Morbid Concretions and the Chemistry of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine Edward Allen Driggers Jr
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2015 Boundary Stones: Morbid Concretions and the Chemistry of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine Edward Allen Driggers Jr. University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Driggers, E. A.(2015). Boundary Stones: Morbid Concretions and the Chemistry of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3646 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Boundary Stones: Morbid Concretions and the Chemistry of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine By Edward Allen Driggers, Jr. Bachelor of Arts North Carolina State University, 2008 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2010 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2015 Accepted by: Ann Johnson, Major Professor Joseph November, Committee Member Allison Marsh, Committee Member Christopher Hamlin, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Edward Allen Driggers, Jr., 2015 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my daughter, Mildred Penelope Driggers, who I joyfully awaited while writing this dissertation. I want this dissertation to be first and foremost a testament to my wife’s unwavering and dedicated support. She believed in me every moment of every day, through every surgery, every struggle, and every move. With time, dedication, and spirit she was with me every page. It is also meant to honor my father’s memory, my mother’s support, and the many named and unnamed individuals whose suffering was witnessed in the case histories that were discussed in this dissertation. Finally, this dissertation is meant to honor the optimism, courage, and guidance that my advisor has shown me throughout my years as her student. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this dissertation benefited from generous financial support from a number of sources. I received the Edelstein Dissertation Writing Fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation for the 2014-2015 academic year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My travel to London was supported by the Provost Office’s SPARC Grant at the University of South Carolina. Archival research was funded by the College of Physicians in Philadelphia in the form of a two week Wood Institute Fellowship, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation funded my archival research for two weeks at their Philadelphia-based archives. Many librarians were instrumental in the completion of this dissertation, including my wife Rachel who helped with transcription and editing, all the while asking difficult questions and arguing opposite points to my poorly constructed ideas. Archivists, librarians, and historians at the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Waring Museum of Medical History at the Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolinian Library, and Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books Room are reason behind anything of quality in this dissertation. This dissertation has benefited from many helpful discussions and workshops. The Chemical Heritage Foundation, including its faculty and fellows, allowed me to present my research, and were gracious enough to workshop one of my chapters. Dr. Bruce T. Moran offered extensive comments while I was on fellowship at CHF, as did Dr. Carin Berkowitz, Dr. Ignacio Suay-Matallana, Dr. Stefano Gattei, Dr. James Voelkel, iv Dr. Michelle DiMeo, Nadia Berenstein, Daniel Liu, and Britt Dahlberg. Dr. Robert Hicks of the Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia offered supportive words during my time at CHF. My fellow graduate students in the history department at the University of South Carolina provided support and feedback. Special thanks to Tim Minella who read chapter drafts, graciously offered housing for two of my research fellowships, and shared in numerous discussions over bourbon. I’d also like to thank Dr. David Dangerfield for the good barbeque and conversation. I received several helpful comments at the Women’s Health Conference at the Pennsylvania Hospital in the spring of 2015. Feedback was also generously offered at History of Science Society Meeting in Boston during the winter of 2013, and in Charleston at the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science Annual Meeting in 2013. Finally, immense gratitude is due to my advisor, Dr. Ann Johnson, who read endless drafts, offered her always excellent advice, her time, and her honesty and encouragement throughout this project, and throughout my graduate studies. Without Dr. Johnson, this dissertation would not exist. I believe it is important to note here that all mistakes are my own, and are in no way the fault of anyone aforementioned. v ABSTRACT My dissertation is the story of communities of physicians seeking to understand the morbid concretion of the body using the new chemistry from the late eighteenth century. Morbid concretions, or calculi, were occurred in the urinary passages, lungs, joints, pancreas, uterus, and other areas of the body. At the turn of the nineteenth century, some physicians saw analytical chemistry, emerging out of the so-called chemical revolution, as applicable in understanding and treating stone-based diseases. However, some physicians and surgeons saw the treatment of stones with chemistry as evidence of the need to return to older practices of medicine, like humoral pathology, or the theory of health based on the balance of the fluids of the body. My dissertation examines the work of several medico-chemists and surgeons across the Atlantic cities of Charleston, London, and Philadelphia. They were united in their desire to understand the morbid concretions, offer better interventions to their patients, and in the optimism that chemistry held analytical value to medicine. The medical treatment of the stone intersects with questions regarding race and gender, as well as a transitory moment in medicine trying to explain diseases related to fluid blockages, like gout, diabetes, urinary calculi, and skin color. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: THE MORBID CONCRETIONS OF THE HUMAN BODY ................................1 CHAPTER 2: THE REPUBLIC OF MEDICINE: BENJAMIN RUSH’S MEDICO-CHEMISTRY ...................................................31 CHAPTER 3: “[T]HE INFANCY OF HERCULES”: THOMAS COOPER’S MEDICO-CHEMICAL WORLDVIEW .........................89 CHAPTER 4: REVISING HUMORAL PATHOLOGY: UROLOGY IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA BACKCOUNTRY .........................125 CHAPTER 5: THE ARTIFICIAL LINE: SURGERY, MEDICINE, AND CHEMICAL ANALYSIS ................................161 CHAPTER 6: CHEMISTRY, MEDICINE, AND SOCIETIES IN CHARLESTON, PHILADELPHIA, AND LONDON ....................................................................201 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................268 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................281 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Blood Letting .....................................................................................................73 Table 5.1 Lithotomies ......................................................................................................173 Table 7.1: Membership of the Chemical Society of Pennsylvania ..................................190 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Anthelmintic Substances ..................................................................................50 Figure 5.1 Plate from the Essay .......................................................................................151 Figure 5.2: A Display of Plates ........................................................................................162 Figure 5.3 Lithotomies .....................................................................................................166 Figure 5.4 Bone Earth Calculi .........................................................................................168 Figure 5.5 Triple Calculus ...............................................................................................169 Figure 5.6: Mulberry Calculi ...........................................................................................170 Figure 5.7 Cystic Oxyd ....................................................................................................171 Figure 5.8 Compound Calculi ..........................................................................................172 Figure 5.9