Health in early America was generally good. The food was plentiful, the air and water were clean, and people tended to enjoy strong constitutions as a result of this environment. Practitioners of traditional forms of health care enjoyed high social status, and the cures they offered—from purging to mere palliatives—carried a powerful authority. Consequently, most American doctors felt little need to keep up with Europe’s medical advances relying heavily on their traditional depletion methods. However, in the years following the American Revolution as poverty increased and America’s water and air became more polluted, people grew sicker. Traditional medicine became increasingly ineffective. Instead, Americans sought out both older and newer forms of alternative medicine and people who embraced these methods: midwives, folk healers, Native American shamans, African obeahs and the new botanical and water cure advocates.
In this overview of health and healing in early America, Elaine G. Breslaw describes the evolution of public health crises and solutions. Breslaw examines “ethnic borrowings” (of both disease and treatment) of early American medicine and the tension between trained doctors and the lay public. While orthodox medicine never fully lost its authority, Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic argues that their ascendance over other healers didn’t begin until the early twentieth century, as germ theory finally migrated from Europe to the United States and American medical education achieved professional standing.
Elaine G. Breslaw retired as Professor of History from Morgan State Universityin Baltimore after 29 years and has taught on an adjunct basis at Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is the author of Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies (NYU Press, 1995), Witches of the Atlantic World: An Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook (NYU Press, 2000), and Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Provincial America: Expanding the Orbit of Scottish Culture.
Table of Contents
Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
1 Columbian Exchange 9
2 Epidemics 27
3 Tools of the Trade 43
4 Abundance 61
5 Wartime 77
6 New Nation 95
7 Giving Birth 113
8 The Face of Madness 135
9 Democratic Medicine 151
10 Public Health 169
Conclusion 185
Epilogue 193
Abbreviations 201
Bibliographic Essay 203
Index 227
About the Author 237
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
Breslaw’s book is an important compilation of authoritative research, giving the subject a longer reach and shedding light on a little-known and not-so-pretty subject."-Library Journal,
"Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic is much more than a history of health in early America. It is a history of struggle, as natives and newcomers alike grappled with the obstacles imposed by biology, ecology, and fellow human beings. Breslaw’s fearless appraisal, supported by stories and anecdotes, entertains, provokes, and cajoles. In the end it calls for a frank reconsideration of the history of America, its health, and its doctors."-Elizabeth A. Fenn,author of Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82
"This impressive synthesis of health care in early America ranges from the catastrophic disasters of initial contact to the nutrition and food ways of early settlers, from childbirth to therapeutic practices, from informal folk healers to a medical establishment, from the training of doctors to public health solutions. It is admirably comprehensive."-Philip D. Morgan,Harry C. Black Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University
"Owing to a fateful overconfidence on the part of its theorists and practitioners, early American medicine was 'a mess,' writes Elaine Breslaw. In this learned and thoroughgoing history, she tidies up that mess, exploring just about every conceivable health issue, including sanitation, bleeding, fertility, abortions, and childbirth complications, mental illness, painkillers, hydropathy, quackery, legal questions, and treatment across the color line. Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic is well-informed, carefully contextualized, and written with great clarity. By putting the vocabulary and practice of early health professionals under a microscope, Breslaw provides an authoritative examination of her vulnerable patient: America."-Andrew Burstein,Charles P. Manship Professor of History, Louisiana State University
“This is a wonderfully informative, though often unsettling, reminder that today's American medical practice, based on enlightened science, rigorous medical education, and sound public health policies, is a quite recent phenomenon. Until the late nineteenth century, the causes of diseases were largely unknown; even the most prestigious doctors applied an unfortunate array of remedies—especially opiates and blood-letting—that usually did more harm than good. Elaine Breslaw's welcome narrative (I've long wanted just such a book) reveals how Americans from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth survived, or did not, the nation's helter-skelter medical practices, both popular and professional. She is as adept at describing the evolution of childbirth customs and treatment of the mentally ill as she is at explaining how major epidemics such as small pox, yellow fever, and cholera wreaked havoc on American communities and why 'surgeons' could neither treat the symptoms effectively nor prevent their spread. This is a thoughtful and engrossing synthesis of the best literature on American medical history.”-Alden T. Vaughan,Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
