The Six Tissue States the E Nergetics of Physiomedica Lism
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The Six Tissue States The E nergetics of Physiomedica lism by Matthew Wood, A.H.G. After the demise of Greek medicine in the late seven- sweat baths, lobelia, bayberry and cayenne pepper. teenth century, European professional doctors aban- This opened the pores of the skin (Lobelia in/Iata, doned the humoral model of medicine based on the lobelia, sweat baths), removed mucus and food in the four qualities (hot, cold damp and dry). However, they stomach blocking the fire (lobelia, Merica cerifera - continued to practice along similar lines, using words bayberry) and stoked up the heat in the interior llke inflammation or excitation to express the idea of (Capsicum spp. - cayenne) (Thomson S, 1825, 43-5; excess heat. These descriptive terms go back in the lit- Wood M, 2000, 88-93). erature to the classical Greek writers. Thomson's system was widely accepted by frontier In the eighteenth century there was an informal people. It was compatible with the way they thought twofold differentiation in the medical literature about the body and medicine. It is inferred in Galenic between an overexcited condition requiring sedation medicine, where a hot medicine "opens the pores of (for which the usual method was blood-letting or the skin," cuts "tough humours" and cherishes "heat in Matthew Wood opium) and understimulation (requiring stimulants, the internal parts" to "expel the humours, by strength- blistering and food). At the end of the century John ening and helping nature" (Culpeper N, 1990, 378). l\,4atthew Wood has been Brown, a leading allopath, formally taught a doctrine The same method (without the qualities and degrees) pract herbalrst for of two basic patterns of disease and two basic thera- a cing was still being taught in medical school in New peutic methods: sedation and stimulation. over twenty years, and England by one of the most prominent teachers at the The Brownian model continued to influence practical beginning of the nineteenth century, Dr. Nathan Smith. he is a professional therapeutics throughout the nineteenth century. Dr. A student, Dr. Beal P. Downing (Downing BB 1851, member of the AHG. John Scudder (1829-1893) the leader ofthe eclectic 163), writes: school, practiced "according to the classification of He is the author of three I received a part of my htowledge of cure and disease e.xcess, defect and pewersioir." (Scudder JM, 1874, of the great Dr. Smith, who lectured and dissected at books on herbal 242). He also used a wide array of different terms to Dartmouth College, in ltlew Hampshire, forty years Herbq describe different energetic patterns, as did other doc- medicine: Seven ago. He told me that a sweat at the commencement of tors, including : irritation, congestion, hyperemia, exci- (1981), a patient than all the medicine in Plants as Teachets tation, contraction, enfeeblement, depression, atony, afever was better for Vrtalism, formeily activity, want of activity, etc. (Scudder J1874, 6l-'73). The Magical Staff Folk healers, left to their own devices, also simplified the Greek humoral model. The two polarities of hot (1993) and lhe Book and cold appear in both Latin and English America. of Herbal Wisdon The medical system originated by Samuel Thomson (1169-1843), the popularizer of herbalism in early (1997). He lives in nineteenth century America, is based upon these polar- lV nnetrista, N,4N. ities. Thomsonian Energetics o- Thomson taught a simple energetic system suitable to c c American frontiersmen and women. The body was o .g compared to a "fountain" or "stove" from which heat U was generated outwardly to warm the room. If the E (the pores the skin were = periphery was blocked of f closed), heat would build up in the interior. If, on the ! other hand, the fire in the stove started to die down, the c fire could not reach the surface and there would be a cold condition in the room or body. Sometimes the !: fought back against the cold coming E heat in the center o in from the outside, creating symptoms of heat alter- I o nating with chills. (This was a very frequent symptom c o people. was usu- '6 encountered by American frontier It .!1 yellow fever or malar- E ally associated with influenza, o ia.) From these simple observations Thomson deduced d that there were three basic patterns of imbalance in the Top left, Alva Curtis; top right, Wm. H. Cook; organism: hot, cold and alternating hot/cold. His gen- bottom left, T. M. Lyle; bottom right, eral remedy for all imbalances was a combination of Physio-Medical Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio. 28 Spring/Summer 2OO2 HEstory end Fhnilosophy the shops; for, says he, sweat opens the pores. Then name of the school from Thomsonianism to give physic [purgatives] and strengthening bitters. It is Physiomedicalism to avoid problems with the posses- all that is wanted in the early stages of a fever. sive and litigious founder. He modified Thomson's tri- partite differentiation of disease (hot, cold and The same basic method was used by the American hot/cold) by reference to modern science. He noted Indian people with whom Downing studied after leav- that biology (then and now) teaches that there are three ing Dartmouth: basic ways in which living tissue or cells react to stim- ulation: excitation, contraction and relaxation. As a I was among the Indians in the West [i.e., Midwest] consequence, there are three basic disease states: over- four years, and did not Jind but one down with a fever; stimulation, over-contraction but sow mony sweatingthemselves over ahot stone, by and over-relaxation, There three "whatev- turning water on it, and covered with a blanket. Fever are also basic kinds ofremedies: er invariably, promptly, powerfully and perma- is the same in all countries, and with all classes of the will nently relax, conhact and human species, at the commencement; and the same stimulate, will remove all obstructions to vital action, and cure all forms of dis- thing will cure all, if taken in season. Some ere ease." attacked more violently than others, and then they are alarmed and sendfor the doctor, but he cannot cure it Four imbalances are actually inferred in the Curtis pores unless he can open the ofthe skin, andwarm the model: over-stimulation, under-stimulation, contrac- stomach. Bleeding and giving cold minerals runs the tion and relaxation, This fourfold model is utilized by patient down. contemporary physiomedicalists A. W. and L. R. Priest text Herbal Medication. The second method "opening the pores" and "warm- in their They also recognize the atrophic condition, introduced ing the stomach," is slightly different from the first. It by Thurston as one of the tissue states. (Priest AW, Priest is the method taught by Samuel Thomson, though pos- LR, 1982, 30). sibly it was earlier an Indian method. Thomson himself The Six Tissue States learned his basic ideas from the "widow Benton," a In 1900 Dr. Joseph M. Thurston published an neighbor woman (Thomson S, 1825, 15). ambitious tome called The Philosophy of There was an old lady by the name of Benton lived Physiomedicalism. He realized that the literature of near us, who used to attend our family when there was medicine at that time, both conventional and alterna- any siclmess. At that time there was no such thing as a tive, made frequent references to a number ofgeneral Doctor ktown among us; there not being any within physiological conditions. He counted six such primary ten miles. The whole of her practice was with roots and conditions or "tissue states," as he called them. herbs, applied to the patient, or given in hot drinks, to Unfortunately, he saddled them with highly obscure y produce sweating; which always answered the pur- nameu. es o ex aggerati o n, v as o c o n s tri c ti on, v ct s o tro - pose. Wen one thing did not produce the desired phesy, vasodilation, vasoatony and vasodepression. lt ffict, she would try something else, till they were would be more accurate historically, and more inform- relined. By her attention to the family, and the bene- ative, to use the terms in general use in the medical lit Jits they receivedfrom her skill, we became very much erature from which Thurston drew: irritation, constric- attached to her; andwhen she used to go out to collect tion, atrophy, relaxation, torpor and depression.Ihave roots and herbs, she would take me with her, and learn further substituted the term stagnation for torpor, me their names, with what they were good for; and I because I believe it will be more easily understood by used to bevery curious in my inquiries, and in tasting a modern audience. every thing Ifound. The information I thus obtained at The six tissue states represent simple excesses or defi- this early age, wcts afterwards of great use to me. ciencies in three basic physiological factors. Irritation Years later, when Thomson was developing his med- and depression correspond to wrongs inthe rate oftis- ical doctrines, he explains how the basic concept he sue function - too fast, too slow Constriction and learned from Mrs. Benton inspired the development of relaxation represent incorrect tension of the tissues - his system of medicine (Thomson S, 1825, 43). too tight, too loose. Atrophy and torpor represent change in Ihe density of tissue - too hard, too soft. Ifound that all disorders which the humanfamily were ffiicted with, however various the symptoms, and dif- These tissue states are widely described in the litera- ferent the names by which they are called, arise direct- ture, and in order to describe them I have drawn from ly from obstructed perspiration, which is always the literature of the great nineteenth century botanical caused by cold, or want ofheat; for ifthere is a natu- doctors ofall schools.