William Tod Helmuth and Andrew Jackson Howe. Surgical sectarianism in 19th-century America
I. M. Rutkow
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark.
Nineteenth-Century American society was particularly prone to the
establishment of numerous unorthodox medical practices and their
alternative therapies. The most influential of the unorthodox medical
groups were the homeopathic and eclectic sects. From within the ranks of
homeopathy and eclecticism, William Tod Helmuth and Andrew Jackson Howe,
respectively, emerged to become the best-known sectarian surgeons of their
era. Through a review of their lives this forgotten chapter in the history
of American surgery is recollected.
