History of the expulsion of Drs. R.S. Newton and Z. Freeman from the Eclectic Medical Institute : with the causes which rendered it necessary, and an exposition of the slanderous and factious course which has been pursued by the off-casts from the Institute / by W. Sherwood.

  • William Hall Sherwood
Date:
[1856?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the expulsion of Drs. R.S. Newton and Z. Freeman from the Eclectic Medical Institute : with the causes which rendered it necessary, and an exposition of the slanderous and factious course which has been pursued by the off-casts from the Institute / by W. Sherwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    occasionally from Dr. Powell's manuscript, before it was published—some of which lectures, written by Dr. Powell, were published as lectures of Dr. Newton!! The following extracts from Dr. L. E. Jones' articles in the American Medical and Surgical Jour- nal, show his estimate of the work: ERRORS TAUGHT IN MEDICAL COLLEGES. The qre>tion which he proposes to discuss is this: Is inflammation a healthy or unhealthy state of parts? or is it a diseased or sound condition of the organs or tissues involved ? In short, is Inflammation a disease, or the mere manifestation of it ? Does it constitute any part of the disease,or is it simply a.'healthy' effort of nature to re- move or cure some other affection ? I am led to make these inquiries in consequence of the lahored efforts of Prof K S. Newton, of that College, to establish his favorite hobby., that it [inflammation! is not disease, hut a healthy effort of nature to cure disease. If his position be true, it should be understood and ap- preciated l.y all classes of the profession ; if erroneous, it should be as widely known, that the remedy may be co- extensive with the injury inflicted by the inculcation of such doctrines. Dr. Jones, after showing plainly the gross ab- surdity of such doctrines, continues as follows : I can not leave this subject without an expression of surprise that Prof. R. 8. Newton should consume so much important time in zealously advocating the doctrines of Dr. Samuel Thomson. I believe Prof. A. Curtis of the Physio Medical College of this city, and Prof. K. S. New- ton of the Eclectic Medical Institute, are the only gen- tlemen claiming respectable scientific attainments who walk in the foot-steps of Dr. Thomson. Most of his early proselytes have long since renounced his doctrines ; but he still has two zealous friends (both Professors in Medical Colleges), who advocate and proclaim his doctrines to their pupils, pure and unadulterated as when they came from the fountain some forty years ago. If these doctrines ac- cord with scieuce, and the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age—if they be rational and demonstrable, they should certainly be promulgated by the professors in all Medical Colleges. If, on the contrary, they are irra- tional and erroneous, they should not be made to consume the limited and valuable time of Medical Students/' is fevkr disease? by l. e. jones, m. d. Mes>rs. Kditors:— It is strenuously maintained by Prof. A. Curtis, of the Physio-Medical College of Cincinnati, and by Prof. R. S. Newton, of the Eclectic Medical Institute, that Fever is not a Pathological condition, in other words not disease, but a healthy effort of nature to cure something else, which they call disease. In this connection, it should be remembered that Dr. Samuel Thomson vehemently advo- cated the same doctrine, in the small work which he pub- lished on bis method of treating diseases, for which he obtained a Patent from Congress some 40 or 50 years ago. While most of his early proselytes and admirers, have long since discarded his doctrines respecting Fever and Inflammation, as erroneous, Profs. Curtis and Newton fearlessly maintain the same old Thomsonian theories in their purity. * * * * * * If it should be contended that the excited action of the heart a:.d arteries alone constitute the Fever, regardless of all the other morbid phenomena present, still, it does not prove them healthy. If violent arterial action be healthy, then are the cramping and excessive vomiting and purging in cholera morbus—the extreme vascular excitement caused by great loss of blood—(he frequent pulse observed in most febrile and inflammatory diseases, and that excessive action of (lie heart and arteries, observ- ed in the last moments, or in the collapsed stage of Ty- phus Fever, when the pulse beats from 150 to ICO in a minute. The writer can not conceive that the presence of any of those elements of disease, prove them to be mani- festations of health. If Fever is a healthy action, it Should 1»' promoted in true Thomsonian style, by the use Of Alcoholic stimulants, cayenne pepper, and other potent agents of this class, for the more there is, the better for the safety of the patient. There can be no danger, if raised to the highest possible point of excitement, if it be merely a healthy effort of nature to cure ; and the physi- cian who would modify or subdue it, proves himself an ignorant pretender, a mere quack—he proves that he knows nothing about the great laws of life and health. To be consistent, Prof. Newton must teach his pupils to view F'ever as a frieod, and resort to all possible means to augment its strength, or increase its curative power. I leave those who have heard his lectures on F'ever and Inflammation, to judge for themselves as to the consis- tency displayed. ''One thing is certain, if Prof. Newton's teaching, (which is purely Thomsonian, so far ns regards Fever and Inflam- mation.) be correct, the Medical Profession should know it, and inculcate the same doctrines to their pu] ils. Un- fortunately (perhaps) for the cause of troth and science, none of the Professors, in any of the Medical Colleges, have become properly enlightened on this subject, with the exception of Professors Curtis and Newton, to whom it remained to review Dr. Thomson's doctrines, and to prop- agate them in their Colleges, in their pristine purity. In his second pamphlet, pages II and 15, Dr. L. E. J. denounces in strong language the defective teach- ing of Drs. Newton and Bickley, complaining that the doctrines of Dr. Buchanan are now said to be fully endorsed by the entire Faculty, which was strictly true, except that nobody had asked Dr. Freeman what his opinions were on that subject, or whether he had any at all. He condemns severely the exceedingly defective course of teaching on Theory and Practice and Materia Medica, and says that students will not be able to sustain an honor- able examination on these departments. [Observe, reader, this is on page 14 of the 2d pamphlet of 24 pages. Do not allow Dr. Newton <fc Co. to offer you the 3d pamphlet of 40 pages for the second, and tell you that these quotations are not in it; all our quotations are made with the utmost tjare. Thero is no quotation or statement which does not faith- fully and fairly represent the original.] In his third pamphlet, page 29, he says that tho graduates of the Institute are no longer qualified to practice, as they were in former days, on account of the deficient teaching of Newton and Bickley. When it is recollected the students of the B. M. T. havo but a sickly course of lectures on the two most important departments, Theory and Practice, and Materia Medica, bow must their graduates compare with those ef former years. To illustrate further Dr. Newton's unfitness, ho publishes with approbation and eulogy a letter from an intelligent student, who had graduated, saying, among other things— Prof. Newton was always looked upon, during my at- tendance at the Institute, as an automaton, in the absence of o competent lecturer on Surgery, employed to read Dr. Hill's work on that subject-' Complaints of a similar character against the Col- lege, for employing a Professor to read lectures out of books, had been accumulating and increasing so long that it is not strange the Faculty and Board determined, at last, to put an end to such incom- petency. While Dr. Newton was a Professor, tho by-laws of the College prevented the Faculty from exposing his deficiencies when they saw them. As the Professors do not attend each other's lectures the}' only find out the defects by the complaints to which they give rise in the class. For various reasons students seldom complain, but in the case of Dr. Newton it was discovered in the spring of 1856, that at least three-fourths of the class were dis- satisfied or disgusted, and as soon as he was expelled they expressed themselves as follows : These resolutions and the report of the meeting, were prepared by the students themselves, without any aid or influence from the Faculty; hence, they are written in strong and pointed language, under the influence of the indignation and disgust which had been excited by the conduct of Dr. Newton and his associates. There were a few, who, for various reasons, did not unite in denouncing Dr. Newton, for we believe no man was ever a Professor in a medical school, whatever his character, who could