'Golden Medical Discovery'

This information will be somewhat off the topic of Bloodroot in the context it seems most often discussed - as an herb generally not for internal use but for use in an external formula - like Black Salve. There are two points of interest here. First the one that is near totally off topic.

Many people instantly associate Bloodroot with Harry Hoxsey. Recently I viewed an old 3-day seminar given by John R Christopher in 1980. This equates to 16 hours of class time captured to film and eventually converted to DVD; a lot of herbal information provided. During the early part of day 1, Doc John was covering Alterative Herbs - blood cleansers. Put in perspective, dirty blood is probably an elementary condition which, once established, is a founding basis that allows a wide range of many illnesses - from the relatively benign cold/sniffles to most hideous cancers, to initially take root. Doc John spends considerable time covering, explaining, re-covering and emphasizing that one's blood supply is chief among the systems a person must consciously attempt to keep clean so as to keep healthy. A highlight of this emphasis is his Red Clover Combination formula.

On his own, so to speak, Doc John had developed over the years many herbal formulas. He generally did not shy away from making the recipes for his forumulas publicly known, nor was he well known as being the kind of person to "patent" his formulas. He did not promote his formulas as containing "secret ingredient" this, that or the other to be revealed to people among the public upon the condition of a person forking over copious amounts of $$. His Red Clover Combination formula is among many that he published in his SoNH Guide Book. During the aforementioned seminar, Doc John mentions how he had come to know two other people, who, coincidentally, had developed a near identical formula that they both confided, had come to them in the same way that Doc John claims he got this and many other of "his" formulas; from a higher source. The two other people in this instance were Harry Hoxsey, and Chief Sundance of Idaho Falls. In specific reference to Hoxsey's formula, Doc John said "with one exception, his formula was the same as mine. The exception was, he used an inorganic source of Iodine whereas I used an organic source as I always have strived to do". He did not say which specific herb/ingredient was the one used for giving this forumula it's iodine content, but he did say that Hoxsey's use of an inorganic source was the basis used by the FDA/AMA to then hassle and eventually shut down Harry Hoxsey. Doc John's Red Clover Combination formula contains up to 12 herbs. By implication, so does Harry Hoxsey's, but I am not familiar enough with his work to know or confirm this is the case. The Christopher formula is listed at below. It is primarily used by brewing & drinking in tea form. The basic instructions are - 1 ounce of the herb (herb formula in this case) to a pint of water, low simmered for 20-30 minutes  (never boiled), and perhaps sweeten a bit with raw honey. The general advice is to drink 1 cup 3 times a day, adjusting this amount up or down as conditions may warrant.

Red Clover Combination formula:

2 parts Red Clover blossoms

1 part Chaparal

1 part Licorice root

1 part Poke root

1 part Peach bark

1 part Oregon Grape root

1 part Stillingia "queens root"

1 part Cascara sagrada

1 part Sarsaparilla

1 part Prickly Ash bark

1 part Burdock root

1 part Buckthorn bark    The formula is taken either as a tea, 6 days a week, week after week, until the bloodstream is flowing as it should to bring health and give one more pep and energy. It can also be made into a tincture or extract preserved with Glycerin - taken 5 - 15 drops 3 times a day, or put into #0 capsules - two per day.

The second tidbit that visitors to this forum may find of interest involves a historical view of the use of Bloodroot taken internally. This comes by way of a book that was given to me a week ago: The People's Medical Advisory, by R.V. Pierce, M.D.. I would give the copyright except this book is old enough that "copyright", apparently, had not yet come into patented use in publishing. The inside cover does include a brief preface by the Author and dated "June, 1908", and also includes mention that this book was "entered according to Acts of Congress", in the year 1909, by the World's Dispensary Medical Association, in the office of the Library of Congress, at Washington, D.C. Just to give a broad flavor of the information contain in this small but well-bound, aged book (1008 pages), it begins with Part 1 - Physiology, that includes a chapter on Biology, followed by 12 chapters on Physiological Anatomy, followed by separate chapters on The Special Senses, The Mechanism of Life, The Brain/Mind, and Marriage. The latter delves into numerous sub-topics include Conjugal Love, Development of the Individual, Welfare of Society, Perpetuation of the Species, and Advice to Mother and Babe. Part II begins with Hygeine and from here the book increasingly gets down to the matter of directly relating medical advice. Keeping in mind the era of this work, this term "medical advice" clearly meant something significantly different from what the same term is used to imply or mean in the present era. Just one for instance: this book contains many references to "patented drugs", begining with the opinion of the author not sold on the idea of patented drugs as it pertained to lending further support to the kinds of people and industry interested in patenting drugs for the ultimate goal of profiting from this industry; the same allegation has since been made of the same author. Also of interest is the prominence of the use of herbs and homepathic remedies. Quite often, this book sets forth a given condition of disease or ill health and eventually follows with recommendations for treating same, more often than not by way of detailing two solutions: an herbal one; a patented drug one. There are frequently instances that the one or the other are mentined that they may provide more effective benefit if combined with the other.....hard to believe that it was only 100 years ago that herbs and patented drugs co-existed somewhat harmoniously :)

Part III begins on page 292 and is titled Rational Medicine. It briefly details the prevailing types "schools of thought" then existing in the collective field of "medicine" as seen from the author's view: Allopathic, or what the author said was "the oldest school of professional medicine"; Homeopathic "of comparatively recent origin, yet has gained a powerful hold upon the public favor.  This part of the book quickly gets into documenting remedies for disease; a categorized list of medicines that includes Tinctures, Infusions and Decoctions, followed immediately with a list Alteratives that includes many pictures of specimen plants. These pictures are of relatively good quality given that era. It was of special interest to me that what this section of the book was referring to as "medicines" was almost entirely made up of medicines made from plants - herbs and conversely made up in very little part by formal, patented pharmacopic medicine formulas. Page 314 introduces the Golden Medical Discovery. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?  

The section on the Golden Medical Discovery immediately follows the section on Quinine. Quinine is of course only a single ingredient isolated from a whole plant - namely Peruvian Bark. As of that time (1908), I do not know if Quinine was already being treated as though patented, or for that matter, whether or not it was being tightly regulated in other ways. Whether or not it had been patented is sort of beside the point. The point is, Quinine got a small blip of a paragraph. For all practical purposes it was already representative of a patented medicine method - medicine by way of a single ingredient isolated from a whole plant that itself, in it's wholesome natural state, contains numerous ingredients, and subsequently manufactured in bulk into it's isolated form. The section of Quinine in this book is one short paragraph consisting of 4 sentences. By comparison, it is simple enough to excerpt here in whole. Quinine (Sulphate of Quinia). Quinine is a tonic, febrifuge, and anti-periodic. It should generally be administered during the intervals between the febrile paroxysms. It is beneficial in all diseases accompanied by debility. The dose varies from one to six grains, according to indications.

The book was given to me by my mother. Near 80, she has about  30-years formal experience in nursing and approximately 60 years informally. Upon reading the above section to her and she interpreted some of the terms that tickled her memory banks. "febrile paroxysms" is a reference to spasms....quakes....miasmas, accompanied by (or attendant with) fever. She thought a few minutes and then said that she seems to remember Quinine once having gained some fame in the treatment of Yellow Fever.

The next section - the Golden Medical Discovery, goes on for 7 pages, fine print at that.  This is a formula of 6 herbs mixed in pure water, pure glycerine and Borate of Soda. The section goes into detail on the medicinal properties of each ingredient. On a whim, I did a web search on this term and found several dozens of hits. Several of these hits starting not far from the top appear to be recent efforts to portray the Author - Roy Pierce, as a quack. In trying to get closer to what this is based on, the best I could find is that Pierce had been known as somebody who widely advertised the sale of his alcohol-based elixirs that he'd patented for medicinal purposes. Just trying to judge in comparison to other standards, I'm not exactly sure if or how this makes somebody a quack. In the present, there are countless widely advertized formulas of modern medicine that contain all manner of hazardous ingredients - alcohol least among them and in retrospect, could by comparison be considered a blessing if alcohol was the worst that they contained. However,  the sponsors of such, at least publicly, by today's standards, are not called quacks but instead are characterized as gods and high institutions with monikers like FDA perched way at the top. Even back then in the late 1800s and early 1900s, J.D. Rockefeller was himself pushing all manner of snake oil on the road to seizing control of 95% of the oil industry by the turn of the centrury, control of the banking industry by 1920, and control of the combined education/medical industry by 1950. How often was he publicly portrayed as a quack back then? Even to this day, publicly speaking, many people still think of him as daddy, as in, who's your daddy?

Be this as it may, for posterity sake, the formula conists of : Golden Seal root; Queens root (Stillingia Sylvatica); Stone root; Black Cherrybark; Bloodroot; Mandrake root; Chemcially pure Glycerine; pure Water and Borate of Soda. This section begins by saying that this formula has gained "enviable reputation in malarial districts for the cure of ague....and it's action in teh cure of this and other miasmatic diseases....and that persons who are cured with it are not so liable to relapse or bad effects as experienced with other cures like Quinine, Peruvian Bark, Arsenic and Mercurials"

Quackery or not, it seemed worthwhile posting of a time when Bloodroot was used as part of a medicine taken internally.  FWIW, the book indicates this GMD formula had shown good success curing various illnesses, including the range of those under the broad umbrella of "eczema". The book actually provides in-depth discussion of the various conditions, beginning with a preface section that emphasizes that this range of skin conditions often results from unsound diet. Included are 3 pages of slides photographs showing the various manifestations of the erputive skin conditions lumped under the term, to include a connection (kissing cousin ?)  with Impetigo.

For those who've made it this far, here is a bonus treat stroll down memory lane.

http://asylumeclectica.com/asylum/garretdom/quackery/train.htm

Interestingly, this one shows a different formula aparently minus the "golden"...?