Index
Good health is a state of natural life that always depends on your lifestyle. If you listen to your body and treat it well, it will always reward you with good health.
Allopathy refers to conventional medical practices with natural elements used during a specific era of history.
Allopathy is a historical term that is widely used “as a reference for medical practices that included bleeding, purging, vomiting, and the administration of highly toxic medications.”
The natural health perspective is about wellness, holistic medicine, prevention, healthy living, and healthy lifestyles.
Origin of the Allopathy
Allopathy is a method to treat the disease with remedies that produce effects different from those caused by it.
The term ‘Allopathy’ was invented by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann.
They joined the words allos ‘opposite’ and pathos ‘suffering.’ An example of an allopathic therapy would be “to use a laxative to relieve constipation.”
The history of Allopathy was practiced in the United States from the American Revolutionary War until around 1876, which marked the beginning of preventive medicine.
It can also be described as traditional medicine, the practice of conventional medicine during the 19th century, the Era of Heroic Medicine (1780-1850), the Era of the Miasmas, and the Sanitation Reform Movement in America.
From a twentieth-century point of view, early American medicine was not scientific. Isolated observations of the disease and the treatment outcome were generalized, in what now seems a more arbitrary way, into universal “theories of disease.”
Theory of four senses of humor
The old theory “attributed the disease to an imbalance of four senses of humor (i.e., blood, phlegm, and black and yellow bile), with four bodily conditions (i.e., hot, cold, wet and dry) that corresponded to four elements (earth, air, fire, and water).
Doctors who followed the Hippocratic tradition tried to balance the humor by treating the symptoms with opposites.
For example, it was believed that the fever (heat) was due to excess blood because the patients were reddened; therefore, equilibrium was sought by extracting blood to “cool” the patient.
Allopathy versus functional medicine
During the eighteenth century, the explanation of the disease of the Four Bones began to lose ground to several conflicting systems that tried to reveal one or two primary causes for all illnesses.
In addition, an effort was being made to develop a fundamental theory that would detract from the importance of diagnosing specific diseases.
However, regardless of the theory, the allopathic medical treatment continued to consist mainly of the traditional heroic methods of medical treatment: bleeding, leeches, suckers, blisters, purges, vomiting, and rubbing with toxic ointments.
William Cullen (1710-1790), a Scottish doctor and professor, argued that excess or insufficient nervous tension was the cause of all diseases.
Too much tension was often characterized by fever and treated by a strenuous regimen that included hemorrhage, a restricted diet, purging, rest, and sedation.
On the other hand, a cold or chill indicated too much relaxation and required restorative measures.
Homeopathic theorists of the eighteenth century generally did not include an explanation for disease epidemics in their systems.
There were many discussions about possible sources of airborne diseases.
The word infection (including references to infectious temperaments) was used for stale air, poisonous atmosphere, or miasmas.
The Allopathic theory of miasmas was an apparent reference to the horrendous smells of urban life experienced by all during this period.
The theory that the atmosphere was the cause of many types of fevers persisted until 1812.
Many also blamed the sudden changes in weather for causing outbreaks of disease and believing in the damaging effects of cold and humid climates.
The types of therapy for specific diseases were not too common in the eighteenth century since the same heroic remedies were used for almost all conditions.
A moderate hemorrhage was considered one that took 8 to 12 ounces of blood and a heavy one of 16 to 20 ounces.
The cleaning of the digestive tract was another generalized remedy followed or without much caution, using purgatives such as rhubarb, manna with enema tincture, and enemas of the variable formulation.
Among the newest ideas in medicine was the belief in the general salubrity of fresh air. It was thought that pure air dissipated miasmas, the causal agent of all diseases.
Another more widespread remedy of recent origin was Mercury (a well-known poison), previously used against venereal diseases and as a purgative.
But now, it is also used as an alternative to treat many diseases, often in the form of calomel.
The poison Mercury was prescribed more and more after 1750 for diseases classified as inflammatory. The Allopaths did not consider a deficient diet a significant cause of illness.
In addition, it was widely believed that water became safe to drink by boiling or treating it with liquors, wine, and vinegar.
The era of Preventive Medicine
Preventive medicine, or the bacteriological era, dates arbitrarily from Robert Koch’s (1843-1910) demonstration in 1876 of the bacterial cause of anthrax.
This marked the beginning of a revolution in medical and scientific thinking by discovering the bacteriological agents responsible for causing infectious diseases.
Before 1876, the medical and scientific emphasis was on hygiene and sanitation.
After 1876, everything was about preventive medicine or bacteriological weapons to prevent diseases.
Allopathic methods of treatment
The Alópatas used bleeding, leeches, suckers, blisters, purges, vomiting, plasters, and rubbing with toxic ointments to treat their patients.
Allopathic treatment methods were thought to be cleansing, purifying, and balancing treatments that sought to restore the humoral harmony of the four senses of humor.
Softening
Bleeding was usually the initial treatment. There were some different bleeding methods from a person; it was said that the bleeding reduced the patient.
It was believed that bleeding released bad blood that contained diseases in a person’s body.
Doctors used to apply this treatment if the patient had:
- Brain congestion
- Eye pain.
- Sickness of the spine.
- Sore throat or swollen tonsils
- Asthma.
- Inflammation of the lungs
- Heart disease.
- Dyspepsia.
- Hepatic disease.
- Enlargement of the spleen.
- Inflammation of intestines.
- Hemorrhoids.
- Genital diseases
- Rheumatism.
- Neuralgia.
In all cases of intermittent fever, it was remitting, typhoid, yellow, black tongue, dysentery, dengue, and, in fact, for each particular and unique morbid condition that could be found.
Venesección
It is a method of bleeding with leeches. A sponge was placed in a thin tube while washing and shaving the patient’s skin.
To stimulate the leech’s bite, a drop of blood or milk was placed in the area of a vein. Then the tube with the sponge was inverted on it on the spot, and the sponge sucked blood from the vein.
When it was felt that the sponge had taken enough blood, salt was sprinkled on it, causing the sponge to stop sucking and loosening the skin.
Ventosa
A treatment in which empty glass cups are applied to cut the skin and draw blood. The suction cups were generally used in combination with indentations.
After one or two aggressive hemorrhages, a patient’s blood pressure would be reduced to the point where the blood would no longer come out, so hot cups were placed over the cuts to help draw more blood.
The unique cups were heated and placed over the cuts, creating a vacuum and allowing blood to flow freely from the vein.
Blisters
It was believed that the pain of the blisters caused the patient to focus on a new pain, moving their minds away from more severe pain than they suffered.
The practice of the blisters was deliberately done by giving the patient a second-degree burn and then draining the resulting sore.
Blisters were a standard method to treat the following diseases:
- Brain congestion
- Inflammation of the brain.
- Eye pain.
- Sore throat.
- Inflammation of the stomach and lungs, liver, and spleen.
- Spinal irritation
- Speed.
- Typhus.
- Typhoid fever.
Cast
Plasters were paste-like mixtures made from various ingredients, including substances such as cow dung. They were applied to the chest or back of a person suffering from a cold or internal pain, including pneumonia.
Often they were poultices with blisters. The applications were made with bread and milk, and, sometimes, other ingredients such as potatoes, onions, herbs, and linseed oil were added.
The poultices were applied to cuts, wounds, bites, and boils.
Smoke
Smoking consisted of dosing a patient with emetics to produce vomiting. It is believed that the practice of vomiting relieves the tension in the arteries and expels the poisons from the body.
Sweating
Sweating is a treatment in which patients sweat the poisons that caused their disease.
Fumigations
The practice of fumigation was one of the most common, to administer a type of drug in the breathing apparatus with everything that could be smoked, solved, pulverized, and gasified.
Among its numerous remedies that are recommended to enter into the delicate structure of the lungs, through its multiform poisons, there were substances as healthy as opium, cubebs, belladonna, iodine, calomel, corrosive sublimate, sugar of lead, hellebore, aconite, partridges of dogs, tobacco, arsenic, antimony, nitro, etc.
Purge
Purging is a treatment that induces the evacuation of the patient’s intestines with powerful laxatives, which were done to cleanse the body of toxins or irritants.
The most widely used purgative was calomel, a form of mercuric chloride.
Ointments
Ointments containing Mercury were used topically against venereal diseases. Sulfur was commonly used to treat itching.
Dehydration
For most of the last century, the standard medical practice consisted in not administering water to severely ill patients, and thousands of patients died from dehydration.
Hypopathic hygiene practices
How the military implemented the basic principles of hygiene and sanitation during the various wars of this period has been well documented.
During the War of Mexico (1846-1848), seven deaths from diseases in the camp (mainly dysentery ) were related to each death caused by a war injury.
Approximately half of the deaths due to illness during the Civil War were caused by intestinal disorders, mainly typhoid fever, diarrhea, and dysentery.
Malaria attacked approximately a quarter of all the military. The rest died of pneumonia and tuberculosis. The outbreaks of these diseases were caused by unhygienic conditions of overcrowding in the field.
Celebrities killed by Allopathy
George Washington (1732 -1799)
Washington was bled prematurely and poisoned to death, got a cold as he traveled to his property, and developed pneumonia.
The doctors in Washington also blistered it and purged it. He did not respond to these treatments, and he died.
Today, doctors believe that George Washington was dying of an acute streptococcal infection of the larynx, which caused painful swelling of the interior of the larynx that resulted in suffocation.
A tracheotomy would probably have saved her life, and in fact, one was suggested by the youngest doctor who attended, Eliseo Dick. Still, the technique was new, and older doctors considered it insecure.
Wiliam Harrison (1773-1841)
Harrison was 68 years old and only served 31 days. He gave an inaugural speech for two hours on a cold, wet, and windy March 4; He developed a nasty cold that quickly turned into pneumonia.
The president’s attending doctors tried to blister the right side of his chest, but Harrison did not improve. Then ipecacuanha was administered to induce vomiting; they also gave calomel and castor oil to purge their insides.
Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)
Taylor became ill after attending a July 4th celebration at the Washington Monument for several hours.
The president was diagnosed with cholera morbus, a term used for intestinal ailments or acute gastroenteritis.
His condition decreased during the following two days, and a regime of ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine did little to alleviate it. Blisters, bleeding, and purging were also used.
On July 8, after suffering four days of severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting, President Taylor died.
Prince Albert (1819-1861)
He died in 1861 from the drug medication that he had received.
History tells us that Alberto’s death was so unexpected that historians always suspected that he had been poisoned with arsenic.
Historical conclusions
There are many medical histories available that write enthusiastically about the achievements of medicine in the areas of prevention and sanitation and the achievements of Dr. Benjamin Rush during the colonial period and the nineteenth century.
But these observations after the fact did not affect the daily practice of the Allopathy during this period which continued using heroic medicines and poor hygiene.
Nor did he prevent patients from being killed by his doctors until the end of the nineteenth century. He stopped more soldiers from the Civil War from dying from illnesses than from battles due to the poor hygienic conditions of army camps and hospitals.
While these brilliant medical histories are read well in today’s print, the practice of Allopathy during this period was more deadly than the severe infectious diseases it was treating.
The practice of Allopathy or heroic medicine lasted so long because precisely even though the allopaths drained their blood and poisoned them with highly toxic drugs, many patients recovered from severe infectious diseases such as yellow fever and cholera.
