Thomson claimed in his own published narrative that during a yellow-fever epidemic at Alstead and Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1805, he attended every patient with 'great success, not losing one,' while roughly half of the patients under regular physicians died, and separately tested his system on yellow-fever victims in Boston and New York City as early as 1806.
Thomson’s own New Guide to Health recounts a yellow-fever epidemic at Alstead and Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1805: he attended every patient himself with “great success, not losing one,” while about half of the patients treated by regular physicians died (Thomson 1835). Michael Flannery’s peer-reviewed history separately records that Thomson tested his system on yellow-fever victims in Boston and New York City as early as 1806, the same period his regimens first acquired the name Thomsonian (Flannery 2002); Flannery documents that Thomson applied the system to these patients and that the period gave rise to the Thomsonian name, without itself certifying that those particular treatments succeeded. The claim rests on Thomson’s own testimonial account, not on any independent clinical assessment or comparison with untreated or conventionally treated patients; neither attached source describes any controlled replication of it.
Appears in
Sources
- The Early Botanical Medical Movement as a Reflection of Life, Liberty, and Literacy in Jacksonian America — Flannery, Michael A. The Early Botanical Medical Movement as a Reflection of Life, Liberty, and Literacy in Jacksonian America. Journal of the Medical Library Association 90, no. 4 (2002): 442-454. PMID: 12398251. PMCID: PMC128961.
- New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician — Thomson, Samuel. New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician. Containing a Complete System of Practice, upon a Plan Entirely New: with a Description of the Vegetables Made Use of, and Directions for Preparing and Administering Them, to Cure Disease. To Which Is Prefixed, A Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of the Author. Boston: Printed for the Author, and sold by his General Agent, at the Office of the Boston Investigator, J. Q. Adams, Printer, 1835.