Eclectic Medicine, Materia Medica and Pharmacy

Why do I keep putting up these Eclectic works? In 1990 I visited the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati, Ohio, where, in the basement, I found the accumulated libraries of ALL the Eclectic medical schools, shipped off to the Eclectic Medical College (the “Mother School”) as, one by one, they died. Finally, even the E. M.C. died (1939) and there they all were, holding on by the slimmest thread, the writings of a discipline of medicine that survived for a century, was famous (or infamous) for its vast plant materia medica, treated the patient and NOT the pathology, a sophisticated model of vitalist healing every bit as usable as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic medicine…and molding in front of my eyes. Homeopathy survives, and still reprints its classic texts…it doesn’t need help. The Eclectics do.