Beschreibung
1 leaf. Horizontal fold. Small blue paper with red embossed stamp pasted to document. Stamp reads: "Phila. Branch Thomsonian F. Botanic Society U.S." Good. To all whom it may concern: Know ye, That we, the undersigned, Members of the Examining Committee, of the Philadelphia Branch of the Thomsonian Friendly Botanic Society of the United States, having full confidence in the integrity, sobriety, intelligence and medical skill of Dr. [Isaac Briggs] and more especially being satisfied of his knowledge of the Thomsonian Practice of Medicine, do hereby authorize and empower him, the said Dr. [Isaac Briggs] to practice medicine under the right and authority of Letters Patent from the United States, granted to Dr. Samuel Thomson, the 23rd day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three. Given under our hands and seals, at Philadelphia, this [6th] day of [March, 1838]. [Signed by] A. C. Logan, Frederick Plummer, Edmund Grundy, J. W. Comfort William Henry Fonerden. This authorization is on p. 237 of The Philadelphia Botanic Sentinel and Thomsonian Medical Revolutionist, Vol. III, no. 15, March 15, 1838: "Dr Isaac Briggs was on Tuesday, March 6th, examined by the committee of examination of the Philadelphia Branch of the Thomsonian Friendly Botanic Society of the United States, upon the principles and practice of the Thomsonian system; and having answered promptly and satisfactorily to the questions propounded, was duly licensed a practitioner. From our personal knowledge of Dr. Briggs, we can cordially recommend him to our friends, in whatever part of the country he may locate himself." On p. 156 of same journal, there is a notice about the five members appointed to the committee of examination. They are the five signers of this document: "The following members were appointed a committee to examine persons who apply for license to practice medicine on the Thomsonian system. A. C. Logan, F. Plummer, J. W. Comfort, W. H Fonerden, and E. Grundy. By order of the society." Isaac Briggs was Isaac Briggs, Jr., son of Isaac Briggs, surveyor and engineer, who was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. For Isaac Briggs, Jr. as a Thomsonian medical practitioner, see Emily Foster (ed.), American Grit: A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier. Briggs eventually gave up being a practitioner, but he never gave up his Thomsonian allegiance. "In 1873 [the year he died], Isaac Briggs lived in a boarding house near the docks in Baltimore and worked the night shift as a ship's inspector. In October, he wrote to his niece Frances Stabler that he had gone on the sick list with a bout of fever and jaundice. 'How quick 2 or 3 good Thomsonian courses would set me all right again,' he wrote. '-but alas! There are no Thomsonian practitioners left in Balt. that I can hear of-all dead that I formerly knew' " (p. 297; also pp. 123, 223, 255). Each of the five signers of the certificate was a prominent Thomsonian. "The Thomsonian system was conceived by Samuel Thomson as a domestic system of medicine in which agents sold 'family rights' to enable the public to become their own doctors. . . . He set up a unique form of monopoly in which he would make money through the sale of 'family rights' to individuals allowing them to practice within their families. In 1813, he took out the first of several patents on his system. His New Guide to Health, the official guide to his system . . . was made available only to right holders through his agents. Agents, as Thomson envisioned them in his plan of business, were to be salespeople who formed Friendly Botanic Societies of right holders for mutual assistance, and taught them how to use the Thomsonian remedies. Some of this oral teaching, such as proper doses, was to be secret, shared only by right holders. . . " (Toby Appel, "The Thomsonian Movement, the Regular Profession, and the State in Antebellum Connecticut. . .", J. Hist. Med. Allied Sciences, Vol. 65, 2010, pp. 153-186). Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 17372
Verkäufer kontaktieren
Diesen Artikel melden
