Eclectic medicine

{{altmed}}
'''Eclectic medicine''' was a form of alternative medicine that combined usage of [[herbal medicine]] ("physio-medicine") with [[homeopathy]], which was active from roughly 1825 to 1939.<ref name=haller>''A Profile in Alternative Medicine: The Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, 1845-1942'' by John S. Haller (1999). Kent State University Press, 212 pp. ISBN 0873386108.</ref> Eclectic medicine was pioneered by Alexander Holmes Baldridge, Jacob Tidd, and Wooster Beach in the [[United States]].<ref name=haller/>

During the 19<sup>th</sup> century, several competing major schools of thought existed in US:<ref name=haller/>
*Old school, "regular" or [[allopathy]] &mdash; tracing their roots to Hippocrates and Galen, this school would eventually develop into modern medicine
*Homeopathy &mdash; developed by [[Samuel Hahnemann]]
*Botanical, including two sub-schools:
**"Thomsonian", developed by Samuel Thomson, which used a small set of herbal medicines
**Physio-medical, developed by Alva Curtis (a dissident Thomsonian) which used a much wider set of herbal medicines
*Eclectic medicine, which combined homeopathy and physio-medical, but did not restrict itself from using any method

During the early part of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, "regular medicine" was regarded as often violent and (justifiably) as likely to kill its patients as cure them, including such treatments as [[bloodletting]], strong purgatives, and blistering. Although physicians attempted to be [[rational]], treatment was not strongly [[Evidence-based medicine|evidence-based]]. It was under these conditions that competing schools prospered. Following advances in surgery, bacteriology and pathology in the latter part of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, modern medicine began to eclipse these other schools of treatment.

In 1860, there were 4 eclectic medicine colleges, rising to 9 colleges by 1900.<ref name=fishbein>[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002697794 ''Fads and Quackery in Healing: An Analysis of the Foibles of the Healing Cults, with Essays on Various Other Peculiar Notions in the Health Field''] by Morris Fishbein (1932) Blue Ribbon Books, 382 pp.</ref> In 1915, there were only 4.<ref name=fishbein/> A patchwork of state medical licensing laws in the early part of the 20<sup>th</sup> century enabled [[diploma mill]]s (especially in [[Missouri]]) to grant medical degrees that were licensed by special eclectic medicine boards in some states, especially [[Arkansas]] and [[Connecticut]], which had a reciprocal agreement with Arkansas.<ref name=fishbein/> In this manner, [[quack]] doctors passed from Missouri to Arkansas to Connecticut and then onward to other states.<ref name=fishbein/> This practice was protested over 5 years by the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' until Connecticut revoked the licenses of 177 eclectic physicians.

The Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati (EMC) was the last eclectic medicine college and it closed in 1939.<ref name=haller/> By 1900, the curriculum of the EMC included a mixture of courses in the sciences and in modern medicine (including pharmacy and surgery), as well as in ''materia medica'' (presumably pertaining to herbal medicine), and "electro-therapeutics" (which might have straddled the border of modern and alternative medicine).<ref name=haller/>

The last dean of the EMC, Byron H. Nellans, went so far as to admit that allopathic schools had "spectacular accomplishments" in research and that eclectics had forfeited their "golden opportunity for doing this research work for the last twenty years."<ref name=haller/>

==See also==
*[[John R. Brinkley]], who got his degree from the [[diploma mill]] Eclectic Medical University of Kansas City.
*[[Cellular cosmogony]], invented by an ecletic medicine practicioner.

==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Alternative medicine]]
[[Category:Homeopathy]]
{{stub|alternative medicine}}

Categories: Alternative medicine, Homeopathy