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Did you know......... many people in the 18th century who practiced medicine did not receive professional degrees?

During the late 18th century, after the publication of William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, the concept of domestic medicine explored new ideas that changed the way most people perceived medicine. This was an era in which the majority of health care was provided by individuals who were not considered physicians. These people were often close friends, neighbors, or family relatives of the patient. They were not formally trained by modern medical standards of the time but gained their knowledge of medicine by learning from their predecessors. Therefore, the spread of domestic medicinal practices served as a resource for better health care for those who could not afford a physician or did not have access to more technologically advanced practices of medicine. Yet this does not mean that domestic medicine was born with the publication of Domestic Medicine. Domestic medicine has been in practice from as far back as the early colonial era but Buchan’s publication distributed this knowledge out of the hands of the few and to the general public. This was a significant trend as medicine previously had been physician-centered.

Domestic medicine provided a platform for the public to easily access medical care. People from the lower, working-class, in particular, fell under this subgroup of the population who reaped most of the benefits from this style of medicinal practices. Whether it be due to economic reasons, personal preference, or just the fact that no person in their proximity had been trained in modern forms of medicine, they relied on the care from people they trusted. Hence, domestic medicine prompted common folk with a limited knowledge of medicine to care for others using the resources available to them. In many cases, these care givers were mothers as they were in charge of caring for the home and household. Thus, the expansion of domestic medicine played a key role in education not only for the commoner but also women, a group that had previously been limited in their medical involvement. Ironically, though Buchan’s book ended up empowering women, his personal views towards them were less encouraging. He particularly opposed nurses and midwives for prohibiting physicians to treat children or attend births until. He mentioned, “the good women had exhausted all their skill and his [the physicians] attendance could only serve to divide the blame and appease the disconsolate parents.”

In addition, domestic medicine encompassed a factor which the traditional medical practices ignored.Instead of curing a disease once it has been contracted, this idea of medicine incorporated strategies that promoted health preservation and disease prevention. The belief was that if people could maximize hygiene and cleanliness, they could avoid any type of sickly state and, thus, there would be no need for arduous or uncomfortable remedies. Practices such as frequent hand washing, herbal remedies, washing clothes, good ventilation, and overall cleanliness in the home and occupational settings were widely encouraged. Health was regarded as a natural state in which the human body was in sync with nature; therefore, preserving health was a constant goal of domestic medicine.

Yet, this is not to say that domestic medicine discouraged treatment from physicians. Even though it provided a large number of treatments for different diseases, domestic medicine also knew it’s limits. When patients contracted diseases that involved more sever symptoms such as extreme fevers or diarrhea, domestic medicine advised patients to go seek professional treatment. This approach worked well as patients would be incentivized to care for daily health and also resort to professional medical treatments when the need arose. It would serve as a balance between everyday disease prevention and professional disease treatment in certain circumstances. Thus, in theory, domestic medicine both empowered individuals and physicians by allowing them to concentrate in separate aspects of healthcare.

Another benefit that resulted from the use of domestic medicine was the improvement in the population’s education. Early estimates of literacy in the early 1800’s show that nearly a quarter of the U.S. citizens in the north and nearly half of the citizens in the south could not read or write. However, by 1840, this number had shrunk to nearly 9%. The widespread increase in literacy that aided in the distribution of domestic medicine material was substantiated by a separate philosophical thought, called Thomasonian medicine. Unlike domestic medicine, Thomasonian was a more centralized medical concept in which practitioners used herbal remedies and kits only sold by the leaders of the movement. No matter the case, the coevolution of domestic medicine and Thomasonian medicine incentivized reading and writing to the masses.