Virtual Program
From 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.
Eclectic medicine represents an alternative branch of an American healing system that had its beginnings with the opening of the U.S. Infirmary in 1827 in New York City. Decrying the excessive use of bleeding and heroic drugs, its founder, Wooster Beach (1794-1868), prescribed botanical medicines based on the principle that physicians should employ whatever was found to be beneficial to their patients. This practice went against the prevailing medical systems of both orthodox and unorthodox medicine, which depended almost entirely on humoral pathology, or the theory of temperaments. Eclecticism’s intellectual center was the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, whose 97-year history offers a unique insight into this interesting healing system.
Dr. John Haller, emeritus professor of medical humanities and the history of ideas, has authored more than thirty books on subjects ranging from race and sexuality, to medicine, pharmacy, biography, religion, spirituality, war, and philosophy. He is a former editor of Caduceus and served as vice president for academic affairs for twenty years at Southern Illinois University. His most recent books include Fictions of Certitude: Science Faith, and the Search for Meaning, 1840-1920; Swedenborgs’Principles of Usefulness: Social Reform Thought from the Enlightenment to American Pragmatism; Michael A. Musmanno: Lawyer, Legislator, Judge, and Showman; and Religion after the Gods: Edwin H. Wilson and the American Humanist Association (forthcoming).