Protestant Christianity and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America Ronald James Gordon University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
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University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2014 "The lC aims of Religion Upon Medical Men": Protestant Christianity and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America Ronald James Gordon University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the History of Religion Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Gordon, Ronald James, ""The lC aims of Religion Upon Medical Men": Protestant Christianity and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 2268. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2268 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. "The Claims of Religion Upon Medical Men": Protestant Christianity and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America "The Claims of Religion Upon Medical Men": Protestant Christianity and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Ronald J. Gordon Arkansas Tech University Bachelor of Arts in History, 2005 Arkansas Tech University Master of Arts in History, 2008 May 2014 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ___________________________ Dr. Beth Schweiger Dissertation Director ____________________________ ____________________________ Dr. Tricia Starks Dr. Steven Stowe Committee Member Committee Member ____________________________ Dr. Daniel Sutherland Committee Member Abstract This is the first study to examine how pastors lost authority over bodily healing in the nineteenth century. I argue that clergymen adapted to the scientific and cultural developments of the post-Darwin era by encouraging a separation of bodily healing and spiritual healing that was unprecedented in Christianity. In 1840, ministers wielded much more authority than physicians, who still practiced a heroic medicine whose foundations predated Christ. Ministers insisted that doctors' value lay in their willingness to be proselytizing Christians. The doctor who wanted to reach the upper echelon of his profession had to save the souls of the wayward and dying whom the Protestant minister could not reach. Technical skill meant little. By the end of the century, germ theory and the rise of the field of public health meant that the physician could save lives as never before. Conversely, the Protestant clergyman's moral authority decayed as Darwin -and the myriad geologists and biblical historians who attacked notions of an inerrant Biblical account - made atheism viable for the first time in Western history. As medicine surpassed the ministry - and every other profession - to take the lead in the late 1800s, clergymen adopted a new tack. Eager to establish themselves as specialists in spiritual healing - in an age when specialization dominated the professions - clergymen stopped demanding that physicians save both bodies and souls. The clergyman's new ideal doctor was one who stayed abreast of scientific developments and served as a "mediator of science" - spreading the healing gospel of public health to the unwashed masses. Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of my academic advisor, Beth Schweiger. Thank you for helping me become a better historian, Dr. Schweiger. Daniel Sutherland, Tricia Starks, and Steven Stowe provided valuable insight that shaped my approach to the topic at hand. Thank you all. Additional thanks go to the library staffs of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the Presbyterian Historical Society, the University of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Special thanks to Peggy Gordon, Ronald L. Gordon, Yoko Gordon, Kelsey Durham, Amanda Siddons, Arthur Siddons, Eli Siddons, Tucker Siddons, Loren Siddons, Larry Nichols, Jake Nichols, Marcus Nichols, Alyssa Nichols, Michael Nichols, Teresa Baxter, Rick Jones, Lauren Pascoe, Erin Brady, Kathryn Sloan, Jeannie Whayne, Michael Pierce, Patrick Williams, Elliott West, Randall Woods, Alessandro Brogi, Jan Jenkins, Micheal Tarver, Diane Gleason, Jeff Woods, Thomas DeBlack, David Krueger, Kenneth Hice, Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell, Shonna Tucker, Brad Morgan, Jay Gonzalez, Matt Patton, Dewey Oldham, Earl Hicks, Rob Malone, John Neff, William David Dameshek, David Feeney, Adam L. Carolla, Alison Rosen, Bryan Bishop, Arthur Lange, Anthony Cumia, Gregg Hughes, James Norton, Lyle Chipperson, Paul Hahrrgis, Russell Jones, Robert Diggs, Gary Grice, Clifford Smith, Corey Woods, Dennis Coles, Jason Hunter, Jamel Arief, Lamont Hawkins, Pauline Hawkins, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Jaime Klegerman, Mitchell Hedberg, Kyle Kinane, William Burr, Louis Szekely, Christopher Rock, Christopher Robinson, Richard Robinson, Richard Fliehr, Andre Roussimoff, and Cecil Ingram Connor III. Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my Mom. Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1. History's Lessons, 1840-1870 5 Chapter 2. "Direct Their Fainting Vision to the Cross of the Sin-Atoning Jesus": The Clergy's Message to Doctors, 1840-1859 30 Chapter 3. "A Great Revolution Has Taken Place": Changes in the Ministry and Medicine, 1860-1900 73 Chapter 4. "Mediators of Science": Clerical Expectations of Doctors, 1860-1900 124 Bibliography 156 1 Introduction What follows is the first study to examine how pastors lost authority over bodily healing in the nineteenth century. I argue that clergymen adapted to the scientific and cultural developments of the post-Darwin era by encouraging a separation of bodily healing and spiritual healing that was unprecedented in Christianity. In the 1840s and 50s, clergymen emphasized their authority over physicians in lengthy sermons to churches full of doctors. Ministers regularly claimed that the most important duty the physician could perform was the healing of his patients' souls. The doctor's bodily healing meant little if it was not combined with a willingness to save the souls of the wayward and the dying. Clerical calls for doctors to serve as amateur clergymen withered in the face of the medical profession's late-nineteenth century rise. Faced with considerable challenges to their own authority just as medicine entered its modern era, Protestant clergymen assured their continuing relevance by drawing clear distinctions between their healing and doctors' healing. Calls for the physician to serve as "mediator of science" - the man who preached the saving message of sanitation to the unwashed masses- replaced calls to save souls. Not only did the doctor no longer need to save souls, he did not have to be a Christian, or even a theist, in order to live up to the highest duties of his calling. In an age that saw the birth of specialization in the rising medical profession, clergymen staked their claim as specialists in spiritual healing and shrewdly deemphasized the need for physicians to dabble in spiritual healing. No medical breakthrough could extend life eternally. Many still believed the clergyman could. Though my primary reason for limiting the study to the latter six decades of the nineteenth century is the considerable shift in the fortunes of the physician and minister during 2 this period, the nature of the available sources also played a role. I use sermons and clerical commencement addresses to physicians as the main evidence in this study. Though a few were published before 1840, the 1840s were the first decade when ministerial addresses to physicians were regularly published in newspapers, professional journals, or as pamphlets. Doctors, ministers, and newspapermen published addresses for the rest of the nineteenth century. Though extant addresses from the middle of the century are more abundant than those from the 1880s and 90s, the extant evidence from the latter part of the century is abundant enough to illustrate how ministerial use of medicine changed over the course of the century. Clergymen occasionally mentioned medical matters in correspondence and journals, but they spoke about medicine most extensively when addressing doctors through sermons and commencement addresses. This is the story of how that message changed over the course of the century. The men in the study spoke to doctors in cities in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. Northeastern cities were home to the leading American medical schools. Advances in medical science that allowed doctors to heal people of disease was a major reason for ministers' changing expectations of doctors. The people of the urban Northeast -with its high concentration of medical schools and university trained, regular physicians - were the first to benefit from medical advances that eventually trickled southward and westward, where "country doctors" were replaced by university-trained professionals. The men who were invited to address doctors late in the nineteenth century were typically liberal Protestants - men who accepted the arguments of the new critical Biblical scholarship. Just as the medical advances first seen in the Northeast eventually spread throughout the country, so too did an increased acceptance of the notion that Christ may not have performed