The Growth of American Medicine in the New Republic

The growing American republic required new approaches to public health, illness, and domestic medicine to fit its changing national identity. Dr. Benjamin Rush—a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the face of American medicine—advocated for mass smallpox inoculation, public dispensatories, and increased urban sanitation, all demanding centralized authority. There were, however, other approaches for democratizing medicine. Self-taught New Hampshire herbalist Samuel Thomson advocated a populist approach, more suitable to the frontier than dense cities like New York or Philadelphia. Thomsonian medicine, as it became known, rejected Rush’s insistence on bloodletting and toxic purges in favor of alternatives like native medicinal plants and Indigenous knowledge. Popular manuals like Thomson’s Botanic Physician and John C. Gunn’s Domestic Medicine went through many editions, reflecting a demand for practical information where trained doctors were either unavailable or unwanted. Nonetheless, the American medical establishment continued to evolve, creating new medical societies and medical schools across the country, including in Tennessee. Connections between American health and the geography, natural history, and climate of the country were major themes for all, and each wave of immigration brought new voices and traditions into a growing constellation of medical theories and schools of thought.