicine is commonly but erroneously referred to as "the broad category of medical practice called Western medicine, biomedicine, scientific medicine, or modern medicine",^[3] with varying degrees of acceptance by medical professionals in different locales. However, modern conventional medicine historically developed out of allopathy, also described as regular medicine, the practice of conventional medicine during the 19th century.^[4]

Origin

Before the advent of science-based approaches, repeated attempts were made to construct systems of therapeutics, many of which produced even worse results than pure empiricism. One of these was allopathy^[5], which was popularised by James Gregory (1735-1821) from 1753 onwards.^[6] The favoured remedies included blood-letting, emetics and purgatives, which were used until the dominant symptoms of the disease were suppressed. Many patients died from such treatment, and it was in reaction against it that Samuel Hahnemann introduced the practice of homœopathy in the early 19th century. ^[7][8] The term was coined by Hahnemann,^[9] who conjoined the term (from Greek ἄλλος, állos, other, different + πάϑος, páthos, suffering) as a referent to harsh medical practices of his era which included bleeding, purging, vomiting and the administration of highly toxic drugs.^[2] It meant "other than the disease" and it was intended, among other things, to point out how regular doctors used methods that Hahnemann felt had nothing to do with the disharmony produced by disease, merely addressing symptoms, which, in Hahnemann's view, meant that these methods were harmful to the patients.^[9]

Significance of a Misnomer

Although medicine never accepted the label of allopathy, nonmedical practitioners such as chiropractors, homeopaths, and naturopaths regularly misrepresent physicians as allopaths. This is usually done in order to make differences between their practice guilds appear based upon conflicting philosophies rather than ideology versus science. Opponents of medicine claim that they treat the underlying causes of disease, while MDs treat only the symptoms. Further, they claim that medicine suppresses the symptoms, thus interfering with the body's inherent healing processes. A close examination reveals that this line of reasoning is only clever rhetoric. When they say the are treating the underlying causes, these vitalistic ideologists refer to a metaphysical life force rather than actual causes of disease such as viruses, bacteria, protozoa, genetic defects, radiation, chemical insult, and so forth. In reality, chiropractic manipulative therapy's main value is symptomatic relief from back pain. Homeopathy has always been based upon symptomatic relief. Homeopathic remedies are based upon a process called proving which identifies prospective remedies by matching the symptoms they produce in high dosages with the symptoms reported by a patient.^[2]

Allopathic Methods of Treatment

Allopaths used bleeding, leeching, cupping, blistering, purging, puking, poulticing and rubbing with toxic ointments to treat their patients.^[10] All of these allopathic treatment methods were thought to be cleansing, purifying, and balancing treatments which sought to re-establish humoral harmony of the four humors.

In an account of the Bilious Yellow Fever written in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1798, Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), the Allopath, commented upon his methods of treatment. Bloodletting was used twice on a child, Isaac Pisso, who was only six weeks old, with success. Children were cured with "gentle pukes, purges of calomel, and blood-letting." In most cases of yellow fever "the pulse flagged after two or three bleedings." But, in the cases of "Dr. Mease it called for the loss of 162 ounces of blood, and in Mr. J. C. Warren for the loss of 200 ounces, by successive bleedings, before it was subdued." In this account, Rush also claimed that "the origin of this fever was from the exhalations of gutters, docks, cellars, common sewers, ponds of stagnating water, and from the foul air," an obvious reference to belief in miasmas, rather than from the correct source of mosquitos.^[11]

Bleeding

"Bleeding was usually the initial treatment."^[12] There were a few different methods of bleeding a person. Bleeding was said to reduce the patient. It was believed that the use of bleeding released bad blood which contained disease from a person's body. "Physicians used to bleed for congestion of the brain, sore eyes, spinal disease, sore throat or swelled tonsils, asthma, inflammation of the lungs, pulmonary consumption, diseases of the heart, dyspepsia, liver complaint, enlargement of the spleen, inflammation of the bowels, piles, genital diseases, rheumatism, neuralgia, in all cases of fever, such as intermittent fever, remittant fever, typhoid fever, typhus fever, yellow fever, ship fever, black tongue, dysentery, dengue and, in fact, for every particular and special morbid condition which could be found."^[10]

Blood-Letting

A patient's vein was directly cut with a lancet (venesection).

Leeching

Leeching is a method of bleeding with leeches. "A leech was placed in a thin tube while the patient's skin was washed and shaved. To encourage the leech to bite, a drop of blood or milk was placed on the area of a vein. Then the tube with the leech in it was inverted over the spot, and the leech sucked blood from the vein. When it was felt that the leech had taken enough blood, salt was sprinkled on the leech, causing the leech to stop sucking and to let go of the skin."^[10]

Cupping

A treatment in which evacuated glass cups are applied to cut skin in order to draw blood. Cupping was usually used in combination with blood-letting. After one or two aggressive bleedings, a patient's blood pressure would drop to the point where blood would no longer spurt out, so heated cups were placed over cuts to help draw more blood. Special cups were heated and placed over the cuts, creating a vacuum, allowing the blood to freely flow from the vein.

Blistering

It was believed that the pain of blistering caused the patient to focus on a new pain, taking their minds away from the more serious pain from which they suffered. The practice of blistering was performed by deliberately giving the patient a second degree burn and then draining the resulting sore. "Blistering was a common method of treating the following diseases: congestion of the brain, inflammation of the brain, sore eyes, sore throat, inflammation of the stomach and lungs, of the liver, of the spleen, spinal irritation, bilious, typhus and typhoid fevers, and a great many other diseases too numerous to mention."^[10] The practiced of blistering, according to James C. Jackson, M.D. had significantly declined by 1862.^[13]

Plastering

Plasters were paste-like mixtures, made from a variety of ingredients, including even substances such as cow manure. They were applied to the chest or back of a person suffering from a chest cold, or an internal pain--even pneumonia. These were often blistering plasters.

Poulticing

Poultices were made from bread and milk, and sometimes other ingredients were added such as potatoes, onions, herbs, and linseed oil. Poultices were applied to cuts, wounds, bites, and boils.

Puking

Puking consisted of dosing a patient with emetics in order to produce vomiting. The practice of puking was believed to relieve tension on arteries and to expel poisons from the body.

Sweating

Sweating is a treatment where patients were made to sweat out the poisons that caused their disease.

Fumigations

The practice of fumigating was one of drugging the breathing apparatus with everything that could be smoked, solvented, pulverized and gasified. "Among their multitudinous remedies which they recommended to be introduced into the delicate structure of the lungs, through the medium of their multiform poisons, were such wholesome substances as opium, cubebs, deadly nightshade, iodine, calomel, corrosive sublimate, sugar of lead, belladonna, digitalis, hellebore, aconite, dog-bane, tobacco, arsenic, antimony, niter, lobelia, cinebar, etc."^[10]

Purging

Purging is a treatment that induces evacuation of the patient's bowels or intestines with powerful laxatives. Purging, which was done to cleanse the body of toxins or irritants. "The most commonly used purgative was calomel, a form of mercuric chloride"^[12]

Ointments

Ointments containing mercury were topically used against venereal diseases. Sulfur was quited commonly used to treat itching.

Dehydration

"During most of the last century, it was standard medical practice to withhold water from the acutely ill and thousands of patients literally died of dehydration. ... It was contrary to the teachings of the allopathic school of medicine to give water, inside or out, to a fever patient. Often the dying, when being granted their 'last wish,' were given the previously denied water and recovered. The sick body called for water, which was needed, and would have received it with gratitude and benefited from it, but the physicians denied it."^[10]

Allopathic Practices of Hygiene

Herbert M. Shelton, in his Natural Hygiene: Man's Pristine Way Of Life, quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD (1809-1894) and a well known therapeutic nihilist, as follows. "The hospitals were not only poorly lighted, but they were poorly ventilated. Trall marveled that graduates of the best medical schools were entirely ignorant of the necessity for pure air in the hospitals and apartments of the sick, but said: 'When it is understood that health is not taught in medical schools, the wonder will cease."^[10] Holmes was also famous for having promoted the healing power of nature in a widely known speech voicing therapeutic nihilism when he said "that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be so much the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes."^[14] "It was not until the late 1880s that American surgeon Dr. William Mayo began practicing antiseptic surgery in his clinics in Rochester, Minnesota, and won converts among colleagues."^[12]

How the military implemented the basics of hygiene and sanitation during the various wars of this time period has been well documented.

During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) ten men died of disease to every one whose life was taken by the enemy. During the Mexican War (1846-1848) a ratio of 7 deaths from diseases of the camp (chiefly dysentery) to every death caused by battle injury took place.^[15]

In 1854, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) organized and directed a unit of field nurses during the Crimean War in Europe. Nightingale tried during the Crimean War to implement hygineic reform in the military hospitals. Nightingale was, also, hired as a consultant by the American Civil War Sanitary Commission.

Two Civil War soldiers died of disease for every one killed in battle, or some 560,000 soldiers died from disease during the Civil War.^[12] About half of the deaths from disease during the Civil War were caused by intestinal disorders, mainly typhoid fever, diarrhea, and dysentery. Malaria struck approximately one quarter of all servicemen. The remainder died from pneumonia and tuberculosis. Outbreaks of these diseases were caused by overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in the field. Risks from surgery were great. Doctors in the field hospitals had no notion of antiseptic surgery, resulting in extremely high death rates from post-operative infection.^[16]

Famous People Killed by Allopathy

R. T. Trall, M.D. in a famous speech delivered in 1862 mentions many people who according to him were killed by Heroic Medicine, including three US presidents: Washington, Harrison, Taylor and Prince Albert in Great Britain.^[13]

George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States died on December 14, 1799. Washington was prematurely bleed and poisoned to death. His death has been very well documented right down to the attending physicians responsible for his death. Washington caught cold while riding on his estate and developed pneumonia. As Washington's condition declined, Doctor James Craik called on fellow physicians Elisha Dick and Gustavus Brown for help. Washington's doctors bled, blistered, and purged him. He did not respond to these treatments and died. Today, doctors believe George Washington was dying from an acute streptococchal infection of the larynx, which caused a painful swelling of the interior of the larynx resulting in suffocation. A tracheostomy would probably have saved his life, and indeed one was suggested by the youngest doctor in attendance, Elisha Dick, but the technique was new and considered unsafe by the elder physicians.^[17],^[18],^[19]

William Harrison (1773-1841), was the 9th President of the United States, and held the shortest term as President. He served only 31 days. He was also the first US President to die in office. And, was 68 years old. Harrison gave a two hour inaugural speech on a cold, wet, and blustery March 4th; he caught a severe cold that developed quickly into pneumonia. The President's attending physicians tried blistering the right side of his chest. But, Harrison did not improve. Next, the doctors tried cupping. Then ipecac was given to induce vomiting. They also gave him calomel and castor oil to purge his bowels. Sedatives were administered to the fast-weakening President in the form of opium and brandy. They concluded their treatment with Virginia Snakeweed, a Seneca Indian remedy.^[18],^[20]

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), was the 12th President of the United States. Taylor became ill after attending a July 4th celebration at the Washington Monument for several hours. Afterwards, he took a long walk along the Potomac River. Upon returning to the White House, the President drank large amounts of cold water and chilled milk, and ate fruit. The President was diagnosed as having cholera morbus, a term then used for intestinal ailments, or acute gastroenteritis. His condition declined over the next two days and a regimen of ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine did little to relieve him. Blisters, bleeding, and purging were also used. On July 8th, after suffering through four days of sharp abdominal pains, diarrhea, and vomiting, President Taylor died. Here with Zachary Taylor, we have a documented case of a U.S. President dying in 1850 from indigestion caused from eating Blackberries and milk after having received the finest allopathic treatment of the day!^[18],^[21]

Prince Albert (1819-1861) - Dr. Trall alluded to the fact that Prince Albert had been taking some type of alcoholic based medicine. Trall claimed that the English newspapers at the time reported that Prince Albert was "'kept up on stimulants' for five or six days." He further claimed that allopathic treatments, such as this, weaken the patient which allowed typhoid to set in. Going on Trall said: "So inexplicable and mysterious was the death of Prince Albert, that suspicions were entertained of foul play for political considerations. My own opinion is that the treatment is sufficient to account for the death. ... The London Lancet, of Feb. 1862, in allusion to the death of Prince Albert, makes a very significant remark: 'The disease was typhoid fever, not very severe in its early stages. But this is a disease which has inevitably proved far more fatal to sufferers of the upper classes of life than to patients of the poorer kind.'" Thus, according to Trall, Prince Albert died in 1861 indirectly from the drug medication that he had received. And, according to Lancet had Prince Albert been poor, and thus without access to allopathic care, he would have been more likely to have survived. History tells us that Albert's death was so unexpected that historians long suspected Albert to have been poisoned with arsenic. Trall, thus, offered in 1862 a very plausible explanation of Prince Albert's death in 1861.^[13]

Conclusion

Originally intended as a characterization of standard medicine in the early 19th century, these terms were rejected by mainstream physicians and quickly acquired negative overtones. During the 19th century it was used widely among irregular doctors as a pejorative term for regular doctors.^[9] In the United States the term "allopathic" has been used by persons not related to homeopathy,^[22] but it has never been accepted by the medical establishment, and is not a label that such individuals apply to themselves.^[23][24]

In the United States, allopathic medicine can sometimes refer to the medical training that leads to the degree Doctor of Medicine rather than the degree Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, although this is uncommon. See comparison of MD and DO in the United States.^[25][26]

In particular, the terms allopathic medicine and allopathy may be used for regular medicine in a context of traditional medicine such as Ayurveda,^[27][28][29] as well as in a context of complementary and alternative medicine such as homeopathy (see homeopathy and allopathy). However, many aspects of traditional medicine systems such as Ayurveda or Traditional Chinese medicine are themselves allopathic in that they act by opposing the patient's symptoms.^[30]

Fate

The development of alternative medicine in America during the 19th century owes much to allopaths, like Rush, who were largely responsible for fostering a rebellion against the aristocracy, or the intellectual elite ruling class, in the medical profession. Alternative medicine in America was not a rebellion against science during this time period. It should be viewed historically as an empirical rebellion against the authoritarian, backward, rationalistic, and dehumanized academia that was in fact both killing and torturing their patients. Allopaths were calling their competitors Quacks long before any allopath ever used the scientific method, long before their science was anything but laughable, and long before allopathic treatment methods were anything but bizarre if not down right lethal torture.

In addition, the claim that preventive medicine started in 1876 is totally erroneous from the perspective of the patient, since it had no practical effect outside of antiseptic surgery until some 50 years later when penicillin was discovered in 1928.

What is generally not realized is that the American Health Reform Movement of hygienic systems obviously embraced many of the 18th and 19th century philosophical beliefs of allopathy (ex, health benefits of fresh air, miasmas, enervation as the cause of all disease, belief that a complete diagnosis is unnecessary before treatment begins because there basically is only one disease, and concern with the acidity and alkalinity of the body) while strongly rejecting most, but not all of the allopathy's treatment methods (health benefits of drinking vinegar, importance of cleansing the digestive tract, and use of enemas were adopted by the Health Reform Movement, for example). It is, thus, historical fact that the American Health Reform Movement of hygienic systems embraced many of the 18th and 19th century philosophical beliefs of allopathy and, thus, these forms of alternative medicine started out by embracing the then science of allopathy.

"In time [during the 20th century], through a process of reform [resulting from the Flexner Report], 'scientization' [through creating a standardized curriculum for medical education], and centralization [by the American Medical Association], [allopathic] heroic medicine would become ... biomedicine, ... the dominant Western medical system."^[31][4]

References