thomsonian medicine

   That school of medical philosophy and therapy founded by the American messianic nature therapist Samuel Thomson (b. 1769). Thomson's great axiom was, "Heat is life, and cold is death." He lived in New England, which explains some of this. He and the later Thomsonians made great use of vomiting, sweating, and purging to achieve these ends...crude by present standards, but saner than the standard practice medicine of the times. The Thomsonians split vehemently from the early Eclectics before the Civil War; the latter, larger group preferred to train true professional physicians as M.D.s. The first group disavowed any overt medical training ("physicking") although the small medical sect of Physio-Medicalists, with several medical schools of their own and some east-coast physician converts, used Thomsonian precepts within an otherwise orthodox armamentarium. Their training, however, became less rigorous and more charismatic in time, and, unlike the Eclectic Medical Schools that, with one exception, chose to change to an A.M.A-supported curriculum to stay in business (thereby selling their souls), the Physio-Medicalist schools were too radical and erratic, and faded into history as their graduates were left, finally, with only Michigan allowing them to practice. Many of the practices of Jethro Kloss (Back to Eden) and John Christopher are neo-Thomsonian, and much of what still goes on in the old guard of alternative therapy is what Susun Weed calls the "Heroic Tradition" (no compliment intended). Rule of thumb: If you see Lobelia and Capsicum together in a formula, along with recommendations for colonics, it's probably something Sam Thomson did first.