AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Transcript of AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
THE TEMPERANCE PHYSICIANS: DEVELOPING
CONCEPTS OF ADDICTION
By
Katherine H. Nelson
Submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
of Doctor of Philosophy
In
History
Chair:jvara
:w:
it ARobert L. DuPont
Dean or the College of Arts and Sciences
"3 J-t&P C-_________Date
2006
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
UMI N um ber: 3 2 2 7 7 5 3
Copyright 2006 by
Nelson, Katherine H.
All rights reserved.
INFORMATION TO USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy
submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and
photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper
alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized
copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
®
UMIUMI Microform 3227753
Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
© COPYRIGHT
by
Katherine H. Nelson
2006
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
THE TEMPERANCE PHYSICIANS: DEVELOPING
CONCEPTS OF ADDICTION
BY
Katherine H. Nelson
ABSTRACT
During the first temperance movement, which flourished in the early decades of
nineteenth-century America, some new ideas emerged about intemperance and alcohol
use. These ideas proceeded from a complex interplay of social, cultural, and intellectual
forces. A small group of physicians, whom I refer to as “the temperance physicians,”
gained prominence in the temperance movement thorough their writings, lectures, and
public activities. They expressed new ideas about the effects of alcohol use, aspects of
which are consistent with what modem terminology recognizes as addiction. This
dissertation explores the ideas of the temperance physicians and highlights significant
biographical data.
The first temperance physician is Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia (1746-1813).
A signer of the Declaration of Independence and physician to the Continental Army,
Rush is also one of the founders of the American temperance movement. His many
treatises on the effects of “ardent spirits” and intoxicating beverages influenced the next
generation of temperance physicians. They are: William Clark (1785-1867), who helped
organize the first temperance society in New York in 1808; Thomas Sewall (1785-1845),
ii
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
a founder of Columbian Medical College in Washington, D.C.; Reuben Mussey (1780-
1866), one of the most brilliant surgeons of his time; and Charles Jewett (1807-1879), a
country doctor from Connecticut who became an influential temperance leader. These
men, famous as they were in their time, are largely unknown today, even to most
historians.
The temperance physicians viewed the subject of alcohol use differently than
the other temperance reformers. They approached the topic from a health standpoint and
promoted ideas about the dangers of alcohol use. The nineteenth-century concept of
addiction differed from contemporary understanding; however, there are similarities both
then and now in that the concept of addiction involves overwhelming, compulsive, and
destructive use of a substance. Like their predecessor Rush, the temperance physicians
regarded habitual drunkenness not so much as a vice or a moral failing, but as a physical
process that attended the frequent use of intoxicants. The temperance physicians
promoted ideas of the destructive power of intemperance, based in part upon the newly
discovered chemical composition of alcohol.
iii
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the members
of my committee, Drs. Karin Wulf, Robert DuPont, Andrew Lewis, and Philip Stem. I
could not have written the dissertation without the help and encouragement of all my
committee members and am extremely grateful to them. My committee chair, Dr. Wulf,
has been a tremendous help and resource, giving generously of her time and outstanding
expertise in early American history. I am deeply grateful that she continued to chair my
committee even after she had accepted a new position at the History Department of
William and Mary. Due to her faithfulness and continued support I was able to complete
this dissertation. She improved my work immeasurably by helping me to develop both
the substance and style of the dissertation. Dr. DuPont, a recognized leader in the field of
drug and alcohol policy, helped through his continuous support and encouragement. I
felt honored to have him serve on my committee. Dr. Lewis helped in many ways and
improved the dissertation greatly by encouraging me to write the medical background
chapter (“Andrew’s chapter”). Dr. Stem generously joined the committee by special
request and insured that a full complement of AU professors had participated in the
process.
I am grateful to the many reference librarians who helped me throughout the
research phase of the dissertation. At the head of the list are the American University
librarians - the ILL staff, the reference librarians, and the archives staff. They were a joy
to work with and tireless in their efforts. In addition, I would like to thank Bill Pittman of
iv
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
Hazelden-Pittman Archives in Center City, Minnesota, for his research help and
enthusiastic support. Many others too numerous to mention also gave invaluable
assistance, especially the librarians of the Allen Medical Library of Case Western
Reserve Medical School, the Gelman Special Collections of George Washington
University, the Dartmouth College Library, the National Library of Medicine, and the
Mutter Museum Archives of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
I am very grateful for the support of American University. Thanks to the
assistance of the AU dissertation fellowship, I was able to devote an entire year to the
dissertation with reduced job demands. I appreciate the grant from the AU Graduate
Leadership Council that assisted me in attending the International Alcohol and Drug
History conference in Ontario, Canada. I have been fortunate to study under the
outstanding professors of American University. I am especially grateful to AU
professors Roger Brown, Valerie French, Robert Griffith, and Bob Beisner. A special
thanks to my early committee members, especially British historian Terence Murphy, and
Michael Kazin, my mentor in social reform movements, now at Georgetown.
I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at the Alcohol and Drug
History Society. It has been a pleasure and inspiration to be in an academic community
with such illustrious members as Jack Blocker, William Rorabaugh, Ian Tyrrell, and the
many new scholars that I meet at conferences and on line.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my family and friends who supported me
throughout the dissertation endeavor. I would like to thank especially those who read
parts of the manuscript and gave me valuable support in so many other ways: my
v
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
husband, Dr. John Nelson; my sons, James and Dr. George Nelson; and my friends,
Kathleen Montague, Heather McGiffin, and Natasha Kapetanovic. I could not have
accomplished half so much without their help and encouragement.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................... iv
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1
II. BACKGROUND OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES CONTRIBUTING TO THE RISE OF THE TEMPERANCE PH Y SICIA N S.......................................................................................................18
III. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: TEMPERANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF EMERGING SCIENTIFIC METHOD,THE OLD GUARD IN MEDICINE, AND POPULAR DISCONTENTS . . 62
IV. THOMAS SEWALL, TEMPERANCE PHYSICIAN...................................... 93
V. REUBEN MUSSEY, PIONEERING SURGEON AND ARDENT TEMPERANCE. ADVOCATE......................................................................... 130
VI. CHARLES JEWETT, COUNTRY DOCTOR ANDTEMPERANCE CRUSADER.......................................................................... 173
VII. CONCLUSIONS...............................................................................................223
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 240
vii
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
On a rainy evening in the spring of 1808, Billy J. Clark, a young physician in
Moreau, New York, sat in his home by the fireplace reading. He was perusing one of the
editions of Dr. Benjamin Rush's essay on intemperance, An Enquiry into the Effects o f
Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body} Perhaps the treatise caused him to
contemplate the harmful effects of alcohol that he had encountered in his patients.
Perhaps he even pondered some specific incident that he had recently witnessed in that
upstate region of New York where lumberjacks gathered regularly to drink rum and other
spirits. We do not know his specific thoughts that night, but we know that he suddenly
left the comfort of his fireside and rushed out into the cold night, riding three miles to the
home of his friend, the local Congregational pastor, Lebbeus Armstrong. The first words
that he spoke to his friend were that they must give up drinking all intoxicating beverages
and urge others to do so as well, before they all became drunkards. Soon thereafter, on
April 30, 1808, Billy Clark and the pastor called a meeting at the local schoolhouse to
form a temperance society. Forty-three townsmen joined the new organization and
pledged to use “no rum, gin, whiskey, wine or any distilled spirits, or compositions of the
'Benjamin Rush, An Enquiry into the Effects o f Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body and their Influence upon the Happiness o f Society (Philadelphia: John McCulloch in 3rd St., 1791). Published as early as 1784 and republished for many years afterwards. Before his death in 1813 Rush published and distributed thousands o f copies o f the Enquiry at his own expense.
1
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2
same, except by advice of a physician, or in the case of actual disease.” Thus was the
2first American temperance society launched.
This account, given by Armstrong and found in several other reports,
highlights some of the social, economic, intellectual, and other forces that brought forth
the first American temperance movement. These forces provide significant contextual
material for the role that physicians would play in temperance reform. For example, it is
significant that Clark enlisted the help of a clergyman, for religious revivalism permeated
the temperance movement. And it is significant that the first temperance society was
founded in Saratoga County in upstate New York, within the area that social historians
recognize as the Burned-Over District. The town of Moreau produced a sizable number
of townspeople who willingly joined an organization that adopted an extreme temperance
position—the first members pledged what amounted to almost complete abstinence. And
more specifically, it is significant that Clark, an isolated country doctor, read Benjamin
Rush’s treatise and found it so persuasive as to inspire founding the first temperance
society. In taking such an extreme action Clark had joined a select group of physicians,
the temperance physicians.
This dissertation identifies as the temperance physicians those physicians,
beginning with Benjamin Rush and following him in first decades of the nineteenth
century, who publicly and prominently promoted the temperance cause. They were not a
self-defined group and would not have referred to themselves in such a manner, yet they
2Lebbeus Armstrong. The Temperance Reformation: Its History from the Organization o f the First Temperance Society to the Adoption o f the Liquor Law ofMaine, 1851 (NY: Fowlers and Wells, 1851), 222-23.
3John A. Krout, The Origins o f Prohibition (NY: Knopf, 1976), 77-78; John Kobler, Ardent Spirits {NY: Putnam’s, 1973), 48-51.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3
shared a common intellectual outlook. Although a number of physicians joined
temperance societies as general members, the temperance physicians stand out as an
anomaly for their active and prominent participation in temperance reform. These few
physicians went beyond simple membership to gain national prominence through their
lectures, publications, and active support of temperance. They enthusiastically supported
the cause through their publications and public activities. Although they approached the
subject of drinking and intoxication with a different emphasis than the general
movement, they provided intellectual and ideological support to the cause. Moreover,
they expressed new ideas about the effects of prolonged, excessive drinking. They
helped to define new concepts about intemperance, pointing out that excessive drinking
of alcohol4 could lead to serious health problems for the drinker and his family. They
developed and expressed ideas associated with the modem conception of addiction.5 The
temperance physicians regarded alcohol intake in the light of medicine not morality.
They were interested in the relationship between alcohol and the physiological response.
Drawing upon their expertise and influence as physicians, they issued warnings about the
prevalent abuse of alcohol by the general public and their profession in particular.
At the outset it will be helpful to define some terms such as temperance and
addiction. The common definition of temperance conveys moderation and the opposite
4 The early temperance leaders warned against the dangers of “ardent spirits,” the term for distilled liquors. The term alcohol was not in common use, nor did the general public understand that fermented drinks (wine, cider, and beer) contained the same chemical substance as ardent spirits. Further discussions o f the definition o f alcohol and discovery o f its composition will be addressed in Chapters. 2 and 3.
5A discussion o f the evolving definition and concept of addiction follows in the text. For a discussion o f the modem concept o f addiction that is scientific, yet understandable to the layman, see Robert L. DuPont, M.D., The Selfish Brain, Learning from Addiction (Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Press, 1997).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4
of extremism. In using the terms temperance, temperance reform, and temperance
movement historians refer to something more specific and specialized than the common
definition would suggest. The term derives from the common definition, drawing upon
the idea of limiting intemperance in drinking, eating, and other activities. Certainly the
avoidance of drunkenness and gluttony represents a temperate, moderate, and reasonable
approach, but the use of the term took on specific meaning during the early temperance
era. In the early nineteenth century, temperance assumed additional definitions as it
related to the limitation of drinking intoxicating beverages. The temperance movement
gradually tended to move beyond a moderate, tolerant approach. However, the
movement retained the term temperance, perhaps as a means of maintaining wide appeal.
By the 1830s temperance organizations had extended their reform target beyond distilled
spirits to include all fermented drinks (wines, beer, and hard cider) in the temperance
pledge. Temperance reform also gradually moved from the position of limiting drinking
alcohol to endorsing complete abstinence from all alcoholic drinks. The changing
definition and goals of temperance will be further considered in Chapter Two and
elsewhere in the text.
In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, the word addiction
was rarely used, and when the word was employed, its meaning differed from current
usage. Addiction was used in the sense of devotion or dedication. One might sign a
letter, “your addicted servant.”6 According to most scholars and experts, the modem
6 The word addict or addiction evolved over time to its current meaning o f compulsive drug use. The word derived from Roman law, ad (to, toward) and dicere (to say, pronounce) and meant assignment o f goods to someone by legal ruling. By the seventeenth century the meaning had evolved to express being attached or inclined to a pursuit or interest, as in “you are still addicted to the Royal Interest” (1685), or
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5
terminology and concept of addiction (the compulsion to use a drug or substance)
developed in the late nineteenth century, or even in the early twentieth century.7 This
dissertation will show that ideas associated with the modem concept of addiction
emerged much earlier, and that a few individuals, particularly with the temperance
physicians, expressed the new concept. They did not necessarily use the newer
terminology of the words “addiction” or “alcohol” in expressing their views, but they did,
nevertheless, express ideas consistent with language and concepts that would be used by
the end of the nineteenth century.
In a general sense the temperance physicians might be defined to include any
physician who joined the temperance cause, but such a definition obscures the
significance of the more specifically defined temperance physicians. As will be
thoroughly explicated in successive chapters, particularly the chapter on the medical
profession, doctors in the early nineteenth century took varied positions on the
temperance issue, ranging from opposition, to noncommittal, to moderate and even active
support. Although scholars have undertaken no complete account of the actual numbers,
the general assessment is that the majority of American physicians neither supported nor
opposed temperance. Some physicians, most likely in numbers commensurate with that
of other occupations in society, joined as rank and file members. They joined temperance
societies but without much further participation. The social, economic, and intellectual
“being addicted to his Art” (1850). The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1989) v I, 142-43.
7 The founding o f the American Association for the Cure o f Inebriety in 1870 marks the beginning o f addiction treatment. For more information on late nineteenth-century addiction history, see William L. White, “The Role o f Recovering Physicians in 19th Century Medicine,” Journal o f Addictive Diseases (2000) v2, 1-10 and Bill Pittman, The Roots o f Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, Minn: Hazelden Foundation, 1988), 10-81.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6
reasons for their participation, or lack thereof, are complex and will be considered in
successive chapters.
The temperance physicians, thus narrowly and specifically defined, enunciated
new ideas that demonstrate significant implications for understanding the temperance
movement. In order to understand their contribution and activities, it is essential to
describe the first temperance movement and its context within nineteenth century social
reform. The first American temperance movement, dating from around 1808 to the mid
1840s, resembled the other social reform movements of the era. Historians refer to the
temperance movement as a product of the reform impulse of nineteenth-century America.
Social reform movements of the period included the abolition of slavery, the
advancement of women’s rights, humane treatment of the insane, educational reform, and
many other social causes. Temperance reform, the movement to control excessive
drinking of distilled spirits and other alcoholic drinks, formed one of the many social
reform movements that developed in the United States, as well as in Europe. The
temperance movement flourished in Jacksonian America, proceeding from the religious
revivalism of the period as well as Enlightenment ideas of progress and social
improvement. By the mid-1830s, the temperance movement was organized in twenty-
three states, with a membership of approximately one million men and women in more
than five thousand societies. An astounding number, twelve per cent of the U.S.
population, had joined.8
8 Membership figures are from John Allen Krout, The Origins o f Prohibition (New York:Russell and Russell, 1925), 139; Blocker gives similar figures. Blocker is also to be credited with identifying the early nineteenth century movement as the first temperance movement, discrete from successive movements. Jack S. Blocker, American Temperance Movements: Cycles o f Reform (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989), 13-15.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7
Nineteenth-century reform movements, especially the abolition of slavery and
the women's rights movement, are widely known and have been the subject of much
scholarship. Until recently the temperance movement has not received as much scholarly
attention as other reform movements, despite the fact that temperance far surpassed the
other movements in membership numbers. The temperance movement equaled the
abolition movement and women’s movement in its eventual success, or perhaps one
might say, influence in American society. The ultimate end of temperance reform,
however, resulted in Prohibition in the twentieth century, not widely regarded by
historians or the general public as a success. The general perception that Prohibition was
ill advised and ineffective has perhaps influenced scholars, even as they regard the early
nineteenth century temperance experience, to downplay the temperance movement in
favor of more attractive social reforms. As will be discussed in the next chapter, several
leading temperance historians have gradually changed the scholarly orientation to
promote the study of temperance. These leading temperance historians include Jack
Blocker, Ian Tyrell, and W J. Rorabaugh.9 Since their original scholarship in the 1970s
and 1980s, they have led the way to establish temperance as a significant, productive
field for historians. This dissertation joins other recent scholarly work by focusing upon
a particular aspect of temperance history. Given the extraordinary dimensions and
influence of the American temperance movement, and the growing interest of current
scholarship, the first American temperance movement presents a compelling topic for
historical study and analysis.
9Blocker, American Temp.Movements', Ian Tyrrell, Sobering Up, From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800-1860 (Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1979); W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1979).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
8
This dissertation looks at the role of a handful of physicians in early
temperance, both as participants in the movement and contributors to emerging ideas
about alcohol’s physiological impact. It takes into account the general motivating forces
behind social reform and the specific conditions affecting the temperance physicians. As
the account of the young doctor in Moreau, New York, suggests, given a confluence of
circumstances, physicians had the potential to influence their patients to join in
temperance societies. The incident of the founding of the first American temperance
society foreshadows the prominent role that some physicians played in the temperance
movement. It also demonstrates the potential of newly developing ideas about alcohol
consumption that physicians expressed in the generation after Benjamin Rush. Heirs to
Benjamin Rush and his successors, Clark and the other temperance physicians helped to
develop and disseminate new ideas about the age-old problem of drunkenness. They
expressed new ideas about the effects of intoxicating beverages, proceeding from the
standpoint of health and medical science, more than a position of morality. They
developed an incipient understanding of what medicine and social workers later
identified as the process of addiction. The language they used and the attitudes they
adopted differed subtly, but significantly from the more general ideas in the temperance
movement. Yet, temperance leaders welcomed them because they recognized how
physicians could benefit the movement. This dissertation examines the ideas of these
physicians and their participation in the first American temperance movement. At the
very least the study will add useful data concerning the most widely joined social reform
movement in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. A more ambitious goal
is to use the writings, speeches, and biographical information of the temperance
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9
physicians to understand the development of new ideas about alcohol, and the complex
forces that motivated social reform.
Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), the first and most famous temperance physician,
strongly influenced the next generation of temperance physicians. The impact of his life
and ideas pervades the dissertation and helps to set the criteria for selecting the
temperance physicians who followed him. He was a signer of the Declaration of
Independence and Surgeon General during the Revolutionary War. He was among the
first in colonial America to oppose the use of ardent spirits on the basis of health. He
published his first treatise opposing alcohol in 1771, Sermons to Gentlemen upon
Temperance and Exercise, the first of his many temperance writings.10 His Inquiry into
the Effects o f Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind, his most widely published
treatise, published first in 1784 and widely circulated thereafter, influenced the next
generation of temperance reformers. Rush has provided a fairly easy target for historians
to criticize because many of his practices and tenets have now been disproved, especially
his over-reliance upon heroic measures during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.
Nevertheless, when evaluated fairly, with an appropriate placement within historical
context, he must be regarded as one of the most influential figures in American social
reform and temperance in particular.
Using Benjamin Rush as the prototype, I developed the selection criteria. The
selection criteria for the dissertation research are those physicians who were highly vocal
and visible in the movement as they articulated new ideas about the effects of prolonged,
10Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise was first published anonymously in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1771. Benjamin Rush, Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise (Philadelphia: John Dunlop in Market Street, 1772).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
10
excessive drinking. This dissertation examines the ideas of these physicians and their
participation in the first American temperance movement. These few physicians, the
temperance physicians, provide the subject material of this dissertation. They are: Dr.
William James Clark (1785-1867), who helped found the first temperance society in
1808; Dr. Thomas Sewall (1786-1845), one of the founders of Columbia Medical College
in the District of Columbia; Dr. Reuben D. Mussey (1780-1866), one of the most
distinguished physicians of his age and a brilliant surgeon; and Dr. Charles Jewett (1807-
1879), a country doctor from Connecticut who became a prominent temperance physician
and lecturer.
The temperance physicians, thus defined, compose a very small, select group,
only a handful, five to be exact, counting Benjamin Rush. Of the other four, Dr. Billy
Clark, the first of the temperance physicians to succeed Rush, played a limited role. His
fame proceeded almost entirely from his position as the founder of the first temperance
society. Despite his prominence, the biographical and other details available about him
are quite limited. As a result the other three physicians have much more space devoted to
them in the dissertation. The selected temperance physicians were famous in their day,
but almost unknown to historians today. Given their relative obscurity, it is entirely
possible and even likely that I have overlooked other significant candidates for inclusion
in the category of temperance physicians. I regard this dissertation as a first attempt to
recognize and define the temperance physicians. I expect therefore that there will be
ample opportunity for further research, for either myself and for other scholars, to expand
the ranks of the temperance physicians.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
11
These physicians demonstrated both differences and similarities in their
backgrounds. Rush, Sewall, and Mussey came from academic medicine, from the most
elevated tiers of the profession, while Clark and Jewett were ordinary practitioners. Their
professional status in medicine may have influenced their attitudes and participation in
temperance, a factor that will be explored. Nevertheless, they all played significant roles
in the temperance movement. All except Rush originated from the Northeastern region
of the country, but two relocated during their careers, Sewall to the Mid-Atlantic and
Mussey, later in life, to Ohio. No doubt they also had much in common, as this
dissertation will delineate and analyze. At the most fundamental level they had a
common interest in human health and behavior, and a commitment to rational, evidence-
based medical practice.
The temperance physicians helped to develop and promote new ideas about the
effects of alcohol and the age-old problem of drunkenness. Although within the context
of emerging social and intellectual trends of the early nineteenth century, their ideas
proceeded from the standpoint of health and medical science, more than a position of
morality. They developed an incipient understanding of what medicine later identified as
the process of addiction. The language they used and the attitudes they adopted differed
subtly, but significantly from the more general ideas in the temperance movement. Yet
they were welcomed by the temperance cause because temperance leaders thought they
could benefit the movement.
Various complex forces combined to bring these few physicians to play such a
prominent role in temperance. Although these men’s lives and work provide the focal
material for the dissertation, in a broader sense they themselves are not the primary
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
12
subject of the dissertation. Their biographical information serves as the vehicle for
understanding emerging trends and developments in the history of American temperance.
By highlighting their individual stories this dissertation undertakes to delineate the
changing forces in the complex social reform movement known as the first American
temperance movement.
Recognizing that the temperance physicians proceeded from the wider social
and intellectual trends of the period, the first two chapters after this introductory chapter,
Chapters Two and Three, place the temperance physicians within that context. Chapter
Two highlights the relevant events of the first American temperance movement, and also
draws upon the major historiographical work that has been accomplished in the field.
The temperance physicians displayed both similarities and differences from the
temperance movement and wider social reforms. Chapter Two discusses the origins of
the temperance physicians as they proceeded from the general temperance movement; in
what ways they coincided with the movement and also the ways in which they differed.
The dramatic social changes of the period provide the background and context for the
rapid growth of American social reform. Yet, as we shall see, socio-economic factors are
inadequate to explain either the role of the temperance physicians or the rise of American
temperance reform in general. Intellectual trends, or ideological influences must also be
taken into account. The ideological influences, known as Enlightenment thinking and the
Second Great Awakening, also played significant roles in promoting the temperance
movement. Historians continue to differ over the relative influence of socio-economic
and ideological factors in temperance reform. This chapter takes note of that ongoing
debate and locates the dissertation within the current historiography.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
13
Chapter Three outlines the major trends in the medical profession that affected
the temperance physicians. From a scholarly standpoint, it is essential to understand
what developments occurred in the medical and scientific fields during the period. Only
with that background is it possible to analyze and comprehend the significance of the
temperance physicians. The role of the medical profession and their attitude toward
alcohol use provides essential contextual information in this chapter. In the early
nineteenth century, the medical community was in a period of transition. Medicine, like
other professions, was entering a period of increasing professionalization. The medical
profession was attempting to establish itself on a more respected footing, with increasing
emphasis on the necessity of formal education and licensure. The old informal methods
of physicians learning a trade, much as an apprentice would learn any other trade, were
gradually being replaced by university education and licensing. Physicians increasingly
perceived themselves as rational men of science and wanted to project that image to the
public. In this chapter we shall consider the effects of their struggle to distance
themselves from the old-fashioned traditionalists with their home remedies.
In such a transition period, many physicians were open to new ideas about
improving health. They began to adopt more effective, preventive methods.
Temperance, in much the same way as other social reform thinking of the era, promoted
the concept of preventive health measures and good hygiene. In the changing ideology of
the period, many physicians responded to the popular health movement by promoting
health through more supportive, preventive measures. Perhaps they responded to the
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
14
growing popular skepticism toward excessive bleeding and purgings.11 Medical science
was skeptical of the old treatments and looked for methods that, if not effective, at least
caused less damage to the patient. Thus preventive health formed the locus for many
social reforms. The reform movements covered a wide range of causes, all concerned
with physical health, for example, the reform movement for humane treatment of the
insane, the movement for prison and penal reform, dietary reform (especially the
19Grahamites), and the temperance movement.
Chapters Four, Five, and Six form the center of the dissertation, the specific
chapters on the three central figures of the dissertation: Sewall, Mussey, and Jewett. A
chapter devoted to each temperance physician summarizes their biographical information,
describes their writings and speeches, and analyzes their temperance positions. All three
men joined the temperance movement in the 1820s. The dissertation treats them in
roughly chronological order, not by their ages but by their first public participation in
temperance. Chapter Four is devoted to Sewall (1786-1845), who made his first public
statement on temperance in 1827. Mussey (1780-1866) is the subject of Chapter Five.
He sponsored a college temperance society at Dartmouth in 1828. Chapter Six treats
Jewett (1807-1879), who publicly joined the temperance cause around 1829, although he
11 Paul Starr, The Social Transformation o f American Medicine (Basic Books, Harper Collins, 1982), 34-56. Heroic treatments o f the era included bloodletting, purges, and other extreme practices. By 1850 these heroic practices were declining and largely abandoned by the late nineteenth century.
l2Historians o f medicine such as Paul Starr and John Duffy emphasize the defensive nature of physicians’ openness to new ideas. For a description o f the rise o f professional medicine and the opposition o f the anti-professionals, or irregulars, such as the Thomsonians and the homeopaths, see John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History o f American Medicine (Chicago: Illinois U. Press, 1993), 81-83 and Starr, Social Transformation o f American Medicine, 44-60 & 51-59. For information on Sylvester Graham’s reform movement based upon diet and hygiene, 1830-1870, see Richard H. Shryock, Medicine in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), 111-125.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
15
published his first temperance statement anonymously in 1826. Chapter Seven, the
conclusion, presents observations, additional commentary, and conclusions about the
temperance physicians’ contributions to the emerging new concepts in the temperance
movement.
Coming during the generation after Benjamin Rush, the temperance physicians
may be considered his successors both directly and indirectly. They were influenced
indirectly by the continuing social, economic, and cultural forces that had been set in
motion in the late eighteenth century, the same forces that had influenced Rush. These
complex forces provide important contextual information and will be further defined and
examined. The temperance physicians were direct successors to Rush to the extent that
they were influenced by his writings and subsequently further developed his concepts.
They continued ideas expressed by Rush about the harmful effects of drinking
intoxicating liquors. They furthered the ideas of the late eighteenth century about
drunkenness and excessive drinking. They participated in developing new ideas about
the nature of alcohol and its use. As they continued to explore ideas and approaches
surrounding excessive drinking, the new generation of temperance physicians pushed
Rush’s ideas even further.
The temperance physicians’ ideas coincided with the general movement in that
they expanded their warnings beyond distilled spirits to include all alcoholic drinks,
including fermented drinks. All of them, either sooner or later, advocated the position of
total abstinence as the safest and most healthful course. They themselves modeled the
teetotal position in their personal habits. In many ways their message resembled that of
the general movement. But they also had a different approach, more nuanced and more
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
16
appreciative of the effects of the alcoholic content of beverages, as well as the medicines
widely prescribed. They challenged their profession’s increasingly prevalent use of
alcohol in medicines. They expressed views that alcohol use had progressive and
potentially harmful effects for all drinkers, some more than others. Because they could
not predict who might be at risk for the worst effects of alcohol use, they gradually
adopted the position of total abstinence for everyone.
In portraying the temperance physicians’ developing theories of the addictive
qualities of alcohol this dissertation will consider several key questions. How were these
ideas about habitual drinking and drunkenness different from the traditional eighteenth-
century views and the prevailing views of the early nineteenth century? Did the ideas
that the temperance physicians expressed about alcohol being addictive proceed from
ideas already commonly expressed by other temperance leaders? If it appears that
temperance physicians had a different approach, which is a hypothesis of the dissertation,
can the origins of these new views be identified? Perhaps their training, education, and
clinical exposure gave them a different perspective. Although these physicians were
products of the era of early nineteenth-century social reform, they perhaps perceived
information differently than other social reformers. Did they have access to different
information, particularly scientific and medical information?
In addition to the motivational issues, this study will define the attitudes that the
temperance physicians espoused concerning alcohol and addiction. Did they think that
all were equally at risk, or did they regard some as more vulnerable than others? Did
they include all people as potential victims, regardless of class, education, ethnicity, or
gender? Did they include themselves in the at-risk population? Did they express an
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
17
opinion about the possibility of recovery from addiction? As they developed their ideas
and attitudes about beverage alcohol and medicinal alcohol, it will be important to
observe how they applied those ideas to themselves and others.
This dissertation intends to analyze the emergence of developing concepts of
addiction. It looks at innovative attitudes and emerging concepts expressed by a select
group of physicians. The central focus proceeds from the specific details of the lives and
writings of the individual temperance physicians. In this regard, the study provides
additional information and analysis not available in the current historiography. Despite
their fame during their period of history, with the exception of Benjamin Rush, they are
mostly unheard of today, even in the academic literature. The temperance physicians
deserve to be specifically identified and their contributions to be adequately considered.
This dissertation seeks to expand knowledge about this significant aspect of intellectual
and social history.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER II
BACKGROUND OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT:
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES CONTRIBUTING
TO THE RISE OF THE TEMPERANCE PHYSICIANS
In portraying the emergence of the temperance physicians it is essential to
understand the principal features of the first American temperance movement— its
origin, background, and major historiographical approaches. Drawing upon main
historiographical trends in temperance literature, this chapter reviews the origins of
the movement, the drinking customs and attitudes of the era, the nature of early
temperance views and rhetoric, and the characteristics of the early movement. It also
identifies the origins of the temperance movement and examines the role of Benjamin
Rush, the earliest American temperance physician and a key figure in early
temperance history. Although alcohol and temperance historians will already be
conversant with most of the information, the familiar material lends itself to a more
specific purpose, understanding the temperance physicians.
The temperance physicians reflected the social, cultural, economic and
intellectual forces that swept late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century
America. As much as they were affected by the social and cultural trends of their
time they also made contributions through their ideas and activities. Their attitudes
about health, disease, and human behavior proceeded from their experiences. As the
18
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
19
details of their lives and work demonstrate, they responded to the currents of the era
in ways similar to others in the temperance movement, but with significant specific
differences. As will be described more fully in successive chapters, they differed in
their conception of alcohol and drunkenness, and ultimately expressed new ideas
about alcohol’s inherent risks to the drinker. Since they responded to many of the
same forces as did the general movement, it is instructive to consider contextual
information about the temperance movement.
As one considers the first American temperance movement, questions of
terminology naturally arise. Some of the terminology issues have already been
considered in the first chapter, terms such as ardent spirits, alcohol, and addiction.
Another significant terminology issue revolves around the reference to the first
temperance movement. Terminology that distinguishes the period as the first
temperance movement is significant for several reasons. It gives insight into the
motivation and origin of temperance ideas and activity. The choice of terminology
aids in understanding the phenomenon of the temperance physicians and their
formative culture. Also, the choice of terminology reveals important debates in the
historiography.
Most temperance historians accept, or are at least familiar with, the
convention of referring to the temperance movement in early nineteenth-century
America by the nomenclature the first American temperance movement. One of the
path-breakers in temperance history, Jack Blocker developed this terminology and
concept. It has proved to be a helpful tool for temperance historians. In identifying
the first American temperance movement as separate and distinct, Blocker advanced
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0
the concept of the evolving nature of American temperance. He regarded the
American temperance movement as a series of movements rather than a single long
movement that moved inexorably toward nationwide Prohibition in the 1920s.1 By
identifying the first American temperance movement as a discrete entity in U.S.
history, Blocker perceived the unique, yet interrelated nature of the first temperance
movement. Employing the metaphor of cycles of reform, he demonstrated how the
attitudes of the participants in each temperance period differed from those of other
periods, and but with certain features alternately appearing and receding in
prominence.
Removing the temperance physicians from the association with the strong
prohibitionist sentiment of later periods allows a more accurate view of their
formative culture. The early temperance movement approached alcohol issues from a
non-coercive stance, with the objective of persuading people to adopt the temperance
position and lifestyle. In this regard Blocker’s approach of helps the whole endeavor
of temperance study. Specifically, Blocker points out that the coercive nature of the
Prohibition period was not a prominent feature of the first temperance movement, nor
is it a prominent factor in the current, or fifth temperance period. Prohibitionist
sentiment began to develop only gradually in the late 1830s on a limited scale, for
example, with stricter enforcement of tavern licensing and other such regulatory
measures. Prohibition agitation came much later, in the second half of the nineteenth
century and culminating in the Prohibition movement of the twentieth century. As
'Blocker identified as many as five distinct temperance movements in U.S. history. Jack S. Blocker, American Temperance Movements: Cycles o f Reform (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989), xv-xvi.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
21
will be explored in later chapters, the first American temperance reformers did not
usually attempt to abolish liquor sales, only to persuade people to reduce
consumption.2
Other advantages proceed from identifying the separate character of the first
American temperance movement. By labeling the early movement as distinct from
successive movements, Blocker has set chronological boundaries around the period
so that it would not suffer the taint of the perceived failure of later movements,
particularly Prohibition. Other temperance historians since Blocker have also noted
that the entire field of temperance history has frequently been affected adversely by
misconceptions about temperance, thus suffering what one historian has called a
“faint aura of ridicule” commonly associated with Prohibitionist sentiment. By
adopting the concept of separate periods of reform Blocker has allo wed historians to
take a fresh look at the first American experiment with temperance, unhampered by
preconceived ideas about the era.4
The historiographical debate over the character of the early temperance
movement has had far reaching effects upon the field. In a recent article in the Social
2 Blocker, 15-17, 157-161.
3 A.E. Dingle, The Campaign fo r Prohibition in Victorian England (Great Britain: Croom, Helm Ltd, 1980), 8.
4 Some contemporary historians in alcohol and drug studies persist in misconceptions about American temperance history by portraying all temperance reformers as killjoys or prohibitionist fanatics. For example Hasso Spode, a historian o f German alcohol history, ponders questions about American “Puritanism” and organized state interference in American society. He does not make a distinction between the period o f Prohibition and other periods of American temperance history. Without a perception o f distinct differences in American historical periods (for example, the distinction between the first temperance period in the early nineteenth century and later periods), Spode sees all through the prism o f Prohibition. Hasso Spode, “What Does Alcohol History Mean and to What End Do We Study It?” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs, v l 8 (2003) 16-31.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2
History o f Alcohol and Drugs Ian Tyrrell addresses the issue of the difficulties in
studying anti-alcohol movements, an endeavor that other historians might view as
peripheral, or as he diplomatically characterizes it, “not mainstream.” Tyrrell
recounts his experiences in academia with those who suspected that those who made
such studies (himself obviously included) might be “secret admirers of the killjoy
philosophy” and “pro-censorship.”5 Tyrrell still regards the position of alcohol
studies in the historical profession to be somewhat marginalized, but nevertheless
sees that the importance of alcohol and temperance studies as extremely valuable and
enduring.6
Temperance and alcohol history seems to be currently evolving to a more
respected position in academia, as a result of the to the work of Blocker, Tyrrell,
Rorabaugh, Dingle, and other temperance historians. With a more nuanced and
insightful view of temperance history, particularly an understanding of the typically
non-coercive nature of the early temperance movement, we can get a clearer picture
of the role of the temperance physician. Because the temperance physicians’
attitudes, activities and behaviors were situated within the specific time and place of
the first temperance movement, their participation tended to be more persuasive and
restrained rather than strident or militant.
5 Ian Tyrrell, “Thirty-Three Years o f Temperance, 1971-2004,” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs, v l9 (2004), 17.
6 Ibid., Tyrrell sees a growing significance in alcohol and temperance studies. He recounts a number o f advantages and strengths in the field of temperance, for example the interdisciplinary aspects o f temperance study, an approach that is gaining in prominence in academia.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3
The clear and distinct differentiation of the first American temperance
movement from successive periods has allowed scholars to perceive the movement
more accurately in its appropriate socio-cultural context. Influenced by the work of
Blocker and other leading temperance historians, many temperance scholars have
located the first temperance movement within a framework contemporaneous with the
other social reform movements of the early nineteenth century. Identifying the early
temperance movement in this fashion allows a clearer understanding of its close
relationship to other social reform movements. The first temperance movement
developed within the context of the numerous social reform movements produced
simultaneously during the early nineteenth century. Situating temperance within the
host of other reform movements such as the abolition of slavery, the women's
movement, prison and penal reform, education of the deaf, humane treatment of the
insane, dietary reform, and many other social reforms, provides an objective contextn
for understanding the temperance movement. Historians can appreciate similar facets
of the reform movements, their similarities in origin, motivation, ideology, and many
other significant aspects. We gain insight into the common reform impulses of
religious faith and evangelical Protestantism, millennial optimism, the activist spirit
of social improvement, and many other influences that the reform movements held in
common. Ronald Walters sums up the Zeitgeist of the early nineteenth century as
“the missionary impulse.”8
7 Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers, 1815-1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), see especially his chapters on antislavery, pacifism, and temperance.
8 Walters, 21-37.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4
By placing temperance within an appropriate chronological context one also
gains awareness of the relative strength and significance of the early temperance
movement compared to other social reform movements. The temperance movement
far surpassed the membership of the other reform movements of the period. The size
of American temperance participation was extraordinary. It numbered approximately
one and a half million members in thousands of local societies in all the states,
compared to the numbers in the next most popular movement— abolition of slavery
with a membership of only about one-quarter million members.9 Historians of social
reform have not yet accounted for the phenomenon of the preeminence of temperance
reform, and most American historians are not yet even aware of the discrepancy.
Given the extraordinary size of the temperance movement compared to other social
reform issues of the period, it is surprising that temperance study has in the past
lagged behind the study of abolition, women’s rights and other reform movements.
Perhaps, with the growing interest in temperance among academics, which Tyrrell
has identified in his recent article, new study will be devoted to the many intriguing
questions surrounding temperance.
Temperance reform, like the other social reform causes of the period, arose
during a period of great social, economic, and political change. During the period
1815 to 1860, the U.S. population more than tripled from eight and a half million to
over thirty-one million. Rapid changes occurred in the United States as the nation
9 Estimates o f membership vary from one to one and a half million at the height of membership in the mid-1830s. Krout gives the conservative estimate of one million. Krout, 152; see also Blocker, 13-14: “By 1835 the ATS [American Temperance Society] had reached the peak o f its organizing success, claiming over 1.5 million members in more than eight thousand auxiliaries.”
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 5
expanded west, the population grew both by natural increase and by immigration, and
the economy changed as a result of industrialization and agricultural expansion. The
number of states increased from eighteen to thirty-three. New cities developed
throughout the nation and the older ones grew rapidly in size. Urbanization
skyrocketed with cities and towns over 2,500 in size increasing from a few dozen in
1810 to almost 400 by I860.10 Urbanization and economic changes helped to set
conditions conducive to social reform. The slow tempo of agricultural life and rural
life had reduced social ills or at least made them less noticeable in a rural setting.
Farm workers could and did drink to excess without incurring the disapproval of their
supervisors. In early American agrarian society alcohol intake was regarded as
necessary to farm work and manual labor. Farmers generally presumed that alcohol
was necessary to bringing in the harvest. The rapid rise of the factory and
industrialism changed social and economic relationships. Factory based employment
and the market economy shifted relations between workers and employers. With the
rise of the factory setting supervisors began to take notice of their workers’ behavior,
their lateness and absenteeism.
In the nineteenth century urbanization and industrialization revealed and
emphasized the problems of excessive alcohol intake. In the crowded cities the social
ills accompanied by drunkenness attracted the attention of reformers. Urban poverty
and drunkenness in eighteenth century London had produced the world as portrayed
10 These basic statistics are available in American history survey texts. One o f the best survey texts for college coursework is George Brown Tindall’s American, A Narrative History (New York: Norton & Co, 1988). For facts on American demographics and economics see Tindall’s vol 1, chapter 12, “The Dynamics o f Growth.”
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 6
by William Hogarth in his famous “Gin Lane” engraving of 1751. Hogarth limited
his condemnation for distilled spirits in the form of “Dutch” gin as compared to his
approval of beer in the idyllic life portrayed in his “Beer Street” depiction.11 Poverty
and drunkenness were much more apparent in the growing cities than in the
countryside. And even in the countryside the social climate was changing. The
drunkenness in country taverns was no longer overlooked as reformers disapproved
of idleness and alcohol abuse. By 1814 Hogarth had his American counterpart in the
painting by John Lewis Krimmel, Village Tavern. In an early work of the American
temperance movement, Krimmel’s painting depicts the scene of the drunken artisan
and his friends in the local tavern. They ignore the pleas of the wife and child to stop
drinking and come home.12 In a climate of changing social and economic conditions
attitudes toward long held drinking customs were gradually changing.
Changes in transportation affected the environment that produced the
emergence of the temperance physicians. Transportation had been slow and tedious
at the turn of the century, but by the 1820s, expanded canal and road construction
substantially changed trade and transportation, as did the development of steamboat
transportation. Towns that had previously been isolated on the backroads and back
waters were more accessible to markets, trade, newspapers, and extensive social
11influences. Improved transportation made possible the promulgation of social
11 Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil, An Interpretation o f American Prohibition (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), 8.
12 M. Therese Southgate, “John Lewis Krimmel, Village Tavern, ” on the cover o f The Journal o f the American Medical Association v 276 (Dec 18, 1996): 1855.
13 Tindall, America, v l, 447-65.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 7
reform literature and ideas, and even temperance reform agents. Improved
transportation promoted the rise of nationally based organizations, with better
communication from volunteer organizations. By the mid 1820s social reformers
could communicate and develop their membership with the aid of improved
transportation and communication.
Many historians have emphasized the economic and social changes as the
primary impetus of the temperance movement. Some of the temperance scholars
from the generation of the sixties, especially Joseph Gusfield,14 have stressed that
social and economic change engendered class conflict. Gusfield perceived the effects
of urbanization and industrialization according to class theory and social control
theory. In his 1963 work, Symbolic Crusade, Gusfield promoted the view that the
temperance movement was a product of the socio-economic upheaval in urbanizing
America, but in a limited and specific fashion. Gusfield takes an essentially class-
based, social control model of the rise of temperance. According to his portrayal,
temperance reformers were businessmen and other elites motivated by a desire to
control the urban factory workers and lower classes. Gusfield concluded that the
changes from a pre-industrial to a factory economy resulted in a need for the elite to
control the social habits, particularly the drinking habits, of their workers.15
Gusfield’s social control interpretation influenced many scholars whose
work followed in the next few years. Historians such as Paul Johnson, Robert
14 Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (Chicago: U. o f 111. Press, 1986 ,1st pub., 1963).
15 Gusfield, 10-19, 36-39.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 8
Hampel, and others published works in the late seventies and early eighties that also
pointed out the social control and class aspects of the temperance reformers. They
identified temperance reformers as men of property who were concerned not so much
about their own drinking, but about the excessive drinking of the lower classes. The
often-cited work of Paul Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, looks at the social and
economic impetus to the rise of temperance activity in the heart of the Burned-Over
District in western New York, especially in Rochester. Johnson’s view of temperance
is constrained by a top-down interpretation of temperance that overlooks the breadth
and complexity of temperance and other social reform.
Taking a hierarchical view of temperance reform, Johnson focuses primarily
on the change in the workplace and the end of direct paternalistic control of workers
by the masters. In his view the shift in the economic and social system encouraged
the old order elite to attempt to regain some measure of control through the newly
emerging temperance message. They sought out temperance and the other moral
reform societies in order to improve the behavior and productivity of their workers.
They encouraged and even pressured workers to join the reform societies. Johnson
conveys the impression that the bosses were guilty of hypocrisy because they did not
intend to curtail their drinking or other bad habits; they merely wanted their inferiors
to behave. Johnson quotes one of the workers as saying “I’ll leave off [drinking]
when the boss does.”16 No doubt instances of hypocrisy existed and will be
addressed in the next chapters, but such analysis leaves much in the temperance
16 Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), 80.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 9
movement unaccounted for— its diversity in class, geographic region, gender, race,
and other aspects.
This dissertation agrees with the concept that changes in the economy and
society contributed to the rise of the temperance movement, but in a much broader
sense than the social control model. The social control theory is inadequate in
explaining the rise of the first American temperance movement. It minimizes the
force of self-determination and the growing democratic sentiment of the Jacksonian
era. It assumes that workers acted as victims rather than asserting their rights with
1 7their superiors. Nonetheless one finds much of social theory to be useful, not so
much in the phenomenon of social control, but in highlighting the forces of social and
economic change. As a result of the early work of Gusfield (who is a sociologist
more than an historian), historians have had to grapple with the role of social change
in the rise of temperance. These changes resulted in social awareness that displayed
great diversity, cut across class lines, and promoted the rise of the movement. Ian
Tyrrell, in his study of the temperance movement, insightfully observes that work in
colonial, pre-industrial society was task-oriented rather than time-oriented. Shop
workers, agricultural workers, and family members could take time from work to
drink without the objection of having missed time from their work, since no one kept
track of work by the clock. But in the industrializing society of the late eighteenth
17 Current trends in historiography find more validity in agency o f individuals rather than their victimhood as class members. In his recent dissertation “Advocating the Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Market Revolution in New York, 1800-]840,” Joshua Greenberg argues that working men opposed alcohol abuse and decided to live sober lives not because their bosses required it, but in order “to properly maintain household obligation and provide for one’s family.” Greenberg finds that New York workers were “domestic actors.” Joshua R. Greenberg, “Advocating the Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Market Revolution in New York, 1800-1840,” Ph.D. dissertation (Washington, DC: American U., 2003), 57-58.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 0
century work began to shift away from home to factories and shops, and so became
more time-oriented. The time lost from work due to alcoholic consumption became
more apparent in an industrializing society.18 In considering Tyrrell’s elegant
explanation one perceives that his analysis differs from Gusfield’s social control
theory. Tyrrell asserts that the social control motive of the employers is only part of
the causal dynamic. All aspects of society, bosses and workers, urban and rural, men
and women gained awareness of the prevalence of excessive drinking. To support his
theory Tyrrell points to the social, class, and cultural diversity of the early temperance
movement. He uses social history in a more complex way to study temperance. He
demonstrates that multiple social, economic, and cultural changes promoted the rise
of the temperance movement. In contrast, the social control theory does not
adequately explain social, economic, gender, or the myriad other aspects of diversity
evident in early nineteenth century temperance. Drawing also upon his international
perspective Tyrrell perceives that the motivating forces for social reform are multi
faceted and complex. While Gusfield’s has some validity and deserves credit for
valuable originating work in the temperance field, Tyrrell’s work gives a clearer
insight into the dynamics of the first American temperance movement, a diverse and
18 Ian R. Tyrrell, Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800-1860 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 18-19. Paul Johnson in A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York 1815-1837, published in 1978, makes an even stronger statement about the economic and social class motivation for temperance reformers. Johnson emphasizes the “social control” message that prosperous employers wanted to reestablish their control over their employees by limiting their (the employees’) drinking. Johnson’s social control or status anxiety theory agrees with the earlier work o f Gusfield. Although both Johnson and Gusfield made valuable contributions to temperance historiography, their views have been superceeded by more complex analysis that takes into account a multiplicity o f factors. Tyrell takes a broader view o f the origins o f temperance, both as an ideology and social movement.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
31
widespread movement. Recent historiographic trends have continued to emphasize
the diversity of the American temperance movement in many aspects.19
The dichotomy between the analysis of Tyrrell and Gusfield demonstrates
the issues one must address in understanding the rise of the temperance movement
and the influences that were brought to bear upon the temperance physicians. Were
the physicians merely falling into the vein of wanting to exercise social control over
their patients and their society, a view more consistent with Gusfield’s analysis, or
did they have other motives? While valuable in identifying one aspect, the social
control theory is limited in that it does not consider other significant motivating
factors for social reform, factors that significantly influenced the temperance
physicians. In this regard Tyrrell’s assessment of the rise of temperance provides
more perceptive context than that of Gusfield. The dramatic social and economic
changes in American culture provide background and context for the rise of social
reformers, but they do not in themselves completely and adequately explain the rapid
growth of temperance and the other American reform movements. If that were the
case, England and other European countries would have produced wide-scale reform
movements as a result of the rapid industrialization and urbanization that they also
experienced. Other forces were at work in American culture and society that
contributed to the rise of social reform. The social and economic changes of the
19 Ian Tyrrell, “Thirty-three Years o f Temperance, 1971-2004,” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs, v l9 (2004),14-17. Other historians also perceive the diversity o f temperance, for example Donald Yacovone cites the diversity o f temperance by describing the evidence of black temperance societies. Yacovone argues that the black temperance effort was part o f their larger struggle for autonomy and self-respect. They did not espouse temperance under white dominating pressure. Donald Yacovone, “The Transformation o f the Black temperance Movement, 1827-1854: An Interpretation” Journal o f the Early Republic v8, 3 (Fall 1988) 281-297.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 2
period were necessary but not sufficient to produce social reform movements. De
Tocqueville, traveling in the United States in the 1830s, was surprised that hundreds
of thousands of Americans had pledged to abstain from alcohol, a phenomenon
‘70incomprehensible to most Europeans.
The European experience with temperance societies differed greatly from
the American situation. Temperance reform societies developed later and on a much
more limited scale in Europe. European temperance societies, including the Irish
temperance movement, were modeled upon and even inspired by American example.
According to the work of scholars of European history such as Brian Harrison, James
Roberts, and Elizabeth Malcolm, temperance movements in England, Scotland,
0 1Germany and Ireland were inspired directly by American example. Harrison
contends that the temperance movement in England and Scotland, dating from about
1830, was encouraged by the influence of American temperance activity and
literature. Similarly, Roberts and Malcolm find that the German and Irish temperance
societies were modeled on American societies. Roberts also describes the advent of
the American Temperance Societies in Paris in 1835 and their subsequent success in
establishing a temperance society. With the exception of the Irish temperance
movement before the famine of the 1840s, temperance reform societies in Europe in
20 Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Richard Heffner (New York: New American Lib., 1956; first pub., 1835) 201.
21 Brian H. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, the Temperance Question in England, 1815- 1872 (Pittsburgh: U. o f Pittsburgh Press, 1971), 100-104 ; and James S. Roberts, Drink, Temperance, and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), 19- 24; Elizabeth Malcolm, Ireland Sober Ireland Free: Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1987), 36-56.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 3
the first half of the nineteenth century remained a limited phenomenon without much
99membership.
Comparing the American and European origins of the development of the
temperance movement aids the historian in sorting out the motivation and causal
factors for the movement. Recent trends in the study of alcohol and drug history
indicate that international approaches and comparisons will guide future study. In his
recent article in which he summarizes the direction of the field, Tyrrell indicates that
the international approach will yield much valuable information for historians.23
Certainly the historian needs all the help available because the social, economic, and
intellectual forces are extremely complex and intertwined.
In addition to the sweeping economic and social changes in American
society, other factors combined to produce the social reform movements. In
particular, two forces in American cultural and social life promoted social reform:
religion and Enlightenment philosophy. Religious revivalism and the Enlightenment
ideology of progress both promoted temperance attitudes. It is ironic that American
temperance flourished while European temperance languished because the cultural
and social ideas that promoted American temperance thinking were European
22 In addition to scholars o f European history Brian Harrison, James S. Roberts, and Elizabeth Malcolm, see the accounts o f Father Mathew and the rise o f temperance in Ireland in the 1830s and 1840s. Irish temperance societies grew dramatically in 1840s as a result o f Father Mathew’s crusade but began to decline around 1842 due to political unrest. The onset o f the famine years in 1845 contributed to the further decline o f temperance in Ireland. Colm Kerrigan, Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement, 1838-1849 (Cork, Ireland: Cork U. Press, 1992) and John F. Quinn, Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America (Amherst: U. o f Mass Press, 2002).
23 Tyrrell, “Thirty-Three Years o f Temperance, 1971-2004,” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs, v l9 (2004).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 4
products. Although these forces were European in origin, they developed in America
in a dynamic, unique way.
The ideas of religious revival originated in Europe, especially with
dissenters, reformers, and evangelicals. The seventeenth-century Quakers and other
religious dissenters stressed that people could affect their own destiny, that they could
not rely upon traditional liturgical religion that required little moral commitment.
Quite the contrary, according to Quaker thinking, religiously committed people had
an obligation to follow the right moral path, according to their own “inner light.”
Quakers and other evangelical Protestants debated the predestination theories of the
Calvinists, gravitating toward the concept of free will. But the concept of free will
did not release them from strict morality and religious observance, but instead
required strict accountability to moral ideals. The personal responsibility imposed by
the concept of free will caused them to draw upon their strict Calvinist heritage in a
different way. Their theology of personal responsibility supported both personal
morality and social conscience. Quakers and other reformist sects in Europe were
persecuted, yet their ideas of personal religion and Christian morality flourished,
gaining new converts in Europe and especially in America.24
By the mid-eighteenth century the dissenters had immigrated to colonial
America as Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers and others. They brought
with them a zeal and commitment which would endure and flourish in their new
24For relevant information on the rise o f Quakerism, Puritanism and the doctrine o f the Inner Light, see E. Digby Balzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 1996), 79-91 and Edmund S. Morgan, Visible Saints: The History o f a Puritan Idea (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 1963), 88-94.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 5
setting. The phenomenon of the first Great Awakening in mid-eighteenth century
America engendered a revivalist spark that would periodically re-ignite throughout
9̂American history. During this period of American history Protestant denomination
churches grew rapidly, much more so than in their European countries of origin.
Because they could no longer depend upon state financial support as could the older
European churches, American churches became much more interested in attracting
converts. They found that promoting a message of personal salvation and redemption
helped to attract new members and keep older members loyal. The strong revivalist
message of the various denominations attracted members by emphasizing the vital
9 f \significance of religious faith and practice. Denominations competed with each
other for members and taught that the way to salvation required living a moral life
and helping others to do the same. Protestant churches attracted new members by
preaching that members could affect their own destinies by their choices in their daily
25 There are a number o f outstanding historians o f the social and cultural impact of American religious experience, e.g., Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea o f Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1990), 3-36. See also his chapter on “The Plural Origins of American Revivalism,” 164-189; Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1993), and Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization o f American Christianity (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1989). In referring to the first Great Awakening and the second Great Awakening many historians such as Butler see rather than a separation a long continuous period o f revivalism in American history. All emphasize the significance o f evangelical religion in American life.
26Churches competed for members by showing that they were serious about their message and so required members to profess personal and social practices o f morality. The idea that strictness has historically encouraged church membership is a prominent theory of Dean M. Kelley, “Why Conservative Churches Are Still Growing,” Religion: North American Style, ed. Patrick McNamara, 1978.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 6
lives. American churches competed with each other in their dynamic messages of the
97merits of members living virtuous, sober lives.
Religious revivalism promoted social reform. Religious revivalism in early
nineteenth-century America, often referred to as the Second Great Awakening, a
period from about 1795 to the 1830s, promoted a great number of social reform
issues, including the temperance cause. Because of its combination of personal and
social concern, temperance made the ideal social reform cause. The heirs to the old
Puritan religion in New England, the Congregationalists and Universalists, although
abandoning some of the rigid tenants of their ancestors, still held firm convictions
about their personal moral responsibilities. And the myriad Protestant sects that
flourished throughout the country enthusiastically supported social causes. With their
commitment to morality and social justice they became ardent supporters of social
reform, advocating numerous reform issues—abolitionism, women’s rights,
9Rtemperance, and other many other causes.
In understanding the rise of the temperance physicians and other temperance
reformers it is essential to place them within the context of the pervasive American
experience with religious revivalism. As we examine their lives and work, their
religious education and affiliations will be scrutinized for clues as to their potential
influence. The rapid growth of Protestant inspired evangelicalism supported the
widespread growth of social reform movements throughout nineteenth-century
27 Richard J.Carwardine, Evangelical and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven:Yale U. Press, 1993), eh 1 and ch 7.
28 James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York: Hill & Wang, 1976), 13-17.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 7
America. A number of historians portray the explosive growth and influence of
American revivalism during the period.29 They describe the camp meetings held
throughout frontier towns and the rural backcountry, as well as the revivals held in
cities in New England, the coastal south, and the interior new west. Religious
revivalism was a mass movement, affecting great numbers of people from all social
classes, women as well as men, New England clergy as well as western farmers and
townspeople, the poor as well as the rich.
Throughout the nation the extensive and rapid growth of Protestant
denominations promoted social concern with moral issues, especially those issues that
were regarded as matters of personal responsibility. In New England many
Congregationalist clergy preached the message of religious revivalism and
temperance. Religious revivalism flourished among the old-line Congregationalists
and Quakers, as well as the growing evangelical denominations such as the
Methodists. The growth of religious denominations promoted social reform and
moral piety. Evangelical denominations, especially the Methodists, Baptists, and
Presbyterians, grew rapidly in the newly settled frontier towns of the midwest and
southeastern states. As the churches competed to increase in membership, they
stressed the evangelical message of personal morality.
29 Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea o f Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1990), Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America( New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1993), and Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization o f American Christianity (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1989).
30 The connections between revivalism and the social reform movement are widely accepted by social historians. See Walters, 21-37.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 8
The temperance message, endorsing self-control and personal piety,
proceeded naturally from the evangelical and revivalist fervor of the era. The
Protestant evangelical message regarded the traditional message of long established
churches to be lacking. The newly developing Protestant denominations stressed
personal piety and behavior over what they regarded as mere formalism and ritual of
the long established church fathers. Evangelical clergy and laymen throughout the
country became the strongest proponents of temperance, from the oldest parts of New
England to the western frontiers. The message of social reform also flourished in the
“burned-over district” of New York, in the trans-Appalachian regions of the Ohio
Western Reserve territory, and the mid-Atlantic region.31 Encouraged by the aged
Benjamin Rush, Presbyterians supported temperance at their annual meeting in 1811•3 7
in Philadelphia. Methodists supported temperance as early as 1753 with the passage
of the Wesleyan rule that denounced drunkenness and opposed the use of distilled
spirits. James B. Finley, like other pioneer Methodist clergymen in the early
nineteenth century, made the temperance message part of his mission in the Ohio
valley.33
Although not the official policy of the Congregational Church, many of its
clergy and laymen supported temperance. In 1808, a Congregational minister had
joined with Dr. Billy Clark in founding the first temperance society. In 1813 the
31 Walters, 21-37.
32 Lender and Martin, 67.
33 Krout, 66-75, 102-118. The Wesleyan rule opposed drunkenness and sale or use of “spirituous liquors.”
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
3 9
temperance organization in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Society for the
Suppression of Intemperance, had many Congregational clergymen as members.34
The evangelicals often employed the rhetoric and tone of moral judgment.
They denounced drunkenness as a sin and a personal moral failing. Employing the
concept of sinfulness put the focus on the drinker and not the substance alcohol. It
implied a willfulness and personal choice by the drinker to engage in drunkenness. In
1811 Lyman Beecher, formerly a Congregationalist minister but joining the
Presbyterians, exhorted the parishioners of his Presbyterian church in Litchfield,
Connecticut to abandon Sabbath-breaking, profanity, and intemperance. He
continued his assault on the evils of drunkenness. In his Six Sermons on
Intemperance from the pulpit in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1825 Beecher opposed
intemperance. Using the language of moral condemnation, he pronounced,
“intemperance is the sin of our land” and “drunkenness is a sin which excludes from
heaven.”35 Comparing drunkenness to slavery, he declared that it was “like slavery, it
must be regarded as sinful.” Another celebrated Congregational minister, Justin
Edwards, began sermons against the evils of drink in 1816 and published a
temperance tract, The Well-Conducted Farm in Boston in 1825.37
The temperance physicians were exposed to this condemnatory approach in
evangelical teaching against drinking. The manner in which they responded to the
34Hampel, 13.
35 Krout, 107.
36 Lyman Beecher, Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. o f Lyman Beecher, D.D., 2 vols., ed., Charles Beecher (New York: Harper & Bros, 1864), v2, 37.
37 Lender, Dictionary, 149-150.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 0
pervasive evangelical message is crucial to understanding their thinking and actions.
Did they adopt the condemnatory tone, or a more enlightened view? The religious,
evangelical message was only one part of their cultural context. For a full
understanding, we are required to consider the other significant cultural influence that
affected them, Enlightenment ideology.
The ideology of progress, an Enlightenment-bred idea imported from
Europe, was essentially a view that society was perfectible through knowledge,
education, and progress. Americans adopted European optimistic thinking with
exuberance and a spirit of innovation. The newly emerging culture of the early
American republic encouraged belief in the efficacy of social reform. Temperance
reform fit easily into that ideology of social improvement. Temperance reformers,
like other American reformers, approached the problems of intemperance as a social
ill that could be remedied through education and knowledge. The temperance
physicians would naturally have been much influenced by their medical education to
subscribe to Enlightenment ideas. Given the rapid changes in medial knowledge in
the early nineteenth century, the effects of new knowledge gained through experiment
and study greatly affected them. The next chapter will be devoted to examining the
transitional state of American medicine and delineate the potential effects upon
physicians.
Thus in a complex confluence of specific factors, the American temperance
movement grew out of the twin forces of religious fervor and Enlightenment thinking,
within the context of a rapidly growing and expanding economy and society. In
addition, the temperance movement responded to specific customs and attitudes
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
41
toward alcohol usage in late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century America.
In considering the historical and social context of the first temperance movement, it is
essential to understand the customs and practices surrounding alcohol usage in this
specific period of American history.
Many historians of alcohol and temperance have concluded that the
temperance movement addressed an issue of real importance in American life. In his
pioneering work The Alcoholic Republic, W.J. Rorabaugh goes even further to assign
a central causal role to excessive alcohol consumption, a condition that he argues was
common in the period. Rorabaugh contends that unprecedented high alcohol
consumption in the period 1790 to 1830 precipitated the temperance movement.38
Many other historians, as well as writers in other disciplines who are interested in
alcohol and temperance, cite Rorabaugh’s argument that the period witnessed the
heaviest drinking in the nation’s history, before or since.39 As Rorabaugh concedes,
accurate consumption figures are, however, problematical for several reasons.
Because the figures are based upon revenue records, not actual consumption figures,
there is some doubt regarding their reliability. Especially after the imposition of the
federal whiskey tax in 1791 backwoodsmen throughout the states became more adept
at concealing their production in order to escape censure and to evade taxes.40 In
38 W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 6-21.
39 One example among many is that of Nan Robertson, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Citing Rorabaugh, she wrote that the early nineteenth century was “the heaviest drinking era in American history.” Nan Robertson, Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous (New York: Wm Morrow & Co., 1988), 188. See also Lender and Martin, 46-47.
40 The resistance in the Whiskey Rebellion o f 1794 in Pennsylvania is well known but resistance also arose throughout the western and southern states where production from local stills was
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 2
addition, Rorabaugh concludes that colonial Americans probably consumed more
alcohol from hard cider than from the higher alcoholic distilled spirits. As he
suggests, accurate figures for colonial consumption are difficult to ascertain.41
Without reliable figures for the colonial period or the early nineteenth
century, one cannot definitively conclude that the period of the early republic had
levels of alcohol consumption that surpassed all other periods. In particular, there is
the problem of comparing consumption with the preceding colonial period. There is
strong evidence to suggest that high levels of alcohol consumption also marked the
colonial period. There are numerous citations and sources that indicate that a high
level of alcohol consumption was common throughout the colonies. In the southern
colonies hospitality invariably included alcoholic beverages, the sole exception being
the anti-alcohol experiment in the colony of Georgia, an experiment that was short
lived. In the middle colonies wealthy Quakers served rum for breakfast and
throughout the day. The Puritan settlers in Massachusetts were famous for
consumption of rum and fermented drinks. The New England hearty barley brewed
beers contained as much as six percent alcohol, and the hard ciders had an even
higher alcoholic content. The colonial shipping trade produced large quantities of
rum, available for consumption through import of either finished rum or molasses for
prodigious. Because o f the protests Congress changed the 1791 law to exempt “personal stills” from taxation. Southerners and westerners continued to oppose the tax as discriminatory. They regarded the tax as discriminatory because they could not produce ciders and beers as easily as New England. Also rum, favored in New England, was exempt because it was considered an import on the basis that molasses, or the rum itself, had been imported. The entire incident supports the conclusion of substantial levels o f alcohol consumption, in a variety o f forms, in all regions o f the nation.Rorabaugh, 50-55.
41 Rorabaugh, 9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 3
American distillation.42 In addition to the prodigious rum production, the colonies
produced large quantities of whiskey from the native com and grains. Especially
after the Revolutionary period whiskey gradually surpassed mm as the favorite
American alcoholic beverage because of restrictions on mm trade from the West
Indies.43
I would argue that it is most probable that the motivating force for the first
American temperance movement was not a sudden increase in consumption but other
forces in American society and culture. Assuming that consumption did not
dramatically increase in the early nineteenth century, that alcohol abuse was a long
standing problem predating the early nineteenth century, produces a different view of
the origins of the temperance movement. In such a case temperance reformers were
responding not so much to an intensely escalating social problem but to an ongoing
problem, and perhaps conditions inherent in human behavior and society. The
question of the relative levels of consumption has not been settled, and is currently
beyond the scope of this dissertation. Nevertheless the question is significant because
it relates to the conditions to which the temperance physicians and other reformers
42 The triangle trade brought sugar cane and molasses from the West Indies to New England, carried rum to west Africa, and slaves to the West Indies. The trade also had a bilateral version, which omitted the African slave trade, and shipped New England lumber and fish to the West Indies fin exchange for cane and molasses. The result o f the trading was large quantities o f rum available for American consumption. Lender and Martin, 30-31.
43 Irish and Scottish immigrants were extremely knowledgeable in the production of distilled spirits, based on years o f European experience in distilling malt grains. As the settlers moved west across the Appalachians, they found it profitable to condense twenty-four bushels of grain into a gallon o f whiskey, to be transported over the mountains. The grain crops were plentiful and provided plenty o f whiskey for the eastern markets as well as for the frontier. The frontier farmers demonstrated the extent to which they profited from the whiskey trade in their rebellion against the Federalists’ whiskey tax in the Whiskey Rebellion o f 1794. Lender and Martin, 32-33.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 4
responded. Was their motivation an unprecedented high level of consumption, or did
their motivation arise more from a growing awareness of an ongoing problem?
If the temperance physicians developed their ideas from insights about a
health issue regarding alcohol intake, then the argument about unprecedented high
levels of alcohol consumption becomes tangential. If such is the case then their
writings, lectures and activities will demonstrate different approaches from
mainstream temperance rhetoric. We will see that the temperance physicians were
not so much addressing an issue of social reform but were supplying a new diagnostic
framework for alcohol abuse. It is this concept that this dissertation addresses. As
Rorabaugh and others have persuasively demonstrated, there was indeed an actual
problem with alcohol abuse and drunkenness in society during the early nineteenth
century. The temperance reformers responded to a real, not an imagined problem;
however, the issue of unprecedented high consumption as a motivation for reformist
activity, intriguing as it is, is for the purposes of this study, peripheral.
What were the attitudes and customs surrounding alcohol use during the
period? Alcoholic beverages formed an ever-present part of American life in the
early nineteenth century. Many historians and social commentators have vividly
described the prevailing attitudes toward alcoholic beverages and the drinking
customs of the era. During the period of the rise of the temperance societies most
temperance historians agree that Americans were consuming alcoholic beverages of
all kinds in great quantities. Alcohol usage was a prevalent, accepted practice in all
regions of the country, in all social and work situations, and in all social classes.
Consumption of alcohol in many forms, distilled and fermented, was a widespread
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 5
national habit. Distilled spirits, mostly in the form of rum and whiskeys, had an
alcoholic content of forty percent or higher, while fermented drinks ranged from one
per cent (small beer and light ale) to twelve percent for the hearty brews, hard ciders
and wines. New England produced and consumed more rum than other parts of the
nation, while whiskey was more prevalent in the trans Appalachian region and the
southern states. Rum became less popular with settlement spreading west. Since
molasses and already distilled rum were too bulky to transport, grain whiskeys
became the drink of choice for southerners and westerners. Grain was plentiful for
distilling in the west and south. In addition to providing for local consumption,
whiskey was shipped east as a commodity more economically transported than bulk
grain.44 Other distilled drinks such as applejack and brandies were also popular
throughout the nation.
Fermented drinks consisted of hard cider, beers, and wines, with an alcoholic
content ranging from one to twelve percent. Hard cider typically contained seven
percent alcohol. Hard cider was made from apples, and so was popular in New
England and the middle states. A common practice that originated in New Jersey was
to allow barrels of hard cider to freeze and then to drain off the unfrozen liquid. The
drink produced, “Jersey lightning,” was of high alcoholic content. Apples did not
grow well in the southern states and so fermented drinks made from other fruits,
peaches and pears, etc. became popular there. Their alcoholic content was similar to
44 Rorabaugh, 50-59.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 6
hard cider. Beers typically had alcoholic content averaging ten percent.45 Due to the
undeveloped state of American viniculture domestic wine production was limited.
Most wines were imported and sweeter than modem wines. Wines such as sherries,
Madeira and port were usually fortified to facilitate shipping and storage. Therefore
wines were not as commonly consumed.46 Mostly, wines were imported and
expensive, often four times as expensive as whiskey. Wine consumption became a
class issue. Many wealthy preferred wine, convincing themselves that wines were not
intoxicating.47 The leaders of the Massachusetts communities who formed the
Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI) in 1813
conspicuously excluded wine from their temperance cmsading efforts. Their
opponents criticized them for their lack of sincerity and hypocrisy. The failure of
MSSI members to consider the their own drinking behavior contributed to the demise
of the MSSI.48
Regardless of the particular form in which alcoholic beverages were
consumed, drinking was a widespread practice in the late eighteenth century and early
nineteenth century. Drinking alcoholic beverages was an entrenched cultural and
45 Lender and Martin, 30-54. Ten per cent is higher than that of modem commercial beers with an alcoholic content o f three to five per cent.
46 For alcoholic content o f beers, wines, and distilled spirits sees Avram Goldstein, M.D. Addiction, From Biology to Drug Policy (New York: Oxford U. Press, 2001), 136-7, and Robert L. DuPont, Jr., M.D. Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs: A Guide fo r the Family (Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Press, 1984), 102-103. Fermented drinks (beer and wines) are naturally limited in alcoholic content—wines at twelve percent maximum, unless alcohol is added to the finished wine to make fortified wines. Fortified wines such as port and sherries have higher alcoholic content, about twenty percent.
47 Rorabaugh, 100-101.
48 Hampel, 17-22.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 7
social practice, found in every geographic region, in every social class, and including
men and women of all ages and conditions. The prevailing belief was that alcoholic
consumption was beneficial. Alcohol was considered to be necessary to all social
occasions, an essential part of any wedding, funeral, celebration, or social gathering.
Alcohol was though to increase the strength of laborers in the fields. The colonial
practice, which persisted into the nineteenth century, was to make alcohol readily
available to workers throughout the day. Distilled spirits were thought to be
necessary to working in the fields. Harvest workers in the field would regularly be
provided with a keg of rum or whiskey. Artisans and shop workers customarily drank
alcoholic beverages while on the job. Shops and offices would close at eleven
o’clock for “eleven o’clock bitters” and again at four o’clock for another alcoholic
break. Since the Revolutionary War and even before, alcohol had been provided to
soldiers and sailors on duty. Although consumption figures are not entirely reliable
due to-tax evasion and widespread home production, the figures that are available
indicate very high consumption, certainly when compared to modem standards.
Thus, the attitudes and practices of the era indicate that high alcohol consumption was
a prevalent, widespread social practice.49
As will be more thoroughly explored in the next chapter, alcohol had the
endorsement of the medical profession. In the absence of many effective medicines
alcohol was found in every doctor’s dispensary or medicine bag. Rum with milk was
49Historians have documented drinking practices and customs in a number o f highly readable studies. For an extended discussion o f alcohol consumption and attitudes toward drinking, see Rorabaugh, Alcoholic Republic, 5-21; Mark E. Lender and James K. Martin, Drinking in America,A History (New York: Macmillan, 1982), preface, ch 1 & ch 2; John Kobler, Ardent Spirits, the Rise and Fall o f Prohibition (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973), 26-33, and many others.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 8
prescribed for pregnant women, as well as nursing mothers. Rum-soaked cherries
purportedly helped cure colds and were prescribed to pregnant and nursing mothers as
well as to children. Most tonics and elixirs were mainly alcohol and colored water,
and this attitude and practice only increased in the period after the first temperance
movement.50
The most compelling and influential figure in the early American
temperance movement was Benjamin Rush. He was a transitional figure in
temperance and medicine, in many ways a bellwether of advances yet to come and at
the same time, a follower of established tradition. One of the most famous physicians
in colonial America, he achieved fame as surgeon general of the Continental Army, a
friend of the early leaders of the republic, and one of the first professors at the first
American medical school, the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the
Philadelphia medical school during the period that two of the temperance physicians
(Sewall and Mussey) attended. Known as the “father of psychiatry” and insisting
upon humane treatment of the insane, Rush championed a number of social reform
causes. He was a leader in the anti-slavery movement, a spokesman for women’s
rights, and one of the earliest leaders in opposing intemperance. Yet despite his
leading role in social reform issues, he also followed the typical medical practices of
his time. He helped to perpetuate some of the most spectacular medical
misconceptions of the era, in particular the copious use of bloodletting and purging
50 Charles Jewett commented that giving a nursing mother alcohol to strengthen her was “a prescription o f which any physician ought to be ashamed.” Charles Jewett, A Forty Years ’ Fight with the Drink Demon, A History o f the Temperance Reform as I Have Seen It (New York: National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 1872), 397-398; Kobler, 26; J.C. Furnas, The Life and Times o f the Late Demon Rum (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1965), 26-27.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
4 9
for numerous ailments.51 He also recommended some less harmful but also useless
remedies, such as a cure for drunkenness (apply “blisters to the ankles”) and a
treatment for exposure to cold (pour half a pint of rum in each of the patient’sc'y
boots). All these remedies he prescribed with confidence. His confidence and
optimism may have been the best medicine of all in an era that could provide so little
effective treatment.
In a confluence of eighteenth-century enlightenment optimism and the force
of religiously inspired social reform, Benjamin Rush developed his views on
temperance. His European medical education awakened his sense of skepticism and
interest in scientific inquiry. He was exposed to enlightenment philosophy through
his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, a leading medical center alive
with the excitement of new scientific discoveries. He also trained in London and
Paris, attending the lectures of William Hunter, and other prominent leaders in
medicine. These educational experiences helped to orient his thinking away from
traditional thinking and move him in the direction of experimental medical science.53
The University of Edinburgh provided a dual influence upon its students, with its
51 MarkE. Lender, Dictionary o f American Temperance Biography, from Temperance to Alcohol Research, the 1600s to the 1980s (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 421-23.
52 Rush, An Enquiry into the Effects o f Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body and their Influence upon the Happiness o f Society (Philadelphia: John McCulloch in 3rd St., 1791), 12.
53 Rush benefited from exposure to medical education in Edinburgh, for example, learning about mental illness from Cullen. Hawke, 47; Benjamin Rush, The Autobiography o f Benjamin Rush, His Travels through Life, together with his Commonplace Book fo r 1789-1813, ed. by George W. Comer (Princeton: U. Press o f Princeton, 1948), 52. Eighteenth century medical training in Edinburgh and other European medical centers had begun to break away from traditional ideas, inspired by the astounding discoveries o f the circulation o f the blood (William Harvey), the discovery o f oxygen, the surgical advances o f William Hunter, and advances o f Newtonian physics. The state o f medical thinking will be further examined in Chapter Three.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 0
combination of Scottish enlightenment philosophy and pious Protestant morality.
Both influences may be seen in Rush, as well as other Edinburgh medical students.
Thomas Trotter, an Edinburgh protege and Scottish physician, demonstrated
similarities to Rush. Fifteen years younger than Rush, and probably also influenced
by him, he published in 1804 a treatise similar to Rush’s earlier 1784 treatise against
strong drink.54
Rush’s educational and family experiences oriented him toward Christian
revivalist thinking. His family life exposed him to the force of religious revivalism,
as did his experiences in the pious, moral culture of Edinburgh, as well as his contacts
in the Philadelphia community. His “New Light” Presbyterian family background
promoted social causes and benevolence.55 In addition, he was almost certainly
influenced by the humanitarian reform advocacy of Quakers in Philadelphia.
Anthony Benezet, one of the leading Philadelphian Quakers, supported anti-slavery
and many other social reforms. Although some sources hold that Benezet influenced
Rush in his anti-drink view, it would seem that they mutually influenced each other
and that they both were affected by the Quaker cultural attitudes supporting social
54 Thomas Trotter, M.D. (1760-1832) published his treatise, An Essay Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and Its Effects on the Human Body (London, 1804).His treatise was an expansion o f his 1788 M.D. thesis at the University of Edinburgh on the effects of drunkenness. Rush’s work predates both documents. Isaac Land, “Thomas Trotter,” Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History, ed., Blocker, et al., v2, 624-625.
55 Much o f Rush’s early experience supported his religious orientation. He was brought up in his mother’s church, Presbyterian and educated in his uncle’s Presbyterian school. He regarded the Anglican Church in a kindly light, as it had been the church o f his natural father, deceased at age thirty-nine, when Rush was five years old. Another evangelical influence upon Rush was the pious and staid environment o f Edinburgh. Rush reported that “drunkenness in rarely seen among the common people,” the churches were filled on Sundays, and that “moral order” ruled the streets of Edinburgh after ten p.m. Rush, Autobiography, 50-52.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
51
reform. Benezet bolstered his support of temperance with medical arguments from
the young Benjamin Rush. Rush’s first temperance essays predate Benezet’s essay
by three years. Benezet’s 1774 essay against distilled spirits, The Mighty Destroyer
Displayed, opposed the use of strong liquor, using many of the same arguments
advanced by Rush. Benezet wrote that strong drink was physically harmful and
should be used only as a medicine when necessary.56
Rush began his temperance advocacy with essays published in 1771. As a
young man just beginning his medical practice, he wrote and published anonymously
three essays, “Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise.” His essays on
temperance were published anonymously in the Gazette, a Philadelphia newspaper, in
1771 and the next year published as a pamphlet, also anonymously.57 Two of the
essays advocated moderation (“temperance”) in eating and exercise. In between the
essays on eating and exercise he positioned his second essay, “On the Use and Abuse
of Wine and Strong Drink.” In that essay Rush took a position regarding alcohol that,
for its time, was daring because he opposed the common idea that alcohol was
generally beneficial. He also professed a new assessment of alcohol by referring to
wine and distilled liquor almost interchangeably. His position on alcohol was not so
extreme that he opposed all alcohol use. He allowed wine and “strong drink” to be
given to the elderly (“old people.. .in the decline of life”), but only in moderation.
56 Lender’s Temperance Biography holds that Benezet influenced Rush (“[t]he immediate impact o f Benezet’s temperance writings was slight, although there is little doubt that they had some influence on the later work o f Benjamin Rush”), but he does not cite the earlier 1771 temperance publication o f Rush. Lender, Dictionary o f Am.Temp., 42.
57Benjamin Rush, Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise (Philadelphia: John Dunlap in Market St., 1772).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 2
Agreeing with the common medical view of the day, he pronounced that “wine is a
sovereign remedy” for some chronic diseases, especially for fevers, and for those
stricken by grief. But his admonitions against “wine and strong drink” were lengthy.
He was adamant in prohibiting wine and strong drink for people under the age of
thirty-five or forty, unless they suffered from a medical condition that required it. He
was also adamant that parents should not give wine or strong drink to children. He
recommended against its use by “studious people” because their mental work already
put stress upon their constitution. It is noteworthy that he employed gender neutral
c olanguage in his reference to “people.”
Rush continued to express temperance views as a result of his experience as
Physician General of the Continental Army in 1776 and 1777. He observed
drunkenness in the troops, his military patients, in the make-shift military hospitals.
He witnessed the soldiers in the hospital selling their blankets and clothes for whiskey
and rum. In October, 1777 he wrote his friend John Adams “[ujpwards of 100 of
them were drunk last night. We have no guards to prevent this evil.”59 In his
Directions Rush opposed the “custom of drinking spirituous liquors which prevails so
generally in our army.” He challenged the common belief that liquor warded off the
effects of both hot and cold weather: “on the contrary, I believe it [drinking spirits]
always increases them.. .leaving the body languid and more liable to be affected with
58 “Wine or strong drink may be given to the sick,” and “using wine and other spirituous liquors in moderation,” and also “to whom wine or strong drink should not be given.” Benjamin Rush, Sermon II, On the Use and Abuse o f Wine and Strong Drink (Philadelphia: Jn Dunlap in Market St., 1772), 18-22, 24.
59 Benjamin Rush to John Adams, Letters o f Benjamin Rush, ed., L.H. Butterfield, (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1951), v l , 156.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
53
heat and cold afterwards.” He recommended that soldiers not be given their
customary ration of rum, but instead carry water in their canteens. He disagreed that
rum fended off the effects of heat, cold and fatigue and argued that distilled spirit had
the opposite effect, wearing down the system and that it “lays the foundation of
fevers, fluxes, jaundices.”60 Rush also opposed the common practice of the rum keg
and whiskey barrel in the harvest field. In his 1778 essay he used the common sense
analogy of the workhorse that needs only “cool water” to do his work.61 In opposing
the use of alcohol for field workers and for soldiers he opposed the generally held
idea that liquor was necessary for manual labor and hazardous duty. In his writings
he consistently opposed the use of distilled liquor, but approved the moderate use of
fermented drinks.
Several years later in 1784 Rush published his most strenuous attack upon
distilled spirits, “An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human
Body and Mind.” Published in Philadelphia papers and journals and frequently
reprinted year after year, it was to become his most famous publication.62 No longer
seeking anonymity, and more sure of himself and his reputation, he attacked the use
of spirituous liquors with conviction. He used graphic description to enumerate “the
chronic effects of ardent spirits upon the body and mind.” Passages such as the
60 Benjamin Rush, Directions fo r Preserving the Health o f Soldiers, published by Order o f the Board o f War (Lancaster, Pa: John Dunlop in Queen St., 1778), 4-5.
61 Ibid.
62 Binger, 198.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 4
following suggest that he was a clinical observer of the effects of excess alcohol
intake:
After a while the paroxysm of drunkenness is completely formed. The face now becomes flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the upper lip is protruded—the head inclines a little to one shoulder—the jaw falls—belchings and hiccup take place—the limbs totter—the whole body staggers.
Rush listed “the usual consequences of the habitual use of ardent spirits”: decreased
appetite and stomach disorder, “obstructions of the liver,” “dropsy” (swelling) of the
feet and legs, and insanity.63
In addition to the catalogue of physical ills, he enumerated effects upon the
mental and moral faculties: “Not less destructive are the effects of ardent spirits upon
the human mind. They impair the memory, debilitate understanding...” However, to
Rush the most affecting symptom of alcohol abuse was the diminishment of “the
moral faculties.” The demoralizing effects of alcohol produced a number of moral
lapses, such as theft, fraud, murder, and suicide. Rush quoted one of the doctors at
the Pennsylvania Hospital who observed that one third of the patients confined for
madness had first suffered from the effects of ardent spirits.64
According to his view, intemperance could affect people in all stations of
society and women as well as men. In one reference to women he described the
result of women’s intemperance — when they imbibed ardent spirits they exhibited
63 Benjamin Rush, The Selected Writings o f Benjamin Rush, Dagobert D. Runes, ed. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), 335-338.
64 Benjamin Rush, An Inquiry into the Effects o f Ardent spirits upon the Human body and Mind with an Account o f the Means ofPreventing and o f the remedies fo r Curing Them, 8th ed., (Brookfield: Merriam & Co., 1814), reprinted in Yandell Henderson, A New Deal in Liquor (New York: Doubleday, 1934), 194-5.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 5
“certain immodest actions.” From the context one can assume that he was not
referring to the “hallooing” and belching that he ascribed to drunken men, but that he
alluded to a lack of sexual restraint in intoxicated women.65 Wives as well as
husbands could harm the family through their intemperance. Husbands would feel
“shame and aversion” toward an affected wife. Wives would experience “deep
anguish” over a drinking husband. Intemperance could debilitate people regardless of
social standing. He indicated that government officials as well as laboring men could
suffer the ill effects, and even “minister[s] of the gospel.. .Here language fails me - -
If angels weep - - it is at such a sight.”66
Rush regarded intemperance as a progressive condition that affected one’s
health and well-being. He referred to intemperance as a disease (“this odious
disease”), but one must guard against presentism in interpreting his use of the word.
As will be discussed in Chapter Three the state of early nineteenth-century medicine
viewed disease as non-specific, a condition of “dis-ease,” or being unwell. In the
absence of knowledge of bacteria and other causal agents, medical science viewed
such matters only dimly and incompletely. In later editions of the Inquiry Rush
included “A Moral and Physical Thermometer, or A Scale of the Progress of
Temperance and Intemperance.” His thermometer presented a schematic depiction of
the effects of various alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. It was in effect a
65 Rush, Inquiry, Henderson, 190-91.
66Rush, Inquiry, 195-196.
67 Rush, Inquiry, 189.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 6
progression chart of the harmful effects of increased alcohol intake. Water and milk
occupied the top position of the chart, at a comfortable seventy degrees, and
correlated with “health, wealth, serenity of mind, reputation, long life, happiness.”
Wine, cider, and beer came next, beginning at fifty degrees and descending to a chilly
ten degrees. Still on the temperate scale they were correlated with “cheerfulness,
strength, and nourishment” when taken “in moderate quantities” and “at meals.”
After that came a steep drop off into the intemperate zone, ten degrees and below.
“Intemperance” included drinking “punch, toddy and crank,” “grog, flip, and shrub,”
“gin, aniseed, brandy,” and “whiskey in the morning.” Drinking these concoctions
correlated with vices, diseases, and punishments, in increasing severity. Vices ranged
from “peavishness” to “lying” and ended with murder and suicide. Diseases
associated with intemperance began with “puking,” “tremors,” and “jaundice,”
progressed to “dropsy,”68 and ended in madness and death. Punishments ranged from
“debt” to “the gallows.”69
In a later edition of the Enquiry (the spelling of “inquiry” varied) published
in 1791, Rush continued his warning of the risk of the drinker’s falling into an
irreversible pattern of intemperance. His tone was serious but reasonable as he
considered the ramifications and possible outcomes of continued alcohol intake:
I acknowledge that I have known some men, who by limiting its strength constantly, by measuring the spirit and water, have drunk toddy for many years without suffering in any degree from it, but I have known many more who have
68 “Dropsy” was the eighteenth-century term for swelling.
69 Reprints o f Rush’s Moral and Physical Thermometer found in Rorabaugh, 44, and.in Lender and Martin, 39.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 7
been insensibly led.. .and have afterwards paid their lives as the price of their folly.70
In this statement Rush indicated what he regarded as the unpredictability of drinking
“spirit.” Some could drink in moderation without risk, while others who began in
moderation succumbed to being “insensibly led.” Clearly by this later date his
thinking about the risks of alcohol use had evolved. He thought the risk of
irreversible harm too great to accept and therefore counseled abstinence. He
proceeded to recount “one case from among many” of his patients who suffered
71progressive decline and death from prolonged alcohol intake. His advice to any of
79his readers regarding spirits was to “leave them off suddenly and entirely.”
Rush had personal experience with the damaging effects of alcohol abuse.
A close reading of his Autobiography indicates that one of his stepfathers, and
perhaps both, abused alcohol. Since Rush was devoted to his mother, he no doubt
developed a heightened sensitivity to the potential harm of alcohol use.73 In later life,
he seemed greatly affected by the loss of associates and colleagues who succumbed to
drink. His attitude was not condemnatory of his friends, but of the harm caused by
their alcohol intake. He wrote of the death of one of his publishers, John Dunlop:
“[t]owards the close of his life he became intemperate, so as to fall in the streets. He
70 Benjamin Rush, An Enquiry into the Effects o f Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body and their Influence upon the Happiness o f Society (Philadelphia: John McCulloch in 3rd St., 1791), 12.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.,, 10-11.
73 Rush noted in his Autobiography that his mother had problems with all three of her husbands. The first displayed “extravagance and intemperance.” The second, Rush’s father, died at age thirty-nine o f unspecified causes, leaving the young mother and six children. The third husband was a distiller and according to Rush’s account, abusive to her. Autobiography, 27, 167.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 8
was early and uniformly my friend.”74 Rush grieved the loss of his favorite pupil and
close colleague, Dr. James Hall, who died of the effects of prolonged drinking. He
first noted the problem with Hall in 1791 and mourned his death in 1801.75
Evidence from his letters and commonplace book indicates that Rush
followed his own temperance advice. In his writings he consistently opposed the use
of distilled liquors, but approved the moderate use of fermented drinks. Although he
made no public pronouncements on his personal habits, the information that is
available suggests that he himself drank alcohol only in moderation. A few
references in his letters indicate that Rush occasionally drank wine in moderation, but
nf\preferred coffee or tea. In his final years Rush turned to making temperance one of
his chief concerns. He had thousands of copies of his Inquiry published at his
expense and distributed by through the Presbyterian assembly in Philadelphia. In
May, 1811, two years before his death the Presbyterians began to distribute his
pamphlets.77
Rush’s publications influenced the next generation of temperance reformers
and promoted the formation of the early temperance societies. Temperance advocates
continued to distribute reprints of the Inquiry throughout the nineteenth century,
encouraging temperance ideas and the establishment of temperance societies.78
74 Rush, Autobiography, 320-321.
75Binger, 157.
76 Binger, 284.
77 Rush, Autobiography, 296; Lender and Martin, 66-67.
78 The American Tract Society, as well as others, disseminated tracts to local temperance societies in the 1820s and 1830s. Krout, 226-27.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
5 9
Where was the first American temperance society formed? Historians cite various
instances of the earliest American temperance societies, the Massachusetts Society of
1813, for example. Because historians are so often proven wrong in citing “the first”
it is preferable to cite the earliest society, as yet known, because research continues to
reveal even earlier instances. Based upon a through reading of the literature at this
point in time, the earliest temperance society was formed in Litchfield, Connecticut in
1789. According to temperance historian Daniels, in 1789 two hundred farmers from
Litchfield formed a temperance society “to discourage the use of spirituous liquors.”
70They wanted to prevent drunkenness during the harvest season. Presumably they
did not include beers and hard cider in their proscription. And presumably they were
not entirely successful long-term in their efforts because in the next generation
Lyman Beecher delivered his thunderous anti-liquor sermons from a Litchfield pulpit.
We do not know what early factors contributed to the creation of this temperance
society, but at that point some of Rush’s earliest treatises were in circulation. These
early versions of the Inquiry included the section on the danger of the rum-keg in the
harvest field. Daniels assumed that the Litchfield farmers heard of Rush’s treatise,
certainly a likely scenario.
The next known temperance society is the Union Temperance Society of
Moreau and Northumberland in Saratoga County, New York. This is the organization
described in the opening paragraphs of Chapter One. Dr. Billy James Clark, the
young physician in upstate New York and the Congregational minister Lebbeus
79 William Haven Daniels, The Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers: An Illustrated History (New York: Nelson & Philips, 1878), 51-52.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6 0
Armstrong began the society in 1808. In this case the influence of Rush’s treatise is
more apparent, at least as the proximate cause. Armstrong states that Clark had just
read the Inquiry when he was driven out into the rainy night to remedy the local drink
situation.
Undoubtedly other factors were also at work in the founding of the 1808
society, the myriad factors presented in this chapter—the strong cultural influence of
the religious revivalism of the region, the enlightenment orientation of the young
physician inspired to read the medical journals, and then the precipitating incident, as
described in the account. Clark had observed drunkenness in his patients in that
region of upstate New York where rum drinking in the local taverns was common
with lumberjacks, canal workers and other laborers. Clark and Armstrong, his
minister, had been present in the tavern where heavy drinking was a common event.
They themselves, by their own admission, feared they ran the risk of becoming
ensnared with the dangers of drinking. Armstrong related that both of them had
observed serious consequences of prolonged drinking in the local tavern across the
street from Clark’s home and office. As a result o f the first meeting in April 1808,
forty-three townsmen joined the new organization. They pledged to use “no rum, gin,
whiskey, wine or any distilled spirits, or compositions of the same, except by advice
of a physician, or in the case of actual disease.”80 It is significant that the total
abstinence position appeared so early in one of the temperance societies. Apparently
80Lebbeus Armstrong. The Temperance Reformation: Its History from the Organization o f the First Temperance Society to the Adoption o f the Liquor Law ofMaine, 1851 (NY: Fowlers and Wells, 1851), 222-23; see also John A. Krout, The Origins o f Prohibition (NY: Knopf, 1976), 77-78; Kobler, Spirits, 48-51.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
61
the seeds of the most extreme commitment to the temperance position were available
from the early beginnings, at least in that rural setting.
This chapter has summarized the background and early beginnings of the
first temperance movement. It has also begun to explore the cultural and social
influences that surrounded the temperance physicians. The next chapter will more
specifically address the influences of the medical professional world that they
inhabited.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER III
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: TEMPERANCE IN THE CONTEXT
OF EMERGING SCIENTIFIC METHOD, THE OLD GUARD
IN MEDICINE, AND POPULAR DISCONTENTS
The temperance physicians formed their views within the context of the
changing tides affecting American medicine. In the first half of the nineteenth
century, medical knowledge and practice experienced great changes, in a period
conventionally associated with the nomenclature of the scientific revolution. But
most historians now discern a more gradual nature of change than the term
“revolution” conveys. They recognize the conflicting tides and forces that coexisted,
sometimes promoting new, rigorous methods of scientific inquiry, while at other
times reinforcing old prejudices and long-accepted treatments for diseases, no matter
how injurious or useless. American physicians developed their ideas within specific
cultural, social, and intellectual contexts, sometimes drawn to the new methods of
medical science, while at other times relying upon the familiar and easily accessed
old paradigm.
These changing trends in the medical context affected the temperance
physicians in various ways. In general, they responded favorably to the new
directions in American medicine, as did many of their peers, but with one specific,
significant variation— their public promotion of the temperance cause. This chapter
62
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
63
highlights four significant developments in medicine that influenced American
physicians in the first half of the nineteenth century: changes in the state of medical
knowledge and practice, developments in medical education and professional
association, changing popular attitudes toward medicine and its practitioners, and
finally, new views of the medical profession specifically regarding alcohol and
temperance. Fortunately for this research, a number of eminent historians of
medicine have written definitively on American medicine during the period. Among
them are John Duffy, Sherwin Nuland, Paul Starr, Ronald Numbers, J.H. Powell, and
many others.1 I rely upon these historians in this chapter, both for content and
interpretation, in addition to primary source material found in medical journals of the
period and other primary resources.
Circumstances in the medical culture served as an impetus to the views of
the temperance physicians in several ways. First, new methods of identifying cause
and effect in disease and human physiology influenced the temperance physicians to
consider the physical effects of the consumption of “ardent spirits” (alcohol) on the
body. Aided by new scientific discoveries in the chemistry laboratory and the
anatomy lab, scientists found new ways to think about the physical nature of the
'John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History o f American Medicine (Chicago: U. o f II. Press, 1993); Sherwin B. Nuland, Doctors (NY: Alfred Knopf, 1988); Paul Starr, The Social Transformation o f American Medicine (Harper Collins, 1982); J.H. Powell, Bring Out Your Dead, The Great Plague o f Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 (Philadelphia: U. o f Pa. Press, 1965).
2 For example, The Medical Repository o f Original Essays and Intelligence, Relative to Physic, Surgery, Chemistry, and Natural History, published in New York, 1800 to 1824; The Philadelphia Journal o f the Medical and Physical Sciences, published in Philadelphia, 1800 to 1827.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6 4
-3
newly discovered chemical, alcohol. The emerging emphasis upon clinical
observation of the patient, although present in eighteenth century, developed further
and on a more empirical basis in the nineteenth century. Temperance-minded
physicians used their heightened clinical orientation to evaluate the effects of alcohol
upon their patients.
The new developments in medical education and professional medical
associations affected doctors who advocated temperance. Some were encouraged by
the trends that promoted academic medicine and competition. Physicians who held
medical degrees and had trained under top doctors benefited from developments that
raised professional standards. At the same time, other physicians, particularly those
from rural areas and those with less education and with less prestigious preparation,
probably found the new competition challenging or even intimidating.
Finally, the growing disconnect between empirical knowledge and
conventional medical treatments increased popular discontent with useless medical
procedures and “heroic” treatments such as bloodletting and purges.4 Some
physicians, aware of their limitations and responding to popular concerns, found the
3 In the early nineteenth century, “ardent spirits” was the term for distilled liquors. The term alcohol was not in common use, nor was it understood that fermented drinks (wine, cider, and beer) contained the same chemical substance as ardent spirits. In 1821, the first American edition of William Thomas Brande’s Manual o f Chemistry was published in New York, based on the London edition. Before Brande’s experiments, it was not known that the substance alcohol was the common ingredient in all fermented drinks. Brande’s experiments demonstrated that fermented drinks had much more intoxicating ability than previously thought. C.C.Pearson and J. Edwin Hendricks, Liquor and Anti-Liquor in Virginia, 1619-1919 (Durham, NC: Duke U. Press, 1967), 86-87.
4 Heroic treatments popular included bloodletting and purges, carried to extremes.Physicians used the lancet to open a patient’s vein, often carried out repeatedly. Later in the century more moderate methods o f bloodletting were used, through “cupping” and/or the use o f leeches. Gastro-intestinal purges were accomplished through strong emetics and cathartics such as mercury, taken by mouth. “Patients could be bled until unconscious and given heavy doses o f the cathartic calomel (mercurous chloride) until they salivated. Heroic therapy o f this kind dominated American medical practice in the first decades o f the nineteenth century.” Starr, 42, also 34-35, 56.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6 5
holistic approach of the temperance message a means of improving the health of their
patients without exposing them to the dangers of heroic measures. They emphasized
the physical effects of alcohol on the body, as well as addressing the mental health
aspects of excessive alcohol intake. These observations are presented only in a
summary fashion at this point, but will be further explored in this and subsequent
chapters.
Emergence of Scientific Method in Medicine
The transitional period of late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is
often regarded as the beginning of modem medicine, in that medical knowledge
increasingly made use of scientific method and objective experiments. The
significant changes underway in medical knowledge and practice affected American
physicians generally and the temperance physicians specifically. American medicine
relied for the most part upon the European medical centers, especially Paris and
London, for new discoveries and advances in medicine. American medicine lagged
behind European advances, but gradually moved in the new directions forged by the
Europeans.
French medicine led the way in searching out the physical and biochemical
bases for disease. The French school of medicine in Paris increasingly influenced
American medicine through Americans training abroad, French immigration to the
United States, and general cultural exchange of medical information. A growing
number of American physicians studied in Paris in the early decades of the nineteenth
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
66
century.5 France made rapid advances in medical research and treatment in the
aftermath of the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which supplied the surgery
cases and cadavers that advanced learning. In the laboratory, French medical
scientists and students took advantage of a plentiful supply of cadavers for
anatomical study.6 French medicine, with leading medical scientists such as Francois
Magendie, Rene Laennec, and ultimately, Louis Pasteur, made major contributions to
medical knowledge. They employed rigorous standards in both laboratory and
clinical medicine. Their methods required evidence-based experiments to support
scientific findings in the laboratory. For patient care, the French method emphasized
clinical diagnosis and practical observation of patients. They studied medicine from
an approach that diseases, and ultimately their cures, could be understood only by
correlating anatomical findings with practical clinical and diagnostic methods.7
Closely following the French physicians and scientists were the British
medical centers of research, with William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of
blood, the advances of the two Hunter brothers in London in surgery and obstetrics,
5 During the 1820s, over one hundred American physicians studied in Paris. Another two hundred studied there in the 1830s. Duffy, 72-73.
6 Science and medicine flourished in the great hospitals o f Paris as a result o f the philosophies o f the Revolution. Nuland, 210-211.
7 Nuland, 168-215; Duffy, 72-73. Francis Magendie (1783-1855) was known for his experimental proofs that linked cause and effect in physiology, for example in sensory nerve experiments. He conducted analyses o f drugs and pharmacology. His pupils, such as Claude Bernard, continued his work, identifying the cause o f diabetes mellitus and defining the role o f the liver. In addition to the invention o f the stethoscope, Rene Laennec also did work on cirrhosis.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6 7
and, later in the nineteenth century, the germ theory of Joseph Lister.8 German,
Austrian, and other European centers of medicine also influenced American
medicine. For the most part, American medicine continued to depend upon European
medicine for scientific advances until the late nineteenth century.9 However,
American medicine did make some significant discoveries, mostly in surgical
technique and the discovery of anesthesia.10
In the first half of the nineteenth century, medical knowledge profited from a
number of significant technical advances that enhanced diagnosis, such as the
development of the stethoscope and the diagnostic lens or microscope. These
scientific advances facilitated new methods of gathering clinical information, more
informative than relying upon impressions and physical signs gathered externally. In
using both the microscope and the stethoscope American medicine lagged behind
European discoveries. The more advanced American doctors, those with European
medical education and those in urban areas, adopted the more advanced technologies
earlier than others. The stethoscope provides a prime example of the technological
advances of the period and the relationship between American and European
8 The two Hunter brothers, John and William, were famous in London surgery and obstetrics. Joseph Lister was the English surgeon who deduced from Pasteur’s work the antiseptic procedure for surgery and wounds. Duffy, 28; 188-89.
9 Ronald Numbers and John H. Warner, “The Maturation o f American Medical Science,” Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History o f Medicine and Public Health, ed., Judith Leavitt and Ronald Numbers (Madison, Wise: U. o f Wise. Press, 1997), 130-142.
10 American medicine made the discovery o f chemical anesthesia in the early 1840s. Dentists used ether or nitrous oxide (known as “laughing gas”). The Georgia physician Crawford Long was the first to use surgical anesthesia in 1842 in the removal o f a neck tumor. Duffy, 110-114. See also Meyer Friedman, M edicine’s Ten Greatest Discoveries (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1998), 94-114.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
6 8
medicine. Although the stethoscope was invented in Paris in 1816," only a few
American doctors made use of it by the 1830s. Those doctors who used the
stethoscope tended to come from urban areas and the most prestigious eastern
12medical schools such as Harvard.
Nineteenth-century European medicine recognized the importance and
necessity of dissection and autopsy in promoting scientific knowledge. French
physicians like Rene Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope, made extensive use of
autopsy to identify the source of disease and to correlate it with the individual
patient’s clinical exam. Studying the organ or anatomical areas involved in a specific
disease was crucial to understanding the cause of disease. Dissection and autopsy
allowed doctors to pose new questions about the body and disease. They sought
answers to questions about how the body worked and what caused disease.
Physicians turned to dissection and autopsy to discover the inner workings of the
body. They needed to conduct autopsies on cases of known symptoms at death, to
correlate with internal sites. The bodies of executed criminals that had been the
meager supply in previous centuries were limited in their utility to disclose the
pathology of disease. The cause of death for most criminals was obvious- death by
hanging, guillotine, or other means of execution. Physicians, surgeons, and scientists
of nineteenth-century Europe recognized that they needed cases of known pathology.
11 Invented by the French physician Rene Laennec in 1816, the stethoscope allowed physicians to gather internal information about the patient. Laennec cared for patients with tuberculosis and other lung ailments. He learned to correlate specific pulmonary sounds to specific disease and then confirm his findings in subsequent autopsy. Nuland, 168; 210-23.
12Edwin P. Hoyt, The Improper Bostonian, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (New York:William Morrow, 1979), 81.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
69
In Paris they were able to meet their dissection needs. England, Scotland, and
1 ̂America had more difficulty making cadavers available for study.
It is essential to note the difference between dissection and autopsy, terms
often used interchangeably, and therefore inaccurately. In his recent work A Traffic
o f Dead Bodies, Michael Sappol sets out the distinction between dissection and
autopsy.14 Dissection is a general term referring to the opening and cutting of the
body. Autopsy is a more specialized form of dissection. It seeks to find the cause of
death. Sappol points out the general uses of anatomical dissection, often used in
nineteenth-century America as a professional rite of passage that established medical
authority. Autopsy, according to SappoPs analysis, was considered as more
meritorious and less self-aggrandizing, because it sought helpful information. Elite
families often availed themselves of autopsy in order to establish the cause of death.
Autopsy was therefore not a shame, but a privilege. They employed a medical
coroner rather than mere medical students.15
By contrast, Sappol shows that dissection carried a derogatory connotation
for the subjects of dissection. Cadavers that were legally available for dissection
were those of executed criminals or suicides, but the supply was limited. For
example, the state of Massachusetts allowed only one body for the medical students
every four years. There were never enough cadavers to meet the growing needs of
13 Edinburgh in particular suffered from the Scots prejudice against dissection. There were only occasional opportunities for students to dissect a suicide or an executed criminal. The situation was not much better in either London or America in the late eighteenth century. Bell, Morgan, 58-59.
14 Michael Sappol, A Traffic o f Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2002), 100-119.
15 Ibid, 103.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 0
the medical schools’ anatomy labs. The scarcity of bodies caused medical schools to
resort to illegal means of securing cadavers. Sappol’s research indicates that Harvard
Medical School had difficulty in securing enough bodies for dissection. In the 1820s
the professor of anatomy at Harvard, John C. Warren, could not secure enough
cadavers for his anatomy course. Perhaps he had succumbed to the lure of hiring
body-snatchers and grave robbers. Yale’s medical department had similar difficulties
in obtaining bodies. The predicament of the medical schools in procuring bodies
would weigh heavily upon one of the temperance physicians in particular, Thomas
Sewall.16
Although Sappol emphasizes the predatory and self-promoting nature of the
medical schools in conducting dissections, he also recognizes the legitimate ends of
scientific research in dissection and autopsy. The long-held cultural opposition to
dissection in both Europe, and even more so in the United States, retarded scientific
development and knowledge. Yet, ultimately the physicians and surgeons prevailed
in their need to obtain precise information about the interior of the body, available
only through dissection and autopsy.
While medicine in Paris and London wrangled with the issues of dissection
and autopsy, American medical culture, especially in rural areas, remained suspicious
of the same. American urban centers and medical schools tended to accept the value
of dissection and autopsy, but even in those venues, controversy arose. An article in a
well-respected medical journal contended in 1828 that physicians should do all that
they could to obtain permission to conduct autopsies. According to the cases of
16 Ibid., 106, 114.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
71
“morbid anatomy” of the stomach, pancreas, and liver, there was no more valuable
resource for understanding disease than to attempt to locate the cause of death by the
internal organ affected.17 By contrast, another respected journal had given the
opposite opinion just five years earlier in 1823. The Medical Reformer pronounced
“the absurdity” of the medical practice of autopsy because the bodies of the dead are
too delicate once opened and exposed to the air, and furthermore (and one suspects,
more importantly) such an undertaking was “loathsome to the sight” and “sacrilege”
to the dead.18
Those physicians who clung to the old humoral theory opposed the need for
dissection and autopsy. One of the accepted theories in established eighteenth-
century medicine, which continued in American medicine in the nineteenth century,
and gradually receded in influence by the late nineteenth century, was the humoral
theory of the body. According to humoral theory, the body contained humors or
fluids, such as blood, bile, and phlegm. The health of the body depended upon
keeping these humors in balance. An excess or lack of one or more of the humors
caused illness. Only by correcting the imbalance could health be restored. From the
humoral view of the body as an integral system that required adjustments came
treatments such as bleeding and purging so prevalent during the period.19
17 Henry Schenk, M.D., “Disease o f the Stomach, Pancreas, and Liver,” The New York Medical and Physical Journal (Jan-March, 1828), 78; Anonymous, The Medical Reformer (New York, Feb. 1, 1823) v 1,2, p. 35.
18Anonymous, The Medical Reformer (New York, Feb.l, 1823) v 1, 2, p. 35.
19 Nuland, 13-20; 155.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 2
The old medical standard of knowledge identified illness by the presence or
lack of the humoral substances. Bleeding and purging were depletory treatments,
thought to remove the excess humoral material from the body. Using the lancet to
bleed a patient, and emetics and cathartics to induce gastrointestinal purging, doctors
sought to treat illness based upon humoral theory.20 The effectiveness of the
treatments relied not on evidence-based research, but rather upon tradition and
accepted theory. Although medical treatments based upon humoral theory were
eventually disproved as erroneous, they were not irrational. Medical practitioners
based their diagnoses and treatments on the evidence of substances of bodily input
and output. The available evidence was superficial and often misleading or irrelevant
to the real underlying pathology.
Within the framework of available evidence, humoral treatments did attempt
rationality. They were mistaken, but rational. The established doctors were relying
on superficial information of output and input, not empirically based experiment, and
evaluation of internal pathology or symptoms. Doctors who used humoral treatments
made the case that they were relying on facts, backed by theory that had been arrived
at rationally. The flaw in their thinking is that they did not do what they purported to
do. They did not rely on facts, but instead took superficial information, collected
from bodily products and then leapt to conclusions based upon inadequate data.
Nevertheless, they were well intentioned and even dedicated to helping their patients.
Unfortunately, their good intentions often did more harm than good.
20 See footnote 4.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
73
When treatment^ did not work, doctors would often re-double their efforts.
For example, if bleeding a patient did not cure him, the treatment would often be
repeated. Patients themselves would often request additional, extreme bleedings and
purgings. A notorious example is found in the case of George Washington’s
deathbed illness in December 1799. George Washington, suffering with an infection
that closed off his windpipe, insisted upon excessive bleedings from his doctors. The
bleedings did not help him and probably hastened his death later in the evening.
Controversy surrounds the cause of his death, even to this day.21
New scientific methods challenged the practice of medicine based upon
humoral theory. The French school in particular opposed the use of bleeding and
purging as early as 1793 during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. American
medicine would cling to the practice for the next fifty years, until its gradual demise
in the post-bellum era. With increased knowledge of human internal anatomy based
upon dissection and autopsy, medical science could begin to trace symptoms and
signs to their organs of development. Physicians began to question old therapeutic
remedies based upon superficial input-output information and insist upon medical
21Washington requested additional bloodletting. Dr. Elisha Dick, a student o f Benjamin Rush objected, but was overruled. Washington was also purged with calomel. After these treatments, he was able to swallow, but his condition worsened. He died o f suffocation, probably from viral croup or acute bacterial epiglottis. Dick argued for tracheotomy, probably the only treatment that could have worked at the time, in the absence of antibiotics. Dick publicly criticized the other two doctors for listening to Washington instead o f him. Public opinion seems not to have condemned Washington’s treatment. It was the standard o f the day. David M. Morens, M.D., “Death o f a President,” New England Journal o f Medicine, v34, no. 24 (Dec. 9,1999) 1845-1848.
22 J.H. Powell, Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague o f Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 (U. o f Pa Press, 1949; NY: Time Life Books, 1965); Dick Levinson, College o f Physicians o f Philadelphia, “Mysterious disease overwhelms medical system in 1793 (AMANews, 10/12/88).
23 Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science, 69-94.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 4
knowledge and treatments based upon more internal evidence and more rigorous
standards of clinical and laboratory observation. The more insightful of their
profession began to understand the real limits of their knowledge, much of which was
just emerging from the traditional confines of humoral theory and nosology.24
Nosology25 attempted to organize diseases by symptoms through an
elaborate system of classification. In the days of Benjamin Rush, nosology seemed to
provide a rational approach to medicine. In the eighteenth century, nosology grouped
diseases into categories, sub-categories, and classes, much as Linnaeus had
undertaken for botanic specimens. The nosological system that Rush learned at the
medical school in Edinburgh under the famous Sydenham established hundreds of
different diseases into an elaborate pattern. For example, all fevers were grouped
together in the same classification, a confusing and not very helpful assignation.
Under nosology, fevers of various kinds and origins were classed together as “putrid,”
intermittent,” “continuing,” etc, even though they were not, in reality, even remotely
related in cause.27 As nosology grew more complicated, it gained opponents.
Benjamin Rush, although professing nosology as a loyal product of the Edinburgh
school early in his career, eventually did much to subvert nosology and replace it with
24 For an example o f the changing trends in medical observation and diagnosis, see “Review of A Treatise o f the Materia Medica and Therapeutics” in The Medical Repository o f Original Essays and Intelligence, Relative to Physic, Surgery, Chemistry, and Natural Science (New York, 1824) v 23, i , 48-80.
25 Nosology was an elaborate system o f classification of diseases according to a theoretical framework.
26 David F. Hawke, Benjamin Rush, Revolutionary Gadfly (NY: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), 50.
27 Richard H. Shryock, Medicine in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966),240-41.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 5
98more practical clinical orientation. As one of the leading American physicians,
Rush persistently sought to understand diseases and their causes. He struggled with
the old theoretical system, praising it even as he helped to dismantle it. He looked for
cause and effect in medicine and despite his pronouncements to the contrary, was
ready to abandon the old framework of theoretical medicine in favor of empiricism.29
In the generation after Rush scientists looking for the specific causes of
diseases increasingly found the traditional classification of diseases in nosology to be
lacking. By the 1820s, leading physicians generally opposed orthodox nosology.
According to an article in a leading Philadelphia medical journal, the main problem
with existing nosology was that it grouped diseases by symptoms, misleading criteria•j/\
at best. Instead, the journal editors proposed a “practical nosology:”
It occurred to us, that they [diseases] might be arranged as they presented themselves in the several parts or systems of the body. That this plan has its defects, we shall not deny—though, on the whole, it seems to be the most
•5 i
natural, simple, and practically useful.
Despite the tentative tone, the author proceeded to set forth a drastic change to the old
system of classification. The article proposed a simple system of ten categories,
based upon body systems: “circulatory,” “digestive,” “absorbents” (lymphatics),
“respiratory,” “secretory” (glands), “sensitive” (brain and nerves), “muscular,”
28 Ibid, 241; Hawke, 50.
29 Rush helped weaken the old theoretical framework by attempting treatments that seemed to work regardless o f theory. In treating yellow fever by bleeding, he was an empiricist, developing the theory after he found a treatment that he thought effective. Paul E. Kopperman, “Rush’s Yellow Fever Therapy,” Bulletin o f the History ofMedicine 78 (Fall 2004), 550-51.
30 David Hosack, “A System o f Practical Nosology,” The Philadelphia Journal o f the Medical and Physical Sciences, v2, no 4 (Philadelphia: 1821) 402-408.
31 Ibid., 405.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 6
“cutaneous” (skin), “osseous” (bones), and “generative.” The categories bear a strong
resemblance to modem medical specialties such as cardiology, gastroenterology,
endocrinology, neurology, orthopedics, dermatology, and reproductive medicine.
Old style nosology confused and obscured efforts to locate disease at its
internal, structural source. Those in the old guard who adhered to nosology and its
companion, humoral theory, perceived little need to trace the source of disease to a
specific location in body. The very question of what caused a specific illness or
disease challenged the general humoral theory and nosology. Traditional medicine
attempted to fit specific diseases into big theoretical classifications of nosology. New
empirical methods searched for specificity and challenged the old theoretical
limitations.
How these changes in medicine influenced the temperance physicians is a
complicated matter. Adhering to the new scientific approaches did not necessarily
result in a physician adopting a temperance stance. Although it is true that
temperance-minded physicians supported new scientific methods and opposed the old
heroic treatments, not all such physicians supported temperance. There are examples
of physicians who were in the vanguard of scientific medicine but who did not
support temperance. A prime example can be found in Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Holmes had a brilliant mind in analyzing medical problems. Long before anyone
else, he identified the cause of puerperal or child-bed fever. Using his unusual
powers of analysis and deduction, he discovered the infectious nature of the fatal
illness. Yet he did not support temperance. He enjoyed collegial dinner parties
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 7
where “the wine flowed freely.” He concluded that temperance supporters were
overly zealous and refused to join their cause.
Although the new scientific method did not automatically result in the
temperance position, the adoption of rigorous standards in patient observation and
diagnosis provided fertile soil for the development of temperance views. The
temperance physicians responded positively to the transition in medicine that fostered
the use of scientific methods in medical diagnosis and treatment. Physicians who
were frustrated by the limited state of medical knowledge were likely to turn to
holistic, preventive treatments, especially when no other remedies seemed effective.
Those who favored temperance were generally more likely to oppose what they
regarded as quackery. They were receptive to new ideas and questioned the efficacy
of folklore or traditional medicine. They tended to insist upon treatment methods
based upon evidence-based science.
The temperance physicians, especially Reuben Mussey and Thomas Sewall,
were famous for their scientific experiments and pioneering surgical techniques.
Sewall emphatically denounced the pseudo-science phrenology in lectures to his
medical students. The temperance physicians developed their views on the effects
of alcohol within the context of newly emerging standards that promoted evidence-
based medicine and empirical knowledge.
32Hoyt, 144.
33Thomas Sewall, An Examination o f Phrenology (Washington, D.C: B. Homans, 1837).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
78
Medical Education and Professionalism
American medicine, like other professions in the nineteenth century, was in
a transitional state. The practice of medicine continued to follow trends that had
begun in the late colonial period to increase professional standards and to define the
profession through a number of means. Leading American doctors sought to raise the
standards of medicine through the establishment of medical schools, professional
societies, and licensure. It was mostly an uphill battle. About half of American
doctors did not have formal education. Only a few American medical schools had
been established.34 The professional societies were limited in their abilities to raise
the standards of learning and practice. Licensure proceeded in a halting and limited
manner. The temperance physicians trained, studied, and practiced medicine in a
shifting and evolving organizational climate.
American doctors attempted to elevate the standards of medical practice
through the establishment of American medical schools, state medical societies, and
state licensing laws. The medical profession endeavored to establish itself on a more
respected footing, with increasing emphasis on the necessity of formal education and
licensure. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries American medical practitioners
turned to Europe for the most prestigious training. Those who could afford it,
34 The first American medical school was founded in 1765 in Philadelphia, the College of Philadelphia, followed by King’s College in New York in 1767 and Harvard Medical School in the 1780s. Philadelphia became the University o f Pennsylvania and King’s College became Columbia Medical School. Shryock, 9-11. After these medical schools had been founded, the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina all founded medical schools before 1825. Columbian Medical College in Washington, DC was the seventeenth American medical school, founded in 1825, Craig, 15.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
7 9
traveled abroad to London, Edinburgh, and Paris to supplement their education.
Others managed to study at one of the American medical schools, connected with
established colleges. But many American doctors-in-training had no formal
education at all and had to settle for the old informal method of learning a trade, as an
apprentice under an established doctor.
No doubt the changes in medicine affected the temperance physicians, but
the issues are complex. In period of increasing competition, how did the temperance
physicians fare? The temperance cause might have helped their chances for
advancement if the cause were popular in their city or region. On the other hand, if
their peers or their patients did not support temperance, they would have risked losing
professional support as well as patients. Another consideration is the amount of
formal medical education that the temperance physicians held. For those with the
benefit of a prestigious medical degree and membership in medical societies (Rush,
Mussey, and Sewall), they could use their privileged position as insulation against
criticism of their views on a controversial subject such as temperance. The less elite
doctors in rural areas, Clark and Jewett, might have risked their professional status,
unless they could win their patients to adopt temperance views.
Another significant issue to consider is what advantageous effect did the
temperance position offer them against the looming competition of women who
practiced home remedies and even aspired to enter medical school?35 Women posed
a strong underlying support and membership for the general temperance movement.
35 The first woman to enter medical school was Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1840s. Rachel Baker, The First Woman Doctor; the Story o f Elizabeth Blackwell (NY: Messner, 1944).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
8 0
By co-opting their temperance message, men could strengthen their position in
opposing the entry o f women into medicine. Although difficult to prove, these
significant issues will be further addressed in the individual accounts of the
temperance physicians. Taking into account the social and cultural pressures
encountered by the temperance physicians provides essential contextual information
and affords insight into their motivation and experience.
The medical historian Paul Starr emphasizes that physicians were mainly
interested in advancing their careers and would use credentialing to limit competition.
However, Starr notes that elevating the standards of practice and self-promotion were
not necessarily at odds. Nevertheless, Starr regards the nineteenth-century doctors to
have been primarily concerned with maintaining their position in a highly competitive
profession. They encountered considerable opposition from the non-elite, ordinary
doctors, as well as the general populace, in an era of rising democratic expectations.36
Regarding medical school education in America, the majority of early
nineteenth-century American doctors did not have formal education in medicine.
Their training consisted of studying under the apprentice system within the practice of
an established doctor. Those who could attend medical school, either one of the few
American schools, or one of the great universities in Europe, were the most interested
in raising the standards of licensing. Medical degrees required only two years of
formal study. A third year of medical school became common in the U.S. around
1870. Those medical students who could afford it, studied for a year or more in
Europe.
36 Starr, 44-50.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
81
Trends were underway in nineteenth-century America that required more
rigorous training, especially in urban centers. The old apprentice method was
gradually supplemented by university education in medicine and licensing.
Physicians wanted to develop and present an image of themselves as rational men of
science. They struggled to distance themselves from the old-fashioned traditionalists
and especially the women practitioners who relied upon home remedies.
Regular physicians encountered increasing competition from women who
practiced medicine without the credentialing of the formal medical degree. Midwives
competently did much of the work of childbirth and were held in respect by their
communities throughout the nation. With the increasing pressures for credentialing,
women realized that they needed formal medical education in order to compete and
maintain their position. The delayed rise of women to professional status in medicine
was not to be remedied until the late 1840s. The first woman to be admitted to
medical school was Elizabeth Blackwell. She graduated in 1849 from Geneva
Medical College in Geneva, New York.38
The credentialing process for physicians developed in a gradual and uneven
way. In 1760 colonial New York City passed the first licensure law, requiring that
doctors have a license to practice medicine.39 The supporters of the New York
legislation hoped to define and enhance the medical profession, yet the licensure did
37 Shryock, 180-82; Laurel Ulrich, “Martha Ballard and the Medical Challenge to Midwifery,” Sickness and Health in America, ed., Judith Leavitt and Ronald Numbers (Madison, Wise: U. o f Wise. Press, 1997), 72-83.
38 See footnote 33.
39 Starr, 40; Shryock, 10.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
8 2
not require a medical degree or even membership in a medical society. Still the
medical profession had made the first attempt to limit competition and elevate their
position. Starr emphasizes the doctors’ intent to control competition and create a
profession that could limit practitioners at the entry level. This is a recurring theme in
Starr’s analysis of the medical profession’s attempt at control and the eventual
formation of a powerful profession.40
American medical licensing gained strength in the post-Revolutionary War
period. The colonial licensing laws had not been exclusionary, but had served to
indicate a level of fitness for practice. Colonial legislatures granted licenses to
practice medicine as an added confirmation of a doctor’s competence. The lack of a
license did not, in most places, exclude a physician from practice. Places like New
York City that did require licenses were few, and even there, the requirement was not
onerous to fulfill41
The Revolutionary War had interrupted licensure legislation, but in the post
war period there were new attempts to strengthen licensing. In a rush of visionary
and idealistic fervor, a number of states began to pass legislation that required
licensing. Between 1780 and 1810, a number of states passed legislation requiring
that a doctor have a license in order to collect fees. Thus, licensing aspired to become
more than an added commendation, as it had mostly been in colonial times; it would
become exclusionary. Starr emphasizes that the motivation of the medical profession
40 See Starr’s chapter “Medicine in a Democratic Culture,” 30-59.
41 Joseph F. Kett, The Transformation o f the American Medical Profession (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1968), 9-13.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
83
in promoting licensure was to increase power and authority. He also points out how
their efforts were ineffective.42
Although the supporters of licensure intended licensing to be exclusionary,
as a practical matter licensure was ineffective. The states granted licenses in a
haphazard manner, some requiring either study with an established doctor or
membership in a medical society. Also the licensure boards were lax in issuing
licenses, for fear of losing their licensing fees.43
By the 1830s licensing requirements were rejected in a flurry of Jacksonian
democratic anti-licensing activity. Licenses were not required or not enforced in
most states. Early nineteenth-century attempts to require licenses for physicians to
charge fees were rejected in state after state in the 1830s. Only decades later, in the
late nineteenth century, would the medical profession gain a privileged position of
strict licensure and required medical degrees.44
The medical societies did not succeed in controlling the credentialing
process any more than did the licensure authorities. Medical societies attempted to
establish a professional image and control against the less qualified, or those without
formal education. Mostly their efforts failed. Medical societies often had little real
power beyond assuring their own members of their superiority. Non-members and
the general public felt free to ignore their pronouncements on permissible fees and
accepted therapeutic methods. Popular opinion often looked askance at the many
42 Starr, 44-47.
43 Shyrock, 10-11.
44 Kett, 12-30.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
84
heroic medical practices that were often harmful and at best useless. The people still
had the power to consult whom they wished for medical care, a doctor without formal
education, a midwife, or a folk healer.45
Popular Attitudes toward Medicine and Its Practitioners
The temperance message of health through avoidance of alcohol was
consistent with new approaches of prevention and more gentle health measures.
Many who adopted the temperance message also adopted alternative health reform
measures. Growing public skepticism about heroic, drastic, and ineffective methods
of medical treatment encouraged the growth of a number of health irregulars in the
first half of the nineteenth century. Health irregulars, particularly homeopaths and
Thomsonians, opposed the accepted therapeutics of regular physicians. Popular
dissatisfaction with the status quo produced a multitude of alternative healers and
health providers. The failure of drastic bloodletting and purging to cure disease led
people to turn to less dramatic methods. The healing power of natural methods
gained in popularity. The popular culture supported dietary and health reform
measures.
In addition to popular reliance on preventive medicine, folklore, and home
health remedies, a number of new health sects arose. The most successful of them,
the Thomsonians and the homeopaths, adopted natural treatments and
recommendations. Other new medical theories, such as the phrenologists, gained less
support popularly. Some physicians, notably Oliver Wendell Homes, dismissed the
45 Starr, 45; Kett, 168-177.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
85
phrenologists as quacks. Others, for example the blustering Dr. Charles Caldwell,
adopted phrenology as a means of bolstering their own reputation.46 The temperance
physicians, especially Sewall and Mussey, rejected phrenology as quackery, but did
not attack the less extreme methods of the naturalists.
Thomsonians grew from the efforts of a New Hampshire farmer, Samuel
Thomson, to oppose current medical practice because of the death of his mother.
When he was a child, his mother died from the harsh mercury purges and bleeding.
Years later when his wife became sick, he dismissed the doctors and used mild,
herbal remedies. From his experiences he left his New Hampshire farm in 1805 to
become an itinerant herb practitioner. He gained a large following as he traveled
about, criticizing the harsh treatments of doctors, and extolling the benefits of natural
herbal remedies. By 1812, he published his first pamphlet on herbal medicine. Ten
years later he expanded his publication with the title New Guide to Health; or Botanic
Family Physician. Thomson hired agents to sell of his book at twenty dollars each
and promote his therapy.47
By the 1830s and for the next twenty years, the Thomsonians developed as
an alternative health reform movement. Thomsonian agents and societies gained
popularity in states throughout the country. Thomsonian agents organized “friendly
botanic societies” in the northeast, the southeast, and as far west as Ohio. Armed
46 Holmes also rejected temperance views (see footnote 29), while Caldwell was ambivalent on temperance. Charles Caldwell, M.D., Autobiography (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1855), 201-202.
47 Duffy, 80-82.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
8 6
with popular support, they successfully withstood the efforts of regular physicians
and medical societies to prevent them from practicing medicine.
Homeopathy posed another major opposition to established medicine. As a
medical system, homeopathy garnered some respect from established physicians
because its founder, the German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) had
studied medicine in Leipzig and Vienna. As Duffy cogently remarks, Hahnemann
had a brilliant mind, but occasionally “wandered out in the wild blue yonder.” 49 One
of Hahnemann’s theories was that infinitesimal amounts of drugs could effect cures.
The tiny amount of drugs prescribed, in dilutions as small as one-millionth of a grain,
had the advantage of not poisoning the patient, as did many of the extreme treatments
of the period such as mercurial purges. Homeopathy also took advantage of the fact
that many diseases are self-limiting and resolve on their own without any treatment.
Homeopathy reached America in 1825 through a disciple of Hahnemann, Hans Gram,
who settled in New York and gradually won converts. Homeopathic remedies gained
some support in the medical community and helped gradually to bring about less
drastic therapeutic measures.50
In an ironic twist of language, the old-line humorists referred to the
irregulars as “empiricists.” Medical journals of the era referred to those who
employed botanical and folklore methods as “empiricists,” using the terminology as
48 Kett, 20-23.
49 Duffy, 82.
50 See references to homeopathy and therapeutic change, Leavitt and Numbers, 91 et seq.; Duffy, 82-87.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
87
derogatory. Old guard doctors also referred to the new laboratory scientists as
empiricists in a pejorative fashion: they relied on experiments rather than theoretical
knowledge. Traditionally trained doctors prided themselves on their theoretical
education and therefore condemned those who relied on experience alone. In
describing the Paris Clinical School, one journal article was highly critical of the new
standards:
The practice of medicine according to this view, is entirely empirical, it is shorn of all rational induction, and takes a position among the lower grades of experimental observation, and fragmentary facts.51
Despite the resistance of traditional medicine, many physicians were open to
new ideas about improving health. Ideas of reform in medicine gave support to
temperance reform as a medical position. Reform movements covered a wide range
of causes in addition to temperance. All the reform movements related to physical or
mental health, for example, the reform movement for humane treatment of the insane,
the movement for prison and penal reform, and dietary reform. Dietary reform
included vegetarianism as well as the Grahamites, who endorsed the use of whole
wheat flour.52
Some historians, particularly Paul Starr and John Duffy, emphasize the
defensive nature of physicians’ openness to new ideas. They stress that although
American physicians resisted the challenge of the irregulars, especially the
51 L.M. Lawson, Western Lancet 9 (1849): 196. Only later in the century did the term empiricism evolve to a more positive connotation.
52For a description o f the rise o f professional medicine and the opposition o f the antiprofessionals, or irregulars, such as the Thomsonians, see Duffy, 81-83 and Starr, 51-59. For information on Sylvester Graham’s reform movement based upon diet and hygiene, 1830-1870, see Shryock, 111-125.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
88
homeopaths and the Thomsonians, and they nevertheless responded gradually to both
their message and their financial pressures. In a defensive mode, to keep from losing
patients, many physicians began to adopt more effective, preventive methods.
Gradually, physicians responded to the growing popular skepticism regarding
excessive bleeding and purgings. By 1850 doctors used these heroic practices less
often and largely abandoned them by the late nineteenth century. Influenced by the
changing ideology of the period, many physicians responded to the popular health
movement by promoting more supportive, preventive measures. Thus, preventive
health formed the locus for many social reforms, including temperance.
Temperance, in much the same way as other social reform thinking of the
era, promoted the concept of preventive health measures and good hygiene. Popular
opinion grew skeptical of the old treatments and supported methods that, if not
effective, at least caused less damage to the patient. The temperance message of
controlling alcohol consumption and abuse fit easily into the preventive health
paradigm.
Medical Attitudes toward Alcohol and Temperance
The temperance physicians were atypical in their attitudes toward alcohol.
Alcohol use was a controversial and evolving subject for early nineteenth century
physicians. Although a number of physicians endorsed temperance ideology
privately, the medical profession did not, as a whole, adopt the temperance message.
Medical journals and medical textbooks of the period are silent on the issue of
temperance and alcohol use. Surprisingly, a search of the leading American medical
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
8 9
journals of the period shows that alcohol and temperance are rarely mentioned.
Given the popular interest in the temperance movement and the alcohol question, the
omission is striking.
American doctors differed greatly on their temperance affiliation. Some
joined the temperance cause; others did not. No conclusive study has been conducted
that can give definitive data on the percentage of American doctors who joined or
those who did not join.53 Based upon existing sources and commentary, the best
estimate is that the majority of American doctors did not join temperance societies.
Perhaps most physicians were reluctant to endorse a nontraditional position. Still
others were perhaps themselves intemperate in their use of distilled spirits, wines, and
other alcoholic drinks. Even those who joined generally did so without much fanfare.
Perhaps they wanted to avoid controversy in their practice and did not want to risk
alienating patients.
The temperance physicians were an anomaly in their profession. They
comprised a small, vocal minority of the medical profession as they promoted the
temperance cause. A number of factors must be evaluated and understood in order to
understand their unusual approach in promoting temperance. Their interest in new
scientific discoveries concerning alcohol greatly influenced their thinking. Their
opposition to the use of alcohol coincided with chemical discoveries and experiments
on the substance alcohol, a discovery they were almost certainly aware of. English
53 Gerald W. Olsen’s 1994 study o f the British medical community and temperance concluded that only a radical minority o f British physicians supported teetotalism or temperance during the period 1830 to 1855. The majority o f British doctors promoted the moderate use of alcohol as both food and medicine, even more so than they had previously. Gerald Wayne Olsen, “ 'Physician Heal Thyself': drink, temperance and the medical question in the Victorian and Edwardian Church of England, 1830-1914,” Addiction 89 (1994): 1167-1176.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 0
chemist William Brande’s discovery of the chemical component alcohol was
published in the United States in 1821. Prior to Brande’s experiments, it was not
known that alcohol, commonly referred to as ardent spirit, was present as a discrete
chemical in fermented drinks.54 The temperance physicians cited additional
experiments on alcohol by the French physicians and chemist F rancis Magendie.
Magendie conducted chemical experiments on alcohol and its effects on the body.
Thomas Sewall, one of the temperance physicians, specifically cited Magendie’s
work.55
Nineteenth-century medicine regarded alcohol as a necessary medicine in
the materia medica or pharmaceutical treatments. Since at least the eighteenth
century, doctors had included alcohol in their medical treatments. Physicians
prescribed alcohol to patients in the form of whiskey, brandy, rum, wines and beer for
a wide variety of ailments. They considered alcohol as therapeutically effective in
stimulating the body to regain its natural humoral balance. Although his writings
give no such indication, even Benjamin Rush must have used alcohol as a medicine in
the late eighteenth century. His hardwood medicine chest contained whiskey and
54 In 1821, the first American edition o f William T. Brande’s Manual o f Chymistry was published in New York, based on the London edition. Before Brande’s experiments, no one knew that the substance alcohol was the common ingredient in all fermented drinks, the same as distilled spirits, only less concentrated. William Thomas Brande, A Manual o f Chemistry (New York: no publisher listed, 1821). William Brande (1788-1866) was a member o f the Royal Institution in London. His analysis o f alcohol, found in chapter eight o f his manual, gives exact proportions o f alcohol present in a variety of wines and malt beers. His work was published in London five or six years prior to the American publication. The volume that I studied came from the private library of A.L. Metz, M.D., from the archives o f Tulane University.
55 Frangois Magendie (1783-1855) was a pioneer in physiology and pharmacology. He did experimental work on the spinal nerves and also on alcohol and other drugs. See ch. 4 on Thomas Sewall for more information on Sewall’s understanding o f Magendie’s experiments.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
91
brandy in addition to the cathartics such as mercury and calomel, and opiates such as
paregoric.56
Beginning in the 1820s, doctors increasingly used alcohol as a routine
medicine. In the wake of popular opposition to heroic methods many physicians
turned to the use of alcohol as a medicine, as an alternative to the heroic methods of
bleeding and purging. By comparison, they regarded alcohol as benign and less
drastic. Physicians regarded alcohol as a stimulant, instead of the modem
classification of alcohol a depressant. They regarded the diseased body as “asthenic,”
or enfeebled, and requiring stimulation. Physicians increasingly prescribed alcohol to
patients, in both distilled and fermented form, for a wide variety of ailments. Alcohol
was prescribed for colds, infectious diseases, dysentery, and pneumonia, and a wide
variety of other diseases.57 The use of alcohol as a medicine persisted throughout the
nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century.
As the temperance movement gained membership and more influence, a few
physicians began to question the use of alcohol even as a medicine. Although the
early temperance physicians, Benjamin Rush and Billy Clark, apparently allowed the
medicinal use of alcohol, later temperance physicians doubted its validity. By the
1830s the later temperance physicians (Sewall, Mussey, and Jewett) consistently
opposed the too frequent use of alcohol as a medicine. They categorically opposed
alcohol use as medicine, citing the danger of producing dependency in patients.
56 Gretchen Worden, “A Look inside Dr. Benjamin Rush’s Medicine Chest,” American Medical Association News, June 25, 2001, 17.
57 Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, “Alcohol as Medicine,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History, An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack Blocker, David Fahey, & Ian Tyrrell, (Santa Barbara, Cal: ABC-CLIO, 2003), II, 407-409.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 2
This overview of the changes in medicine in the nineteenth century provides
essential context for considering the world of the temperance physicians. The myriad
changes of nineteenth-century medicine provide the cultural and scientific milieu in
which the temperance physicians conceived their temperance ideas. The changes in
medical knowledge, practice, and popular attitudes helped to shape the ways that
temperance physicians perceived alcohol use. The medical and scientific discoveries
in technology and chemistry contributed to their understanding of alcohol and its
effects upon health, but so much was yet unknown about the body and alcohol. Their
perceptions were imperfect and unclear. Although the cultural and scientific context
of medicine provides necessary information, it is not sufficient to describe the
phenomenon of the temperance physicians. In order to understand the temperance
physicians, we must search the details of their individual experiences.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER IV
THOMAS SEWALL, TEMPERANCE PHYSICIAN
In January 1818, rumors reached a local family that their daughter’s body had
been exhumed from her grave in the nearby Essex Church graveyard. A hair ornament
that had been buried with her body had been found lying on the cemetery grounds.
Suspicious, the family had the grave re-opened and discovered that her body had been
stolen. With this appalling discovery, other graves in the cemetery were searched. By
April of that year seven other bodies were discovered missing. Charges were brought
against Dr. Thomas Sewall, the physician in the small Massachusetts town of Essex.1
Sewall had been caught procuring cadavers for dissection and autopsy. With a newly
established practice and his wife expecting their first child, he might have felt some
reluctance to engage in such an objectionable and illegal activity. Yet, something
compelled him to take the risk.
This early incident in the life of Thomas Sewall (1786 -1845) provides clues in
understanding his later role as a prominent temperance leader and advocate. His views
on temperance and his grave-robbing participation proceeded from the same impulse,
emerging changes in scientific methods. Sewall, like the few other physicians who
played a prominent role in the first American temperance movement, regarded the
1 The bodies exhumed were those o f Mrs. Mary Millet, aged 35; Miss Sally Andrew, 26; Mr. William Burnham, 79; Mr. Elisha Story, 65; Mr. Samuel Burnham, 26; Isaac Allen, 10; Philip Harlow, 10. The eighth body was reported as not known, but supposed to be that o f “Caesar, a coloured man, buried several years since.” History o f Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton, www.rootsweb.com/lpswichllistorv. accessed 9/9/2003, 1-12.
93
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 4
temperance cause primarily as a health issue rather than a moral issue. Sewall
approached problems as a scientist first and foremost. He regarded intemperance and
habitual drunkenness as a physiological process, with potentially harmful effects on the
body, mind, and spirit of the drinker. The practical outcome of his views on both
medicine and temperance often clashed with established social norms. In order to
understand Sewall’s mindset and actions, one must understand the medical, scientific,
and social context of Sewall’s world.
Sewall was on the leading edge of new approaches in medicine, influenced by
changing currents of scientific inquiry underway in the early nineteenth century. The
search for medical knowledge during this period increasingly encouraged autopsies and
dissection. Medical training and research had begun to require more rigorous methods of
scientific inquiry than had been customary during the eighteenth century. Medical
schools preferred that students and researchers learn human anatomy by witnessing and
participating in autopsies. The old eighteenth-century medical knowledge, based upon
humors, systems, and theory, was gradually being replaced by more rigorous methods of
scientific observation and experiment. Although medical schools increasingly regarded
dissection as an essential tool in education and research, procuring bodies remained
difficult. Because bodies were so hard to obtain, doctors and students resorted to getting
them wherever and however they could. Often they engaged in grave-robbing or “body-
snatching,” a practice that the public resented. The bodies of the poor, the working class,
or unattended deaths were especially vulnerable. The bodies of criminals that had been
executed were in some cases available, but not as instructive as those who had died of
disease. In order to study pathology, medical scientists needed to conduct postmortems
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 5
upon the bodies of those who had died from known symptoms or diseases. Grave
robbing, although illegal, was a common method of procuring bodies for dissection.2
The grave-robbing incident indicates the extent to which Sewall would go in
pursuing his scientific interests. For s physician like Sewall, the product of first-tier
medical schools, Harvard and Pennsylvania, and inclined to use scientific methods to
learn the causes and cures for diseases, the opportunity to conduct postmortems for
known symptoms must have outweighed the risk of apprehension. Most likely Sewall
knew the deceased and the circumstances of their deaths. He may even have attended
them in their final illnesses. Unfortunately, or so it must have seemed to him and his
family, he was caught. In the town of Essex, numbering only a little over one thousand,
the exhumation and removal of bodies from the graveyard was appalling to the entire
community. Many had relatives buried in the community church graveyard, including
the Sewalls, Choates, and other prominent families. Samuel Sewall, Sewall’s younger
brother, had been buried there only a few years before.3 Under such circumstances,
Sewall would probably have found it difficult to continue his practice in the area.
2 The first decades o f the nineteenth century mark a transition in medicine between the old classical methods o f vague systems and conjecture to the formation o f modem clinical methods. The French physicians, as well as some English physicians such as William Harvey, led the clinical methods of scientific observation by combining clinical observation with subsequent dissection. New standards of medicine emerged that employed scientific method. Autopsies became essential to the new scientific approach and the development o f surgical method. Still, old prejudices against human dissection often impeded scientific inquiry. For more information, see Paul Starr, The Social Transformation o f American Medicine (NY: Harper Collins, 1982) 54-55 and 177; also John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History o f American Medicine (Chicago: U. o f 111. Press, 1993) 131-33; also Michael Sappol, A Traffic o f Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2002), 100-119. For the need to conduct autopsies on cases o f known pathology, see Sherwin B. Nuland, Doctors, the Biography o f Medicine (New York: Knopf, 1988) 153-154.
3 The inscription read “In Memory o f Mr. Samuel Sewall who died April 10, 1812; AEt 21 [at age 21] Mine is the house appointed for all the living.” Inscriptions from the Old Burying Ground, Essex, Mass, ed. Kurt Wilhelm, accessed 9/19/03, p. 13-16.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 6
Further demonstrating the significance of Sewall’s situation, the Rev. Crowell,
the minister of the Ipswich Congregational Church, preached a sermon in July 1818 on
the serious matter of the recent grave-robbing incident. He expressed the shock and
sorrow of the community over the exhumations from the community burial ground. Even
though the minister attempted to make allowances for the importance of dissection for
legitimate scientific inquiry, he could not condone such a serious offense as grave
robbing. He condemned those guilty of “the inhumanity and impiety of forcibly taking
the dead from their graves.”4
Despite the help of excellent legal defense from then Massachusetts
congressman Daniel Webster, Sewall was convicted on three counts of grave robbing and
fined eight hundred dollars.5 According to his one surviving sister, Rebecca, Sewall
decided to leave Massachusetts, due to unspecified “circumstances.” We may assume
that the circumstances related to his conviction of grave robbing. In 1820, encouraged by
his lawyer and friend Daniel Webster, he moved to the federal city, Washington.6
In Washington, Sewall gained prominence as a founder of the Columbian
College Medical Department and as a temperance advocate. In 1827 he addressed the
medical students graduating from Columbian College. For perhaps the first time in
public, he warned against the dangers of alcohol consumption, “a rock on which many of
4 Ibid.
5 Elmer Louis Kayser, A Medical Center: The Institutional Development o f Medical Education in George Washington University (Washington: GW University Press, 1973), 20. Sewall’s case was tried under the 1815 Massachusetts law that punished unauthorized possession o f a dead body with a maximum fine of $ 1000 and imprisonment for up to one year. Sappol, 102.
6 Rebecca Webster, letter to her nephew, the Rev. Thomas Sewall, son o f Dr. Thomas Sewall, n.d., (1845-1870); Kayser, 20-21, Library o f Congress Manuscript Division.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 7
our profession have foundered.”7 By 1827 Sewall was an eminent physician, respected in
the medical school and in medical science. During the next eighteen years of his life,
until his death in 1845, Sewall advanced the cause of temperance through his lectures and
publications. Although he became as famous in the temperance movement as he had
been in medicine, he is mostly unknown today, even to historians of temperance and
social reform. It is therefore worthwhile to bring to light the ideas and activities of such a
man. By examining Sewall’s life and work, we can infer some of the influences on his
thinking. We can also identify how his temperance ideas relate to those of the larger
temperance movement, particularly his contribution to the emerging concept of the
process of addiction.
Thomas Sewall was bom in the township of Hallowell, Maine on April 16,
1786, to Thomas Sewall (1750-1833) and Priscilla Cony Sewall (1749- 1836). The
Sewalls were a large family, with deep Puritan roots in New England.8 A prominent
family in and around Boston, they tended to be well educated and connected with
Harvard both as students and professors. Their choice of profession included the Puritan
(Congregational) clergy, the law, and similar scholarly pursuits.9 Thomas Sewall’s
7 Thomas Sewall, A Charge Delivered to the Graduation Class o f the Columbian College, D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827 (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1828) 6.
8 The Sewalls were first established in the colony o f Massachusetts by Henry Sewall, a Puritan minister. One o f the early-recorded Sewall ancestors, Henry Sewall, had emigrated from Bishopstoke, Hampshire to Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1635. Henry’s father, also named Henry, had advised him to emigrate, most likely aware that Puritan ministers would find uncertain job opportunities with religious and political strife in England. Henry Sewall Webster, Thomas Sewall; some o f his Ancestors and all o f his Descendants: A Genealogy (Gardiner, Maine, 1904) 4.
9 The first Henry Sewall had three sons, Samuel, John, and Stephen. All the Sewalls in Maine are descended from John and his two sons Samuel and Nicholas. The two sons came to York soon after their sister married and moved there about 1701. Other Sewall relatives are Stephen Sewall (1734-1804), professor o f Hebrew and other languages at Harvard, Judge David Sewall from York, Maine, and
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
98
famous relatives included Judge Samuel Sewall, one of the judges who presided over the
Salem witch trials in 1692.10 Judge Sewall is famous in temperance history for
attempting in 1714 to monitor the raucous behavior of drinkers in local taverns,
demanding that they behave themselves. His efforts met with mixed results, as did most
of the attempts of social elites to control drinking behavior.11
Thomas Sewall’s immediate family lived in Hallowell, a rural township that in
the 1700s included all the surrounding territory, as well as the later incorporated town of
Augusta. Hallowell was probably much like other small Maine towns of that period that
provided the seedbed for future temperance support. According to historian Alan Taylor,
that part of Maine, the Eastern Country, was a frontier area, where heavy drinking was a
prevalent and pervasive custom. Maine settlers wanted a beverage that was easily
transported into the woods and to their workplace outdoors in the cold. Rum was the
drink of choice, rather than cider, the lower alcohol-content drink more common in
southern New England. In rural Maine, as in most of America during the period,
drinking alcohol was a daily custom in almost every social setting, and drunkenness
missionary Jotham Sewall. Sewall/Sewell Family Records, www3.simpatico.ca/Robert.sewell/letter.html, 33 pgs, accessed 9/5/02, 2-10.
10 Judge Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) in The Encyclopedia o f New England (NY: Green Spring,1985) 420.
11 In the eighteenth century elites such as ministers, clergymen, and public officials attempted to control drunken behavior o f those they regarded as their social inferiors through legal and also informal mechanisms. Their job became increasingly difficult with the rising tide o f democratic expectations and the increase in Boston rum production in the eighteenth century. W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1979) 28-29.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
9 9
abounded. The area was to provide an active ground for temperance activity later in the
12nineteenth century, including the famous Maine prohibition laws passed in 1846.
Thomas SewalPs father, also named Thomas, and the son of a shoemaker,
practiced the lowly trade of tanner in Hallowell. Having set up the first tannery in the
Kennebec Valley, he located the tannery in a ravine near his house. He had participated
in the Revolutionary War in a local militia and was credited with three months service.
He used to relate, probably with some exaggeration, his experience as a prisoner on a
British ship. Thomas married Priscilla Cony, daughter of Deacon Samuel and Rebecca
Cony, in November 1779.13
Some of the other Sewalls in town enjoyed more social prominence than did the
senior Thomas Sewall. The Captain Henry Sewall in Laurel Ulrich’s A Mid-wife's Tale,
based on Martha Ballard’s diary during the period 1785 to 1815, was probably Thomas
SewalPs cousin. Henry Sewall and his wife “Lady Tabitha” held high social position in
Hallowell. Having served under General Washington, Henry Sewall then held the
important position of town clerk of Hallowell and Augusta for over thirty years. By
contrast, Thomas Sewall, the father of our subject of interest, got himself entangled in the
town scandal concerning the clergyman Isaac Foster. Apparently he had rented out a
house to Foster for three shillings and in 1788 sued him for back rent. It seems a routine
affair from a monetary standpoint, but a number of town leaders, including Henry Sewall,
had determined to dismiss Foster from his position as the established minister. At the
12 Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors, The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill: U. o f NC Press, 1990), 84-85, 36-37; Rorabaugh, 141-42; Mark E. Lender and James Martin, Drinking in America, A History (New York: Macmillan, 1982), 42-46.
13Henry Webster offered in his genealogy the opinion that Thomas Sewall senior probably inflated his military adventures. Webster, 6.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 0 0
time of Foster’s dismissal several months later, he had a number of debts that he could
not pay. Given that Foster had made a number of enemies in town and also that Thomas
Sewall, Sr. had friends in high places, it is not surprising that Sewall won his case, plus
court costs.14
The family life of Priscilla and Thomas Sewall must have been simple, probably
even humble. They had six children to support from the tannery business. The extra
income from renting to Foster, even though modest, was needed. At the time of the
Foster incident, Thomas and Pricilla’s son was two years old. As a matter of interest to
those interested in the potential influence of order of birth on the formation of
personality, Thomas was their fourth child and first son. His three older sisters were
Rebecca Guild, six years older; Mary Seward, four years older; and Harriet, two years
older. There followed two more children in the family after Thomas: Daniel, two years
younger and the sixth and last child, Samuel.15
The religious practice of Sewall’s family provides relevant information for
identifying social and cultural influences that affected him. Thomas Sewall’s family
followed the established religious practice of New England, Congregationalism, beyond
mere convention. Thomas’s older sister Rebecca recalls that a Methodist circuit preacher
called at their house when her brother was about five years old. The family prayed with
the preacher, the Rev. Jesse Lee, not in the Congregational style of standing that they
14Henry Sewall took an interest in the larger matter o f having Isaac Foster dismissed from his post as the established Congregational minister in Hallowell. Henry may have worked behind the scenes to reduce the town salary owed to Foster and to force him to pay his outstanding debts. Laurel Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale, The Life o f Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary 1785-1812 (NY: Knopf, 1992)30-32, 107- 114.
15 Webster, 6.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
101
were accustomed to, but kneeling, as the Methodists preferred. Rebecca, writing and
recalling the incident years later, reported that her brother, even though a young child,
knelt of his own accord and indicated a strong affinity for prayer.16
As has been thoroughly documented by a number of historians, the growth of
evangelicalism strongly promoted the infant temperance movement. This incident from
Sewall’s childhood illustrates the growth of evangelical Christian churches on the Maine
frontier. Sewall grew up in an environment, both in his family and in his community,
where evangelicalism promoted social reform. At this period in the late eighteenth
century the Baptists and the Methodists challenged the old line Congregationalists with
missionary preachers. They had already or were in the process of, surpassing the
Congregational Church in membership. This development was a triumph for the
evangelicals and a defeat for the established New England church, a common occurrence
throughout the American frontier. Evangelical churches such as the Baptists and
Methodists promoted temperance and other matters of personal piety. The growing
evangelical churches used their revivalist teachings of individual piety on matters such as
drinking to attract new members. Their stance on temperance promoted the cause not
only in the new churches, but also caused the established Congregational churches toi >7
address the issue of temperance as well.
16 Rebecca Sewall Webster, letter to the Rev. Thomas Sewall about his father, after 1845 (Washington, D.C: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division).
17 Alan Taylor describes the evangelical influence specifically in the region of Hallowell and the Kennebec Valley. Taylor, 139-140; For a more general discussion o f the role o f evangelical Protestantism in the American temperance movement, see Joseph Gusfield on evangelical challenges to traditional churches, Symbolic Crusade, Status "Politics and the American Temperance Movement (Chicago: U. of Illinois Press, 1986), especially 46-50. Gusfield’s view differs somewhat from Taylor’s approach in that he emphasizes the social conflicts and self-serving interests o f the old and new religious denominations.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
102
When Sewall was a boy of about ten or twelve years old he was sent to live in
Augusta, near Hallowell, in the family of his mother’s brother, Judge Cony, so that he
could attend school. The school had a noon recess during which all the children went
home for lunch. Thomas came back after recess, heated from running, and sat by an open
window. A storm blew in, drenching him as he sat by an open window. He was said to
have caught not only a bad cold, but after that always seemed to be prone to respiratory
infections. A relative who lived with him in later years reported hearing him say, “I havei o
had consumption for more than forty years.”
The Sewall family was highly conscious of gender roles as reflected in an
incident that occurred when Thomas Sewall was a young man. When he was about
fourteen years old and in high school, Sewall had decided to study medicine. After
finishing high school, he lived and studied with an uncle, who had been a practicing
physician. At this time he contracted a severe virus or illness that affected his lungs, so
severe that his life was threatened. While he was in danger, his sister Mary prayed with
and for him to recover. According to private family papers, Mary, who was also ill with
a lung ailment, prayed that if it was the will of God that one of them should die, that her
brother Thomas might be spared, for she felt that he would accomplish something
extremely important for the world. Mary’s attitude of deference indicated that she, at the
very least, accepted the reality of men’s superior prospects in their society. For example,
no women were allowed to train as physicians, nor would they be admitted into medical
18 M.A. Cruickshank, Reminiscences o f My Childhood, Sewall family papers, Manuscript Division, Library o f Congress, 2.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
103
schools until decades later.19 It is even likely that she doubted her own abilities and
worth (a conclusion consistent with her pronouncement), but without knowing more
about Mary personally, it is difficult to determine her exact state of mind. But we do
know that Mary and Thomas were very close and affectionate. Next to his mother,
Thomas confided in and trusted Mary more than anyone else. After a while Thomas did
recover, except for a slight cough that followed him the rest of his life.
Mary also recovered, but only for a few years. She married Dr. Reuben Mussey,
the same man who later became famous as a physician and temperance leader. Mussey
and Sewall became life-long friends, related first as in-laws and later as professional
colleagues. Mary died at age twenty-four, in 1807, apparently of tuberculosis. One can
speculate upon the sense of duty, responsibility, and perhaps even guilt, that young
Thomas, then twenty-one and in the early stages of studying medicine, would have felt.20
He returned to his studies, which had been interrupted by his sister’s long illness. He
remained with Dr. Mitchel of North Yarmouth until he went to Boston to continue his
medical education at Harvard Medical School
Like most doctors in the early nineteenth century America, Sewall studied under
an established physician. After a few years he was able to pursue his medical education
more formally. Sewall secured medical degrees from both Harvard Medical School and
the University of Pennsylvania, two of the leading medical schools in America. The
formal course of study for a medical degree was a great deal simpler in those times than it
19 The first woman to receive a medical degree was Elizabeth Blackwell, graduating in 1849 from Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York. For her biography see Rachel Baker, The First Woman Doctor; the Story o f Elizabeth Blackwell (NY: Messner, 1944).
20 Webster, Thomas Sewall; some o f his Ancestors, etc., 6; R. Webster, letter to the Rev. Th.Sewall.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
104
is now. Generally, earning a medical degree required attending only two years of study,
consisting of lectures of only five months during the year. Instead of tuition, students
purchased tickets to attend lectures. One of Sewall’s lecture tickets still survives in the
Harvard Medical School archives. He took classes at Harvard at least as early as 1807, at
91age twenty-one. He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in
Philadelphia, beginning in 1811. He continued his studies there for two years, taking
classes with Dr. Barton and also with the famous Dr. Benjamin Rush. He was listed as
Dr. Barton’s student, but took at least one class under Rush. He took Dr. Rush’s class
“Upon the Institutes and Practice of Medicine and Upon Clinical Cases.” It was one of
the last classes that Rush taught before his death in 1813.22
Sickness and deaths in his family slowed Sewall’s progress in medical school,
but even so, he excelled in his classes. When he graduated from Harvard Medical School
in 1812, at the age of twenty-six, Harvard awarded to him the Boylston gold prize for the
best essay on diseases of the heart. After he lost his sister Mary in 1807, in February
1811, he lost another sister, Harriet, the cause of death unknown. She was two years
older than he, and was reputed to have been tall and very beautiful. She left a husband
and two children. Sewall now had only one remaining sister, Rebecca. The following
year, 1812, his youngest sibling died, Samuel, at age twenty-one. Of the six Sewall
21 Thomas Sewall, Harvard University Lecture Ticket, 1807 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U, 1807); Prior to the 1870s, the course o f study for the M.D. was two years. After 1870 the third year was added to the curriculum, and in the 1890s the fourth year was added. Henry K. Craig, “Historical Sketch of the George Washington University Medical School,” The Caduceus (May 1915) 15-18.
22 Kayser, 18-20.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 0 5
children, only three now survived: Thomas, his sister Rebecca, and his younger brother
'J 'XDaniel. Despite all this, Sewall had continued and even excelled in his medical classes.
After graduating from Harvard, he returned for a few months to Maine. There
he received a request from Mussey, his brother-in-law, requesting him to handle his
practice in Ipswich, Massachusetts,24 while he attended lectures in Philadelphia during
the winter. Aged twenty-six and equipped with medical degrees from two respected
institutions, Sewall took over the Ipswich practice from Mussey. He also took over his
boarding spot and tutoring job with one of the local families, the Choates. When Mussey
returned from Philadelphia, he relocated his practice to nearby Salem, allowing Sewall to
O f tcontinue the Ipswich practice.
In the following year, 1813, Sewall married Mary Choate, the twenty-one year
old daughter of Captain David and Miriam Choate. Sewall had tutored her younger
brother, Rufus, a friendship that was to continue for the rest of his life.27 The newly
married couple continued to live in Ipswich in their own residence, according to census
23 Henry Webster, 6, 13.
24 Ipswich, Massachusetts was the parent town o f Essex, north o f Boston and Salem, near the coast. Ipswich was the first location o f the Sewall immigrants, and near the burial site in Newbury, Massachusetts o f Henry Sewall and other Sewall ancestors beginning in the late seventeenth century. Sewall Family Records, www.svmpatico.ca/robert.sewall. accessed, 9/5/2002.
25 Rebecca Webster, 3.
26 Mussey had lived in Ipswich, the parent town o f Essex, at least since 1806, according to the records o f the Congregational Church. Essex, Mass. Congregational Church Members, 1681-1937 (www. Rootsweb.com. Massachusetts US GenWeb Project, accessed, May 1,2003).
27 Mary Choate (b. October 3, 1792, Ipswich, Mass; d. March 29, 1855, Rockville, Maryland), Webster, 15. Rufus Choate (1799-1859) grew up to serve as U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, 1831-1834, and U.S. Senator, 1841-1845.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 0 6
records.28 Later, in April 1818, they had a son, named Thomas. What should have been
a joyous time for the young married couple was, however, marred by the grave-robbing
incident that had begun to unfold only a few months before the birth of their son. In 1820
the Sewalls moved to Washington.
Professionally, Sewall fared much better in Washington. Despite his conviction
for grave-robbery, he moved there with a job already waiting for him, a professorship in
medicine. In 1821, the newly established Columbian College,29 created by Congress that
year, appointed Sewall as Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. The conjunction of the
grave-robbery incident and his subsequent medical appointment indicates the state of
science and medicine. Despite social norms that found the grave-robbery shocking on a
community level, the emerging trends in the scientific community made it possible to
overlook the scandal. It was important for the new medical school to employ a scientist
who performed autopsies and conducted rigorous scientific experiments. The opening
ceremonies in January 1822 featured an address by the first president of Columbian
College, the Reverend William Staughton, D.D., a Baptist minister. At first, the course
of instruction was general liberal arts, referred to as the Classical Department. The
curriculum for the Classical Department included science and medical courses, with plans
for a medical school (and a law school) to be added soon. With this end in sight, Sewall
28 According to the 1814 Census, there were three members in the Sewall household in Ipswich. The identity o f the third member is not clear.
29 Columbian College was the forerunner o f George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 0 7
was appointed along with Dr. Janies Staughton, the president’s son, as Professor of
Chemistry and Surgery.30
Only three years later, in the summer of 1824, the medical school was founded
according to plan. It was the seventeenth in the nation and the first in the District of- j i
Columbia. Sewall was appointed president of the Medical Faculty and continued in his
position as professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Staughton continued as professor of
Surgery. To the two existing medical professors were added four more: Thomas
Henderson, professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine; N.W. Worthington,
professor of Materia Medica;32 Edward Cutbush, professor of Chemistry; and Frederick
May, professor of Obstetrics. Thus, the new medical school boasted six medical
professors, more than most medical schools of the time. A few medical schools had
seven professors, but most had only three.34
On March 30, 1825, Sewall gave the inaugural address at the Medical
Department’s official opening. He highlighted the historic significance of the school’s
30Kayser, Title Page o f President Staughton's Inaugural, with Kayser’s notation, facsimile illustrations, no page numbers; & Kayser, 23-24.
31 The first medical school had been established in Philadelphia in 1765, subsequently named the Medical Department o f the University o f Pennsylvania. Next was established Columbia College in New York City, then Kings’ College in 1767. The states o f Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina all founded medical schools before the opening o f Columbian Medical College. Craig, 15.
32 Materia Medica was the term employed for remedies and treatments. The early nineteenth century still relied upon many of the old remedies o f emetics, cathartics, narcotics, and bleeding, although there were indications o f more effective (and less harmful) treatments on the medical horizon. For additional information, see the review o f Dr. John Eberle’s Treatise o f the Materia Medica and Therapeutics, published in Philadelphia in 1822, found in The Medical Repository o f Original Essays and Intelligence, New York, 1824, vol. 23, no.l.
33 Kayser, Circular o f the Medical Department, facsimile reproduction, d.
34 Craig, 16.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
108
founding and predicted that future graduates would contribute to the progress of medical
science. He expressed the hope that the institution might produce a doctor of the caliber
of a Benjamin Rush or a John Warren (of Boston).
The medical school was located in downtown Washington, midway between
Congress and the “President’s House,” on the northeast comer of Tenth and E Streets
N.W. The four-story building housed all the classrooms as well as the rooms for the
students. According to the medical school bulletin, arrangements had been made to
educate the students in all areas of medical knowledge. As was typical for the era, the
Columbian Medical Department required a two-year course of academic study for a
medical degree. Students attended a prescribed course of daily lectures for a period of
several months during the two-year period. Lectures were scheduled daily from Monday
to Saturday, beginning on the first Monday in November and continuing to the last day of
Febmary.
As professor of anatomy, Sewall would lecture on Saturdays during the term.
According to the bulletin, the anatomy class had been furnished with “ample opportunity
for the cultivation of Practical Anatomy.”38 By all indication, bodies were available for
dissection and autopsy. It would appear that Sewall’s past difficulties with procuring
35 Thomas Sewall, M.D., Lecture Delivered at the Opening o f the Medical Department o f the Columbian College in the District o f Columbia, March 30, 1825 (Washington: Columbian Office, 1825).
36 Nancy B. Pauli, Capital Medicine, An Illustrated History o f the Medical Society o f the District o f Columbia (Encino, Ca: Jostens Pub, 1994), 14 &15.
37 The course o f study was kept at two years until 1879, when a third year was added for a medical degree. In 1893, the four-year course was instituted at the medical school. This was the typical progression for medical school education during the nineteenth century. Craig, 18; Starr, 42-43.
38 From the first printed Circular o f the Medical Department, Washington, March 30, 1825,GW Archives.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 09
subjects for dissection were behind him. The dissecting room was located on the top
floor of the medical building, with a mansard roof-line that allowed numerous windows
to provide natural lighting to supplement oil lamps. As the master of his own laboratory,
Sewall was at last free to conduct his scientific inquiries.39
Sewall inhabited a scientific world in the midst of change. Early nineteenth
century medicine was changing from systems based on balancing bodily “humors”
(blood, phlegm, and other body products) to new standards of scientific inquiry. The
newly emerging medical science required more rigorous standards of scientific
experiment, with results that could be replicated, showing cause and result. Eminent
medical historians such as John Duffy, Sherwin Nuland, and Paul Starr describe the
changing world of medicine from the old limitations of humoral systems and nosology to
the new reliance on scientific experiment.40 Medical researchers made use of new
technology, such as the stethoscope41 and the microscope, to study the interior of the
body. No longer would physicians be limited to futile attempts to regulate body fluids by
external means, according to vague theories of humors. The new science began to
challenge Benjamin Rush and his generation’s practice of bloodletting, emetics, and
purging. In this transitional state of medicine, the old ways would persist for decades
more, but the first assaults had been launched against the old paradigm.
39 Pauli, 15.
40 John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History o f American Medicine (Chicago:U. of 111. Press 1993); Sherwin B. Nuland, Doctors, The Biography o f Medicine (NY: Knopf, 1988); Paul Starr, The Social Transformation o f American Medicine (NY: Harper Collins, 1982).
41 Discovered by Dr. Rene Laennec in 1816. Nuland, 168-9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
110
Sewall sided with the small but growing ranks of those who insisted upon
scientific method and evidence. He wanted to search for the cause of diseases and to
look beyond the externally visible surface of the body. For Sewall, the need for proof led
him to the dissecting table. For any theory he developed, he insisted on scientific
evidence. His insistence had made him an exile from his New England home, but he
subsequently gained the compensation of his own laboratory and the power of his
position as president of the medical school to protect him.
The new medical school gave professors the means “for exhibiting to the class
the Clinical Practice and Operative Surgery,” making use of the Infirmary of the
Washington Asylum.42 Sewall and the other staff physicians would care for the poor who
used the infirmary or hospital of the school. As described by Paul Starr and others, the
hospitals of the era housed charity patients, not those who could afford to receive care at
home. Hospitals and asylums treated those with no other options 43 More will be said of
Sewall’s private practice to the elites of Washington. As is well known regarding this
period in medicine, all surgery, conducted without anesthesia and before the knowledge
of bacterial infection, was swift and dangerous.
The chemistry professor of the medical school had a laboratory equipped with
every facility to demonstrate “the experimental parts of that science.”44 The chemistry
lab must have held interest for Sewall, although there is no direct information regarding
his use of it. He showed an interest in the chemical composition of alcohol and other
42 Circular o f the Medical Dept., 1825, GW Archives.
43 Starr, 72-73.
44 Ibid.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
I l l
substances, citing chemical studies. Scientists in England had just recently found new
methods for analyzing the chemical composition of alcohol. These discoveries, based on
sound scientific method, must have held interest for the newly emerging scientific
temperance movement and Sewall in particular.
The new school set forth academic requirements for the medical students that
seem not too demanding by today’s standards. However, the strict rules for student
conduct demanded a monk-like morality, if they were enforced— which is unlikely. The
stated rules for behavior applied to all aspects of their personal lives. Students found that
“all immorality in word or deed” was “forbidden, and that anything approaching
ungentlemanly conduct” would result in dismissal. “Lady-like” conduct was not an issue
because there were no female students at Columbia, or any other medical school in the
nation.45 Students were forbidden to visit the theater “or any such place.” Students must
have felt some temptation, since the med school building at Tenth and E Streets N.W.
was located dangerously close to hotels and taverns only a few blocks away near
Pennsylvania Avenue. The rules further specified that they could not visit a hotel except
under special circumstances, presumably related to their medical education. One
wonders if any students ever tried to invent extenuating circumstances to permit such a
pastime. Cards and gambling were forbidden, and last, but certainly not least, all
“intoxicating liquor” was completely off limits. It would seem that students of Columbia
45 The first female student attended Columbia Medical School, renamed the National Medical College, in 1884. Sandy Holland, ed., From Strength to Strength, A. Pictorial History o f the George Washington University, 1821-1996 (Washington, D.C: George Washington U. Press, 1995), 11. See also note 19.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
112
College would have been exposed to ample temptations. Whether the stringent
institutional rules effectively counteracted the lure of those temptations is debatable.46
As head of the medical school, Sewall held a position of authority and respect in
the medical community for the next twenty years. He chaired the regular meetings of the
medical faculty and the board of trustees, which were routinely held in his own office.
He was strongly involved in all major decisions of the medical school, including
curriculum decisions, the tuition and fees, the appointment of professors, and the physical
plant. The decision at an August 1839 meeting, concerning the requirements for students
to earn the medical degree, provides a typical example. Sewall insisted that the standard
be maintained that students first study for at least three years under a practicing physician
before being admitted to the medical school.47
Sewall played a vital role in the debates surrounding professional medical
standards. As was common in major cities of the period, leading physicians set up
medical societies to attempt to bring some order to the chaotic conditions in medical
practice. Sewall served as a prominent member of the Medical Society of the District of
Columbia, the MSDC, founded in 1817. The MSDC gathered as a scientific community
to share information and discuss medical issues. A group of leading physicians
established the MSDC because they were concerned about the growing number of
“quacks, imposters, and charlatans everywhere.”48 Congress chartered the Society in
1819, with authority to issue licenses. At first the MSCD considered mostly academic
46 Craig, The Caduceus, 16.
47 Minutes o f the Board o f Trustees and Minute Book o f the Faculty, August, 1839 (George Washington U. Archives) Box 9, 11-16.
48 Pauli, 10.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
113
and scientific topics. But after a few years, other issues began to develop. Members
wanted to address disagreements in the community over fees, licensing, and ethical
violations, matters that were beyond the charter of the MSDC. In 1833, in order to
address these issues, doctors in the MSDC founded the Medical Association with
essentially the same membership. Sewall held prominent membership in both
organizations. The new association named as its president Dr. Joseph Lovell, Surgeon
General of the United States, who was known for his high standards of medical treatment
and education. The MSDC remained an academic body, while the Medical Association
attended to economic matters and ethical issues.49
Coming from a similar background, having the mutual benefit of a medical
degree from Harvard Medical School, and agreeing on significant medical and health
issues, Sewall and Lovell must have had collegial relations. In all likelihood, Sewall
enjoyed friendly relations with Lovell and the newly formed Medical Association.
Although there is no surviving correspondence or other commentary to confirm the
relationship, the circumstantial evidence is very strong. Lovell, a native of Boston and a
fellow New Englander, had graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1811, the class
ahead of Sewall. Lovell shared similar opinions with Sewall on a number of important
health and medical issues. Serving as the Surgeon General of the United States from
1818 until his death in 1836, Lovell supported Dr. William Beaumont’s famous study of
the digestive processes. Lovell encouraged Beaumont’s study in 1822 of a military
patient with an unhealed wound to the stomach. The study allowed Beaumont to observe
the digestive process. It was a controversial study, but given its subject and premise of
49 Ibid., 1 4 -1 5 .
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 1 4
scientific methodology, Sewall almost certainly followed it with interest. The experiment
prefigured the studies that Sewall would undertake in the following years on the effects
of alcohol on the stomach and other organs. Sewall and Lovell also supported each other
on health issues for U.S. soldiers. In pronouncements reminiscent of Benjamin Rush’s
treatise on “Preserving the Health of the Soldiers,” Lovell encouraged changes in the
soldiers’ diet to include more vegetables and bread, and to eliminate hard liquor from the
rations. Under his leadership the military substituted other drinks such as molasses and
beer for hard liquor.50
In addition to his professional duties, Sewall practiced medicine in Washington
for the next twenty years, seeing both public charity patients and private patients. As was
common in medicine at this time, the hospital was a place of last resort, entered by those
who had no means of being cared for at home. The poor went there out of desperation.51
Charity patients appeared daily at the entrance of the Washington Infirmary near the
medical school. If they could afford it, they paid the steward a very small fee for room
and board, and then were treated by the attending doctors, led by Sewall, for free.52
Sewall frequently quoted Rush, one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, about
the moral obligation to treat the poor. He said, “I esteem the poor my most profitable
patients, for God is their pay-master.”53 There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his
remark, but it is also true that patients who died poor and alone provided an uncontested
50 Mary C. Gillett, “Joseph Lovell,” American National Biography (New York: Oxford U.Press, 1999), v 14, 13-14.
51 Starr, 72-73.
52 Kayser, 54.
53 Ibid., 21.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 15
supply of postmortem material. Hospital records give no mention of autopsies, but
SewalPs commitment to explore anatomy in all ways possible, including the use of
autopsies, indicates that he must have made use of available cadavers.
In addition to the poor patients at the Asylum, Sewall saw private patients. His
leadership position in the medical school increased his prestige and enhanced his
reputation, making it easier to build a private practice. He treated the elite, among them
his friend and sponsor, Senator Daniel Webster. Apparently, he was well regarded by his
patients. Webster wrote favorably of his care under Sewall in a letter to his (Webster’s)
new wife.54 A letter from another of his patients illustrates the high regard his patients
felt for him. Stephen Olin’s wrote a letter to SewalPs son in 1845 that testified glowingly
to the care he received from Sewall over many years. He commended Sewall for his
wisdom in selecting treatments from 1833 onwards, although he gives no specific
information about the treatments that he received. In addition, he praised SewalPs
dedication and Christian character. In a cryptic reference, Olin also referred to the many
trials and challenges that Sewall faced, including “mental struggles and spiritual
warfare.” Olin wrote that Sewall “won the victory through faith in the blood of Christ.
Thank God for the testimony of such a man.” 55 Again, we are given no specifics, but we
do know that SewalPs temperance stance was not universally accepted in his profession,
nor was it completely accepted by the general public.
54 Charles M.Wiltse, ed., The Papers o f Daniel Webster, Correspondence (Hanover, NH: Darmouth College, 1976) v 4, 94.
55 Stephen Olin, letter to Thomas Sewall, Baltimore, Md, May 15, 1845. Condolences to the Rev. Thomas Sewall, Methodist minister, upon the death o f his father, Dr. Thomas Sewall. Manuscript Collection, George Washington Library Special Collections.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 1 6
Sewall made his first public statement on temperance in his commencement
address to the medical students on March 22, 1827. In the absence of the president of the
college, Sewall spoke on his behalf as well as the medical school. He used the
opportunity to speak persuasively and unequivocally to advocate the temperance
message:
“[t]here is no subject, gentlemen, on which I would entreat you with more earnestness than upon this. It is a rock on which many of our profession have foundered, a whirlpool into which many of them have been drawn.”56
Sewall appealed to the students as equals. He observed that their profession in general
was at risk. Their elite status offered them no special protection from the danger of
intemperance. His use of the metaphor of the whirlpool indicates that he understood that
the force of drinking could take down someone against his will. Sewall had identified
progressive intemperance as a destructive force over which the victim, once he had
succumbed, had no control.
He emphasized the responsibilities that the students would be assuming, because
the profession “will place you in a commanding attitude, and give you an influence in
society far beyond the scene of your personal labors.” It would appear that Sewall
viewed his work as a physician with idealism and serious dedication. He next spoke of
the professional ethics of medicine, stating that even if he had to risk his career, he must
never resort to falsehood. At this point, one is reminded of his grave-robbing charge and
how he did not attempt to evade it, but accepted the consequences of his deeds. He
continued by saying that “the intelligent, honorable, and high-minded physician.. .needs
56 Thomas Sewall, A Charge Delivered to the Graduating Class o f the Columbian College, D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827 (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1828), 9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 17
not resort to falsehood to shelter him from the charge of error or the want of skill. He
desires not to augment the difficulty of his cases, or to enhance the importance of his
cures.” Furthermore, he observed that while it is “proper for the physician to encourage
the hopes of his patient and dissipate his fears” that it is never right to lie to a sick man.57
At the center of his remarks, he devoted the most time and energy in warning the
students of the dangers of alcohol, specifically naming ardent spirits. Sewall advised the
students to “observe strict temperance in the use of ardent spirit,” indicating that he was
advocating not moderation but complete avoidance. Further reading of the address
confirms his stance — he advocated complete abstinence, because of the danger
involved. He advised them to refuse the perennially offered glass as they made their calls
and engaged in social events.' After a while their patients and acquaintances would cease
to make offers and would accept their temperance stance. The tone of his remarks was
serious, pleading, and persuasive, as if he thought their very life depended upon it. He
spoke of the particular risk that physicians fall under—“the habits and the occupation ofro
the physician expose him peculiarly to the vice of intemperance.”
Despite his reference to the “vice of intemperance,” his tone was non
moralizing. Sewall appealed to reason. He outlined a list of reasons why they should
shun alcohol. Besides the danger to themselves, there was the danger to their patients.
So many people suffer from intemperance. If they, as physicians, take a temperance
position, they will be in a position to influence others. Sewall also noted that as
physicians they must always “preserve your minds in that unclouded state, which may
57 Ibid., 3-5.
58 Ibid., 9-10.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 18
render you equally able at all times to pronounce on the cases you may be called to
investigate.”59 This observation, like his entire temperance message, has the mark of
someone who speaks from experience. We do not know if his experience is personal or
professional, but the specificity and practical tone effectively conveys his message.
His remarks lack the tone of moral indignation and denunciation that is often
found in temperance literature. He was intent upon outlining to the students the course
that produces a drunkard, an insidious process that occurs slowly and imperceptibly.
Although Sewall did not use the term addiction,60 he described a condition consistent
with the modem terminology. There is no mention of moral failing, or a willful neglect
of propriety. SewalPs description had the same quality of clinical detachment, describing
the course of a disease, similar to what one finds in Benjamin Rush’s work61:
Recollect that no person ever became a drunkard at once. In almost every case the progress is slow and imperceptible, and probably no one ever felt the least apprehension of danger when he began to fall. But he advances by degrees, and at every step his path become more steep, and every day adds a new and a stronger link to the chain that binds him beyond the hope of deliverance.62
SewalPs message conveyed the concept of compulsive use. He described a process that
occurred over time, was unintended, and ultimately would become a trap. He
59 Ibid., 10.
60 The word addiction was a term infrequently used during this period. When used it usually meant “devoted to” in the sense of a pastime or hobby. The current definition o f addiction, meaning an uncontrollable, compulsive process that takes over one’s life, was in the early stages o f development during the nineteenth century. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) v 1, 142- 143.
61For a citation o f Rush’s Moral Thermometer, a sort o f primitive progression chart o f addiction, see W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic (NY: Oxford U. Press, 1979), 44.
62 Sewall, 1827 Address, 9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 1 9
emphasized the hopelessness of the process once it took hold. In Sewall’s view there was
no reversing the process or initiating a cure. For him, the drunkard who was in the vortex
of the “whirlpool,” there was no reversal, no ability to return to his former control. Yet
he did not condemn the drunkard. He disassociated the man from the resulting behavior.
His non-condemnatory tone is consistent with his view of chronic intemperance as a
health problem, not a moral failing. Even though he had not used the term addiction, he
described conditions associated with addiction, a destructive state, with a known cause
and course of development.
Sewall expressed his views forcefully and without qualification. We do not
know how his remarks were received, or if he in any way put himself at risk by
expressing his views. Presumably his position as the president of the medical school
gave him the ability to express his views fully. Yet we know that not all doctors agreed
with him. Temperance was still a minority view in the medical profession. As a
physician who occupied a prestigious and respected place in the medical community and
the community at large, he was insulated from any negative repercussions from his strong
temperance stance. Apparently, he also felt that he could point out the problems that
many of his profession had with their drinking habits.
At this point one wonders about Sewall’s personal conduct and practice. Did he
practice in his private life what he recommended publicly? Information about his
personal life is scant, but we do have some surviving letters that describe Sewall’s
Washington household and lifestyle. According to letters written by a close observer of
the family, in the 1840s intellectuals, scientists, and political leaders frequently gathered
at Sewall’s house. Among the visitors were the writer Sir Charles Lyell, the naturalist
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
120
Audubon, the inventor of the telegraph Samuel Morse, senators, congressmen, and
judges. Dolley Madison attended at nearly age eighty, elegant in her turban. The letters
describe a brilliant, yet sedate, and decidedly sober company:
It was usual to receive company, especially gentlemen, in the afternoon and evening. Very frequently a dozen or more would assemble in our parlor.It was desirable not to interrupt the conversations going on amid the various groups. Therefore the servants would quietly pass their trays around with a cup of tea or coffee, and some light refreshment could be taken in the hand without hindrance to the flow of talk.. .Ah me! The delight of listening to such minds has left me hungry ever since.63
During this period Sewall needed someone to head his house, not as a
housekeeper or servant, but as a hostess and social equal. A distant relative, an elegant
elderly woman, came to fill that role. Sewall referred to her as “Aunt.” With Aunt
Sewall serving as hostess, SewalTs household participated in the Washington culture of
the salon, most likely not with the typical gaiety of the Washington society, but with
quiet dignity. Aunt Sewall was the grandmother of Margaret Cruickshank, the writer of
the letters. Cruikshank’s letters do not mention Sewall’s wife, Mary, only his son. This
raises questions about what happened to his wife. There is no evidence of a separation or
divorce. Perhaps she was ill, or perhaps she had to care for a sick family member. I
continue to search for information on Sewall’s wife, Mary Choate Sewall. She outlived
him and died in Rockville, Maryland, in 1855. It is not clear if his son, Thomas, lived
with him, as he would have been twenty-two in 1840. His son became a Methodist
minister in later years.64
63The letter is undated, but from the information given about Dolley Madison we can determine the period to be in the mid 1840s. Margaret E. Cruickshank, Two reminiscences relating to Dr. Sewall’s household in Washington, D.C., undated, Manuscript Material Collection, Library o f Congress.
64 R. Webster, letter.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
121
Sewall’s relationship with his brother-in-law, Rufus Choate, seems to have been
cordial. Sewall had tutored Choate when he had boarded with the family in Ipswich.
Choate lived at Sewall’s house at some point during his congressional career, although
the period of his residence is not clear from his letters. Several surviving letters to Sewall
from Choate show an amicable relationship with Sewall, but a strained relation with his
sister in 1825, only a few years after her marriage to Sewall. There were persistent
rumors of Rufus’ drug addiction, but no proof.65
During this period Sewall remained interested in the alcohol question. In 1830,
two years after his temperance address to the medical school, Sewall gave a speech that
gives invaluable insight into the progression of his thinking about alcohol, a term he used
for the first time in a public setting. He addressed the Washington City Temperance
Society on the occasion of their first anniversary on November 15, 1830. In the text of
this speech, Sewall cited the harmful effects of intemperance on the morals, intellect, and
physical health of the drinker. In this respect, giving the three-fold analysis of the effects
of intemperance, Sewall echoed the treatises and teaching of Benjamin Rush more than
two decades earlier. Although Sewall did not attribute Rush’s influence, it is
unmistakable. But in this address Sewall added a new dimension to the indictment
against intemperance. He used new language and new concepts for the physical effects.66
For the first time, at least publicly, in this speech Sewall used the term alcohol
as he described the physiological effects of drinking. He was able to identify the
65 Letters from Rufus Choate (1799-1859) to Thomas Sewall, Darmouth Manuscript Collection. Choate’s biographer Samuel Brown denied the rumors o f his addiction to opium. Samuel Brown, The Works o f Rufus Choate, with a Memoir o f His Life (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1862), v 1, 314.
66 Tho. Sewall, An Address, etc.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
122
“alcoholic principle,” in referring to the composition of not only “ardent spirit” but also
fermented drinks, specifically citing wines. Sewall now comprehended that the chemical
component, alcohol, was the same in intoxicating drinks, both distilled and fermented.
He quoted the experiments of the “celebrated French Physiologist, Magendie” in
demonstrating the physical presence of alcohol in the body: “He [Franqois Magendie]
ascertained that diluted alcohol, a solution of camphor, and some other odorous
substances, when subjected to the absorbing power of the veins, are taken up by them,
and after mingling with the blood, pass off by the pulmonary exhalants.”67 Sewall also
referred to a study by Dr. Nish, an obscure reference, at least to current historians of
medicine and temperance, that demonstrates that “[t]he perspirable matter which passes
off from the skin becomes charged with the odour of alcohol in the drunkard, and is so far
changed in some cases as to furnish evidence of the kind of spirit drank.. .1 have met with
two instances, says Dr. Nish, the one in a claret, and the other in a port drinker, in which
the moisture that exhaled from their bodies, had a ruddy complexion, similar to the wine
on which they had committed their debauch.”68 Nish’s experiments lacked scientific
rigor and his results, if Sewall had attempted to replicate them, would have failed
scrutiny, yet the idea of the physical component of alcohol and its effects represented a
significant change. This new view represented the first rumblings of a Kuhnian paradigm
shift in scientific thinking regarding alcohol. Sewall, along with other scientists, had
identified alcohol as an identifiable substance with specific chemical effects.
67 Ibid., 8.
68 Ibid., 8.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
123
Sewall continued his remarks to the assembled members of the temperance
society, launching into a full-scale, detailed account of the effects of alcohol upon every
part and organ of the body. Again, his descriptions are reminiscent of Dr. Rush, but
much more detailed and based upon autopsy reports. He observed, “The whole system
soon bears marks of debility and decay,” and proceeded to describe his observations of
the muscles, joints, complexion, eyes, nose, etc. and the general “bloating” of the body.
As if he were lecturing to medical students, Sewall gave extensive detail of autopsy
findings of “inebriates” on the stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, brain, heart, and lungs.
For example, he noted “morbid changes in the liver.. .schrivelled, indurated” and cited
the “chronic inflammation of the brain.” He cited a case from the streets of London
where a man died after drinking a quantity of gin. When his body was dissected at the
Westminster Hospital, the ventricles of his brain reportedly contained alcohol.69
In his presentation to the Temperance Society, Sewall described the effects of
alcohol upon the stomach. He cited the cases of drunkards, giving detailed physical
findings. He held forth at length, describing in explicit detail the color, condition, and
physical appearance of the stomach and other affected organs. The graphic nature of his
descriptions was consistent with actual dissection. At the end of his lengthy description,
Sewall removed all doubt about his activities. He said, “I have never dissected the
stomach of a drunkard, in which the organ did not manifest some remarkable deviation
from its healthy condition.”70 It is now obvious what he had been doing in his dissecting
69 Ibid., 11-12.
70 Ibid., 10.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 2 4
lab on the top floor of the medical school. He had been conducting autopsies on expired
drunkards. He had been studying the physical effects of alcohol on the human body.
Sewall was not an elitist in his temperance stance. In his 1830 address Sewall
declared that intemperance affected “every class of society” equally— the rich and the
poor, the educated and the uneducated, those from “the cottage and the palace.”
Intemperance “stalked within the very walls of our Capitol,” and has “dragged down” its
victims from the clergy. We know from his previous address that he regarded physicians
to be particularly at risk. No profession, either high or low was spared. Yet he obviously
missed one crucial component of society, women. Apparently Sewall did not perceive
that women could develop the condition of intemperance. All of his vocabulary refers to
“men” and uses the masculine pronouns. One explanation might be offered that he used
the generic masculine case to refer to all people, meaning both men and women.
However, Sewall negates this explanation by his next statement. He calls upon “the
female sex of our country” to join the fight against alcohol: “mothers, wives, and
daughters.. .1 invoke your aid.”71 It is also possible that Sewall did indeed know of cases
of women inebriates, but his nineteenth-century sense of chivalry and propriety prevented
his identifying them.
Also in this address Sewall opposed the medical profession’s prevailing view
that alcohol served as a beneficial medicine. He decried the medicinal use of what he
regarded as poison and as worse than useless in treating illness. According to Sewall, it
was bad enough that quacks and charlatans used alcohol as treatment, but it was even
71 Ibid., 23.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
12 5
more offensive that regular doctors should prescribe it. He lamented, “[t]his opinion has
slain its thousands and its tens of thousands, and multitudes of dram-drinkers daily shelter
79themselves under its delusive mask.”
SewalPs address to the City Temperance Society received wide distribution.
The American Temperance Society printed the entire address and circulated it through
the American Tract Society. The Journal o f Humanity, a popular temperance journal,
also made the address available to its readership for free and to others for a modest cost.
According to the March 1831 issue of the Journal o f Humanity, “[w]e are glad to learn
that this valuable Address [Thomas Sewall’s address to the City Temperance Society] has
been stereotyped by the American Tract Society. It may now be procured, in any
quantity, at about two cents a copy.” An edition of 10,000 copies was made immediately
available without charge to Journal subscribers.73
Sewall moved to a new level of public visibility in 1833 when he addressed the
first official meeting of the Congressional Temperance Society. The U.S. Congress had
held a preliminary meeting in the spring of 1832 to consider forming such a society.
Several members of Congress enthusiastically supported forming the Congressional
Temperance Society. At the preliminary meeting the Democratic-controlled Congress
had heard an address by the Reverend Justin Edwards on the evils of ardent spirits. Even
though Edwards was an old-style Federalist, his temperance message received bi-partisan
support Lewis Cass, Secretary of War under the Democratic presidential administration,
72 Ibid., 20.
73 Journal o f Humanity and Herald o f the American Temperance Society, March 3, 1831 (Andover, Mass: Flagg & Gould, printers, 1831) vol. 2, no. 93, 161 -163.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 2 6
supported forming a society. Cass himself was a total abstainer from alcohol. Later that
year, in November, he ordered eliminating the army’s liquor ration and replaced it with
coffee and sugar. A number of congressmen were eager to join the temperance effort,
including Senators Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, Senator Felix Grundy of Tennessee,
and even Sewall’s friend Senator Daniel Webster, not known for his opposition to liquor.
In fact, Senator Webster even offered a resolution endorsing the new society, but his
support for temperance would later diminish.74
Thus, in February 1833 the Congressional Temperance Society was officially
established, with its stated purpose “[b]y example and kind moral influence to
discountenance the use of ardent spirits and traffic in it.” Perhaps many joined not from
personal conviction, but for political reasons. The members came from both parties,
slightly more Whig than Democrat, and from all sections of the country, but with a
disproportionate number from New England and the Middle Atlantic states. This was the
powerful and influential group who heard Sewall’s lecture.75
Sewall presented his findings from his autopsies to the Congressional
Temperance Society, as he had three years earlier at the City Temperance meeting. He
also gave the same anti-alcohol message that he had previously presented. He warned of
the progressive nature of the physical and mental effects of alcohol on the habitual
drinker. But at the Congressional meeting he had additional, more compelling evidence.
In addition to his description of his findings and his medical views on the subject of
alcohol, he had visual aids. He presented a series of illustrations of his stomach
74 Webster’s letters show him not friendly to temperance in 1843 , Correspondence, v5, 310.
75 Krout, 138 -37; Furnas, 57; Lender and Martin, 73 - 74; Pegram, 22 -23; 32.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 2 7
dissections. The colored plates were drawn to show the appearance of the stomach in
autopsies that he had conducted. Drawn from specimens from the dissecting lab, the
illustrations were accurate and realistic. They showed the anatomical detail of the
subjects and included the dissecting instruments. Intended to demonstrate the
progression of the effects of alcohol, the dissected stomachs came from abstainers,
moderate drinkers, and drunkards.76
Sewall presented lectures and evidence as compellingly as possible, hoping that
they would serve as sobering evidence of the seriousness of his message. His temperance
message was substantively different from that of other temperance advocates. His
message was based not upon the evils of the vice of drinking or the sinful nature of the
drinker. Sewall confronted a health problem, one based upon a specific substance that
had specific consequences for physical and mental health. He viewed intemperance from
a new perspective and he presented new information indicating the addictive,
progressively harmful effects of the substance alcohol.77
Whether or not his message was effective in changing attitudes about alcohol is
debatable, but his lectures and drawings received wide circulation. Sewall’s stomach
drawings were later published by Edward Delavan of Albany, New York, a retired
businessman and temperance promoter. He published about 150,000 of the diagrams, in
76 The illustrations consisted o f a set o f six dissected stomachs: 1) “Healthful,” 2)”Moderate Drinking,” 3) “Drunkards,” 4) “Ulcerous,” 5) “After a long debauch,” and 6) “Death by Delerium [sic] Tremens.” The drawings showed the progressive deterioration o f the stomach from pale and smooth to heavily veined, mottled, and finally dark and tumorous. Sewall regarded the progressive stomach pathology to be only one indication o f the increasing damage done by alcohol. Kobler, 103.
77 In addition to the Krout, Furnas, Lender and Martin, etc. reference, see Kobler, Ardent Spirits, 103. For an example o f the condemnatory, evangelical temperance argument, see the six sermons from 1826 o f Lyman Beecher, “Drunkenness is a sin which excludes from Heaven.” Kobler, 54.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
12 8
color. He planned to place the diagrams as educational aids in New York schools.
191Sewall’s works were published in Europe in 1840s, and translated into German.
Sewall disliked the pseudo-science of phrenology. He publicly opposed Dr.
Charles Caldwell and the phrenology theory in lectures and a published essay in 1837.
Sewall was outspoken against phrenology, saying the theory was inaccurate and not
based on scientific observation. He said that trying to understand the human mind by
looking at the skull was like trying to judge a jewel by its case.79 One gets the distinct
impression that had Sewall not been so busy dissecting stomachs, he would have liked to
dissect brains Perhaps he did so, but did not publish the results.
Sewall died in 1845 at age fifty-nine after attending the funeral and burial of his
friend Senator Bates of Massachusetts. It was a cold, raw day in March at the
Congressional Cemetery where Bates was buried. Sewall died three weeks later of a lung
infection.80 The faculty of the Columbia Medical Department wore black arm bands for
the next thirty days to show their grief for the loss of their leader.81
Sewall was a scientist first and foremost. His temperance views, although
strongly held, seemed always to be subjugated to his scientific method. His fascination
with the chemical effects of alcohol upon the mind and body led him to conduct
experiments to further explore the process. He became convinced that alcohol posed a
serious health risk to the drinker. He considered the physiological effects caused by
78 Kobler, 103; Lender and Martin, 110.
79 Thomas Sewall, An examination o f phrenology; in two lectures, delivered to the students o f the Columbian College, District o f Columbia, February, 1837 (Washington, D.C: B. Homans, printer, 1837).
80 Margaret Cruickshank, undated letter, Library o f Congress Manuscript Division.
81 Minutes o f the Columbia Medical Department Board, 1845, George Washington Archives.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 2 9
alcohol as well as the behavioral effects upon the individual drinker. He found that once
the intemperate process took hold of the drinker, the force, “ a whirlpool,” would become
irresistible. The process advanced “by degrees” and destroyed health, careers, and lives.
Although he did not use the term addiction, he described certain phenomena consistent
with addiction. We do not know which cases he had in mind — they may have been
patients, colleagues, relatives, or friends— but we can be sure that he referred to specific
and compelling evidence. Dr. Sewall made a habit of drawing his conclusions from
evidence.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER V
REUBEN MUSSEY, PIONEERING SURGEON
AND ARDENT TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE
On a day late in the spring term of 1809, a young student of medicine sat
submerged in a bath of madder, a strong chemical dye. Three pounds of madder,
rubia tinctorum, dissolved in water covered most of his body, including his arms and
legs. Although the experiment posed a potential danger to his health, he was
undeterred in his objective. The student was Reuben Mussey, conducting research for
his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He would
later become one of the foremost physicians of his time, famous for his experimental
surgical techniques. He would also turn his scientific interest to the effect of alcohol
upon the body and gain a reputation in the temperance cause as one of its foremost
advocates, as had his medical professor Benjamin Rush. But unlike Rush, Mussey
would move the investigation of the temperance issue to a more exacting level of
scientific inquiry and away from earlier attitudes about the nature of the intemperate
drinker.
Mussey remained immersed in the madder solution for almost three hours.
He was willing to risk damage to his health, or at the very least, his appearance, in
order to prove the absorptive nature of the skin. He thought that madder seemed a
good choice because it would certainly stain his skin and if his experiment succeeded,
130
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
131
it would also change the color of his urine.1 It was almost incidental that his
experiment would fulfill the graduation requirement for a medical thesis from the
Pennsylvania Medical College. Others had graduated with a thesis far less rigorous,
and without conducting laboratory experiments. Moreover, he already had a medical
degree from Dartmouth College. Obviously he had greater aspirations than the
ordinary medical student.
The young doctor, Reuben Dimond Mussey (1780-1866), already exhibited
traits that would lead him to contribute to advances in surgery and medicine, as well
as in his other interest, the temperance cause. During his career he pioneered
numerous surgical advances, among them, advances in cancer surgery, orthopedics,
and urological procedures. He promoted the early use of anesthesia, using ether and
chloroform as soon as they became available in the 1840s.2 While still developing his
medical career, he became a champion of the temperance cause, advancing theories of
the addictive powers of alcohol, and applying methods of experimental science to the
substance alcohol. Like his colleague Thomas Sewall, he would bring his spirit of
disciplined medical inquiry to advance the temperance cause. He became, as did
Sewall, a persuasive advocate for temperance, drawing upon his scientific orientation
and clinical skills. By the midpoint of his life and career he had helped to define a
new concept regarding alcohol abuse and its effects, using the new language and
'Reuben D. Mussey, “Experiments and Observations on Cutaneous Absorption,” The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal v 3 (Aug 1808): 288-302; “Biographical Sketch o f R.D. Mussey, M.D.,” Western Lancet 17 (1856): 309-310.
2 His professional peers considered him to be a “great surgeon.” John B. Hamilton, M.D., “Life and Times o f Doctor Reuben D. Mussey,” The Journal o f the American Medical Association 26, no. 14 (April 4, 1896): 649-652.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
13 2
conceptual approach of the temperance physicians. Both endeavors, surgery and
temperance, would require determination and a willingness to take risk, traits that
Mussey exhibited in abundance.
Mussey’s experiment with the chemical bath demonstrated determination,
courage, and a willingness to challenge authority. He emerged from the chemical
bath and was pleased to note that the madder had indeed stained his skin.
Furthermore, for the next two days his urine was turned bright red. As soon as he
saw the color of his urine, he knew his experiment had worked. He had intended to
prove his hypothesis of cutaneous absorption, contrary to the commonly held theory
of non-absorption through the skin. All his professors at the medical school in
Philadelphia, even the highly exalted Benjamin Rush, taught the accepted theory of
non-absorption.3 By disproving the conventional theory, Mussey had added to
scientific knowledge, and also helped to make a name for himself as an original
thinker. In the course of his life and work he would often prove the old guard wrong,
rejecting ideas based upon tradition rather than rigorous scientific research. He
sought out new ideas and looked for cause and effect in medical science. Even in this
experiment from his early career, he predicated his findings on evidence-based
research, writing that “our opinions should be fixed by experiment alone.”4
Despite the dramatic results of young Mussey’s experiment on absorption,
not all the medical community in Philadelphia accepted his new theory. Mussey
3 Western Lancet, 309-310; Reuben D. Mussey, Experiments and Observations on Cutaneous Absorption (T&G Palmer: Philadelphia, 1809).
4 Mussey, Cutaneous Absorption, 289.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
133
repeated his experiment with a solution of rhubarb, showing that rhubarb, like
madder, was undeniably detected in the urine. He repeated his experiment with
additional substances: indigo, amotto, redwood, and other potentially toxic
substances, including nutgall, a component of ink. Nutgall had a highly astringent
effect that proved to be especially dangerous. Mussey soaked for three hours in a
nutgall solution, followed by three hours in a solution of sulphate of iron. On
emerging from the six hours’ immersion, no ink was found in the urine. Intent on
showing internal effect, Mussey opened a vein, but found that his blood would not
easily flow. His blood had almost coagulated. He fainted, probably as a result of
lowered blood circulation and decreased blood pressure. It took days for him to
recover from the harmful effects of the nutgall experiment.5
At the Pennsylvania medical school, proponents of the conventional theory
of non-absorption opposed Mussey’s experimental findings. These students, whose
identities have long since been obscured, defended the theories they had learned from
their professors, among them Benjamin Rush and Chapman. They pronounced that
Mussey’s experiments were flawed, that the substances had entered the body through
“other bodily outlets” and not through the skin. They then attempted to disprove
Mussey’s findings by plastering up the “bodily outlets,” an indignity for the
participants, who cooperated for the sake of medical science. After the plastering
preparations, the participants soaked first in the madder solution and then in the
rhubarb solution. Despite their precautions, madder and rhubarb were still detectable
in the urine. Discounting the evidence, the traditionalists concluded that madder and
5 Western Lancet, 310-311.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 3 4
rhubarb were unusually “penetrating” and continued to reject Mussey’s theory of skin
absorption. It was left to Mussey’s friend and brother-in-law, Thomas Sewall, to
definitively prove the absorptive nature of human skin.6 Sewall conducted an
experiment from his home and office in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He immersed his
hand and wrist for periods of eight hours in a madder bath. No orifice of his body
was exposed to the dye, yet plenty of madder was found in the urine.7
This account from the early career of Reuben Mussey gives an insight into
the changing world of medical science and education of the period. The tenacity of
the proponents of traditional theory illustrates the -transitional state of medicine, the
tug-of-war between the old accepted ways and the new laboratory science. The
traditionalists adhered to outdated theory in the face of compelling laboratory
evidence to the contrary. But increasingly and relentlessly, many long-held theories
of medicine conflicted with experiments conducted in laboratories using more
rigorous scientific method. Eventually, evidence-based science would become the
norm, but in the early nineteenth century scientists like Mussey regularly made new
discoveries and just as often encountered resistance.
The account also gives insight into Mussey’s personality and motivation.
Although a young man at the start of his career, the incident foreshadows the
determined surgeon he would become, respected for his daring and skill. Mussey
appreciated the value of tradition and education, as demonstrated in his pursuit of
6 Mussey married Mary Sewall, Thomas Sewall’s sister, in 1805 when he was twenty-five. They lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Mary died, possibly from tuberculosis, several years later in May 1807. She was twenty-four years old. They had no children. Henry Thomas Sewall, Thomas Sewall; some o f his Ancestors and all o f his Descendants: A Genealogy (Gardiner, Maine, 1904), 4.
7 Western Lancet, 311.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 35
formal medical credentials. Yet he was willing to subject accepted beliefs to
experimental methods and seemed even eager to counter accepted theories in the
medical profession. Consistent with his visionary and risk-taking persona, Mussey
recognized the value of the discovery of anesthesia soon after its discovery and
helped to spread its use. He successfully performed surgeries never before attempted,
among them the removal of an osteo-sarcoma (cancerous tumor) of the shoulder bladeo
and collarbone.
Mussey made similar, path-breaking contributions in the field of alcohol and
other substance abuse. His scientific approach in studying alcohol was two-fold: first,
he considered the physical effects of the substance alcohol and secondly, he studied
its potentially addictive effects upon the drinker. As he developed in his medical
career, he promoted new ideas about the nature of alcohol, both as a substance and
also in its effects upon the human body. As he became convinced of the harmful
effects of alcohol upon the drinker, both the physical and mental effects, he became a
vocal advocate for the temperance cause. He employed his scientific research
abilities to examine the progressively damaging effects of alcohol use. Ultimately he
advocated total abstinence from all forms of alcohol, even opposing the medicinal use
of alcohol prevalent during his era. Although many physicians joined temperance
societies, in the nineteenth century the medical profession as a whole did not endorse
temperance. On the contrary, the medical profession approved of moderate use of
* American Journal o f Medical Science 21 (Philadelphia, 1837): 390-94.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 3 6
alcohol and employed alcohol as a medicine.9 How did Mussey come to adopt these
new ideas about alcohol and intemperance, opposing conventional attitudes?
For insight into the development of Mussey’s ideas on alcohol and
temperance, we turn to some relevant features of his life and writings. One could not
predict from his early life as the child of a poor country physician in rural Pelham,
New Hampshire, that Reuben Mussey would grow up to make major contributions in
medicine. But an alternate way of considering his background is that his early
formation in a hard-working, simple family contributed to his work ethic and his
practical orientation toward solving problems. Despite their limited financial
resources, John and Beulah Mussey supported their son by moving to Amherst so he
could attend the district school during winters. Although John Mussey had not
attended medical school and practiced medicine without formal medical education, he
knew Latin well enough to teach his son Latin at home. At age fifteen, equipped with
his home education, Mussey entered the academy in Amherst. He continued to work
to help pay his educational expenses throughout college and medical school, working
as a hired hand on a farm in summers and also teaching school from age sixteen in
Peterborough, New Hampshire.10
9 For a general discussion o f the medical profession’s view of temperance and alcohol, see Chapter Three, “The Transitional State o f American Medicine.”
10 General biographical data on Reuben D. Mussey (1780-1866) derived from the following sources: “Reuben Dimond Mussey,” National Cyclopedia o f American Biography 9 (New York 1899): 91-92; Olive Hoogenboom, “Reuben Dimond Mussey,” American National Biography 16 (New York: Oxford Press 1999): 190-191; “Reuben Dimond Mussey,” Dictionary o f American Biography 13 (New York 1934): 372-73.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 3 7
At the age of twenty-one Mussey entered the junior class at Dartmouth.
Two years later he graduated in the upper academic level of his class. He continued
his study and practice of medicine as an apprentice with Nathan Smith, a highly
respected doctor and founder of the Dartmouth Medical School. Mussey studied
under Dr. Smith except for summers when teaching at Petersborough. While there he
studied under Dr. Howe of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. After fours years of intermittent
study under Smith at Dartmouth, in August 1805 he received the degree of Bachelor
of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School. As part of his graduation requirement
he defended a thesis on dysentery. Immediately after graduation from Dartmouth
Medical School, Mussey began his practice in Ipswich (or Essex), Massachusetts.
Also in that year he married Mary Sewall, sister of his colleague Thomas Sewall, who
also was practicing in Ipswich.11 Mary died three years later, probably as a result of
tuberculosis, a disease she had contracted earlier in life.12 After her death, Mussey
enrolled in classes at the medical college of the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. He left his Ipswich practice in the capable hands of his friend and
brother-in-law, Sewall. While studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,
Mussey conducted his bold experiments proving the absorptive nature of skin. After
studying in Philadelphia for nine months, Mussey earned his second medical degree
11 Mussey and his wife were members o f the Congregational Church in Ipswich, according to the church records for 1806. The US GenWeb Project, www.rootsweb.com. Congregational Church Members, 1681-1937, p. 2-4, accessed May 1, 2003.
12 In 1813, six years after the death o f Mary, Mussey married Mehitable “Hetty” Osgood, the daughter o f Dr. Joseph Osgood, an army surgeon in Salem, Mass. National Cyclopedia, 92.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 38
in 1809. Despite initial resistance to Mussey’s work, the medical school accepted his
1 ̂thesis on skin absorption as fulfilling one of the requirements for the M.D.
While still a young man, Mussey adopted personally temperate habits. He
decided to go against the common practice of drinking ardent spirits. Apparently he
tried drinking and decided to give it up for a sober life-style. According to Crosby, he
gave up ardent spirits while still a college student:
Even in his college days he abandoned, after a brief trial, the practice, then so universal as to have required all a young man’s courage in its breach, of keeping ardent spirit to counteract the bad effect of water upon himself and friends. Ever since he had a wonderful power of conforming his life to his convictions, however strenuous, and, as it seems now in looking back, a more liberal growth of conviction late in life.. .He was ready.. .to receive new truths, and if they called for action, to act upon them, even to the alteration of fixed habits.14
Mussey’s study at the medical college in Philadelphia exposed him to the
teaching of Benjamin Rush, who was in his final years there before his death.
Although there are no extant lectures notes or personal notes of Mussey to confirm
specifically his medical educational experiences in Philadelphia, we do know that in
1809 Rush’s influence was at its zenith. No doubt Mussey encountered Rush’s
teaching and thinking on “ardent spirits” and his temperance views. We can surmise
that at an early stage in his career he would have at least been impressed with the
significance of the burgeoning alcohol issue. Rush expressed his views on
intemperance in both moral and physical terms, closely relating the two. Rush had by
1809 published numerous statements and treatises on intemperance, campaigning
13 Western Lancet, 310; Hoogenboom, 190.
14 A. B. Crosby, “Eulogy on Reuben Dimond Mussey, M.D.” in The Transaction o f the New- Hampshire Medical Society, Concord, New Hampshire, 1869, 75.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 1 3 9
against “ardent spirits” and the moral failings that intemperance caused. Rush’s
moral and physical thermometer promoted the idea of the progressive nature of the
downward decline of the drinker. Because it was a crude and not especially scientific
approach, Rush’s theory of intemperance may not have resonated with Mussey’s
more rational approach. Since Mussey had already challenged the traditional
teachings of Pennsylvania medical professors in his experiments upon cutaneous
absorption, there is reason to assume that he would have subjected Rush’s teachings
on intemperance to the same scrutiny. Nevertheless, the notion of the danger of
intemperance had been introduced to Mussey at an impressionable age in his medical
career.
At his first clinical position after his graduation from Pennsylvania, Mussey
again encountered the alcohol issue. His early medical practice led him to the turf of
one of the first organized temperance societies, the Massachusetts Society for the
Suppression of Intemperance, or the MSSI. Immediately upon graduation, Mussey
had joined the practice of Daniel Oliver in Salem, Massachusetts. For next five years
the practice grew as Mussey rapidly gained a reputation as an expert surgeon.15
During his time in Salem, Mussey was associated with the Massachusetts Society for
the Suppression of Intemperance. Organized in Boston in 1813, the MSSI was one of
the earliest temperance societies, and the first statewide temperance society in the
nation. According to Robert Hampel, the leading authority on the MSSI, the
members of the organization came from the Boston elite. They were men of
15 Additionally, Mussey gave courses o f lectures on chemistry in Salem, the specific content of which is not extant. Hoogenboom, 190.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 4 0
established position, mostly ministers, merchants, and lawyers. Almost all were
Federalists, and from a traditional religious background, predominantly
Congregational and Unitarians. By 1815 a number of Massachusetts towns had
organized auxiliary societies of the MSSI. The membership requirement for local
MSSI societies was not as exclusive as for the central organization in Boston.16
Mussey had joined the MSSI at least by 1818, and perhaps even severali ' i
years earlier. A reputable secondary source reports that he joined the MSSI as a
founding member in 1813. If such is the case, he joined the MSSI during his years in
Salem, most likely not as a charter member of the central Boston committee, but as a
1 ftmember of an auxiliary committee. As a relatively new doctor in practice, Mussey
could have enrolled in the local MSSI society, where the members came from less
exalted social positions than the Boston elite. Although Mussey came from a simple
farm family background, his status as an educated physician would have made him a
welcome member of the MSSI.
Regardless of when he joined the MSSI, the organization most likely
received Mussey as they did other physician members, because of the medical
legitimacy that doctors could bring to the temperance cause. The MSSI employed the
16 Robert L. Hampel, Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982), 12-24.
17 The MSSI annual report for 1818 listed Reuben Mussey as a member. Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, Constitution o f the Massachusetts Society fo r the Suppression o f Intemperance, as revised and altered together with their annual report fo r the year 1818, and a list o f the officers and members o f said Society (Boston: Sewell Phelps, 1818), 28.
18 According to John Krout, Mussey helped to organize the MSSI, but as his name is not listed among the Boston founders, he most likely helped to organize an auxiliary society. John Allen Krout, The Origins o f Prohibition (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967), 146, note 56.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
141
rhetoric of morality and religion, entreating drunkards to repent of their drunkenness.
Despite their moral rhetoric, the organization welcomed the scientific endorsement
that the medical community conferred on the society. The MSSI never did set up a
means of distributing its message on a mass scale through publishing sermons,
addresses, or by other means, as did later temperance agencies. They relied mostly
on exerting their authority upon local workers and others over whom they could
exercise control. They turned to town officials to enforce liquor licensing laws and
laws against drunkenness.19 In the absence of mass distribution of the MSSI
message, it is unlikely that the rational message of physicians reached many through
the agency of the MSSI. Their message of rationality would reach only a limited
audience at that time.
Mussey’s membership in the MSSI did not necessarily mean that at that
time he adopted strict anti-alcohol ideas, but most likely he had a more committed
opposition to alcohol usage than the average member. The MSSI took an indefinite
stance on what constituted temperance. The MSSI mission statement opposed
excessive drinking, but did not address the issue of wines and fermented drinks.
Members were not required to practice abstinence. Taking a moralistic view of the
temperance question, the MSSI combined it with other moral issues of Sabbath-
breaking, smoking, and profanity. The MSSI described intemperance and
drunkenness in terms of “vice” and “evil.” They pronounced that if their views were
19 Hampel, 17-21.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 42
followed “much individual evil would be prevented.” They congratulated themselves
90that their society “has contributed in some degree to diminish these evils.”
The MSSI gave the message that the habits of the working class needed
oversight by a presumably sober elite. The whiff of self-righteousness and
condescension was all too apparent and almost certainly contributed to the limited
91success and eventual dissolution of the MSSI. Although the MSSI decried
excessive drinking by the working class and the poor, the organization did not look
too closely at the drinking habits of their own members. They often served wine at
their meetings, unconcerned with the apparent inconsistency. Their own members
were assumed to be exempt from any intemperance and were free to continue their
drinking habits, protected by their status in society. With an appalling lack of critical
self-insight, the MSSI opposed the “ardent spirits,” of the poor but perceived no
99difficulty with its members drinking Madeira and other expensive wines.
Mussey’s views, as he expressed them later in his life, went far beyond the
MSSI’s ambivalent attitude toward drinking. Regarding his personal drinking habits,
it is difficult to pinpoint the exact time at which Mussey decided to become an
abstainer. He eventually endorsed total abstinence from all alcohol, including all
fermented drinks. As previously indicated, there is strong evidence that even as a
20 MSSI, Annual Report, 1818,16.
21 Robert L. Hampel, “Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI),” Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History, An International Encyclopedia, v. 2 (Santa Barbara, Cal 2003): 401-402.
22 Robert L. Hampel, Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852 (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1982), 12-22.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
143
99young man he had decided to reject “ardent spirit.” At least by the late 1820s, when
he reached middle age, he had became a total abstainer and recommended that others
do the same. Although there is limited information regarding his membership or
activities at this stage of his life, it is at the very least possible to confirm an early
commitment to the temperance cause. Based upon his ensuing temperance activities
and reputation at Dartmouth, it is also reasonable to assume that he had a more
serious motivation than did the general MSSI membership.
Mussey differed from the MSSI membership in more than his eventual
temperance attitude and commitment. Coming from a humble social background, he
certainly differed in social status from the elite members of the organization. He was
not one of the “gold headed-cane” elite, as the MSSI membership is typically
characterized.24 At best he was rising in social status, and would eventually arrive at
his social position not by birth, but by talent and hard work. Although he had not yet
arrived at that exalted position, Mussey had certainly begun his ascent in social and
professional standing. In 1814, after five years of successful practice, he left Salem
9 ̂with his new wife, to take the position as professor of medicine at Dartmouth
Medical School. According to the Sixth Annual report of the MSSI in 1818, Mussey
joined the MSSI, listed in the Boston membership, and with Dartmouth given as his
residence. At Dartmouth, Mussey succeeded his old preceptor, Nathan Smith, under
whom he had studied at Dartmouth only ten years before. In time, he would surpass
23 Crosby, “Eulogy,” 75.
24 J.C. Furnas, The Life and Times o f the Late Demon Rum (New York: Putnam’s Sons,1965), 51.
25 See note 12.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
144
his teacher in ability and national reputation. At Dartmouth he taught Materia Medica
(drugs or pharmacology) and the Theory and Practice of Physics (the theory and
practice of medicine), holding these professorships until 1820. During his tenure at
9 f\Dartmouth he also served as a professor of chemistry.
Mussey’s medical career and his temperance views are closely intertwined.
As one examines Mussey’s views and participation in the temperance movement, it is
essential therefore to describe his developing medical career. The temperance
physicians made a unique contribution to the temperance movement, most likely
because their training and orientation as physicians gave them a different view of the
drink question than that of the general temperance movement. Mussey’s views of
alcohol and intemperance are closely related to his experimental approaches in
medicine. His scientific experiments sought the cause and effect link, based upon
careful and rigorous experimental methods. A consideration of his medical
accomplishments provides insight into his methodology in approaching the subject of
temperance and alcohol. With that goal in mind, we consider some highlights of
Mussey’s developing medical career.
While at Dartmouth, Mussey’s reputation and skill as a surgeon continued to
grow. In 1820 he was additionally appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at
Dartmouth, giving two daily lectures to medical students during the term. In addition
to his other appointments, he served as professor of obstetrics from 1814 until 1838.
Throughout his life, he was in demand as a surgical innovator and authority at a
number of medical institutions. In addition to his teaching at Dartmouth, he gave
26 Hamilton, 650.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
145
lectures at a number of medical schools, for example lecturing at Middlebury College
in Vermont in 1817. From 1831 to 1835 he was called to lecture at Bowdoin, the
Medical School of Maine, on anatomy and surgery.
As Mussey continued to develop his skill and reputation in anatomy and
surgery, he made an extended visit to European hospitals in 1829 and 1830. For ten
months Mussey visited distinguished physicians in Paris and London. As discussed
in the previous chapter on medical background, London and Paris were centers of
experimental medicine and medical advances at this time. As such, they exerted
considerable influence upon American medicine. Mussey, however, did not go as a
suppliant. He had developed new surgical techniques that he was anxious to share
with the European experts. While in London he took a patient specimen to Sir Ashley
Cooper, the famous English surgeon. Mussey demonstrated that, contrary to what
was conventionally thought, bones could heal after intracapsular surgery for a fracture
of the neck of the thighbone. Mussey brought with him the healed specimen from a
deceased patient that he had operated upon (the patient had subsequently died of other
causes). Complaisant in his exalted position, Cooper refused to accept Mussey’s
compelling evidence. Cooper examined the specimen and declared that there had
never been a fracture, rejecting Mussey’s evidence. Yet future medical advances
would bear out that Mussey had indeed developed a new procedure that could heal a
condition previously believed hopeless.28
27 Western Lancet, 312.
28 Western Lancet, 313; These specimens are now housed in the Museum of the Cincinnati General Hospital. Dictionary o f Am.Bio, 373.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 46
During his long career, Mussey developed a number of pioneering surgical
techniques in obstetrics, urinary tract surgery, cancer surgery, and orthopedics. He
was one of the first to use ether and chloroform as anesthesia. According to
Hamilton, Mussey “was a factor in the speedy popularization of the greatest
discovery in its relations to practical surgery, of any in all antecedent history, namely,
that of anesthesia.” He was known for his modesty and reluctance to operate,
except when otherwise unavoidable. Once a decision was made to operate, he was
fearless. He made great contributions to the surgical field, often experiencing
entrenched opposition, as in the case of his encounter with the famous London
surgeon.
As Mussey grew and developed in his career, he began to make equally
significant contributions in the field of temperance. While at Dartmouth, Mussey
helped to found a temperance society for Dartmouth students in 1828. Krout notes
that Mussey, with his national reputation for temperance advocacy, greatly
encouraged the temperance efforts of the young Dartmouth men.30 No further
specific information is available on the Dartmouth temperance society beyond the
fact of Mussey’s founding role. Mussey’s only recorded address to the students,
given in 1818, made no specific mention of temperance, but does give insight into his
opinion of the ideal medical student and doctor. He emphasized the need to pay
attention to new scientific discoveries:
29 Hamilton, “Mussey,” 649-50.
30 Krout notes that Mussey, as a nationally known temperance supporter, encouraged the “earnest efforts o f the young men” o f the Dartmouth campus. Krout, 146.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 4 7
.. .we should avail ourselves from year to year, of the progress the science ismaking among our neighbors and abroad.. .From the discoveries, improvementsand suggestions contained in Journals, and the record they exhibit of the progressof medicine in different countries, we receive fresh impulses to exertion for the1promotion of its interests and the extension of its blessings.
He also revealed a strong moral sense regarding the profession, admonishing his
students repeatedly to remember that as physicians they carried a special burden of
being bound by religion and duty:
You, gentlemen, have chosen a profession which can place you in a commanding attitude in society, and give you an influence far more extensive than the sphere of your personal intercourse. When therefore, you commence the practice of medicine, it will be optional with you whether to give your influence in aid and support of those pillars which prop the fabrick of human society, or whether you will submit to become the reptiles who attempt to undermine or gnaw them down. Duty to yourselves, to your profession, to society, to your God, demands your exertions on the side of morals and religion.
In 1827, Mussey delivered his first temperance address to the public, a year
prior to his role in establishing the Dartmouth temperance society. Mussey’s address
to the New Hampshire Medical Society’s annual meeting on June 5,1827 is
significant to addiction history for several reasons. According to the temperance
historian Krout, the address established his national reputation as a temperance
advocate. The address was soon thereafter published at the request of the Medical
Society, and therefore gained further circulation.
31 Reuben Mussey, An Address Read to the Medical Class at Dartmouth College,December 1, 1818 (Hanover, N.H: Charles Spear, 1818), 9.
32 Ibid., 23.
33 Reuben Mussey, An Address on Ardent Spirit: Read before the New Hampshire Medical Society at Their Annual Meeting, June 5, 1827 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1829); Krout, 146.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 48
The address is also important because, as his first recorded statement on
temperance, it gives an indication of the development of his thinking on alcohol and
alcohol abuse. Although the address is entitled “An Address on Ardent Spirit,”
Mussey used the new alcohol terminology from the very beginning of the address.
Interestingly, he began by explaining to his audience the derivation of the perhaps
unfamiliar word alcohol:
More than nine hundred years ago, an Arabian Chemist discovered by distillation, a pungent and warming liquor, to which was given the name of Alcohol, and which we call ardent spirit.34
In equating ardent spirit with the terminology alcohol, it would seem, at first glance,
that Mussey was not aware of the new chemical understanding of the composition of
liquor, the discovery that William Brande had published six years before in his
Manual o f Chymistry. In this address Mussey did not cite Brande’s work, but he did
observe that wines, specifically those available locally, also contained greater
amounts of the substance alcohol than commonly thought. Mussey noted that the
content of the substance was much higher in wines than had previously been known,i f
and therefore harmful. Mussey’s presentation of this new finding challenged the
tolerance of temperance organizations such as the MSSI for wines and fermented
beverages as benign and exempt from banishment. In an attempt to define the
chemical composition of alcohol, Mussey noted that “alcohol is strongly allied to
34 Mussey, 1827 Address, 2.
35 Ibid., 12.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 49
ether in its chemical relations, and it is capable of passing from the stomach into other- j z r
organs without having its inflammability destroyed..
Mussey’s address was significant for more than the use of the new
terminology and its implications. In language and tone somewhat similar to
Benjamin Rush’s treatises and especially consistent with Sewall’s treatise, delivered
just a few months prior,37 Mussey described the multiple effects of excessive use on
the drinker—the physical, social, intellectual, and moral effects. He addressed the
effects of alcohol usage in a holistic, comprehensive fashion, cataloging the damage
that alcohol would cause to all aspects of the drinker, beginning with the physical
effects:
.. .it [alcohol] diffuses its influence over the whole body...the whole face is swollen, the forehead and temples patched with red and white, the cheeks of a deep crimson, the nose tipped with ruby, the comers of the mouth drawn down.. .it is carried by the blood, and circulates through the alimentary organs, through the lungs, muscles, and the brain, and doubtless through every organ of the body.. .When taken by the nursing mother, it enters into the delicate food prepared by nature [breast milk].38
It is significant that Mussey used language more clinical, detached and scientific than
the language Rush had used to describe the drunkard. Mussey employed scientific
terms and concepts to describe the appearance of the drunkard. He continued to
detail the physical damage caused by alcohol to all parts of the body, using language
that indicated that physical exams had been undertaken on drunkards, both living and
36 Ibid., 8.
37 Mussey’s address was presented in June, 1827, three months after Sewall’s address of March, 1827. Since they had been in contact regarding previous presentations and publications, it is reasonable to expect that they exchanged information on a topic that they both addressed.
38 Mussey, 1827 Address, 5.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 5 0
after death. He included in the physical effects all the systems of the body and all the
organs.
Mussey also demonstrated a more rigorous physiological analysis of the
effects of alcohol than had his predecessors- for example, his finding of presence of
alcohol secreted in breast milk countered the prevailing view of the benefit of alcohol
to the nursing mother and child. Such a finding was congruent with his earlier
experiments on the absorptive property of the skin. It is not clear who had conducted
the analysis of the ability of alcohol to pass into the breast milk, but the similarity
between the absorptive ability of the skin was closely related to the permeability of
other tissue. Such an experiment was clearly within Mussey’s scientific interest and
abilities.
He continued his indictment against alcohol by describing the mental,
emotional, and social effects of alcohol:
What permanent influence does it exert upon the social affections and the moral feelings? Was it ever known to increase conjugal attachment and kindness, parental tenderness, or filial love and obedience?.. .Who was ever inspired by alcohol with lofty moral sentiments?.. .On the contrary, who has not seen its effects in poisoning the fountains of social and moral feeling, and in transforming the affectionate, kind, and hopefully devout man, into a savage or a brute?39
According to Mussey’s account, the intellect of the habitual drinker was also
diminished. He identified the brain as the source of the intellect, “the healthy
functions of which are essential to vigorous intellectual operation.”40 Citing physical
findings, he indicated that dissections of the brains of drunkards evidenced physical
39 Ibid. 4-5.
40 Ibid., 6.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
151
damage to the brain tissue, which appeared harder and less flexible, in contrast to the
appearance of softer, healthy brain tissue of abstainers. The physical findings
correlated with impaired intellectual function, according to Mussey. He cited cases of
those who had been destined for demanding and productive intellectual professions--
specifically physicians, lawyers, preachers, and public servants, those who carry on
“the abstract and retired operations of the mind.” But they did not attain their early
promise, because they had fallen victim to alcohol.41
The language of Mussey’s Address did not condemn those who succumbed,
but rather demonstrated a sympathetic approach. Mussey sympathized with families
of the inebriate, those who perhaps had high hopes for a son, but now “weep for him
in secret places.”42 Interestingly, but not surprisingly, he was not gender neutral—he
did not mention daughters. Although his language was serious and urgent, he did not
condemn the drinker. His language and tone conveyed his desire to impart what he
regarded as factual, scientific findings that would help his audience avoid the danger
of alcohol and help others to do the same. He reported upon the effects of alcohol,
not the character of the drinker. He did not assume that the drinker was sinful or
weak. Instead, he condemned the process of excessive alcohol intake that gradually
but relentlessly affected the drinker.
Mussey’s message was quite different from the prevailing teaching of
temperance literature. His use of physical findings and his description of the effects
of alcohol lack the moral condemnation of the drinker that is so prevalent in
41 Ibid., 6.
42 Ibid., 4.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 52
temperance literature. Instead of dwelling upon the moral weakness or sinfulness of
the drinker, he pointed to the physical effects of the substance alcohol, its insidious
nature, and its eventual consequences. He described the effects according to their
progressive nature, demonstrating the progression of the drunkard’s condition. He
described the effects of excessive alcohol use, beginning with the physical effects
evident to the close observer. He then described the ensuing emotional effects, the
intellectual effects, and the moral effects. Adopting a step-by-step delineation of the
effect on the whole person, his description is reminiscent of Rush’s description of the
progressive effects of alcohol.
In recounting the progressively negative effects of alcohol,43 Mussey left the
mainstream of temperance ideology that assumed the sinful nature of the drunkard.
He emphasized instead, the habit-forming qualities of alcohol— “such be the strength
of the habit, and so great the danger of forming it.”44 He stressed that habitual use
would inevitably lead to damage, both physical and mental. In Mussey’s view,
alcohol actually changed the character. Alcohol seemed harmless at first, but the
pleasant effects of alcohol “are transitory,” while the damage done to the entire
system is “permanent.”45 He employed emphatic language to warn of the power of
alcohol:
It possesses, more than any other invention of man, the power of transforming character; but what is worthy of particular notice, is that all its good transformations are transitory, and nearly all its bad ones, permanent. Does it give
43 For more information on the evolving terminology o f alcohol, see chapter 3, footnote 3..
44 Ibid, 9.
45 Ibid., 3.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
153
momentary strength to the feeble? Its habitual use makes the strong man weak.. .it relaxes benevolent exertion, and renders the mind habitually less sensible to the sufferings of others.46
Although Mussey’s views of the power of alcohol were complex and nuanced, he did
not display a nuanced attitude that allowed for exemptions or exceptions. All were
subject to the devastating effects of habitual use, regardless of class, profession, or
talent. In this, his first public address, he did not specifically mention the effects of
alcohol upon women. It is unclear as to whether he exempted women from
intemperance or merely lacked the inclusive language to refer to them specifically.
Mussey gave examples of the powers of alcohol and although he did not use
the term “addictive,” his assessment of alcohol’s addictive power was clear. The first
example was a “tippler” who had been put into an almshouse and prevented from
drinking. He tried several ruses to procure rum, but failed. Finally he hit upon the
perfect plan. He went into the woodyard, found an axe, and with a single blow,
chopped off his hand. Holding up the stump, he cried out for rum as a remedy for the
wound. People came rushing to his aid and gave him what he wanted, even more
than his hand—rum. This example is so extreme that its authenticity seems doubtful,
unless the man had been suffering from mental illness or the effects of delirium
tremens.47 Regardless of the reality of the story of the crazed drunkard, the fact that
Mussey recounted it demonstrates his orientation toward the addictive power of
alcohol. Using this story, Mussey portrayed alcohol as a substance that had
46 Ibid., 3.
47 For accounts o f nineteenth-century incidents o f delirium tremens, see Ric Caric, “The Man with the Poker Enters the Room, Mania a Potu in Philadelphia, 1828-1850,” American Historical Association presentation, Washington, D.C., January 2004.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 5 4
irresistible attraction for the “tippler.” He emphasized not a moral failing in the
drunkard’s decision, but the insanity of the lure of alcohol and the extent to which an
addicted drunkard would go to procure it.
The other examples that Mussey used to demonstrate the strength of the
alcoholic habit are less extreme and therefore more believable. Especially interesting
is the case of the reformed drinker who made a vow to abstain from all intoxicating
drink for forty years, thinking that he would live only forty more years. He kept his
vow for that stipulated period. When the time expired, he attempted to drink
moderately and soon died of alcohol overdose, thus demonstrating the power of
addiction. Another similar case concerned a man who had renounced liquor because
of his habit of intemperate drinking. He remained sober until his physician prescribed
alcohol as a remedy for “mild dyspepsia.” He returned to drinking and “by degrees,”
fell victim to full-blown intemperate drinking.
Citing these examples, Mussey displayed his conception of the addictive
nature of alcohol. He believed that the progression of addiction continued even
during abstinent periods. His use of the example of the drinker who had taken a vow
of abstinence for forty years illustrated the relentless force of addiction. Even after
decades of sobriety, when the elderly man returned to drinking, he quickly
accelerated to his former addiction. Thus the process of addiction had continued even
48 Address, 8-9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
155
during the extended period of sobriety. According to the account, the man soon died
from excessive drinking.49
Mussey regarded the process of addiction to be progressive and on-going.
He described instances of the ability of the drinker to delude himself that he could
drink moderately and without danger. Continuing in the same lecture, he gave an
example of the man who was a moderate, regular drinker. The man boasted that he
could control his drinking and continue to drink moderately without danger. Mussey
related the unexpected outcome of moderate, sustained drinking for this man. Despite
his certainty that he would not fall into intemperance, the man became a drunkard.
Mussey remarked that “[unconsciousness of danger is no proof of security. ”50 The
lack of awareness of the addictive power of alcohol was central to the problem,
according to Mussey.
Because he was so convinced of the harmful effects of alcohol, in all its
many aspects, Mussey also addressed the question of the medicinal use of alcohol. In
no uncertain terms he opposed the use of alcohol as a medicine, although he admitted
its seeming convenience. In the absence of any other effective treatment, a constant
problem for nineteenth century medicine, doctors frequently turned to the medicinal
use of alcohol. For fainting, he prescribed, instead of alcohol, “ammonia and the
volatile oils.” Likewise for the treatment of pain, he insisted that opium was superior
to alcohol. Interestingly enough, he did not consider the addictive power of opium.
He did, however, regard opium as dangerous and poisonous, referring to it in his
49 Ibid., 9.
50 Ibid., 15.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 5 6
address as comparable to arsenic and other harmful substances: “Does a healthy
labouring man need alcohol? No more than he needs arsenic, corrosive sublimate, or
opium.”51 Mussey opposed the use of alcohol as a medicine on the grounds that it
might create dependency:
I maintain then, that, taking into view the danger of making tipplers by giving ardent spirit to the sick, and considering that all its medicinal virtues are found in other articles, mankind would not on the whole be losers, if it should be banished from the houses of every class in the community, but also from the shops of the apothecary.52
Mussey used the term ardent spirit interchangeably with alcohol in this address.
Most of the influences upon Mussey’s temperance ideas proceed from
general circumstantial evidence— his background, his education, and his associates.
There is, however, a small but significance piece of evidence that proves that Mussey
and his relative Sewall maintained contact with each other and influenced each other.
Evidence of their communication is found in a letter from Rufus Choate, who was a
student at Dartmouth, to his brother-in-law Thomas Sewall in October of 1825. In
this letter Choate remarked favorably on one of Sewall’s manuscripts (it is unclear
which manuscript he referred to). Choate also remarked that Mussey had praised
Sewall’s manuscript highly, that he considered “it to be a most permanently valuable
contribution to our medical literature.”53
51 Ibid., 9.
52 Ibid., 12.
53 Letter from Rufus Choate to Dr. Thomas Sewall, Dartmouth Manuscript Collection, October 30, 1825. Transcription by K.N. “I think, so does Dr. Mussey, extremely favorably o f the thing.. .hold it to be a most permanently valuable contribution to our medical literature.. .Dr. Mussey thought it worth a thousand o f Henderson’s, and was feeling and loud in his praise o f it.” Rufus Choate (1799-1859) was the younger brother o f Mary Choate, the wife o f Thomas Sewall. Both Mussey and
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 5 7
One can also find textual evidence that Mussey and Sewall communicated
and influenced each other’s views. Although neither Sewall nor Mussey use the term
“addiction,” both comment upon the gradual, irreversible ruin that awaits the drinker.
They depict the addictive nature of alcohol without using the term “addiction.” Both
men gave significant temperance addresses, three months apart in March and June of
1827. The addresses show a similar organization, approach, and message. SewalPs
address was the earlier of the two. Both documents describe the physical effects of
alcohol upon the drinker, as well as the mental and emotional effects. Both Sewall
and Mussey note the gradual process of dependence that often results in destruction
of the drinker.
During the next few years after his 1827 temperance address, Mussey
continued to develop his skill as a surgeon, not only at Dartmouth, but also at several
other medical institutions in the northeast. While maintaining his Dartmouth
appointment as a Professor of Surgery and Anatomy, he also served as a Professor of
Surgery at Bowdoin College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Herkimer
County, New York. During this period he continued to pioneer surgical techniques in
orthopedics and obstetrics. It was also during this period that he traveled for ten
months in Europe to meet with the famous continental physicians.54
We have no specific information about his temperance activities during the
years after the 1827 temperance address, but by 1835 Mussey had written another
then Sewall had lived with the Choate family in Ipswich, Massachusetts, serving as tutors to their children. For more information on the relationship, see the previous chapter on Sewall.
54 Hoogenboom, 190; National Cyclopedia, 91.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 58
major treatise on the alcohol question, the “Prize Essay on Ardent Spirits and Its
Substitutes As a Means of Invigorating Health.” Published in Washington, D.C., the
treatise was widely and extensively used by temperance advocates in the American
Temperance Society.55 Mussey wrote the sixty-five page, three-chapter treatise while
a medical professor at Dartmouth. Written eight years after his previous temperance
essay, the treatise provides a wealth of information about Mussey’s developing ideas
and attitudes towards alcohol and the process of addiction. He continued to expound
and develop his anti-alcohol views. He also continued to intensify and expand his
concept of the addictive qualities of the drug. He continued his long-time methods of
investigating the effects of alcohol, using laboratory technique. The treatise also
lends insight into his sources of information on the subject. In the absence of
surviving personal correspondence, the essay gives clear evidence of the colleagues,
such as Rush and Sewall, who influenced his thinking.
Mussey devoted the entire first chapter, eighteen pages, to describe the
history of the discovery of alcohol and the distillation process. At the beginning of
the essay, he dispelled some of the previous confusion about the terminology ardent
spirit and alcohol. His explanation left no doubt but that he was fully aware of the
substance alcohol, its chemical properties, and the extent to which alcohol was
present in fermented drinks. In his opening sentences, he settled the question of the
nomenclature, ardent spirit and alcohol, making them interchangeable:
Ardent Spirit or Alcohol is a thin colorless fluid, lighter than water, somewhat volatile, of a pungent smell and taste, readily inflaming by the application of a
55 Reissued in 1837 together with an essay by Dr. Harvey Lindsly in Temperance Prize Essays (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1837).
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 5 9
lighted taper, and burning with a dim blue or purple flame. It is produced only by the decomposition of vegetable and animal substances, in a state of fermentation. It is the intoxicating principle of all fermented liquors, as wine, cider, beer, &c., and may be separated from them by distillation and other processes.56
After this introduction, he gave a review of the origin of alcohol, with the
first known instances of the uses of wine and other fermented drinks in antiquity. His
descriptions have the tone of objectivity, demonstrating his scientific interest in the
chemical discoveries and processes. Although he would deplore the effects of
alcohol later in the treatise, his scientific bent found the subject of the chemical
discoveries of great interest. Employing an objective tone, much as would an
anthropologist, he traced the early use of alcohol and the origin of distillation. His
first example from ancient times was Noah’s vineyard, with an account of Noah’s
indiscretion while drunk with wine, a reference that would have been familiar to his
audience and readers. He made no moral judgment or condemnation of Noah, though
perhaps that might not have been necessary, given the implicit or complicit attitude of
his audience. In a thoroughgoing fashion, he proceeded to catalogue the ancient
annals of alcohol use, citing the Greeks, the ancient Chinese (who sought “the elixir
of life”), and the Arabic chemists, who furthered their experiments. The Chinese and
Arabics he credited with the invention of distillation from fruit juices and “farinous
56 Reuben D. Mussey, Prize Essay on Ardent Spirits and Its Substitutes as a Means o f Invigorating Health (Washington: Duff Green, 1837), 13.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 6 0
grains.” He subsequently traced the spread of the knowledge of distillation to
57Europe, brought from the east, giving specific listings of countries and dates.
The second chapter of his 1835 treatise carries the title “Effects of Ardent
Spirit upon the Animal Economy.” It deals with the effects of ardent spirit or alcohol
(once again Mussey used the terms interchangeably) upon the body. In this more
scientific chapter, we see the continuing evolution of the terminology used to refer to
alcohol. Increasingly, Mussey substituted the term alcohol for ardent spirit.
Numerous times in this and the following chapter he referred to alcohol and alcoholic
intoxication. Increasingly he coupled the word alcohol with wine and fermented
drinks, thereby indicating that alcohol was the chemical ingredient of interest: “[t]he
free use of ardent spirits, wine, beer, or any intoxicating liquor, when continued for
some days, has invariably produced these morbid changes.
Mussey also repeatedly referred to alcohol as a “poison,” thereby
emphasizing the dangerous nature of the chemical. He pronounced that alcohol was a
stimulant, not a depressant. He described the effects of alcohol intake as “alcoholic
excitation”: “[t]he first effect.. .upon the living fibre is stimulating” and “[t]he brain
and the nerves of the senses partake in the exhilaration.” Drawing upon his habitual
practice of scientific experiments, he had conducted experiments with alcohol by
applying it to the web of a frog’s foot. He viewed the circulation of blood in the
small vessels of the affected area of the frog’s foot under a microscope. He detected
57 Ibid, 17-18. Mussey described how “Saracens” brought distilling to Spain in the eighth century, Hungary and France produced spirits in the fourteenth century, and Holland produced gin in the seventeenth century. Gin was distilled with juniper berries.
58 Ibid., 29.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
161
an increased velocity in the movement of the blood through the capillaries when
alcohol had been applied, thus hypothesizing that alcohol acted as a stimulant.
Shifting his experiment from the animal to the human model, he next applied alcohol
to human skin. He observed that applying alcohol upon human skin “augments the
sensibility and quickens the circulation upon the surfaces with which it is brought in
contact.” He also remarked that alcohol taken into the stomach in a concentrated
state “instantly occasions a burning pain.”59
One wonders if at this point in his life he himself was the subject of any part
of the experiment, a likely instance given his previous record, or if he had already
become a complete abstainer and would have refused to take any alcohol even under
experimental circumstances. At this point in the document there is no specific
evidence to definitively support either conclusion, but the next part of the account
supplies some insight as Mussey proceeded to detail the appearance of the drinker.
The ensuing description leaves no doubt that Mussey had not conducted the
experiment upon himself. He had either secured a volunteer or made an observation
of someone, or perhaps many subjects, who had drunk excessively.
Mussey’s physical description of the physical appearance of drinker, in its
clinical detail, was consistent with similar descriptions by other temperance
physicians. It was also reminiscent of the observations published over thirty years
earlier by Benjamin Rush, but devoid of Rush’s judgmental language:
The voluntary muscles at the same time indicating their enfeebled condition, by
59 Ibid., 19-20.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 6 2
the falling of the eye-lid, the open mouth, the driveling lip, and the hanging head... [t]he physiognomy tells what has been done.. .Even strong passion is but faintly portrayed by the half palsied muscles of the face, and sluggishness dwells in that mind which was once impelled by a spirit of activity and enterprise. The powers of digestion, and nutrition having been effectually invaded, the stomach admits less food than before, and the whole system is but imperfectly supplied with nourishment.60
Mussey’s account continued to give further details of the effects of excessive intake
upon the drinker, maintaining clinical, descriptive, and non-judgmental language:
In deep drunkenness there is lethargy and stupor, the face is often pale, sometimes flushed, very rarely livid and swollen, and still more rarely natural. The breathing is generally slow, sometimes stertorous or laborious, seldom rapid or calm. The respiratory movements are chiefly or wholly abdominal.. .The extremities are almost invariably cold; the pulse feeble and slow.. .the pupil generally dilated.61
Mussey’s description of the effects of alcohol is objective and conveys not even a hint
of condemnation for the affected subject. He does not, as had Rush, describe the
drinker’s behavior as something of derision or a shameful failing. Mussey’s detached
clinical description is oriented to the physical effects of the chemical substance upon
the drinker.
Moving from the physical description of the outward appearance of the
drinker, Mussey turned to the effects upon the internal organs. For this section of the
treatise, he used information taken from “the bodies of persons dead from a fit of
drunkenness.” There follows a systematical description of the effects observed upon
the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, and kidneys. The precise, graphic,
and detailed nature of the anatomical descriptions indicates that they were obtained
60 Ibid., 20-21.
61 Ibid, 21.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
163
from actual dissections: “the ulcerations of this membrane [the intestinal wall], “its
blood vessels engorged; turbid serum beneath the arachnoid membrane [the brain]
and “its surface frequently uneven, pale, mottled,.. .exhibiting fatty degenerations [the
liver]” and “its wall sometimes three or four times their natural thickness and
indurated [the stomach].” Despite the passive voice of the language (“the following
appearances have been observed”),62 Mussey probably conducted the autopsies
himself. As professor of anatomy and an already celebrated surgeon, he had access to
his own dissection lab at the medical school. Only an inability to procure bodies
would have precluded his performing the dissections.
His descriptions and accounts indicate that Mussey kept informed of the
current medical thinking and developments in the study of alcohol. The language
indicates that autopsies were conducted for the subjects. His descriptions of the
appearance of the internal organs bear a strong resemblance to those of his friend
Thomas Sewall. It is obvious that he was aware of Sewall’s autopsy results. In the
next chapter he refers directly to the findings of “Dr. Sewall of Washington city”
regarding the effects of alcohol. He related the experience of Sewall while visiting
the cholera hospitals in New York City. In the New York hospitals Sewall found that
almost all of patients were intemperate, and that such was the case in the other
hospitals that he visited.63 Using the reports from Sewall, Mussey inferred that either
62 Ibid., 22.
63 Ibid., 36. According to Mussey, Sewall had written to a friend that o f the 204 cases of cholera in the Park Hotel in New York, there were only six “temperate” patients, and that those had recovered, while 122 o f the others subsequently died.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
164
alcohol contributed to the contraction of chronic diseases, or that patients with
chronic disease often turned to alcohol.
In the 1835 Essay, Mussey cited the alcohol experiments of other medical
researchers. He explicitly referenced the work of Dr. Brodie and Dr. Francis
Magendie, the European doctors who were famous for rigorous methodology in
medical experiments in alcohol research and other areas. Mussey noted that
Magendie had conducted alcohol experiments upon a dog to show that alcohol passes
from the stomach into the circulation of the blood.64 He cited other researchers in
medical science who were interested in the effects of alcohol. He cited the
experiments of William Beaumont, the doctor who had conducted experiments upon
the young man with an open wound to his stomach. Beaumont had hypothesized that
intemperance in eating and drinking produced a deteriorated lining of the stomach.
Mussey agreed with and quoted Beaumont’s assessment that “[t]he free use of ardent
spirits, wine, beer, or any intoxicating liquor, when continued for some days, has
invariably produced these morbid changes” in the lining of the stomach.65 It is also
significant to note that Mussey’s assessment included wine and beer in the same
category with ardent spirits as “intoxicating.” Significantly, he did not make a
distinction between the more socially acceptable wines favored by the elites and the
64 The famous French medical scientist Magendie did experiments upon a dog with alcohol to show that alcohol passed from the stomach into the circulation o f the blood. Ibid., 24. For more information on Magendie and other European medical researchers, see Chapter Three on the medical background o f the period.
65 Mussey’s 1835 Essay, 28-29. For more information on William Beaumont’s experiments on the physiology o f digestion during the period 1829 to 183 land his patient, Alexis St. Martin, see John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History o f American Medicine (Chicago: U of 111 Press, 1993), 107-110.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
165
lower class whiskies and rum. To Mussey all kinds of alcohol posed a health risk.
He did not exempt the more socially acceptable wines of the elites. That sort of bias
and misinformation had hindered the MSSI in achieving their goals twenty years
earlier in the movement.
After having thoroughly demonstrated the deleterious effects of excessive
alcohol use, Mussey turned in the third and final chapter of the Essay to a discussion
of “substitutes” for the “poisonous” alcohol. In this section Mussey revealed his two
fold motivation in promoting temperance views. He had both religious and scientific
motivations, a blend of emotional intuition and practical rationality. He
recommended a substitute to fermented drinks and distilled spirits: water. He
endorsed water, “the natural and proper drink of man” as a healthful substitute for
alcohol. In lyric and flowery language, typical of the period, he described water as
the preferred beverage in the Garden of Eden, provided by “an omnipotent and all-
bountiful Creator.” In this approach we see rare glimpses of his religious, non-
rational side. Usually he used the rational language of medicine and science. In
language atypical for Mussey, he extolled “[a] river flowed from Paradise” that
provided a drink that “no human invention has equaled.” 66
Soon, however, he returned to his more accustomed rational approach, and
what he described next is clear evidence of his understanding of the addictive process.
After the flowery prose praising water Mussey gave a practical explication of its
health benefits. His principal observation was that water could not lead to unnatural
66 Essay, 36-39.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 6 6
“relish.” Uppermost in his analysis was that water had no “hurtful” effects and that it
“offers no temptation.” Additionally, water would not be guilty of “perverting the
natural appetite of thirst” and it would present no danger that one would be “betrayed
into drinking too much.”67 Significantly, in these references, both in substance and in
rhetorical tone, Mussey conveyed an incipient understanding of the process of
addiction. His language did not condemn the drinker, but instead condemned the
effect of the substance upon the drinker. In his view, specific substances had either a
natural or an unnatural effect upon the appetite. His analysis did not consider the
morality of the substance, but rather its physical effect upon the drinker. Water was
safe and natural, while alcohol resulted in unnatural and deleterious appetite.
To fully illustrate his point about the addictive nature of alcohol as opposed
to water, Mussey used the example of a child’s unspoiled appetite for water.
“Children drink because they are dry,” he observed, while adults “drink anything but
water, because this fluid is intended to quench only a natural thirst, and natural thirst
is a thing which they seldom feel.”68 He believed that water was the pure drink
provided by nature, or “the Creator,” that did not subvert the natural appetite.
Alcohol stimulated unnatural appetite that would become uncontrollable.
Although Mussey did not specifically use the word addiction, yet he
described aspects of the addictive process. He used the words “betrayed,” “artificial,”
and “perverting the natural appetite” when citing the effects of fermented and distilled
67 Essay, 36-39.
68 Essay, 38.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 6 7
liquors.69 Using persuasive language he described the progressive loss of control and
dependence that resulted from the frequent use of alcohol. In an 1830 publication he
described the ill effects of “habitual use”: “the resistless desire for its [the sensation]
repetition.”70
Mussey cited the positive health benefits of water, taking the approach of
pro-active, healthy lifestyle choice. He recommended replacing a harmful substance,
alcohol, with a healthy alternative. For a final endorsement of water Mussey turned
to eminent physicians, past and present, who also commended water as the best, most
healthful beverage. Comfortable in the company of fellow scientists, he cited
Sydenham, Haller, Stahl, Boerhaave, and even Celsus, Galen, and Hippocrates. He
noted that “[t]he experiment has been made on a large scale, and many thousands of
witnesses” attest to the health benefits of drinking water instead of alcohol. He
recommended water both as a drink and for bathing. Taking a holistic approach,
Mussey endorsed water as a healthful substance and substitute for the alcoholic
prescriptions of the general medical community. Mussey was one of the early voices
to espouse the water remedy that would become more popular later in the nineteenth
century. In the absence of effective medicines, and with the limited arsenal of the
nineteenth century, water was not a bad choice. His recommendations and
endorsement of water fell in line with the Hippocratic proscription to “do no harm.”
69 Ibid.
70The Rev. John Marsh quoted Dr. Mussey in his address. John Marsh, Putnam and the Wolf, or the Monster Destroyed, An Address delivered at Pomfret, Connecticut, October 23, 1829 (Hartford: Robinson & Co., 1830), 14.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
168
Because of the chronological limits of this dissertation, I will refrain from
delving into much detail about Mussey’s later life. In summary, Mussey in later years
was productive, dynamic, and healthy, living to the age of eighty-six. He proceeded
along the path he had set earlier, both professionally and personally. Although he
kept his religious faith a private matter, he was, according to one commentator, very
religious and a devout Christian. He was known to pray before all his surgeries, often
kneeling before the bedside of the patient. His physical appearance was, according to/
Samuel Gross, one of his contemporaries, unimpressive, but his surgical
71accomplishments were “brilliant and fearless.” As previously noted, Mussey’s
accomplishments in surgery were extraordinary. Other observers were more
complimentary of Mussey’s physical health and appearance, noting his vigor and
magnetic personality even at age seventy-six.72 Late in life, Mussey continued to
develop surgical techniques, becoming the first to successfully tie the carotid arteries
in an operation to remove aneurysmal tumors of the head. He successfully repeated
the operation in 1854. His eulogist wrote that Mussey was one of the most brilliant
and accomplished surgeons of his time, pioneering a number of surgical
breakthroughs.
71 “Mussey was o f low stature, o f an attenuated form, with high cheekbones, a prominent chin, a small gray eye, and an ungraceful gait. His head was o f medium size, and he possessed none o f that personal magnetism which gives a man a commanding influence over his fellow-men “ and “his surgical exploits were o f a brilliant and fearless character.” Samuel D. Gross, M.D., Autobiography, with Sketches o f Contemporaries (Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1887), 317and 313.
72 Western Lancet, 316.
73 Hamilton, 651.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 6 9
Mussey and his wife Hetty had two daughters and seven sons. He
eventually moved with his wife and children west to Ohio. Two of their sons,
William and Francis, became physicians.74 Another son, Richard, quoted his father inne
temperance tracts that he wrote for Sylvester Graham’s Journal o f Health. From
1838 to 1852, Mussey was professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio in
Cincinnati. In 1850 he was elected head of the American Medical Association. In
1852 he founded the Miami Medical College in Ohio, where he lectured and wrote
until he moved back to Boston in 1860 to be with family members. In later years he
continued his healthy lifestyle of abstinence and temperance. In addition to his
abstinence from alcohol he became a vegetarian, and also opposed the use of tobacco.nr
At age seventy-six, he had the vigor of a man much younger.
Mussey continued in his dedication to evidence-based medicine even in his
late career. In one of his last publications, The Trials and Rewards o f the Medical
Profession, published in 1853, he encouraged new medical students at the opening
session of the Miami Medical College in Cincinnati to persevere in their studies,
relying upon their knowledge gained in the dissecting room and in clinical
observation. He counseled them always to resist giving in to popular opinion when
they knew it was in error. Above all, Mussey valued scientific integrity, even when
74 National Cyclopedia, 92; Dictionary o f Am. Bio, 373.
75 Richard Mussey, “Dr. Mussey’s Opinion on Cider,” The Graham Journal o f Health and Longevity Devoted to the Practical Illustration o f Life, as Taught by Sylvester Graham and Others (New York, 1837), v 16, 125.
76 “[F]or more than twenty years [at age seventy-six] he has been a water-drinker,” Western Lancet, 316.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 7 0
patients might be impressed by “medical quackery.” Mussey urged them to resist
giving in to fads such as homeopathy, “one of the most prominent delusions of our
time.” Mussey had a low regard for Hahnemann’s homeopathy, the product of “a
medical imposter” and “the extravagant imaginings of a bewildered brain.” Instead,
Mussey urged his students to rely upon “the inductive method in learning the nature
of diseases and the effect of remedies” as opposed to the dreams and imaginings of
Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy.77 Mussey remained until the end of his
career a disciple of scientific method, even in the face of attractive and popular new
fads.
Mussey contributed ideas to the temperance movement about the addictive
nature of alcohol and also the physical effects of alcohol. He approached his subject
in a scientific manner, with an orientation to scientific experiments and observations.
His approach was similar to that of his colleague Thomas Sewall. Both Mussey and
Sewall focused on the effects of excessive alcohol intake upon the drinker rather than
making judgments about the morality of the drinker. Both physicians conducted
scientific experiments to determine the physical and other effects of alcohol.
Increasingly both Mussey and Sewall explored the addictive and uncontrollable
nature of the substance alcohol upon the drinker. They stressed the danger to the
social drinker who gradually lost control of his drinking. Mussey and Sewall both
lectured and published their findings, mostly to their colleagues in medicine, but
always with the intent that their assessments might reach a larger audience.
77 Reuben D. Mussey, The Trials and Rewards o f the Medical Profession: an Introductory Lecture Delivered at the Opening o f the First Session o f the Miami Medical College (Cincinnati: T. Wrightson, 12 W. Second Street, 1853), 14 and 16-17.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
171
Mussey also inherited temperance views of the original temperance
physician, Benjamin Rush. Both Rush and Mussey were concerned with the holistic
health issues of alcohol use. In the words of Rush, they studied the effects upon the
body and the mind. Although Mussey did not specifically cite Benjamin Rush’s
treatises on temperance, it is inconceivable that he would not have been very familiar
with his early temperance writings and teachings. He studied at the Pennsylvania
Medical College while Rush was still on the faculty. Mussey made it a habit to read
conscientiously in the medical literature. Even if Mussey had not read all of Rush’s
works, it is highly improbable that he was not thoroughly familiar with all his
teachings, including those concerning temperance.
Textual evidence also confirms the influence of Rush upon Mussey.
Mussey’s language and analysis was more advanced and specific in understanding of
the substance alcohol than was Rush’s. Mussey had more accurate information about
the specific chemical analysis and concentration of the substance. Nevertheless, he
conceived of the progressive nature of drinking in ways that drew upon Rush’s early
conceptions. The similarity is especially evident in the descriptions of the
progression of the effects of excessive use. Rush’s Moral Thermometer was in
essence, although crude, a progression chart of addiction. Rush’s chart showed the
relentless climb up the stairs of drinking stronger alcoholic content beverages and the
accompanying consequences. In Rush’s temperance tracts he identified the physical
effects and catalogued them, followed by the mental and emotional effects, and
finally the spiritual or moral alienation. Mussey followed a similar train of analysis,
showing the physical effects, and ensuing mental, emotional and spiritual effects
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 72
upon the drunkard. In this regard, all the temperance physicians describe a
progression of events or consequences for the drinker. Those consequences may be
identified as the process of addiction.
Mussey surpassed the ideas of Benjamin Rush and even his colleague
Thomas Sewall regarding the effects of alcohol use. He warned against the
deleterious effects of alcohol, but went beyond citing the negative effects in order to
suggest the healthy alternatives. He framed the study of alcohol use in the context of
the healthy lifestyle, advocating drinking water, eating healthy foods, and avoiding
the use of tobacco. He advocated eliminating alcohol use and in its place, substituting
healthy daily habits. His clinical detachment and language conveyed the message
that, in his professional judgment, alcohol use caused damage and often irreparable
harm to the drinker. In his efforts to convince his patients, students, and colleagues to
avoid the trap of addiction and other harm, he promoted healthy alternatives to
alcohol, and followed his own advice in his personal life.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER VI
CHARLES JEWETT, COUNTRY DOCTOR
AND TEMPERANCE CRUSADER
On a cold spring night in 1822 a fifteen-year-old boy struggled to ford a
swollen stream with his wagon and four horses. Fighting the swift current in the
pitch-black dark, the boy decided to loosen the reins and let the horses follow their
instinct to swim to safety. The boy was returning from a day at market. He had sold
a load of coal at what he hoped was a satisfactory price, high enough to save him
from a flogging from his brother-in-law, Henry Dexter.
The boy was Charles Jewett, who in later years would struggle to become a
physician as well as a leader in the temperance movement.1 During the high tide of
the first temperance movement in the 1830s and 1840s he would work as a leading
temperance agent in two states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He became famous
in his day, known throughout the temperance movement for his lectures and
publications. Temperance organizations published his numerous speeches, as well as
his many poems and essays. He brought his expertise as a physician to the
temperance cause, as had temperance physicians Thomas Sewall, Reuben Mussey,
and others before him. Yet, his story and experience were different from those
previously considered in this dissertation. Charles Jewett’s origins were much
‘For basic biographical facts o f Charles Jewett (1807-1879) see Mark E. Lender, “Charles Jewett” entry in Dictionary o f American Temperance Biography, From Temperance Reform to Alcohol Research, the 1600s to the 1980s (Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1984), 259-261.
173
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
174
humbler. He became an ordinary country doctor without the benefit of much formal
education. Despite his limitations, or perhaps because of them, he developed a
different approach to the temperance cause than the other temperance physicians. His
contribution to temperance ideas was less scientific and less scholarly. His ideas
about the addictive nature of alcohol were similar to those expressed by Sewall and
Mussey, but his method of expression differed. Instead, his temperance message,
addressed to the general public, was more practical in rhetoric, language, and tone. In
order to appreciate these differences one must understand Jewett’s background and
environment.
Charles Jewett grew up on a farm near the town of Lisbon in rural eastern
Connecticut. Bom in 1807, he was the youngest child of nine children. Despite the
family’s thrift and industry, running a small nail-making shop in addition to
subsistence farming, they remained poor. His parents sent him at age twelve to live
with his sister and her husband on their farm in Herkimer County in upstate New
York. According to all accounts, his sister loved him dearly, as did his parents. They
had thought that the new situation would help both families financially and also
continue to provide a supportive home for young Charles.
Things had not worked out according to plan— the Jewetts remained poor on
their farm and Charles Jewett had endured harsh, abusive treatment from his brother-
in-law. He often worked all night in the local coal pits and then during harvest was
forced to work also on the farm the next day. The neighbors and local townspeople
2 William M. Thayer, Charles Jewett: Life and Recollections (Boston: James Earle, 1880),18-27.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
175
of Herkimer County said it was “outrageous for a boy to be worked as Dexter worked
him.” After four years they finally interceded on his behalf, sending the authorities to
release Jewett from his servitude. The sixteen-year-old Jewett thus escaped his
brother-in-law’s abuse and returned to his parents’ farm in Connecticut. Dexter let
him go with one dollar in his pocket, not enough to cover even the cost of his journey
home. The boy occasionally caught a ride with a passing traveler and walked the rest
of the way, a journey of almost two hundred miles.3
According to one of Jewett’s biographers, the difficult experience had made
him courageous and determined, which well may have been the case, but a selection
that Jewett wrote years later for the temperance cause suggests an additional result.
Writing temperance literature for boys and girls in his widely published Youth’s
Temperance Lecturer, Jewett put his thoughts into verse:
He drives them off, to toil all day And a part of the weary night,
And takes their hard-earned pennies away,And at the bar will he daily stay
To drink, and curse, and fight.
Shoeless, over the frozen ground His wretched children go;
And away he staggers to where the sound Of drunken revel is ringing around,
To taste the cup of woe.4
3 Charles Jewett (1807-1879) in Lender’s Dictionary, 259-261; the account o f the stream crossing and Herkimer County farm experience, from Thayer, Charles Jewett, 52-65.
4 Charles Jewett, Youth’s Temperance Lecturer (Boston, 1840; reprint, New York: Landmark Press, 1934), 27. In citing this passage John Krout indicates that it demonstrates that Jewett thought young people could restrain their parents excessive drinking, an assessment that a more thorough reading o f Jewett’s writings does not support. John A. Krout, The Origins o f Prohibition (NY: Russell & Russell, 1967), 241-2.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 7 6
Jewett accompanied his verse with an explanation of the experience that children of
drunken fathers endured. They were forced to work to support the idle father and
were threatened with whippings if they refused. The tone and inference of the poetry
suggests that Jewett wrote from personal knowledge and perhaps personal experience.
The passage of poetry from The Youth’s Temperance Lecturer also lends
insight into Jewett’s conception of intemperance. Interestingly, he condemned the
rum-seller as “cruel,” while referring to the father as “a poor drunkard.”5 Jewett
viewed the rum-seller as much more culpable, because he chose his profession and
presumably knew the extent of the damage that his business caused to the drinker. In
contrast, Jewett viewed the drunkard with compassion, an attitude consistent with his
understanding of the addictive power of alcohol. We shall return to a full delineation
and consideration of Jewett’s emerging conception of addiction, but at this point will
continue to examine potential motivations for his career choices, actions, and ideas
about drinking alcohol.
Given the above cited passage from his temperance writing, one may conclude
that Jewett’s early experience of physical and mental mistreatment may have been the
result of his brother-in law’s alcohol abuse. Granted, it is also possible that his
brother-in-law was entirely sober and simply violent by nature, but circumstantial
evidence suggests an alternative explanation. The fact that he mistreated his nephew
without the normal inhibition of vulnerability to public opinion suggests that he was
incapable of restraining his behavior, as might be the case with a drunkard. Another
clue is that Jewett’s sister, although she loved him dearly, was not able to protect him
5 Jewett, Youth’s Temperance, 26-27.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 7 7
from her husband’s abusive behavior. This situation suggests that she was
intimidated by her husband’s anger and abuse, a common scenario in the alcoholic
family that Jewett highlighted and expounded upon in later years.
Such indications of the alcoholic family situation may be found in passages
from Jewett’s prodigious temperance literature produced throughout his life. He
would often take as his theme the hardships that the drinker would impose upon his
family. He expressed the drinker’s loss of control and his aggressive tendencies,
often resulting in violence. More specifically, Jewett often referred to domestic
violence occasioned by the drunkard. In one such example of physical abuse as a
result of intoxication, Jewett rhetorically quoted the drunkard in verse:
“What though our wives should scold and fret?Blows well applied will cool their spunk While rum our parching throats can wet,Rejoice, and be exceeding drunk.”6
Noticeably, in this selection, the drunkard is male and the victim is the wife, a
potential recreation of Jewett’s childhood situation in Herkimer County. If he were
exposed at an early age to abuse, an almost certain situation in fact, but then allowed
to return to the safety of his family home, such an experience would have inspired a
commitment in young Jewett to want to correct such abuse. In his later life as a
physician and temperance worker he expressed his compassion for those in physical
need and mental distress, and also a determination to remedy the problems of alcohol
abuse that he perceived in society.
6 From “The Grog-sellers’ Invitation,” composed by Jewett in Rhode Island when he was a young man early in medical practice; Charles Jewett, A Forty Years ’ Fight with the Drink Demon or A History o f the Temperance Reform As I Have Seen It and o f My Labor in Connection Therewith (New York: National Temperance Society & Publishing House, 1872), 47; stanza also found in Thayer, 131.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 78
Charles Jewett’s background and participation in the temperance movement
differs considerably from that of Thomas Sewall and Reuben Mussey. His family
condition was poorer and he had less formal education than did either Sewall or
Mussey.7 His parents’ decision to send him to live with his brother-in-law did not
provide him the hoped for education. His education there did not meet even the
customary minimal educational levels of the time. In contrast, Sewall and Mussey
both had benefited from access to formal medical education and subsequently had
joined the elite ranks of medical academia. Although Jewett had received very little
formal education, he seemed to have been exceptionally intelligent and had developed
his intellect by exposure to occasional stints of classroom education as a youth.
Mostly, however, he was self-taught, reading the Bible, Shakespeare, and the standard
classics. He did not earn a degree from a medical college, but attended medical
lectures for only a few months during the course of two winters. As was often the
practice for training doctors in the early nineteenth century, he studied as an
apprentice to a country doctor and learned by experience.8
Although Jewett did not have the benefit of much formal education or a
medical degree, he compensated by means of his habits and talents. He became a
7 Charles Jewett was the youngest child o f Joseph Jewett and Betsey King. He was raised with devout Congregational religious observance, attending Sunday services at the only meeting-house in the area and following the rule o f strict Sabbath observance. The family needed him to work on the farm, but when possible he attended the local country school. From a young age he wrote poetry. Lender, Dictionary o f Am.Temp., 259-26; Thayer, 25-49.
8 At age nineteen, he began to study medicine as an apprentice to Dr. Elijah Baldwin, the local family doctor, four miles from the Jewett farm. Before he could study with Dr. Baldwin, he had to learn some Latin. He studied with the local Latin teacher and was reading advanced Latin (Virgil) within six weeks. The following winter he attended medical lectures at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Thayer, 73-74, 94-96.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 79
voracious reader, with a predilection for reading medical literature and journals.
Based upon accounts of his display of memorized poetry, drama and other material, it
seems that he had a remarkably retentive memory. He also had a dramatic flair, a
comic talent and a good singing voice. From a young age he enjoyed being before an
audience. He was a natural mimic, a quick wit, and loved to joke.9 These abilities
served him well in his future career as a temperance lecturer and agent. Although a
good and competent doctor, he never reached the exalted realms of medical academia
as did Sewall and Mussey. Jewett’s tone and rhetoric was more practical and
homespun, unlike the professional style of Sewall and Mussey. He cited the medical
literature, but wrote none himself. Instead he wrote temperance tracts for the general
public. His unsophisticated lecture style, with many practical examples and stories,
suited the popular audience of the temperance hall.
In understanding other influences that affected Jewett’s orientation toward
joining the temperance cause, one must consider the socio-cultural forces that
affected him. In this regard, his formative experiences in his church and community
are significant. He was raised in the Congregational Church, the church of his family
in Lisbon, Connecticut and the only church in town. Although no longer the
established church of the state of Connecticut, the Congregational Church of that time
and place was often the only available church, especially in rural areas. As such was
the case in Lisbon, the local church exercised a strong and pervasive influence in the
community. Jewett’s family followed the strict morality and ethics that the church
9 As a boy Jewett began to write poetry, a talent that he would use extensively. As a young teen he entertained his fellows by giving dramatic rendition o f various characters. Thayer, 59-62.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 8 0
taught. They attended regular services and insisted on strict adherence to “keeping the
Sabbath.”10 Although the Lisbon Congregational Church did not take a definitive
point of view on the liquor question, the church’s emphasis on strict religious
observance and morality predisposed its members to take their Christian duty
seriously and perhaps even soberly. Raised in such an atmosphere, Charles Jewett
gravitated toward the Christian teachings of duty and responsibility, concepts
consistent with the temperance message.
Jewett’s temperance attitudes were significantly influenced by his medical
career, but it is, nonetheless, also important to take into account the social and
cultural influences that evangelical revivalism exerted upon him. We shall see that
his overall approach more nearly coincides with that of the temperance physicians
than with the evangelicals, but both influences were brought to bear upon his
thinking. His medical orientation mitigated the condemnatory, judgmental aspects of
the evangelical approach, resulting in his more compassionate approach to the drink
question. Nevertheless, one may make the case that socio-cultural influences play a
significant role in delineating Jewett’s temperance orientation.
Temperance thinking found a hospitable venue in the evangelical reform
movements that swept Protestant churches in the first quarter of the nineteenth
century. Although the Congregational church did not universally take a temperance
stand as a matter of doctrine, many of its individual members supported the
temperance cause. The evangelical and reform branch of the Congregationalists
10 Thayer, 25-30.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
181
supported temperance, Sabbatarianism, and other reforms.11 An especially visible and
vocal supporter was the Rev. Lyman Beecher. Beecher, “one of the most prominent
characters in the early history of the total abstinence reform,” had located in
Litchfield, Connecticut in 1811.12 Previously a Presbyterian, Beecher had joined the
Congregational Church in Litchfield as pastor. Beecher is well known to historians
for his strong temperance message to the clergy and laity in New England. Shocked
by drunkenness, he at first recommended and later insisted that the churches quit
11dispensing liquor at church functions such as ordinations and baptisms.
The temperance message of evangelical religious leaders such as Beecher
was couched in the language of moral indignation. Beecher’s opposition to
intemperance and drunkenness culminated with his famous series of sermons on
intemperance, Six Sermons on the Sin o f Intemperance, delivered in Litchfield in
1825 and published a year later.14 Beecher took the position, both in his rhetoric and
in the substance of his message, that intemperance was a moral offense. He preached
that drunkenness was a sin and condemned it as such. He castigated drunkards,
asserting that they were excluded from salvation. His rhetoric was emphatic and
condemnatory, pronouncing that “drunkards, no more than murderers, shall inherit
11 For more discussion of the role o f evangelical reform in temperance, see ch. 1 and 2 of this dissertation and Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1993), 100-103.
12 W.H. Daniels, The Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers (New York, Boston, Buffalo, etc: Nelson & Phillips, 1878), 62.
13 Krout, 84-45.
14 Walters, 125-27; Kobler, Ardent Spirits, 52-54.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 82
the kingdom of God.”15 Beecher’s message had a pervasive influence throughout
revivalist New England, especially among evangelical Protestants. Reform-minded
Congregationalists fell within that category.16
Because the temperance message of Protestant evangelicals such as Beecher
impacted the popular conception of temperance ideology, it is appropriate to consider
the extent to which such ideology affected Jewett’s thinking and approach. The
evangelical influences upon Jewett and his family emanated from the revivalism that
swept the so-called Bumed-Over-District, the area in upstate and western New York
along the Erie Canal. Jewett was raised in geographical proximity to the Bumed-
Over-District. As described by Ronald Walters and other historians of the reform
movements of the Second Great Awakening, there was a strong connection between
revivalism and reform movements in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Preaching the gospel message throughout the Bumed-Over-District, as well as
throughout other districts in the northeast, the Midwest, and other regions of the
country, Protestant evangelicals from all denominations promoted reform measures1 *7
such as temperance with great fervor. Herkimer County, New York, where Jewett
spent four years of his young teen years, fell within the boundaries of the Bumed-
Over-District. During this period of his life he experimented with “preaching” in an
evangelical style to entertain his friends and perhaps to ventilate his feelings of
frustration with the domineering authority of his brother-in-law. He preached at the
15 Daniels, 75.
16 Ibid., 62-71.
17 Walters, 23.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
183
coal-pit camp owned by his brother-in-law, literally a stump preacher, standing on a
stump in the camp. The assembly thought him so eloquent that he should pursue a
career as a minister. He rejected the idea of becoming a minister, but remembered
favorably the experience of speaking to an audience.18
Jewett would use his public speaking experience later as a temperance
lecturer, but his first venture into the temperance arena, at age nineteen, was much
more circumspect. In 1826, while living in his family home in Connecticut, Jewett
wrote his first temperance message and posted it anonymously on the village green in
Lisbon. According to Jewett’s own account he left the treatise posted to the old
whipping post, “that old relic of barbarism,” at the crossroads in the center of town.
As the crowd assembled to read the notice, Jewett also pushed his way through the
crowd and read with feigned interest and thus preserved his anonymity.19
What prompted Jewett’s first temperance venture? There are several
immediate influences to be considered. His older brother Joseph had recently taken a
temperance stand. He refused to drink alcohol, opposing the common opinion that
agricultural work could not be done without strong drink. Joseph had accepted a
challenge from other workers during harvest to see who fared the best, spirit drinkers
or himself, a water drinker. He went against the prevailing view and proved that he
could accomplish more work on cold water than laborers who drank alcohol during
18 Thayer, 60-62.
19 Jewett, Forty Years, 18.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 8 4
the summer harvest. Jewett comments that “[h]ere.. .was a practical refutation of
onprevailing opinions; and some of us saw it and were instructed.”
Jewett was also influenced by his father’s recently adopted temperance
position. His father encouraged him to write something in verse to oppose the
widespread abuse of ardent spirits in the area. We do not know specifically what
motivated Jewett’s father, but his temperance support was dramatic and extremely
affective to young Jewett. Regarding his father, Jewett commented that “though he
was not at the time a personal abstainer, [he] had begun to get his eyes open to see
01things as they were.” Jewett wrote that he still clearly remembered, after forty-five
years, his father encouraging him to write on the subject of temperance, an issue that
the family had “discussed around our hearth during a certain evening with a good deal
of earnestness.” Perhaps the family had discussed Charles’ experience living with his
brother-in-law and had gained insight about the harm that excessive drinking could
cause. Or perhaps the temperance decision of Charles’ older brother Joseph had
persuaded the family to adopt a temperance position as well. Regardless of the exact
cause of the family conversion, the outcome was dramatic. Jewett’s father asked him
to use his writing talents: “...try your hand for once on a subject of some
consequence.. .the folly and wickedness of granting men license to destroy the peace
and happiness of the neighborhood by selling liquors.” Jewett wrote the suggested
temperance appeal. Jewett’s father then arranged, at his own expense, for a hundred
copies of his son’s literary effort to be published privately and anonymously. While
20 Jewett, Forty Years, 15.
21 Ibid., 16.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
185
the villagers of Lisbon, Connecticut, slept, copies were left at homes and businesses
throughout the village.
Jewett had thus composed a lengthy address in rhyme on the subject of the
damage that liquor caused, and the need to restrict the sale and use of ardent spirits
and other intoxicating drinks in the village. In poetry sentimental but effective he
wrote:
Most other evils to this fount we trace,Which blast our pleasures and destroy our race.For this, the widow mourns—her husband dead;For this, the starving children cry for bread;For this, the wife sits waiting for her spouse,At midnight hour, and ponders o’er her woes,While he, poor wretch, all power of moving fled,
• 99Sleeps by the fence, or in yon crazy shed...
In this passage Jewett demonstrated the mainstream temperance view of the “evils” of
liquors. He adopted the moral language and tone that typified much of the
temperance movement of the day. It is very likely that he had heard or been exposed
to the rhetoric of the evangelical Protestant temperance men such as Lyman Beecher.
Thus, we do not yet see in Jewett at age nineteen much of the objective message of
the temperance physician. He did not use the language of the scientist to consider the
addictive nature of the chemical alcohol. He did not consider the negative health
consequences of chronic alcohol intake. Instead he expounded upon the typical
temperance view of the damage done to the family, “the starving children” and the
“wife.. .waiting for her spouse.” In due time Jewett would expand his repertoire and
language, after he had developed the insight and practical experience of the physician.
22 Jewett, Forty Years, 19.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 86
In this regard we will be able to discern some of the influence of the temperance
physicians’ message and their unique approach to the drink issue.
The young man Jewett concluded his verse with a prohibitionist appeal, also
not typical of the more reasonable temperance message of the physicians. In the
conclusion of the lengthy poem, Jewett appealed to the town leaders to restrict the
9̂sale and use of alcohol, to “banish the grog shops” and to “check this ill.” Like
Luther’s theses posted on the door of the cathedral, the notice occasioned much
public discussion, controversy, and eventual changes in the village. Some villagers
supported the temperance appeal, while others vehemently opposed it. According to
Jewett’s account many expressed their “rum wrath” within the hearing and immediate
presence of the (unknown to them) author. But despite their opposition, the town of
Lisbon formed a temperance society in the following year, 1827. Jewett, his father,
and other family members signed the pledge to abstain from “spirituous liquors.”24
Thus Jewett adopted the temperance position early in life, just as he was about to
launch his medical apprenticeship with a local doctor in a town several miles away.
Notwithstanding his zealous, prohibitionist style, even at this early stage of his
medical career his tone demonstrated something of “moral suasion” (his own words)
and showed compassion for the drinker and his family. His verse referred to the
drinker as the “poor wretch,” not as a sinner or reprobate.
After the event of the posting of the temperance notice, Jewett spent the next
two years serving a medical apprenticeship with Dr. Baldwin near Lisbon,
23 Jewett, Forty Years, 20.
24 Ibid., 15-20.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 8 7
Connecticut. Working and living with the local doctor, Jewett quickly learned the
practical skills that a general practitioner had to know, such as how to set a bone, how
to deliver a baby, and how to treat a medical emergency caused by accidents upon the
farm. Mostly he learned through practical on-the job training, but he also attended
some medical lectures in nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts during the winter. Jewett
got the opportunity to directly care for some challenging cases, for example a boy
with a severe injury to his skull. Using the metal working skills learned in his
father’s nail-making shop, he even crafted his own surgical instruments.
Apparently Jewett’s training was a success because a few years later, his training,
such as it was, was completed. Jewett set up his first solo medical practice in nearby
East Greenwich, Rhode Island in 1829 at age twenty-two.26
Early in his practice of medicine the young doctor began guardedly to teach
his temperance message. His Rhode Island patients were tradesmen and factory
workers, not the more rural population that he was familiar with from his childhood.
He remarked that they did not observe the Sabbath and many never even attended
church. Jewett was apparently not favorably impressed with their secular life, full
of drinking and rowdiness. His biographer describes the populace and Jewett’s
reaction:
There was little regard for the Sabbath.. .Only a small part of the population attended meeting. The moral status of such a community is well understood. A profane, vulgar, rowdyish, intemperate population, as a whole, was the inevitable
25 Thayer, 96-99.
26 Ibid., 101.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
18 8
result. Drunkenness abounded.. .Everybody used intoxicating liquors. It seemed to him [Jewett] that a majority of men used them excessively.27
Despite his disapproval of their habits, Jewett remained their genial, tolerant
doctor. During his first years of practice he noted that he had to be “careful not to
give needless offense.. .[w]ith a little medicine I mixed a little temperance, and
despite all my skill and caution in compounding the latter I found it more difficult to
9ftrender it agreeable to certain parties than even my pills and powders.” He realized
that he could not abruptly change his patients’ lifestyle. He had to be content to
devote most of his efforts to taking care of their medical needs, and thereby earn their
confidence and respect. He was also practical enough to recognize his limitation, as a
young, new doctor, to wield much influence. His livelihood depended upon his
patients’ good opinion of him.
Although he was hampered from changing his patients’ habits in using
alcohol, he nonetheless carefully observed their practices and lifestyle choices. As he
cared for his patients he took note of their habits, seeing widespread alcohol abuse
and its effects. Their experiences affected him greatly. Jewett recounted one such
incidence of addiction among his patient population. While in practice in Rhode
Island he had as his patient a family with a fourteen-year old girl afflicted with
tuberculosis. One frosty morning as he made his rounds earlier than usual, he came
to the home with the tuberculosis patient. He found the girl alone in a frigid house,
sitting in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her, trembling from the cold. The
fire was completely out and there was no wood in the house to restart it. Jewett asked
27 Thayer, 104.
28 Jewett, Forty Years, 23.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 8 9
where her parents were and she replied that they were in bed. She had been sitting up
all the night, sick and alone. Jewett, aware of the family condition, remarked that he
knew that both parents were drunk and therefore unable to care for their daughter.
Years later in public lectures Jewett referred to the incident:
Is there another influence under heaven, with which any one before has ever become acquainted, strong enough to drag a mother from the side of a dear, sick, suffering child.. .except the accursed influence of the intoxicating cup?.. .1 have lived more than forty years, and been a pretty careful observer of what is passing in the world around me, and I have never witnessed the operation of any other power than that of alcoholic drinks which was capable of conquering a mother’s love.29
This passage reveals several significant themes in Jewett’s conceptual
thinking and practical, clinical approach to alcohol abuse. First, it demonstrates his
dedication and compassion for his patients, qualities that contributed to his reputation
and his professional success. Even as a new doctor in practice he gained a solid
reputation for his responsibility and his compassion for his patients. In this account
of his early practice he started his day early in the morning in order to complete a full
schedule of daily calls. His services were much in demand and his patients gave
testimony to his skill on numerous occasions. He responded to the situation with
compassion and a commitment to promote change in his patients’ lives.
Secondly, it indicates, even in his early years, his developing awareness of the
power of addiction. Despite the fact that his commentary on the incident was not
contemporaneous with the incident, he still identified the problem of alcohol abuse
and the lack of control that accompanied the same. At the time he certainly
29 Charles Jewett, Speeches, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings on Subjects Connected with Temperance and the Liquor Traffic (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1849), 75-77; incident also cited in Thayer, 105-106.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 0
understood that drunkenness was a serious problem for the family; however, his
commentary on the strength and force of addiction came later. His ideology and
conception of addiction developed with more conviction and precision over time. But
even at this early stage of his career he opposed alcohol abuse as a destructive force
to individual and family health.
The incident also reveals something about his attitude regarding the issue of
gender. It shows that, as much as Jewett portrayed the drunkard as male, he was
sufficiently objective in his observations of patients to see that women could also be
affected by alcohol abuse. He usually emphasized the prevalence of alcohol abuse as
a male-dominated realm, especially in the setting of the “grog-shop” or tavern. Yet,
he acknowledged the existence of female alcohol abuse, presumably less prevalent or
at least less noticeable within the confines of the home setting. The fact that women
abused alcohol at home did not, however, make their behavior less destructive, in his
opinion. Jewett assessed the mother’s behavior with a gravity especially revealing.
He was stronger in his indictment of the mother than the father. Both were
presumably just as incapacitated by drunkenness, but he employed his most
emotionally-charged lament for the mother’s behavior, rather than that of the father:
“I have never witnessed the operation of any other power than that of alcoholic drinks
which was capable of conquering a mother’s love”—no mention is made of a father’s
love. I will return again to the theme of Jewett’s conception of gender as it relates to
addiction, but now continue with Jewett’s chronological story.
Jewett continued to develop his temperance stance as he treated patients. In
Greenwich, Rhode Island, where he first opened his medical practice, there were
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
191
numerous examples of “immorality and intemperance,” according to his biographer
Thayer. Surely old Puritan New England was not what it used to be. The
declension of the old morality was prominent and pervasive. Jewett further solidified
his temperance view as he encountered the accidents and damage occasioned by
widespread alcohol abuse among his patients. Jewett found instances of alcoholic
mishaps to be common among his patients. He counseled them to adopt the practice
of temperance and abstinence as he conducted his routine medical visits, but found
that abusive drinking practices were well entrenched in the populace. On one
occasion he stitched up a man who had been injured in a brawl. He told him to rest at
home and instructed him not to drink even a drop of liquor during the recuperation
period. When checking upon his patient the next day, Jewett was told that the man•2 t
was at the local tavern, drinking rum. Such experiences convinced Jewett that he
was dealing with a habit over which the drinker had lost all control. His daily
experiences persuaded Jewett of the seriousness of the alcohol issue.
Although Jewett’s early efforts to encourage his patients to abstain from
alcohol were not at first particularly effective, he gradually helped in promoting
temperance sentiment in Greenwich and surrounding towns. By the early 1830s he
had begun to see some changes in temperance attitudes. Several of the local towns in
Rhode Island had organized temperance societies, not a surprising development
during a period when membership in temperance societies was spreading throughout
the nation. With increased temperance activity and a confluence of several events,
30 Thayer, 108-109.
31 Ibid., 106-7.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 92
Jewett felt emboldened to give his first public temperance talk in 1832. The occasion
was a situation involving a Baptist preacher, Levi Meech, in the nearby town of
Exeter. Meech had recently opposed liquor in his sermons. Jewett heard from some
of his patients who were members of Meech’s church that their pastor was under
attack. Jewett decided to come to his aid by lecturing in Meech’s town, Exeter, on
the ill effects of alcohol use.
In his decision Jewett had the support of his wife, Lucy Adams Tracy, whom
he had married just a month earlier in 1832. Lucy Jewett very probably was one of
those women who would have eagerly assumed a leadership role in the temperance
movement if social attitudes had allowed it. She strongly supported the temperance
cause, joining a temperance society that had two pledges, a “short pledge” abstaining
from distilled spirits and a ’’comprehensive pledge” abstaining from all intoxicating
liquors. Lucy had taken the comprehensive pledge the year preceding her marriage.32
The young couple had made a serious commitment in publicly supporting
temperance. It was a risky business for a young doctor to take a temperance stance
that would not likely be popular with all the community. He commented that without
his wife’s support he would not have been able to undertake such a venture, “Reader,
if you have not learned that a married man rarely succeeds in any important
undertaking without the permission if not the aid of his wife, it is time you did.” In
addition to his wife’s commitment to the cause, the comment reveals the relegation of
women to a secondary role in the temperance movement during the period.
32 Jewett, FortyYears, 25.
33 Jewett, Forty Years, 24-25;Thayer, 109-112.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
193
Jewett’s 1832 lecture achieved varied success. His address was successful in
that temperance societies recruited his support. He had taken the first step in his
newfound temperance career. According to his biographer, “from this time Dr.
Jewett’s labors were sought in the temperance lecture-field.”34 His lectured, without
pay, throughout the area, night after night, in little school houses and lecture halls
throughout the local region. On the other hand his public lecture was not entirely
successful, as it posed a threat to his medical practice and even to his safety. His
temperance support put his medical practice in Rhode Island at risk. He received
threats from the local pro-liquor forces. Since he was out traveling alone at night,
both on temperance lecturing and taking care of patients, his friends advised him to
discontinue his night calls. With his wife’s support he refused to discontinue his
mission. He continued, carrying a pistol. He taught his wife, at home, how to use a
gun- she became a good markswoman.
Increasingly Jewett worked more for the temperance cause and less in his
medical practice. Eventually he worked completely for the temperance movement
and left, for a while, the practice of medicine. Around 1837 he and his family moved
to Providence, Rhode Island, where he accepted a job as temperance agent for the
Providence Temperance Society and the Rhode Island Temperance Society. He
plunged into temperance work, pledging hundreds of new members and spreading the
temperance message. The timing of his move to fulltime temperance work was
however, unfortunate from an economic standpoint. The economic crisis of 1837 hit
34 Thayer, 113. Copies of his first address were printed and distributed to local temperance societies. A copy o f his address has not been located at the time o f this writing.
35 Ibid., 113-14.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
194
the manufacturing economy of Rhode Island hard. The local factory economy was
depressed and many workers were unemployed. People who had pledged to
contribute to the temperance society could not continue to do so. Because of
financial difficulty the temperance agency could not always pay him. Needing the
money, Jewett was forced to return fulltime to practicing medicine, seeing patients in
Providence. Just at the time when his finances were at their lowest ebb, another
problem surfaced: Lucy Jewett became seriously ill with “lung hemorrhages,” an
indication of tuberculosis. As their problems mounted Jewett lamented that after
ten years of hard work in the temperance field they were as poor as ever. The Jewetts
were reduced to selling some of their furniture and living with Lucy’s relatives in
Connecticut. In a low moment, alone and waiting for the train to take him to seek
work in Boston, Jewett admitted that he broke down and wept.37
There were more opportunities for temperance work in Boston than in Rhode
Island. In 1838 Massachusetts had passed the fifteen-gallon law, limiting sales to
fifteen-gallon containers only. The law prohibited the sale of liquor in quantities of
less than fifteen gallons and as a result, on site drinking in taverns. The law met with
fierce opposition from pro-liquor forces. One of the most compelling arguments that
they made against the law was that it discriminated against those who could not
afford to buy in large quantity. The elitist implications of the law harkened back to
the old elitism of the earlier Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of
Intemperance of 1813. The anti-prohibitionists used the argument, an effective one,
36 Thayer, 150-51.
37 Jewett, Forty Years, 77-80.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 5
that similar elitist forces were in play a generation later.38 The forces opposing
prohibition found ingenious ways to circumvent the law, the most famous being “the
striped pig” event, a means of providing liquor by the drink without direct sales. A
tent was set up, along with advertisements to view a pig with stripes like a zebra for
an entrance fee. Patrons paid their fee and once inside viewed an ordinary pig with
stripes crudely painted upon it. They were then offered “free” drinks, and so one
might pretend that the prohibition against the sale of alcohol was not violated. The
striped pig subterfuge occasioned great hilarity and helped to overturn the law. The
controversial law was repealed in 1840, having caused a great deal of political and
social tension in the state. The restrictive law proved to be too prohibitionist for
popular opinion and so Massachusetts reverted to the law that had been in effect in
1837. The prior law had allowed county-by-county licensure laws. Although
statewide prohibition had failed, temperance sentiment still flourished in
Massachusetts in individual counties.
Even though Jewett had curtailed his participation in the temperance cause at
that time in order to concentrate upon his medical practice, he continued to support
the cause. He attended the presentation of the fifteen-gallon petition to the
Massachusetts legislature in 1838 in order to offer support by his presence. After the
law was enacted he continued to support the law and opposed those who favored its
repeal. Although he maintained his medical practice, Jewett’s actions in the highly
visible Massachusetts fifteen-gallon law campaign demonstrated that he was
38 For a through discussion o f the Fifteen Gallon Law see Robert Hampel, Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852 (Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI Press, 1982), 79-101.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 6
sympathetic with the partial prohibitionist approach. He also declared in his
autobiography that he was determined that the merriment surrounding the Striped Pig
affair should not be used to promote the pro-liquor interests in repealing the law. He
wrote that he participated in publishing material that denounced the liquor interests in
the Striped Pig affair, by which he meant the sellers and wholesalers.39
It is not clear how public Jewett was in his activities to support the
Massachusetts law. Perhaps he feared detrimental effects upon his medical career.
The material that opposed the repeal, A History o f the Striped Pig, was published
anonymously in Boston in 1838, but evidences the hand of Jewett.40 The three-
chapter work shows Jewett’s style, humor, and philosophy. Especially revealing is
the way that it ridicules the sellers and wholesalers of alcohol, not the drunkard. Such
an approach is typical of Jewett’s thinking. The History ridicules the sellers for
representing themselves as friends of the poor—“we leave these pure, disinterested,
and patriotic philanthropists.. .to their further orgies.” They were the “masters of the
spell” and “a swinish confederacy.”41 The satire of the drinker is gentle by
comparison—the drinker “saw double and beheld two pigs.”42
Other clues to authorship are found in the third chapter, a satirical report of
the reputed post-mortem of the Striped Pig. The combination of satire and medical
knowledge strongly indicate it as Jewett’s work. The medical exam was reported to
39 Jewett, Forty Years, 94-118.
40 A History o f the Striped Pig (Boston: Whipple and Damrell, 1838).
41 Ibid., 43 ,4 .
42 Ibid., 6.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 7
have been made more difficult due to the “alcohol which saturates the pig.” The post
mortem reported on the condition of the pig’s brain (“emitted an alcoholic odor, and
burnt readily”), heart (“entirely ossified”), and intestines (“inflammation discovered
in the abdominal viscera”).43
The final indication that Jewett authored the History o f the Striped Pig is his
trademark, the overblown verse that he somehow could not resist writing:
Grasp the bowl, in nectar sinking Man of sorrow, drown thy thinking Within the goblet, rich and deep Cradle thy crying woes to sleep.44
In addition to the verse style, the compassion evidenced for the drunkard is consistent
with Jewett’s attitude toward the drinker.
In 1839 when Boston hosted the state temperance union meeting, Jewett had
attended as a delegate from Rhode Island. Yet he still worked full-time in medical
practice in order to support his family. Most likely because of his growing
temperance reputation, Jewett was approached in 1840 by the Massachusetts
Temperance Union to speak to their annual convention in Boston. Jewett decided he
could not afford to do so; he needed to continue to see patients and pay off a bill for
drugs that he had ordered, in the amount of seventy dollars. His wife urged him to
reconsider his decision. Loyal to the temperance cause and determined as ever, she
encouraged him to write another temperance verse for the upcoming convention,
Jewett was persuaded by his wife’s plea. He wrote a long poem on temperance for
the convention. He attended the meeting in Boston and recited the poem there.
43 Ibid., 71.
44 Ibid., 20.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 8
Immediately after his presentation one of the delegates asked if it could be printed up
and purchased by delegates to take home with them. It was printed overnight and
bought in great numbers by the delegates, raising the sum of seventy dollars, the exact
amount needed to pay his medical supply debt. The poem was also published in the
winter of 1840 in the Boston newspapers.45
In the next decade Jewett’s fame and reputation as a temperance leader grew
into national prominence. In 1840 Jewett accepted a position as a temperance agent
for the Massachusetts Temperance Society and once again left the practice of
medicine. Throughout the 1840s he worked full-time as a temperance agent for the
Massachusetts temperance cause. He traveled throughout the Eastern and
Midwestern states as antiliquor crusader, lecturing and teaching. He edited the
Temperance Journal during the 1840s and early 1850s. He was particularly
successful in getting great numbers of people to sign the pledge.46
Despite his national prominence Jewett continued to encounter personal
financial difficulties. The rise of the Washingtonians in the early 1840s and later the
Sons of Temperance had eroded the base of the statewide and national organization.
The Washingtonians came to Massachusetts in 1840. Jewett helped them although
they eventually eroded the local temperance societies that he had worked to establish.
The membership in the societies of the American Temperance Society, based in
Boston, declined after 1840.
45 Jewett, Forty Years, 72-75; Thayer, 133-139; 150-51.
46 Lender, 259-60.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
1 9 9
Once again Jewett found that his work as a temperance agent did not pay well.
By the 1850s the competing temperance organizations had made inroads upon the
ability of the state and national temperance societies to fund temperance agents such
as Jewett. Under these circumstances the Jewetts faced great difficulties. They
suffered from financial difficulties and they may have had health problems as well.
Their exact health condition is unclear, but Lucy Jewett had suffered from
tuberculosis and Jewett apparently had also experienced some respiratory symptoms.
Jewett decided he should abandon his demanding lecturing schedule in order to
rebuild his health and help care for his wife. According to the health
recommendations of the day, they sought the fresh air treatment and moved to the
Midwest with their children.47 In 1852 Jewett moved his family to a small farm in
Ohio, where he farmed as well as did some temperance lecturing.
They stayed in Ohio for two years, then moved further west in 1854 to
Illinois. With land prices lower in the west, they bought a farm, first in Batavia,
Illinois and then in Fairbault, Minnesota. In Minnesota Jewett’s health returned and
along with it his enthusiasm for the temperance cause. Late in life, with improved
health, Jewett returned to temperance lecturing and even local politics, and was
47 Charles and Lucy Jewett had thirteen children, including two sets o f twins, ten boys and three girls. One o f the twin boys died at birth. One son, William, died after they moved to Ohio. Another son, John, was killed in 1863 as a soldier for the Union forces at the battle o f Chickamauga. A comrade said that he was “the best fellow in the whole company.. .We could never persuade him to join us in any o f our scrapes, nor to drink a drop, nor even so much as to smoke or chew.” Another son, Frank Fanning Jewett, bom in 1844, was regarded as his legacy became active in the temperance cause. A graduate o f Yale, he became a professor at Oberlin College and assisted Howard Hyde Russell in founding the Anti-Saloon League. Thayer, 15, 316-18, 328-329, 331-336.
48 Thayer, 241-47.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 0
elected to the Minnesota state legislature. In the last three years of his life he gave
temperance lectures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.49
We now leave the chronological summary of Jewett’s life and experiences in
order to address more extensively his ideas and his means of expressing them. How
did he view the effects of alcohol on the individual drinker and society in general?
How did he view the role of society in social reform? Did he accept the addiction
model that had been adopted by the temperance physicians, or was he more in the
mold of the evangelical temperance reformers? As we consider these questions we
examine Jewett’s temperance ideas and also the ways in which he expressed them,
that is to say, we examine both his ideology and rhetoric. To some extent his
ideology can be placed within the context of the temperance physicians. He
promoted the disease concept of the substance alcohol and advanced a practical
theory of addiction. Yet it is also evident that Jewett was a hybrid, not completely the
medical man in his approach to temperance. We shall be able to identify his approach
not only in his ideas, but also in his rhetoric, in his language and tone. The way in
which he expressed his message is just as revealing as the message itself.
Jewett’s temperance ideas and his rhetoric are marked by a duality. He was a
hybrid, in part influenced by his medical training and profession, and also in part
influenced by the more mainstream temperance thinking. First, we consider his ideas
about temperance and intemperance as a product of mainstream temperance. In this
regard he was less like the temperance physicians. In attacking alcohol, Jewett
49 Jewett died o f a heart condition at age seventy-two. He was buried in Lisbon,Connecticut, his childhood home. Lender, 260; Thayer, 355-56.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 1
emphasized the conditions of poverty and crime that he regarded as a direct result of
drunkenness. As a product of a less advantaged socio-economic class, and with less
academic orientation, he differed from Sewall and Mussey. Perhaps because he and
his family often experienced economic difficulties, Jewett identified strongly with the
problems of the underclass. According to Jewett’s mindset, the principle cause of
poverty was alcohol. If there were any other contributing causes he did not focus
upon them. For him, alcohol was the main problem for social problems and
abstinence was the panacea.
Jewett was inclined to ascribe the many social ills of the people—poverty,
domestic violence, crime, illness, and social inequality—to alcohol and intemperance.
He conformed to the common thinking of the nineteenth century temperance
reformers who identified alcohol as the primary causal factor for many social ills.
His speeches, writings, and drawings are filled with references to the poverty and
other social ills caused by intemperance. The drunkard he depicted as dressed in
“ragged clothes, worn-out shoes, and old slouched hat. He has spent his money for
strong drink, so that he has none left to buy new clothes.”50 He cited the drunkard’s
children who did not have enough to eat, who were ill clad, going “shoeless, over the
frozen ground” and forced to work for “hard-earned pennies,”51 or “beggared children
roaming through the street.”52 In Jewett’s interpretation, their plight was the result of
a drunken parent, usually the father. Jewett believed that alcohol and other
50 Jewett, Youth’s Temp. L ed., 6.
51 Ibid., 27.
52 Jewett, Speeches, 143.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 2
“stimulants”53 such as opium caused social ills wherever they were used: “Visit any
portion of the civilized world, and inquire after the causes of poverty, degradation,
and crime, and you will find the employment of unnatural stimulants.”54 Jewett’s
economic and social philosophy proceeded from individualistic theory. Individuals
were responsible for their own welfare and that of their immediate family.
Intemperance interfered with the individual’s ability to provide for himself and his
family. Therefore, according to Jewett’s views, a man must maintain sobriety in
order to be capable of providing an economic livelihood for himself and his family.
Jewett’s philosophy did not consider the potential role of class oppression, political
oppression, ethnic prejudice or other means by which the stronger took advantage of
the weak. In this regard he was a product of the Protestant work ethic and capitalism.
His religious affiliation coincided with Protestant individualism, Protestant
membership being a common affiliation of temperance reformers. According to their
ideology, individuals could control their fate through their individual actions and
choices. Temperance, self control, and industry fit comfortably into that ideological
approach.
Jewett’s stories and speeches contain frequent references to the wife and
mother who suffered the poverty and disgrace of abandonment: “What though our
wives sit quite alone, and muse on hopes and pleasures gone?”55 If the drinker’s wife
had children, she was unable to protect or provide for them: “[tjhere stands his wife,
53 Jewett’s assessment o f the chemical composition and effect o f alcohol will be discussed later in this chapter.
54 Jewett, Speeches, 52.55 Ibid., 147.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 3
with weeping children round,” victim of “that [intemperance] which will rob a mother
of her rest, and take from half-fed children needful bread.”56 Or worse still, women
and their children might be subjected to domestic violence because of drunkenness.
In his temperance book for instructing children Jewett depicted a scene from the
drunkard’s home and commented upon a drawing that illustrated his text:
Look at that intoxicated man. He is holding his little boy by the hair with one hand, while the other is raised to give him a blow. And see that afflicted mother, doing what she can to save her poor boy from the blow which is aimed at his head, while his little sister is running away in a fright. Are they not objects of pity? Thousands of children are beaten every day by intemperate parents. Strong drink makes them more cruel than wild beasts... 7
Despite Jewett’s emphasis upon the socio-economic aspects of the harm
that alcohol caused women within the patriarchal social system of the era, in contrary
fashion, he also conceived and expressed a broader view of the effects of alcohol
upon women directly. He also described the effects of intemperance upon those who
did not suffer from economic distress, men who were economically well established
in society. I will return to this significant aspect of Jewett’s thinking, significant
because it demonstrates the duality of his thinking. It is Jewett’s hybrid nature that
makes him such an intriguing figure. In some respects he voiced the typical
temperance line of thought, but at the same time he often adopted the more rational
and objective language and thinking of the medical scientist.
We return for now to a delineation of his mainstream temperance ideology.
Another way that demonstrates Jewett’s more mainstream, non-medical approach to
temperance is his support of prohibition. During his temperance career he
56 Ibid., 144.
57 Jewett, Youth’s Temp.Lect., 22.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 4
enthusiastically supported prohibition in a number of guises, from limited licensure of
selling and serving alcohol to outright prohibition of all sales and consumption. In
this regard he was much more fanatic, or one might say, dedicated to the cause than
were the other temperance physicians. The medical, scientific approach to
temperance stressed the health consequences of alcohol use or abuse. The rational
approach of medical advice assumed that rational people would heed the medical
warning. Their approach employed the supply-side method of the equation. If only
people had enough information, they would make the correct choices and abstain
from intemperance.
Apparently for Jewett the rational, medical approach was insufficient.
Because of his orientation toward the socio-economic harm of alcohol Jewett adopted
a more extreme, interventionist approach. He seemed not to trust that his stature as a
medical authority would carry sufficient weight to persuade his patients. He
expressed that he must be “careful not to give heedless offense” and that “with a littleCO
medicine I mixed a little temperance.” Because his efforts often yielded so little
results he felt that people needed more than good health advice—they required legal
constraints. Thus we see that from his earliest ventures into the temperance cause,
Jewett promoted some form of prohibition. At various points in his career he
endorsed the limitation and even prohibition of the sale of alcohol. His first youthful
assaults on alcohol, posting the notice on the village green, attacked the sale of rum in
the local tavern. In that his first foray against liquor he called for the local tavern to
be closed.
58 Jewett, Forty Years, 23.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 5
Also from his first anonymous participation in the temperance cause he aimed
his sharpest barbs at the wholesalers and retailers of alcohol. Over time his
endorsement and commitment to prohibition became more public and outspoken. His
literature is replete with opposition to the sellers of alcohol. He treated the drunkard
with pity and compassion, but saved his scorn for the purveyors of the substance. For
he viewed the sellers as those who “fill up your coffers with the price of blood.”59
Jewett was convinced that if the sellers did not engage in “their vile traffic,”60 there
would be no drunkards. The pro-alcohol forces responded to Jewett’s condemnation
in kind. Jewett frequently encountered local opposition from the pro-liquor forces
and was even exposed to threats of violence. He experienced several narrow escapes
and, as previously related, learned to carry a pistol as he went on his rounds at night.
Jewett continued his drive for various prohibitory measures throughout his
life. Yet even in this undertaking one can detect the nuance of his dual nature. On
one hand his public prohibitionist stance contrasted with the more moderate stance of
the other temperance physicians. Jewett’s most famous prohibitionist campaign was,
as previously discussed, the Fifteen Gallon Law in Massachusetts in 1838.61 The law
prohibited the sale of liquor in quantities of less than fifteen gallons and so marked
the first salvo in the increasingly prohibitionist sentiment in the temperance
movement. Jewett enthusiastically promoted the prohibitionist cause. However, the
59 Jewett, Speeches, 143.
60 Ibid., 122.
61 Jewett attended the presentation o f the petition for the law in the Massachusetts legislature in 1838. Jewett, Forty Years, 98.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 6
method he used to challenge the repeal efforts in the Striped Pig incident, for
example, demonstrates the other dimension in Jewett’s approach. He said he was
“determined to turn the popularity of the pig to account, and make it, if possible,
contribute to the advancement of the temperance system.” He gently satirized the
conditions of the drinker who would go to such lengths in order to procure his
alcoholic drink. If indeed, as is strongly indicated by the evidence, he authored A
History o f the Striped Pig, he employed humor in discussing the supposed post
mortem of the pig. Instead of moral indignation Jewett used humor to illustrate his
point. His use of humor, rather than the opprobrium and condemnatory tone typical
of temperance advocates, indicates his ability to adopt a more reasonable and rational
tone in the debate. Although the difference in Jewett’s approach may appear subtle, it
marks a significant difference that is typical of the temperance physicians. He never
directly attacked the drinker, whom he regarded as a victim of the “liquor system.”
Instead he displayed an attitude of acceptance of the drunkard, but a rejection of the
condition of addiction.
The other side of Jewett’s dual nature and approach to temperance proceeded
from his more rational approach and training as a physician. In this regard he
resembled the other temperance physicians. He developed ideas about the harm of
alcohol as a substance that had numerous deleterious effects upon his patients and
others with whom he had close contact. As has been previously recounted in this
chapter, Jewett was strongly influenced by the damage that alcohol caused physically,
mentally, and spiritually. Early in his medical practice he became sensitized to the
62 Jewett, Forty Years, 105, 116-118.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 7
damage that alcohol could cause. He grew concerned about what he regarded as the
addictive qualities of alcohol, although he did not employ the word addiction. As is
discussed in the opening chapters of this dissertation, the term meant something else
at this period and did not come into modem usage until the twentieth century.
The language that Jewett adopted to describe the phenomenon of addiction
was “the artificial appetite.” In his theory of the artificial appetite Jewett posited that
certain substances produced a craving, an unnatural appetite. All artificial appetites
were governed by the same influence or natural law. They produced a loss of control
in the victim. Jewett specified that certain substances produced an artificial appetite:
intoxicating beverages, narcotics, and other stimulants, specifically tobacco. As
Jewett described the artificial appetite, it overtook the natural appetite and subverted
it. Jewett taught that alcohol gradually replaced the natural appetite with an unnatural
appetite. In contrast with the natural appetite, the unnatural appetite invariably
demanded more, with harmful results:
“The law of artificial appetites is a law of increase. Their demand is for more, more, more; give, give, until we drop into our graves. It is this law which, when a man has heedlessly formed an appetite for intoxicating stimulants, drags him on and down, through a course of indescribable sufferings.. .Now there is no such tendency in natural appetites for food or drink.. ,63
According to Jewett’s conception of addiction the drunkard was not weak-
willed or immoral. Quite the contrary, all drunkards began their drinking career as
moderate drinkers and with all intentions of controlling their intake. They assumed
that they could drink alcohol safely and without ill consequences. Only gradually did
63 Jewett, Speeches, 10.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
208
the artificial appetite engendered by alcohol take over its victim. Before his fall into
intemperance the typical drunkard had proclaimed, with full confidence, that he could
safely drink. The incipient drunkard would say, according to Jewett’s rendition: “Do
not give yourself any uneasiness on my account. I know when I have taken enough. I
can drink, or, if I please, I can let it alone.”64 But such a man was, in Jewett’s view,
in danger of being trapped by the addictive power of alcohol. His lack of awareness
of his vulnerability to the artificial appetite made him all the more susceptible to the
danger of alcohol.
In his speeches and writing Jewett often referred to the force of the artificial
appetite, illustrating the theory with practical examples. He illustrated the principle
of artificial appetite with ordinary, homespun examples that his audience could
identify with. In order to demonstrate the difference between natural and artificial
appetite, he used many examples. One such example was that of a boy eating an
apple from a large basket of apples (or alternately Jewett used the example of a bowl
of strawberries or some other fruit). If one were to give a child an apple— beautiful,
ripe, and delicious— he would enjoy eating the apple. He would eat according to his
natural, healthy appetite. He would eat the apple with relish and “gusto.” But,
according to Jewett’s example, if one were to place a whole barrel of apples next to
the boy, day after day, he would not be in danger of eating two the next day, three the
next, and so on until he gorged himself into oblivion. The boy was satisfying a
natural appetite, and was not likely to overindulge by eating the whole basketful. By
64 Ibid., 15.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 0 9
contrast, Jewett described the “artificial appetite” that was developed for
“intoxicating stimulants,” whereby the drunkard could not stop the overindulgence.65
Jewett gave the same example with other healthy substances, for example,
cold water. When one felt thirsty he would drink a glass of water and thereby satisfy
a natural thirst. He would not place himself in danger of drinking more water on
successive exposures to water. Thus, Jewett made a distinction between the healthy,
natural appetite and the unnatural appetite that alcohol stimulated. A natural, healthy
substance would not engender an artificial, destructive appetite.
Jewett’s concept of addiction extended to addictive substances other than
alcohol and narcotics. He specifically mentioned tobacco as having addictive
properties, and occasionally opposed its use. He regarded tobacco as “a narcotic
substance” that also produced an artificial appetite, but did oppose its use with the
same intensity as he did alcohol. He did not regard its use as causing the same
emotional, mental, or moral damage as alcohol:
I would not proscribe the use of tobacco on the same ground upon which I would condemn the use of alcoholic stimulants. I have never known an individual led to the commission of crime by an extra Havana.. .Pig-tail or old Cavendish, though they induce a filthy habit, and impair the health of the consumer, especially of the nervous system, do not destroy the moral sense, alienate of annihilate the social affections, inflame the passions, and impel an individual, -a s do intoxicating drinks, — to kick his wife and children out of doors, or imbrue his hands in their blood.66
What attitude did Jewett take regarding the potential of addiction to
overeating food? Jewett admitted the possible addictive characteristics of food and
65 Charles Jewett, Speeches, 10-12.
66 Jewett, Speeches, 12.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 0
specifically identified the reality of overeating. He cited the phenomenon of
excessive food intake as a problem: “natural appetites, when improperly indulged,
lead to excess, as well as those which are artificial” and he conceded that “we have
f t 1gluttons as well as drunkards.” But he insisted that gluttony developed only when
people ate improper food, not plain and simple food that was necessary to nutrition.
He cited the examples of plain foods such as apples, strawberries, and dairy products
as counter examples to the inducement of the artificial appetite. He emphasized that
excessive food intake was exacerbated by drunkenness and thereby returned to his
preferred addictive agent, alcohol. Throughout his writings and lectures he made few
references to excessive food intake. When considering addiction, he focused his main
interest upon alcohol. Preoccupied with alcohol, he generally downplayed the health
consequences of other substances.
Another significant way in which Jewett did not follow the conventional
socio-economic thinking about the dangers of alcohol was in his appreciation of
individuality in the addictive process. Leaving behind the conventional socio
economic conception and prejudice that drunkenness Was the bane of the working
man, he viewed addiction as a condition that affected individuals equally. According
to his conception, all individuals were equally at risk of addiction. He thought that
the artificial appetite posed a danger to rich and poor, educated and uneducated, male
and female. His writings and speeches are replete with examples of upstanding and
respected men, as well as women, who found themselves caught and trapped “under
67 Ibid., 13.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 1
/ o
the bewildering, maddening influence of liquor.” They were like the young father
who was “naturally kind hearted and well disposed,” but transformed by alcohol into
a “blind rage,” or the respected clergyman who experienced a blackout while
conducting funeral services. In the case of the clergyman, Jewett described the
effects of alcohol that produced temporary amnesia. Jewett did not use the term
amnesia or even the contemporary term blackout, yet such was the phenomenon he
described. The facts of the case were as follows: the minister had officiated at a
burial of a church member during the day. Alcohol had been freely offered
throughout the proceedings, beginning with the wake. Later that evening, sitting at
the table of the wife of the deceased, he asked how her husband was doing. The
company was horrified as they realized that the minister had no memory of having
conducted the man’s funeral earlier in the day. Jewett thus described the classic
blackout in which the victim appeared to be functioning, but the alcohol intake had
erased his memory. There are two observations to be gleaned from this example.
First, Jewett reported the event with the clinical eye, accurately and descriptively.
The second observation is that Jewett in no way condemned the minister, but instead
described him with compassion and pity.
Many other examples of inclusivity are found in Jewett’s speeches and
writings. His account of the addicted the mother who, in a state of intoxication,
abandoned her seriously ill child is one such example. As discussed earlier, he
recounted the anecdote of the child suffering from tuberculosis whose parents were
68 Jewett, Forty Years, 85.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 2
too drunk to take care of her.69 In this example, although he seems to assign more
fault to the mother than the father for neglecting the sick child, he nevertheless
demonstrated his concept of alcohol addiction affecting all regardless of gender. His
concept of the addictive nature of alcohol was that addiction was a scourge with equal
opportunity potential. His anecdotes invariably conveyed the strength of the
addictive power of the substance. Jewett commented that it was the only known
power that could defeat a parent’s love for the child.
Drunkards were drawn not only from the ranks of the working classes whose
habits forced them into poverty and crime; they could come from the highest echelons
of society—ministers, academics, and even physicians. Jewett cited with special
compassion the case of the old, burned out doctor who had fallen into addiction. His
compassion contrasted with the contempt that an inn-keeper had shown to the elderly,
bleary-eyed doctor who had come for his daily intake of alcohol. According to the
inn-keeper, the doctor had been “one of the most celebrated physicians in this part of
the country,” but now “his copper is pretty much burned out.”70 Jewett observed that
the person who deserved scorn was not the drunkard doctor, but the liquor interests
that had participated in his downfall. He was incensed that the old man, who had
served the public so faithfully for so many years was now regarded as worthless:
“just the remembrance of that heartless utterance concerning that feeble, wretched,
despairing old man, makes my blood boil.”71 The fact that Jewett placed the blame
69 Jewett, Speeches, 75-77; incident also cited in Thayer, 105-106.
70 Jewett, Speeches, 250.
71 Ibid., 252.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 3
upon the seller of the alcohol rather than the drinker is consistent with Jewett’s
concept of addiction.
Another aspect of Jewett’s more rational temperance stance may be found in
his personal decision to adopt total abstinence. Jewett’s concept of addiction did not
admit the possibility of moderate drinking of alcohol, but required abstaining entirely
from all alcohol in all forms. His reasons for taking the position of total abstinence
resonate more with his rational, reasoned approach rather than a moralistic
imperative. He believed that the artificial appetite could not safely tolerate exposure
to the “poison” present in alcohol. In order to appreciate the distinction of the two
motives, rationality versus religious stricture, it is important to examine the means by
which he reached his decision to adopt personal abstinence. Jewett reached the
teetotal position in successive stages. His personal journey of abstinence began first
as a young man, after the incident on the village green when he decided to take the
pledge to abstain from distilled spirits. No specific mention was made in his first
pledge, the “short pledge,” to restrict wines or other fermented drinks such as cider
and ales. But early in his career as a physician, he made the additional decision to
abstain from wines. His stated motive was that he wanted to set a good example for
his patients. Apparently his moderate drinking of wine had caused one of his patients
to refuse to abstain from his excessive consumption of gin. When Jewett had asked
his patient why he continued to drink gin, the man responded by asking Jewett why
he drank wine. When Jewett responded that he found an occasional glass of wine
refreshing, the man eagerly replied that he also found gin “refreshing.” According to
his own account Jewett realized that if his moderate drinking of wine caused a patient
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 4
to continue to drink and as a result, develop a problem, he wanted to avert that
situation. After that encounter he gave up drinking all wines in addition to abstaining
79from distilled liquors.
A similar situation subsequently developed with one of his patients that
persuaded him to abstain also from cider. Although the hard cider of the period had a
lower alcoholic content than most wines, it contained enough alcohol to produce
intoxication if taken in sufficient quantities. Jewett was called to treat a patient who
had indulged in such intake. The man was a reformed drunkard, but had managed to
get himself into a drunken stupor drinking only hard cider. Worse yet, he had bought
his supply, a barrel of cider, from Jewett’s own cellar. Jewett was extremely
chagrined to learn that the man he was treating for alcoholic relapse had gotten the
substance not from a local tavern but from his own cellar. The Jewetts had sold it to a
passerby who, unknown to them, was a recovering drunkard. Jewett attempted to buy
back the barrel from the man so that he could dispose of it. In an amusing aside, the
man, aroused from his stupor but in a combative mood, refused to give the barrel to
Jewett and threatened him with violence. Jewett’s wife, learning of the difficulty
from her husband, managed to persuade the man to give up the barrel. After that
experience Jewett wanted to remove any appearance of endorsing the substance and
therefore gave up drinking hard cider or even storing it. His motivation was the same
as it had been for giving up wines. He took this final step in adopting the total
abstinence position early in his medical career, in the early 1830s.73
72 Thayer, 114-15.
73 Thayer, 122-24.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 5
In considering Jewett’s abstinence decision it is important to place it within
the social context of the larger temperance movement. As described in the opening
chapters of this dissertation the early temperance movement did not invariably require
total abstinence of its members. By the mid-1830s, the total abstinence position of
temperance societies increasingly prevailed, but by no means would have been
required of Jewett as a temperance advocate. Although he would have felt some
influence from the gradual shift within the temperance movement toward adopting
the total abstinence position, it appears that his decision proceeded from more
practical, immediate considerations. There are two sources for accounts of his
abstinence decision, his autobiography and his biography. Given the fact that
motivation is invariably a difficult assessment for historical analysis, one certainly
must concede that ascribing motives to Jewett’s decisions are problematical.
Nevertheless, the best information available suggests that he adopted total abstinence
as a result of his experiences as stated. Jewett held practical reasons for wanting to
provide a good example for his patients. The evidence indicates that he reached the
total abstinence position for practical reasons, rather than as a result of following
restrictive moral imperatives.
Other practical, rational explanations also help explain Jewett’s personal
decision to adopt total abstinence. Increasingly he became aware of the new medical
discoveries relating to alcohol. In his speeches and writings he gradually replaced his
references to “distilled spirits” with the more general and inclusive terms “alcohol”
and “intoxicating poison.” He referred to the physical effects of alcohol in his
writings and speeches, particularly emphasizing the destructive effects of alcohol
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 6
upon the body, causing “general debility” and damage to the internal organs.74
Although he himself conducted no chemical or physical experiments, he
demonstrated knowledge of medical literature. There is evidence that he was aware
of Mussey’s and SewalPs temperance work. He cited Mussey and acknowledged his
temperance work in his autobiography, Forty Years Fight with the Drink Demon.
He was impressed with the experiments and pronouncements that Mussey reported
concerning alcohol. He believed that although alcohol damaged all the organs, the
damage began in the stomach and spread to the rest of the body. Apparently
influenced by Sewall’s stomach autopsy diagrams, he emphasized the injury that
alcohol did to the stomach: “the stomach is the primary seat of the disease, or has
been early and severely affected by it.”76 It is also significant that he referred to
excessive alcohol intake as a disease. The disease concept of alcohol abuse is
consistent with the medical view, rather than the moralistic, evangelical view.
Jewett also cited “the truths of science, the ascertained relations of alcoholic
liquors to the physical organizations of men.” He pleaded that these new discoveries
“must now come to the front and fight our battle for us, or victory can not [sic] be
ours.”77 He emphasized unequivocally the significance of “the verdict of science”
74 Jewett, Speeches, 17; Jewett, Forty Years, 286, “...any theory o f the action of alcoholic liquors on the bodies o f men and their various organs and tissues” must take into account the physical damage inflicted.
75 Jewett, Forty Years, 399-400.
76 Jewett, Speeches, 17.
77 Jewett, Forty Years, 390.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 7
concerning the dangers of alcohol.78 He cited numerous medical researchers, among
them Silliman, the Yale professor of chemistry. He also cited the alcohol
experiments of French physicians, but did not cite them specifically by name in his
writings. He likened the chemical effects of alcohol to the effects of the anesthetics
chloroform and ether. He referred to the work of Professor Silliman, concerning the
composition of alcohol: “Alcohol was closely related in its chemical composition and
influence to chloroform and ether.”79 He commented upon the effects of alcohol
upon the organs of the body, pronouncing that alcohol did great internal damage.
As was common in the science of the period Jewett seemed somewhat
confused as to whether alcohol acted as a stimulant or a depressive in its effects on
the body. He did not, however, recognize his confusion any more than did other
medical scientists who also used the terms without noting the inherent contradictions.
Sometimes he referred to the stimulant effects of alcohol, but also contradictorily
reported its anesthetic effects. Frequently he opposed the idea that alcohol was a
stimulant and argued that alcohol could be used as an anesthetic because, like an
anesthetic, it kills pain and “paralyze[s] the nervous system.” Alcohol should not,
therefore, be given as a restorative because it has the opposite effect, “the arrest of
vitality.”80 Other terms that he employed support his theory of addiction, especially
his occasional use of the term narcotic. In later years, after the 1840s, he applied the
term to alcohol and tobacco interchangeably. His use of the term narcotic is
78 Ibid., 391.
79 Ibid., 396.
80 Jewett, Forty Years, 396-7.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 8
consistent with his use of the term anesthetic rather than having the properties of a
stimulant.
Jewett vehemently opposed the prevalent use of alcohol as a medicine. In his
opposition he joined the positions of Mussey and Sewall. He voiced his opposition in
a letter written to a colleague in 1846: “no one [obstacle to temperance] gives meO 1
more anxiety than the undue importance attached to alcoholic liquors as medicines.”
He decried that physicians so commonly proscribed brandy to dying patients, thinking
that they are promoting vitality, but in fact, according to Jewett they accomplished the
opposite effect. The patient would die drunk and in a stupor. He criticized the
methods of doctors who inadvertently made drunkards of their patients.82
Jewett’s recommendation to nursing mothers is an example of an early
understanding of the physical effects of alcohol and its ability to be excreted in breast
milk. He opposed the use of alcohol for nursing mothers, citing the ill effects upon
both the mother and the child. He explained that the mother’s excessive drinking of
alcohol could cause the nursing infant to be doped to the point of constant sleeping.83
Jewett understood the mind and body to be interconnected. Taking a holistic
approach, in the same vein as all the temperance physicians, beginning with Benjamin
Rush, Jewett saw the interconnection of the body, mind, and moral faculty. In
pronouncing the interrelationship, he observed that the drinker “does not escape the
physical penalty, however. The body is injured and, through its mysterious
81 Letter to Kimball, April 6, 1846, Speeches, 190.
82 Jewett, Forty Years, “Temperance and the Doctors,” 395-399.
83 Jewett, Forty Years, 397-98.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 1 9
connection with the mind, the intellect suffers.”84 The physical health was related to
the health of the mind and moral sense. One’s mental health could closely affect
one’s moral actions. Jewett extended the idea of addiction to other substances,
tobacco and food. He made a distinction between the moral danger of alcohol
addiction and other addictions because he perceived an impairment of the moral
sensibilities, unlike the effects of tobacco or food addiction.
Based upon the plentiful information available relating to Jewett’s
temperance views and motivations, we can make a number of informed assessments
regarding his participation in the movement. We have access to much more detailed
information relating to Jewett’s biographical facts and activities than we have for the
other temperance physicians. Significant sources include his autobiography and
Thayer’s very complete and lengthy biography. Also his published speeches, essays,
poetry, and some of his letters provide invaluable information. He had a number of
powerfully influential motives for temperance reform. As already described, he was
very likely influenced by his difficult adolescent experience living with his sister’s
family. He also had the influence of his abstaining older brother, and the
encouragement of his father to write his first essay on temperance. Other personal
influences must include the strong influence of his wife, an ardent temperance
supporter who encouraged him to continue even when they endured financial
difficulties. He displayed throughout his life an interest in nature and practical things,
coming from his farm background. He liked to experiment in horticulture, and build
84 Ibid., 287.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 0
practical things, even making his own medical instruments. He had an artistic bentor
and drew his own illustrations for pamphlets.
In addition to his personal, formative experiences, he evidenced the influence
of the growing medical evidence about the newly discovered substance alcohol. In
this regard Jewett displayed similarities with Sewall and Mussey. His use of the
scientific, rational approach is evident in his thinking and approach. Like the other
temperance physicians he came from a Christian background, but did not use his
religion to condemn the drunkard. Instead, as did Sewall and Mussey, he
demonstrated compassion and concern, turning his moral sense to a positive
approach. He had compassion for sick people and a non-judgmental attitude toward
the drinker. In comparing Jewett’s temperance stance with the other temperance
physicians, one can also cite differences. As this dissertation has portrayed, his
principal differences are found in his fervent prohibitionist stance and his keenly
developed popular appeal. His conception of addiction allowed scant provision for
nuance or uncertainty. All were subject to the threats posed by alcohol.
Yet his similarities to the temperance physicians are more pronounced than
are his differences. To summarize, his commitment to opposing use of alcohol in all
forms, his personal decision to abstain, his concept of addictive nature of alcohol, and
his opposition to the use of alcohol as a medicine are the significant areas of
similarity with the temperance physicians. Jewett’s conception of the addictive
nature of alcohol is entirely consistent with the theories of the temperance physicians.
He explained the increasing loss of control for the drinker and the resulting damage in
85 Thayer, 99.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 1
absolute terms. He built upon the work of the other temperance doctors by framing
the concept of addiction in simple examples that his general audience could
understand. His popularly crafted message marks his most significant contribution to
the temperance cause.
In conclusion, Jewett’s participation in the temperance movement is
significant in showing the effects of popular culture and, at the same time, the more
reserved, restrained voice of the medical profession. Jewett is marked by an inherent
duality. He functioned as a hybrid, as one outside the norm. He was situated
between two formative cultures of the period, the medical world with its health
reform approach and simultaneously, the mainstream culture of evangelical New
England Protestant reform. Both cultures exerted influence upon Jewett. He drew
upon both in terms of ideology and rhetoric. He adopted the health message with its
orientation toward promoting health and avoiding disease. He took up the medical
rhetoric of the ill effects of the substance alcohol and its resulting addictive process.
Grafted upon his medical approach, his popular message had wide appeal. He
brought a homespun vigor to the medical view, making it more accessible to the
ordinary populace. He employed the sentimental language of the day to reach a
general audience. Because of his popular orientation, he could explain the addictive
force of alcohol in understandable terms.
Jewett appealed to various segments of society as he expounded upon the
temperance message. He appealed to the economic concerns of the family, struggling
in the changing market economy. He emphasized the damage alcohol would bring to
the family economy, and the potential injury to the perceived weaker family
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 2
members, wives and children. He appealed to the farmer, the manual laborer, and the
clergymen, all of whom faced the challenges of social and economic change.
Leaving the constraints of the medical profession, he showed no reluctance to
advocate prohibition, a legal remedy that physicians and scientists eschewed.
Relating easily to the general public, he was able to explain the danger of addiction in
a practical and at the same time, in a forceful and effective manner.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSIONS
The temperance physicians developed a new way of defining and viewing
intemperance. Through their writings, lectures, and other public activities they
promoted a concept of alcohol abuse and its effects that differed from the mainstream
temperance view. Their new views contributed to an emerging theory of addiction.
The general view of most participants in the first American temperance movement
was that intemperance was a problem caused by a failure of character and lack of
morality. The weakness, bad habits, or moral failings of drunkards resulted in
intemperance and all its attendant social ills. According to the prevailing viewpoint,
the sin of intemperance, “the sin which excludes from heaven,”1 was a serious
problem that affected society, the workplace, and the family. Evangelical leaders
taught that drunkards were sinful and lost to salvation. Therefore, opposing
intemperance was a moral duty of right-thinking people. It was the responsibility of
society to condemn the drunkard’s bad behavior and to show the way to moderation
and self-control.
The temperance physicians enunciated a different view of intemperance.
In promoting temperance ideas they expressed a difference both in message and tone.
They regarded the problem as a health issue and a problem that could be reformed
1 Lyman Beecher, Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. o f Lyman Beecher, D.D., 2 vols., ed. Charles Beecher, v2 (New York: Harper & Bros, 1864), 37.
223
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 4
through knowledge. In their view chronic drunkenness was a condition that gradually
developed through loss of control, not a deliberate act or choice. Drinkers could
exercise choice about their drinking early in their drinking career, but at some point
lost their ability to choose. The temperance physicians viewed intemperance not as a
vice or moral transgression, but as a progressive condition. As Sewall graphically
described it, drinkers fell into “a whirlpool”—they involuntarily lost control. Another
metaphor of addiction alluded to the chains of slavery, also indicating the bindingry
power of alcohol. Drinkers became slaves to drink, losing the freedom to choose
their actions.
Because of his outspoken views on alcohol and intemperance this
dissertation identifies Benjamin Rush as the first temperance physician. His
pronouncements were made from the standpoint of medicine and health. In
describing alcohol consumption as a chronic condition, he perceived that
intemperance was not a willful act or choice but a process that developed. As
visually demonstrated by his Moral Thermometer chart, Rush regarded the concept of
the reprobate drunkard as too simplistic. True, the drunkard ended up in a situation
that evidenced physical, social, and moral damage, but falling into intemperance was
a process, not a deliberate choice of the drinker. Although Rush’s chart and treatises
appealed to popular sentiment with colorful, dire warnings, yet he did not condemn
the drunkard himself. Rush’s approach posited that the problem was not the drinker
2 “It [intemperance] is a rock upon which many o f our profession have foundered, a whirlpool into which many o f them have been drawn.” Also: “... every day adds a new and a stronger link to the chain that binds him...” Thomas Sewall, A Charge Delivered to the Graduating Class o f the Columbian College, D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827 (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1828), 9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 5
but the effect of the substance he ingested. Intemperance progressed by degrees,
from a beginning of moderate, benign drinking. Although lacking scientific
precision, Rush’s thermometer chart served as a rudimentary progression chart of
advancing alcohol use. His chart graphically demonstrated the process by which the
drinker moved from moderate to immoderate use and thereby lost control of drinking.
A chain of events set in motion by increased alcohol intake produced intemperance
and all its consequences. Beginning with health and well-being, gradually
descending to slight illness then to serious illness, the chart showed increasingly
worse physical, mental and social results. Starting with health and happy social life,
the drinker ended with broken health and a destroyed life. Ardent spirit, according to
Rush, was the principal culprit. His chart listed small beer and wine in moderation as
acceptable and even beneficial, but even fermented drinks in excess had a predictably
bad outcome.
Rush’s view of intemperance differed from the prevailing attitudes toward
drunkenness. His approach was based more upon medicine than morality. His
insistence upon the physical, mental, and emotional effects of alcohol intake cast a
different light on the subject of intemperance. His lengthy description of the
drunkard resembled a medical report of a patient’s physical and mental state. In his
treatises and other pronouncements Rush invoked the disease concept and applied it
to the drinker. Also by arranging the effects of alcohol consumption in a progression
chart he provided a framework for something resembling the addictive process. In
later years his thinking grew more oriented toward ideas associated with the modem
concept of addiction. He referred to the gradual process of the drinker being
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 6
“insensibly led” to his downfall even while attempting moderation. Rush thought that
redemption was possible for the chronic drinker, through abstinence. Because
alcohol was dangerous and unpredictable, he counseled drinkers to quit drinking
“suddenly and entirely.”
Rush was a transitional figure in the paradigm shift of medicine,
intemperance, and newly developing concepts of addiction. Rush referred to
intemperance as an “odious disease,” but not in the modem sense of the disease
concept. The state of early nineteenth-century medicine viewed disease as non
specific, a condition of “dis-ease,” or being unwell. In the absence of knowledge of
bacteria and other causal agents, medical science viewed such matters only dimly and
incompletely. Yet as one of the leading American physicians, Rush persistently
sought to understand diseases and their causes from a practical viewpoint, based upon
inductive reasoning. He struggled with the old theoretical system, praising it even as
he helped to dismantle it. He looked for cause and effect in medicine and despite his
pronouncements to the contrary, frequently abandoned the old framework of
theoretical medicine in favor of empiricism.4
The new ideas enunciated by Rush influenced the next generation of
temperance physicians. Dr. William Clark, a young country doctor from upstate New
York, was the first to be convinced by the new views expressed by Rush. As he
3 Benjamin Rush, An Enquiry into the Effects o f Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body and their Influence upon the Happiness o f Society (Philadelphia: John McCulloch in 3rd St., 1791), 10-12.
4 See Chapter Three for discussion o f early nineteenth century medicine and Rush’s contribution to weakening the old theoretical framework. He attempted treatments that seemed to work regardless of theory. In treating yellow fever by bleeding, he was an empiricist, developing the theory after he found a treatment that he thought effective.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 7
contemplated Rush’s treatise on intemperance he gained sudden insight into the
consequences of continued alcohol intake. Growing increasingly agitated and fearful,
he concluded that he must immediately discontinue drinking all intoxicants. For
Clark, moderate drinking was no longer an option. He concluded that the dangerous
qualities of alcohol perverted normal health and posed too great a risk. In his view,
even moderate intake could produce a steep and sure drop-off into a complete loss of
control. He pronounced that he and his friends must quit drinking completely or else
they were all in grave danger of becoming drunkards. Within a few days of his
conversion-like insight he and his friend had signed a pledge of total abstinence and
persuaded others to join them. One would not expect such a dramatic and precipitous
beginning to endure, but Clark’s temperance society survived. Although many of the
early members drifted away, the nucleus of the Moreau Temperance Society
continued to meet for fifty years. The original core members of the group survived
intact from their beginning in 1808 to celebrate fifty years of sobriety in 1858.5
The influence of Rush’s ideas extended further into the early nineteenth
century to influence the next generation of temperance physicians. In the 1820s,
temperance physicians Sewall and Mussey found the new ideas regarding the effects
of alcohol use to be compelling. More educated, urbane, and scientifically oriented
than the country doctors Clark or Jewett (whose participation came later), these
physicians ultimately came to similar conclusions about the harmful effects of
5 The original members still in the temperance society in 1858 were Lebbeus Armstrong, Billy James Clark, Gardiner Stow, and James Mott. Anniversary drawing o f the four members, John Kobler, Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall o f Prohibition (New York: G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 1973), following p. 130.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 8
alcohol. They approached their studies with an orientation to the chemical and
physical properties of the substance. As their frame of reference they used the
methodology of the scientific laboratory. Because of their more pronounced
orientation to medicine as evidence-based science, they were particularly disposed to
learn about the new scientific discoveries concerning the chemical nature of alcohol.
The discovery of the chemical composition of alcohol in fermented as well as
distilled liquors had shifted the debate for the temperance physicians Sewall and
Mussey.6
Armed with new information regarding alcohol and intemperance, Sewall
and Mussey explored the effects of alcohol through experiments, observations and
autopsies. They conducted chemical experiments on alcohol and other substances.
Mussey began his medical research career by conducing an experiment on cutaneous
absorption, submerging himself in a chemical solution of red dye. Later in life he
conducted experiments upon the permeability of alcohol upon internal and external
organs. Taking a cue from Francois Magendie in Paris who performed alcohol
experiments on dogs, Mussey conducted experiments on frogs—not to see if he could
get them intoxicated, but to study the chemical effect of alcohol upon frog skin and
organs. Mussey was interested in the chemical nature of alcohol, observing that it
was closely related to ether. At least by 1827 he taught his students that wines
contained more alcohol than previously known and were therefore potentially
harmful.
6 See Chapter Three for discussion o f the discovery of the chemical composition o f alcohol.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 2 9
Sewall and Mussey studied the substance alcohol for its physical effects
upon the body and the mind. They concluded that alcohol harmed every organ in the
body, with serious health consequences. Sewall, the professor of anatomy, studied
the physical effects of alcohol upon human organs through dissection and autopsy.
His quest for cadavers had resulted in his re-location to Washington. Given his
Harvard and Philadelphian background, it must have seemed more like exile than an
upward career move, yet he furthered his research in Washington, perhaps more
effectively than would have been possible in the established, entrenched medical
environment of New England. An apparently ready supply of cadavers, with varied
history of sobriety and inebriation, gave him the opportunity to conduct experiments
upon the physical effects of alcohol upon the internal organs. He gained particular
fame through his dissections of stomachs from drinkers and non-drinkers. Many of
Sewall’s comments upon the physical effects of alcohol indicate that he was
interested in the effects upon other organs in addition to the stomach and conducted
autopsies on these organs as well.
Mussey, like his colleague Sewall, demonstrated interest in the
physiological aspects of alcohol, citing the effects upon every major organ—the
brain, heart, lungs, intestines, liver and kidneys. Employing the language of clinical
detachment, he taught that alcohol was “capable of passing from the stomach into
other organs without having its inflammability destroyed.”7 He noted the secretion of
alcohol into human breast milk and therefore rejected the common endorsement of
7 Mussey, 1827Address, 8.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 0
alcohol for nursing mothers. He cited the results of alcohol experiments conducted
by Magendie, Sewall, and others. Mussey also conducted experiments and
dissections to understand the effects of alcohol, although his publications! deal mostly
with his surgical innovations rather than alcohol studies.
Sewall and Mussey helped to further ideas about the harmful nature of
prolonged alcohol use by considering the interconnectedness of the physical and
mental effects of alcohol intake. Like Rush, they adopted a holistic approach to the
effects of alcohol. They considered the effects of alcohol intake upon the whole
person: mind, body and spirit. They conducted experiments to discover the chemical
effects of alcohol upon the body and then related their findings to the mind and spirit.
As they conducted their observations they developed theories to explain the impact
upon the mental and emotional state of the heavy drinker. They concluded that
chronic heavy drinking gradually produced an impaired mental state and loss of
control. In addition to employing the image of the whirlpool, Sewall observed that
“no person ever became a drunkard at once. In almost every case the progress is slow
and imperceptible...he advances by degrees, and at every step his path becomes more
steep...”8
Mussey chronicled the dangers of alcohol in theory and language similar to
that of Sewall. Although he did not employ the term addiction, he described certain
aspects of what modem terminology recognizes as the addictive process. He referred
to the impact of “the resistless desire” upon the chronic drinker. He called attention
8 Thomas Sewall, A Charge Delivered to the Graduating Class o f the Columbian College, D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827 (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1828),9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 1
to the habit-forming nature of alcohol, “the strength of the habit, and so great the
danger of forming it,”9 and stressed the potential consequences of continued use. He
identified the harmful physical effects of alcohol upon the user, reciting the results of
chronic alcohol intake. Using the words “betrayed,” “artificial,” and “perverting the
natural appetite,” he warned against the loss of control that often accompanied
drinking both fermented and distilled liquors.10 Mussey never condemned the fallen
drinker but expressed sympathy for the victim and his family. He referred to the
parents of a promising young man who had become a drunkard, saying “they weep
for him in secret places.”11 Emphasizing the destructive power of alcohol, he
recounted the rapid fall of a long-term abstainer who returned to drinking after forty
years of abstinence. Mussey reported that his swift descent into intemperance
19demonstrated the relentless power of alcohol use.
Charles Jewett, the final temperance physician presented in this
dissertation, also expressed ideas about the progressively harmful impact of alcohol
use. Jewett’s approach differed from the academic physicians Rush, Sewall, and
Mussey. More the simple country doctor, he did not undertake scientific
experiments, train in European medical centers, or even earn a formal medical degree.
Yet in his country practice he treated many patients who had problems with excessive
9 Reuben D. Mussey, An Address on Ardent Spirit: Read Before the New Hampshire Medical Society at Their Annual Meeting, June 5, 1827 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1829), 9.
10 Reuben D, Mussey, Prize Essay on Ardent Spirits and Its Substitutes as a Means o f Invigorating Health (Washington: Duff Green, 1837), 36-39.
11 Mussey, Address, 1827,4.
12 Ibid., 9.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 2
alcohol consumption, and so he attempted to teach his patients (“with a little medicine
I mixed a little temperance.”)13 He joined the temperance cause and developed a
practical, effective method of describing aspects of the addictive process, or as he
termed it “the artificial appetite.” His homespun example of the artificial appetite
(the boy eating an apple from a large basket of apples) described addiction in
practical terms that the general public could appreciate. The boy’s natural appetite
would not be perverted so that he would be tempted to eat increasingly more apples
each day until he ate himself senseless. The reasoning against that scenario,
according to Jewett, was that apples were a healthy substance, unlike the unhealthy
addictive substance of alcohol.14 As Jewett continued his temperance work in later
years, he used the language of addiction more specifically. In his autobiography,
published in 1872, he cited “the power of alcoholic liquors or other stimulant-
narcotics over men who become addicted to their use.”15
The temperance physicians demonstrated tolerance and inclusivity regarding
social class and intemperance. In their view all classes and professions were equally
at risk, the social elite as well as common laborers. In the words of Thomas Sewall,
intemperance affected all classes equally, from “the cottage and the palace” alike.
Laborers in the harvest field were advised by all the temperance physicians that they
could perform their work better and more safely without alcohol. The physicians did
13 Charles Jewett, A Forty Years’ Fight with the Drink Demon or A History o f the Temperance Reform as I Have Seen It, and o f My Labor in Connection Therewith (New York: National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 1872), 23.
14 Charles Jewett, Speeches, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings on Subjects Connected with Temperance and the Liquor Traffic (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1849), 10-12.
15 Jewett,Forty Years, 111.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 3
not exclude the professions of public service, the ministry, or even medicine. To the
contrary, all of them beginning with Rush indicated the high risk that their own
profession encountered with continued alcohol intake. Rush was particularly
distraught with the loss of his colleague to intemperance. Clark obviously believed
that doctors and clergymen could become severely affected by intemperance. He and
his minister formed the temperance society because they perceived that they
themselves were at risk. Early in his career as a medical professor Sewall warned his
students of the dangers that physicians met in their daily rounds where they were
invariably offered alcohol, “the rock on which many of our profession have
foundered.”16 Mussey warned his colleagues of the dangers of intemperance. Jewett
also made a special appeal to his professional colleagues and ministers to reform.
As the temperance physicians made their appeal for temperance their tone
was not judgmental or denunciatory, as had been the case of many early temperance
reformers. They differed from some early temperance members who had appeared
condescending to the general public, a perception not aided by those early members
who excluded their own drinking behavior. In contrast, the temperance physicians
adopted temperance and applied the same rules to themselves as they recommended
to the public. Rush personally gave up “ardent spirits” and drank wines only in
moderation. The biographical evidence regarding Sewall is not absolutely
16 Thomas Sewall, A Charge Delivered to the Graduation Class o f the Columbian College, D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827 (Washington, D.C: Duff Green, 1828) 6 .
17 See Chapter Four for more information concerning the position and conduct of members o f the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression o f Intemperance in 1813.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 4
conclusive, but indicates that he abstained from all intoxicants. The evidence clearly
indicates that the other temperance physicians, Clark, Mussey, and Jewett eliminated
the use of all alcohol, including wines and other fermented drinks. Clark’s 1808
decision to abstain from fermented drinks predated the discovery and analysis of the
alcoholic content of fermented drinks in the 1820s.
The later generation temperance physicians made use of the newly
discovered chemical analysis. They concluded that fermented drinks, as well as
ardent spirits, contained enough alcohol to pose a health threat. Employing the
objective, non-moralizing language of scientific terminology, they expanded the
proscribed list of harmful alcoholic drinks to include fermented drinks. They
abandoned Rush’s reassuring but mistaken pronouncement that “[f]ermented liquors
contain so little spirit and that so intimately combined with other matters, that they
can seldom be drunken in sufficient quantities to produce intoxication.”18
Regarding gender issues, the temperance physicians evidenced conventional
contemporary attitudes. Adopting the prevailing nineteenth-century attitudes toward
women, they rarely addressed issues of women’s consumption of alcohol. As they
defined the population that suffered from the physiological impact of alcohol use,
they excluded women for the most part. Rush made occasional reference to women
in his writings, commenting that when they imbibed ardent spirits they exhibited a
loss of self-control. Although the physicians had very likely observed instances of
intemperance in women, they nevertheless yielded to conventional attitudes regarding
18 Rush, Inquiry, 10-12.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 5
women. Commonly accepted ideas of female morality (such as the cult of
womanhood and feminine virtue) prevented them from exposing the reality of
women’s intemperance. As has been pointed out, the temperance physicians
especially regarded physicians to be at risk because of the nature of their profession.
That perception reinforced their omission of female intemperance because women
were excluded from becoming medical doctors at the time. Sewall solicited women’s
aid in promoting the cause of temperance, but his public pronouncements contain no
specific reference to intemperate women.19 Mussey, demonstrating similar attitudes
as his colleague Sewall, also neglected to include women in the at-risk population.
Mussey demonstrated interest not in female intoxication per se, but in the physical
aspects of the transference of alcohol into breast milk.
Jewett’s view of women and intemperance differed from that of his medical
colleagues. His examples of drunkenness occasionally included women. For
example he gave the instance of the drunken parents who neglected their seriously ill
child. Focusing more upon the drunken mother than the equally drunken father, he
commented that only alcohol “was capable of conquering a mother’s love.”20 More
typically Jewett portrayed women not as drunkards but as victims of drunkards.
Drawing upon contemporary socio-economic stereotypes, he often depicted women in
19 Sewall, Address, 1827, 23.
20 Jewett, Speeches, 75-77.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 6
the role of the abused wife of the alcoholic husband. Jewett’s appreciation for
women in temperance was aided by the active participation of his wife in the cause.21
One of the most significant findings of this dissertation is the temperance
physicians’ innovative approach to understanding intemperance. Because of a unique
confluence of number of cultural, social, and other forces, they approached the social
reform issue of temperance in a different way. They formulated and expressed ideas
consistent with aspects of the modem conception of addiction. They expressed the
idea that alcohol was a dangerous substance that could gradually destroy the
individual drinker. They adopted the view that the process could affect anyone,
regardless of social station, profession, or education. They concluded that they
themselves could be at risk if they continued to use alcohol. They did not regard
intemperance as a moral failing but a trap that anyone, no matter how worthy, could
fall into. They studied, lectured, and taught the general public about the dangers of
continued use. Using the rhetoric of medicine and health they attempted to convince
others to follow the healthy path. They used the language of reason and persuasion,
attempting to appeal to people’s desire to improve themselves, their families, and
society. They sought to demonstrate to the public and their medical colleagues the
specific ill effects of continued alcohol intake. Finally, and perhaps most
convincingly, they followed their own advice and made the decision to abstain from
all intoxicating drinks.
21 See Chapter Six for a description o f the role o f Lucy Jewett in the temperance cause. In speeches and publications Jewett credited her for her temperance support.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 7
The attitudes of the temperance physicians toward alcohol and
intemperance were motivated by the interplay of social and cultural forces, and
strongly influenced by their specific medical environment and scientific training. The
social and cultural influences that affected them were the same as those of the general
movement. The temperance physicians experienced the influence of religious
revivalism in their family background and education. Enlightenment ideas, with the
particular American overlay of enthusiasm for reform, the missionary impulse, also
informed their thinking. In this regard their motivation resembled that of the general
movement. In addition to those general forces that oriented them toward temperance
issues, the physicians drew upon the specialized experiences of their medical
profession and training. New scientific approaches of empiricism in disease and
human physiology affected their thinking. The emerging emphasis upon clinical
observation of the patient gave them the impetus to observe the effects of drinking
behavior. New discoveries in chemistry allowed them to approach alcohol in a more
objective manner. Influenced by the changing medical environment, they perceived
intemperance through the lens of health and disease. Taught to approach medical
problems objectively and inquiring into possible causes of illness, they regarded
intemperance as a medical problem rather than a sin. They concluded that what the
inebriate required was not condemnation but a plan for good health. Looking for a
remedy for intemperance, more often than not a fruitless search for most maladies in
nineteenth century medicine, they counseled abstinence. Interestingly only Benjamin
Rush, the eighteenth century physician, attempted to prescribe additional remedies
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 8
(for example, to cure drunkenness apply blisters to the drunkard’s ankles).22
Frustrated as they were with the inability to cure so many of the diseases they
encountered, the temperance physicians stumbled upon a condition that they could
actually help, but only through prevention. Struggling in a competitive profession for
recognition and patient population, they responded to the opportunity to give advice
that might actually prove effective.
The tone of their message differed from that of the general temperance
movement. Because they viewed intemperance from a medical and clinical vantage,
they used the language of the physician describing a health issue. Their language
lacked the tone of moral indignation displayed by leaders who denounced
intemperance as a sin. Often their rhetoric was that of the detached clinical observer,
cataloguing the physical deterioration of various internal organs. Their comments
upon the behavior of the drunkard, if they revealed any emotion, conveyed pity not
scom. Even the most clinically detached and scientifically oriented of the temperance
physicians, Sewall and Mussey, demonstrated compassion for the intemperate
drinker. Their attitude was consistent with, and even promoted, their emerging
conception of the addictive nature of alcohol.
Although the temperance physicians’ message about alcohol was effective
in many ways, it did not contain much hope for the confirmed drunkard. Their
message demonstrated compassion for the condition of the drunkard but no remedy
beyond simple abstinence and prevention. The temperance physicians diagnosed
intemperance as a medical problem without a cure. Their message centered on
22 Rush, Enquiry, 1791, 12.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 3 9
warnings about the physical and mental damage of alcohol. Rush’s treatises
presented the progressive dangers of alcohol consumption and served as a warning to
abstain from spirits. The temperance movement circulated Sewall’s stomach
drawings widely to discourage intemperance in the general population, especially the
young who were not yet addicted. Sewall warned medical students and his colleagues
not to descend into the whirlpool of addiction. Mussey stressed the benefit of a
healthy lifestyle, and warned the public that alcohol posed a serious health problem.
Jewett taught all who would listen to avoid alcohol, the cause of most suffering
according to his all encompassing view. By the 1840s, frustrated with the lack of a
solution to the problem, he, like the next phase of the temperance movement, moved
steadily toward the position of legal restriction. Without a cure available for
intemperance, prohibition seemed the only viable alternative. The temperance
physicians had identified and publicized the health threat of intemperance. Their
professional opinion held that continued alcohol use threatened the user with an
uncontrollable descent into addiction. Without a plan for a remedy or treatment, the
next phase of temperance reform entered a new phase. The next temperance cycle
would move increasingly away from continued warnings, and toward attempting to
prohibit use altogether of the newly identified substance alcohol.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Books, Addresses, Treatises, and Manuscripts
. Armstrong, Lebbeus. The Temperance Reformation: Its History, from the Organization to the First Temperance Society to the Adoption o f the Liquor Law o f Maine, 1851. NY: Fowlers and Wells, 1851.
Beecher, Lyman. Six Sermons on the nature, occasions, signs, evils and remedy o f intemperance. NY: American Tract Society, n.d. (1827).
_________ . Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. o f Lyman Beecher, D.D., 2 vols., ed.Charles Beecher. New York: Harper & Bros., 1864.
Brande, William Thomas. A Manual o f Chemistry. New York, 1821.
Brown, Samuel. The Works o f Rufus Choate, with a Memoir o f His Life. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1862.
Caldwell, Charles, M.D. Autobiography. Lloyd G. Stevenson, ed. New York: Da Capo, 1968. First edition, Philadelphia, 1855.
Choate, Rufus to Thomas Sewall, March 12, 1822; Oct. 30,1825. Manuscript Collection, box 1, folders 12 & 16. Dartmouth College Library.
_________ . Letter to Mrs. Thomas Sewall, Jan. 20,1824. Manuscript Collection, box 1,folder 15. Dartmouth College Library.
Crosby, A.B., M.D. Eulogy on Reuben Dimond Mussey, M.D., LL.D. Transactions of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Concord, N.H: New Hampshire Medical Society, 1869.
Cruickshank, Margaret. Reminiscences o f My Childhood. Sewall family papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
240
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 1
Delavan, Edward C. Temperance Essays and Selections from Different Authors, ed. by E. Delavan. Albany, NY: Van Benthuysen’s Steam Printing House, 1865.
_________ . Temperance Essays and Selections from Different Authors. New York: TheNational Temperance Society and Publication House, 1869.
Gross, Samuel D., M.D. Autobiography, with Sketches o f His Contemporaries. 2 vol. Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1887.
Jewett, Charles, M.D. Speeches, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings, on SubjectsConnected with Temperance and the Liquor Traffic. Boston: John P. Jewett, 1849.
_________ . The Youth’s Temperance Lecturer. Boston: Whipple and Damrell, 1840.Reprint, New York: Landmark Press, 1934 (page references are to the reprint edition).
_________ . A Forty Years ’ Fight with the Drink Demon or A History o f the TemperanceReform as I Have Seen It, and o f My Labor in Connection Therewith. New York: National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 1872.
Marsh, John. Putnam and the Wolf, or the Monster Destroyed, An Address delivered at Pomfret, Connecticut, October 23, 1829. Hartford, Ct: Robinson & Co., 1830.
Mussey, Reuben Dimond, M.D. “Experiments and Observations on CutaneousAbsorption,” The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal v3 (August 1808): 288-302.
_________ . “Uncommon Causes of Aneurism,” The New England Journal o f Medicineand Surgery v7, 2 (Apr 1818): 140-146.
_________ . An Address read to the Medical Class at Dartmouth College, December 1,1818. Hanover, N.H: Chas. Spear, 1818.
_________ . “Case of Tying the Carotid Artery and the Extraction of a Tumour from theNeck,” The New England Journal o f Medicine and Surgery v 11 (Oct 1822): 369- 374.
_________ . An Address on Ardent Spirit, read before the New Hampshire MedicalSociety at their Annual Meeting, June 5th, 1827. Hanover, N.H: Tho. Mann,1828.
_________ . Prize Essay on Ardent Spirits, and Its Substitutes as a Means o f InvigoratingHealth. Washington: Duff Green, 1837.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 2
Mussey, Reuben Dimond, M.D. The Trials and Rewards o f the Medical Profession: an Introductory Lecture Delivered at the Opening o f the First Session o f the Miami Medical College, at Cincinnati, October 3d, 1852. Cincinnati: T. Wrightson, 12 W. 2nd Street, 1853.
Olin, Stephen. Letter to Thomas Sewall, May 15, 1845. Manuscript Division, George Washington Library Special Collections. Washington, D.C.
Rush, Benjamin, M.D. Directions for Preserving the Health o f Soldiers. Lancaster, Pa: John Dunlap in Queen St., 1778.
_________ . An Enquiry into the Effects o f Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body andtheir Influence upon the Happiness o f Society. Philadelphia: John McCulloch in 3rd St., 1791.
_________ . Letters o f Benjamin Rush. Lyman H. Butterfield, ed. Princeton U. Press,1951.
_________ . Medical Inquiries and Observations on the Diseases o f the Mind.Philadelphia: Kimber and Richardson, Market Street, 1812.
_________ . The Selected Writings o f Benjamin Rush. Dagobert Runes, ed. NY: ThePhilosophical Library, 1947.
_________ . Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise. Philadelphia: JohnDunlap in Market Street, 1772.
Sewall, Thomas, M.D. Harvard University Lecture Ticket, 1807.
_________ . Lecture Delivered at the Opening o f the Medical Department o f theColombian College in the District o f Columbia, March 30, 1825. Washington: Columbian Office, 1825.
_________ . A Charge Delivered to the Graduation Class o f the Columbian College,D.C. at the Medical Commencement, March 22, 1827. Washington: Duff Green, 1828.
_________ . An Address Delivered before the Washington City Temperance Society, Nov.15,1830. Washington, D.C: W.Greer, 1830.
_________ . An Examination o f Phrenology; in two lectures, delivered to the students o fthe Columbian College. Washington: B. Homans, printer, 1837.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 3
Sewall, Thomas, M.D.. An Address on the Effects o f Intemperance on the Intellectual, Moral, and Physical Powers. NY: American Tract Society, n.d.
Thayer, William M. Charles Jewett: Life and Recollections. Boston: H.H. Earle, 1880.
Trotter, Thomas, M.D. An Essay Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical on Drunkenness and Its Effects on the Human Body. Roy Porter, ed. London: Routledge, 1988. Originally pub. 1804.
Webster, Daniel. The Papers o f Daniel Webster, Correspondence. Charles M.Wiltse, ed. Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1976.
Webster, Henry Sewall. Thomas Sewall; some [sic }o f his Ancestors and all o f his Descendants: A Genealogy. Gardiner, Maine, 1904.
Webster, Rebecca Sewall. Letter to the Rev. Thomas Sewall about his father, after 1845. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Newspapers, Reports, Medical Journals, and Other Journals
Boston Transcript. 25 June 1866. Obituary of Reuben D. Mussey.
Circular of the Medical Department, Washington, March 30, 1825. Manuscript Division, George Washington University Archives.
Crosby, A.B., M.D. Eulogy on Reuben Dimond Mussey, M.D., LL.D. Transactions of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Concord, N.H: New Hampshire Medical Society, 1869.
Constitution o f the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression o f Intemperance, as revised and altered together with their annual report for the year 181, and a list o f the officers and members o f said Society. Boston, 1818.
First Annual Report o f the Congressional Temperance Society. Washington, D.C.,1834.
Journal o f Humanity and Herald o f the American Temperance Society. Andover, Mass., 1831.
Journal o f the American Temperance Union. Philadelphia and New York, 1837.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 4
Minutes o f the Board o f Trustees and Minute Book o f the Faculty, August, 1839. Box 9, George Washington University Archives.
Permanent Temperance Documents. 4 vols. New York, 1852.
Proceedings o f the Convention for the Promotion o f the Cause o f Temperance. Washington, D.C., 1833.
Proceedings o f the general convention o f delegates from the members and localpreachers o f the Methodist Episcopal Church, friendly to reform. Baltimore,1827.
Temperance Herald. Baltimore, 1834-36, weekly.
The Medical Repository o f Original Essays and Intelligence, Relative to Physic, Surgery, Chemistry, and Natural History, v. 1-23. New York, 1800-1824.
The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal. 3 vols. Philadelphia, Nov 1804-1809.
The Union. Philadelphia, 1837-57.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Archives Center. Materials, “Temperance,” boxes 1-7.
Western Lancet. Cincinnati, 1856, v 17.
World’s Temperance Centennial Congress, 1808-1908, Souvenir Programme. Saratoga Springs, 1908.
Secondary Sources
Books
History of Medicine
Bell, Whifield, J. John Morgan, Continental Doctor. Philadelphia: U. of Pa. Press, 1965.
Baker, Rachel. The First Woman Doctor; the Story o f Elizabeth Blackwell. New York: Messner, 1944.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 5
Binger, Carl A. Revolutionary Doctor, Benjamin Rush, 1746-1813. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1966.
D’Elia, Donald J. Benjamin Rush, Philosopher o f the American Revolution. Philadelphia: American Philosophical society, 1974.
Duffy, John. From Humors to Medical Science: a History o f American Medicine. Chicago: U. of 111. Press, 1993.
DuPont, Robert L. The Selfish Brain: Learning from Addiction. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Press, 1997.
Hawke, David F. Benjamin Rush, Revolutionary Gadfly. New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1971.
Holland, Sandy, ed. From Strength to Strength, A Pictorial History o f the GeorgeWashington University, 1826-1996. Washington, D.C: GW University Press, 1995.
Hoyt, Edwin P. The Improper Bostonian, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1979.
Kayser, Elmer Louis. A Medical Center: The Institutional Development o f MedicalEducation in George Washington University. Washington: GW University Press, 1973.
Kelly, Howard A. and Walter L. Burrage, eds. American Medical Biographies. 1920.
Kelly, Howard A. and Walter L. Burrage, eds. Dictionary o f American MedicalBiography, Lives o f Eminent Physicians o f the United States and Canada, From the Earliest Times. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1928.
Kett, Joseph F. The Formation o f the American Medical Profession: The Role o f Institutions, 1780-1860. New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1968.
King, Lester S. Transformations in American Medicine, from Benjamin Rush to William Osier Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1991.
Kraut, Alan M. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace. ’’ NY:Basic Books, 1994.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure o f Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1962, 2nd ed. 1970.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 6
Leavitt, Judith W. and Ronald Numbers. Sickness and Health in America, Readings in the History o f Medicine and Public Health. Madison, Wise: U. of Wise. Press, 1997.
Nuland, Sherwin B. Doctors, The Biography o f Medicine. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Pauli, Nancy B. Capital Medicine, An Illustrated History o f the Medical Society o f the District o f Columbia. Encino, Cal: Jostens Pub, 1994.
Powell, J.H. Bring Out Your Dead, The Great Plague o f Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793. Philadelphia: U. of Pa. Press, 1965.
Rosenberg, Charles E. The Care o f Strangers; The Rise o f America's Hospital System. NY: Basic Books, 1987.
Rothstein, William G. American Medical Schools and the Practice o f Medicine, A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Sappol, Michael. A Traffic o f Dead Bodies, Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2002.
Schaler, Jeffrey A. Addiction is a Choice. Chicago: Open Court, 2000.
Shryock, Richard H. Medicine in America: Historical Essays. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.
Soumia, Jean-Charles. A History o f Alcoholism. Cambridge, Mass: Basil Blackwell,1990.
Starr, Paul. The Transformation o f American Medicine. NY: Basic Books, 1982.
Thayer, William M. Charles Jewett: Life and Recollections. Boston: J.H.Earle, 1880.
Vogel, Morris J. and Charles E. Rosenberg, eds. The Therapeutic Revolution: Essays in the Social History o f American Medicine. Philadelphia: U. of Pa. Press, 1979.
Temperance Movement, History of Alcohol
Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles o f Reform. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989.
_________ . Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1890-1913. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1976.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 7
Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation o f American Prohibition. NY: W.W. Norton, 1976.
Courtwright, David T. Forces o f Habit: Drugs and the Making o f the Modem World. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 2001.
Daniels, W. H. The Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers. New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1878.
Dannebaum, Jed. Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from theWashingtonian Revival to the WCTU. Urbana and Chicago: U. of 111. Press, 1984.
Dingle, A.E. The Campaign for Prohibition in Victorian England. Great Britain: Croom, Helm Ltd., 1980.
Fehlandt, August F. A Century, o f Drink Reform in the United States. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1904.
Fumas, J.C. The Life and Times o f the Late Demon Rum. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1965.
Gusfield, Joseph R. Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana and Chicago: U. of 111. Press, 1986 (1st ed., 1963)
Hampel, Robert L. Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982.
Harrison, Brian H. Drink and the Victorians, the Temperance Question in England, 1815- 1872. U. of Pittsburgh Press, 1982; pub. in England, 1971.
Heron, Craig. Booze: A Distilled History. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2003.
Kerrigan, Colm. Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement, 1838-1849.Cork, Ireland: Cork U. Press, 1992.
Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall o f Prohibition. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1973.
Krout, John Allen. The Origins o f Prohibition. New York: Russell & Russell, 1953.
Lender, Mark E. Dictionary o f American Temperance Biography: From Temperance Reform to Alcohol Research, the 1600s to the 1980s. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1984.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 8
Lender, Mark E. and James K. Martin. Drinking in America. New York: Macmillan,1987.
Malcolm, Elizabeth. Ireland Sober, Ireland Free: Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth- Century Ireland. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan Ltd., 1987.
Mattingly, Carol. Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale, 111: Southern Illinois U. Press, 1998.
McDonald, Carol. Gender, Drink, and Drugs. Oxford, UK: Berg. Pub., 1994.
Mendelson, Jack H. and Nancy K. Mello. Alcohol Use and Abuse in America. Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1985.
Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Manhood Lost: Fallen Drunkards and Redeeming Women in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Pearson, Charles C. and J. Edwin Hendricks. Liquor and Anti-Liquor in Virginia, 1619- 1919. Durham, N.C: Duke U. Press, 1967.
Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933. Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1998.
Pittman, William. The Roots o f Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, Minn: Hazelden,1988.
Roberts, James S. Drink, Temperance, and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Boston: George Allen and Unwin, 1984.
Rorabaugh, W.J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1979.
Soumia, Jean-Charles. A History o f Alcoholism. Cambridge, Mass: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
Tracy, Sarah W. and Caroline Jean Acker, eds. Altering American consciousness: The History o f Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800-2000. Amherst, Mass: U. of Mass. Press, 2004.
Tyrrell, Ian R. Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800-1896. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1979.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 4 9
Valverde, Mariana. Diseases o f the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas o f Freedom. Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge U. Press, 1998.
White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History o f Addiction Treatment in America. Bloomington, 111: Chestnut Health Systems/Lighthouse Institute, 1998.
General Social and Political History
Balzell, E. Digby. Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 1996).
Brown, Samuel G. The Works o f Rufus Choate, with a Memoir o f His Life. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1862.
Butler, Jon. Awash in a Sea o f Faith: Christianizing the American People. Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1990.
Carwardine, Richard J. Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America. New Haven: YaleU. Press, 1993.
Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds o f Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere" in New England, 1790-1835. New Haven: YaleU. Press, 1977.
Epstein, Barbara. The Politics o f Domesticity: Women, Evangelism and Temperance in Nineteenth Century America. Middletown, Conn, 1981.
Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization o f American Christianity. New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1989.
Ho fstadter, Richard. Age o f Reform. New York: Vintage Books, 1960; 1st ed. 1955.
Howe, Daniel Walker. The Political Culture o f the American Whigs. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1979.
Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeeper’s Millennium. New York: Hill & Wang, 1978.
Juster, Susan. Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England. Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, 1994.
Meranze, Michael. Laboratories o f Virtue: Punishment, Revolution, and Authority in Philadelphia, 1760-1835. Chapel Hill: U. of N.C. Press, 1996.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 5 0
Paulson, Ross Evans. Women’s Suffrage and Prohibition: A Comparative Study o f Equality and Social Control. Glenview, 111: Scott, Foresman, 1973.
Ryan, Mary, P. Cradle o f the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1981.
Shewmaker, Kenneth E. Daniel Webster “The Completest Man. ” Hanover, N.H: U. Press of NE, 1990.
Stewart, James B. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. New York: Hill & Wang, 1976.
Taylor, Alan. Liberty Men and Great Proprietors, The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820. Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Taylor, Robert Lewis. Vessel o f Wrath: The Life and Times o f Carry Nation. New York: New American Library, 1966.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale, The Life o f Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1992.
Walker, Robert H. The Reform Spirit in America. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1976.
Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers, 1815-1860. New York: Hill & Wang, 1978.
West, John G., Jr. The Politics o f Revelation and Reason: Religion and Civic Life in the New Nation. Lawrence, Kansas: U. Press of Kansas, 1996.
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise o f the American Working Class, 1788-1850. Oxford: Oxford Press, 1984.
Wulf, Karin. Not All Wives: Women o f Colonial Philadelphia. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell U. Press, 2000.
Articles
Aaron, P. and David Musto. “Temperance and Prohibition in America: A Historical Overview” in M. Moore and K. Gerstein, eds. Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow o f Prohibition. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, 1981.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 5 1
Ames, Genevieve M. “American Beliefs about Alcoholism, Historical Perspectives on the Medical-Moral Controversy.” In Linda A. Bennett and Genevieve Ames, eds. The American Experience with Alcohol. New York: Plenum Press, 1985.
Barton, Benjamin Smith, ed. “Review of A Treatise o f the Materia Medica andTherapeutics. ” The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal 23, no. 1 (1824): 48-80.
Blocker, Jack S. “Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation.” American Journal o f Public Health 96, no. 2 (Feb. 2006): 233-43.
Burral, F.A., M.D. “The Treatment of Alcoholism by Suggestion.” Journal o f the American Medical Association, no. 28 (1897): 399-400.
Cassedy, James H. “An Early American Hangover: The Medical Profession and Intemperance, 1800-1860.” Bulletin o f the History o f Medicine 50, 1976.
Craig, Henry K. “Historical Sketch of the George Washington University Medical School.” In The Caduceus (May 1915): 15-18.
Gillett, Mary C. “Joseph Lovell.” American National Biography 14 (1999): 13-14.
Hamilton, John B. “Life and Times of Doctor Reuben D. Mussey.” Journal o f the American Medical Association 26, no. 14 (April 1896): 649-52.
Hoogenboom, Olive. “Reuben Dimond Mussey.” American National Biography vl6, 190-91. New York: Oxford Press, 1999.
Katcher, Brian S. “Benjamin Rush’s Educational Campaign Against Hard Drinking.” American Journal o f Public Health 83, no. 2 (Feb 1993): 273-81.
Kopperman, Paul E. “ ‘Venerate the Lancet’: Benjamin Rush’s Yellow Fever Therapy in Context.” Bulletin o f the History o f Medicine 78, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 539-74.
Levine, Harry G. “The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conception of HabitualDrunkenness in America.” Journal o f Studies on Alcohol 15 (1979): 493-506.
Meyer, Roger E. “The Disease Called Addiction: Emerging Evidence in a 200-Year Debate.” The Lancet 347 (Jan 20, 1996): 162-66.
Morens, David M. “Death of a President.” New England Journal o f Medicine 341, no.24 (Dec 9, 1999): 1845-1849.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 5 2
Olsen, Gerald Wayne. “ 'Physician heal thyself: drink, temperance and the medical question in the Victorian and Edwardian Church of England, 1830-1914.” Addiction 89 (1994): 1167-1176.
Rohrer, James R. “The Origins of the Temperance Movement: a Reinterpretation.” Journal o f American Studies 24, no.2 (Aug 1990): 228-35.
Room, Robin. “Cultural Contingencies of Alcoholism: Variations Between and Within Nineteenth-Century Urban Ethnic Groups in Alcohol-Related Death Rates.” Journal o f Health and Social Behavior 9 (June 1968): 108.
Shultz, Suzanne M. “The Medical Education of William Brooks Bigler (1863).” Annals o f Internal Medicine 129, no. 5 (Sept 1998): 426-30.
Snow, David A. and Robert D. Benford. “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest” in Aldon Morris and Carol Mueller, eds. Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven, Ct: Yale U. Press, 1992.
Spode, Hasso. “What Does Alcohol History Mean and to What End Do We Study It?” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs 18 (2003): 16-31.
“Thomas Sewall.” Appleton’s Cyclopedia o f American Biography 5 (1894): 469.
Tyrrell, Ian R. “Thiry-three Years of Temperance, 1971-2004.” The Social History o f Alcohol and Drugs 19 (2004) 12-27.
Ulrich, Laurel T. “Martha Moore Ballard and the Medical Challenge to Midwifery” in Judith W. Leavitt and Ronald Numbers, eds. Sickness and Health in America. Madison, Wise., 1997.
Vastag, Brian. “Medicine on the Lewis and Clark Trail.” The Journal o f the American Medical Association 289, no. 10 (March 12, 2003): 1227-30.
White, William L. “The Lessons of Language: Historical Perspectives on the Rhetoric of Addiction.” In Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, eds. Altering American Consciousness: the History o f Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800-2000. Amherst and Boston: U. of Mass Press, 2004.
Yacovone, Donald. “The Transformation of the Black Temperance Movement, 1827- 1854: An Interpretation.” Journal o f the Early Republic 8, no.3 (fall 1988), 281-97.
Zimmerman, Jonathan. “Dethroning King Alcohol: The Washingtonians in Baltimore, 1840-1845.” Maryland Historical Magazine 87, no. 4 (winter 1992): 375-98.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
2 5 3
Dissertations, Theses, and Unpublished Papers
Bell, Richard. “Drinking to Death in the Alcoholic Republic.” Paper presented, meeting of Organization of American Historians. Washington, D.C., April, 2006.
Bland, Sister Joan. “Hibernian Crusade: The Story of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America.” Ph.D. diss., Catholic University, 1951.
Caric, Ric N. “The Man with the Poker Enters the Room, Mania a Potu in Philadelphia,1828-1850. Paper presented at the American Historical Association meeting, January, 2004.
Ferentzy, Peter L. “The Addiction Concept: How the Language of Sin Was Replaced by That of Disease.” Ph.D. diss., York U., Canada, 2001.
Greenberg, Joshua R. “Advocating the Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Market Revolution in New York, 1800-1840.” Ph.D. diss, American University, Washingon, D.C., 2003.
Levine, Harry Gene. “Demon of the Middle Class: Self-control, Liquor, and theIdeology of Temperance in 19th-Century America.” Ph.D. diss., University of Cal., Berkeley, 1978.
McKean, Matthew K. “ 'A world wherein there will be no Disorders': Temperance Reform in Early America, 1645-1813.” Paper presented at the International Conference of Drugs and Alcohol in History in London, Ontario, May, 2004.
Nelson, Katherine. “Thomas Sewall: Temperance Physician.” Paper presented atmeeting of American Historical Association. Washington, D.C., January, 2004.
_________ . “The Legacy of Benjamin Rush, Successes and Limitations of ScientificObservations.” Paper presented at the American University Student Research Conference, 1992.
_________ . “Alcohol in Early Modem England,” paper presented at Conference onPatristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, Sept. 1997.
Osbum, Matthew. “Delirium Tremens, Nineteenth-Century American Literary Context.” Paper presented at meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington, D.C., January, 2004.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
Parsons, Elaine Frantz. “Manhood Lost: Drink, Gender, and Self in theNineteenth-Century United States.” Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1999.
Sandage, Scott. “Deadbeats, Drunkards, and Dreamers: a Cultural History of Failure America, 1819-1893. Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 1995.
R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.