84 
The  American  Materia  Medica. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Phaim. 
\    February,  1U1U. 
revolutionists  were  at  a  disadvantage  not  alone  in  the  direction  of 
the  unquestioned  energy  of  lobelia.  Accompanying  methods  that 
they  advocated  partook  of  much  that  would,  to-day,  be  called  bar- 
barism. Their  large  doses  of  compounds  containing  capsicum  and 
myrrh  were  excruciatingly  severe.  Their  sweating  process,  repeat- 
edly applied  to  the  same  patient,  was  debilitating.  Their  "  composi- 
tion draughts-"  were  almost  unbearable,  as  this  writer  knows  from 
experience.  These,  combined  with  other  features  of  a  course  of 
Thomsonian  medication,  seem  to  have  been  dreaded  by  many  of  the 
afflicted  almost  as  much  as  were  the  blistering,  bleeding,  and  salivat- 
ing processes  of  Thomson's  antagonists,  although  the  after-conse- 
quences were  surely  not  as  necessarily  lasting  or  as  fatal.  Thomson 
had  unquestionably  combined  the  sweating 'methods  of  the  aborigines 
of  America  with  the  emetic  processes  prevalent  in  "  fashionable  " 
medication,  complicated  with  which  was  the  burning  as  by  fire  of 
irritating  materials  like  capsicum  and  bayberry.  Taken  altogether, 
the  people,  in  escaping  from  one  form  of  torture,  had  become  in- 
volved, although  to  a  lesser  degree,  in  another.  A  little  devil  had 
replaced  a  bigger  one.  Then,  too,  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  the 
regular  profession  an  educated  man  possessed  of  more  or  less  mis- 
applied learning  usually  conducted  the  ordeal  test,  while  in  the  other 
case  whoever  could  read  or  could  comprehend  the  processes  promul- 
gated in  Thomson's  patent  was  considered  fully  qualified  to  treat 
disease.  The  one  was  scientifically  or  professionally  cruel,  the  other 
cruelly  unscientific  and  unprofessional.  Helpless  were  the  sick  in 
the  hands  of  either  or  both. 
Again  a  spirit  of  unrest  came  upon  the  people.  Was  it  necessary 
that  the  step  of  the  man  of  medicine  should  make  the  afflicted  shud- 
der ?  From  him  children  ran  in  affright.  Did  the  treatment  of 
disease  demand  this  ? 
Wooster  Beach,  the  "  Father  of  Eclecticism.' —Just  at  this 
point  came  Wooster  Beach  (1833).  Unlike  Thomson  he  was  an 
educated  man.  Like  Thomson  he  was  a  revolutionist.  Unlike 
Thomson  he  was  a  believer  in  colleges  and  in  education.  Like 
Thomson  he  had  great  faith  in  America's  materia  medica.  A 
graduate  of  the  medical  department  of  the  University  of  New  York, 
his  first  publication,  "  The  American  Practice  of  Medicine,"  pub- 
lished in  three  volumes  in  New  York  in  1833,  was  rebelliously  ad- 
dressed to  the  people  and  not  limited  to  the  profession  of  medicine. 
Thus,  although  believing  in  college  education,  he  defied  the  legalized 
