The Story of our Health Message

Bitter Controversies

During this early part of the nineteenth century bitter controversies were waged between various schools of thought among the members of the medical profession. Even regarding the nature of disease itself, as well as its rational treatment, opposing views were held. For instance in New England Dr. Gallup, on one side, and Drs. Miner and Tully, on the other, fought with vitriolic polemics. The first maintained that diseases were almost wholly of an inflammatory nature, and with him bleeding was the sovereign remedy. His opponents took an opposite view of the general nature of disease; and their favorite remedies were opium, calomel, and stimulants. SHM 15.1

Dr. Gallup lashed out at his opponents, declaring: “It is probable that, for forty years past, opium and its preparations have done seven times the injury they have rendered benefit on the great scale of the world.” SHM 15.2

Dr. Tully retorted: “The lancet is a minute instrument of mighty mischief. ... The king of Great Britain loses every year more subjects by this means [that is by bleeding] than the battle and campaign of Waterloo cost him, with all their glories.”—Worthington Hooker, M.D., Rational Therapeutics, 13, 14. Boston: John Wilson and Sons, 1857. SHM 15.3