Forgotten Medicine of the Gilded Age

History of eclectic medicine during the Gilded Age with a focus on the American Eclectic Dispensatory and Women's Medical Care.  Eclectic...

This exhibit is a digital history website on the history of eclectic medicine and physicians specializing in women's care and treatment of female disorders. These physicians were not homeopaths, and their texts were similar to regular physicians of the day. What made these men and women stand out from other alternative medical therapists? The late nineteenth century was an age of scientific discovery. Medicine lagged behind with traditional physicians still using bloodletting and mercury for syphilis and other venereal diseases. The Gilded Medical Age was an age of experimentation and alternate medical therapies like hydrotherapy, hypnosis, electrical therapy, eclectics, and homeopathy.  It was not yet entirely accepted by physicians that bacteria caused disease or that cholera was definitely from contaminated water. Eclectic doctors prided themselves on cleanliness, exercise, and plant-based medicines to restore women to health. Also, eclectic doctors were adopters of multiple types of treatment for mysterious female disorders, like hysteria. This website includes real cases, including the cost of treatment, from one of the most prominent eclectic physicians of the day. Some of his treatments are from plants we know of and still use today.  Some of the treatment is for disorders that we do not consider abnormal today nor need treatment. These cases are examples of how women patients were treated differently by eclectic medical physicians. Yet, a sign of their time with the need to regulate women's sexual, emotional, and physical states.