Diploma Mill

Alan Johnson David

Description

The absence of medical licensing laws in most states during the years following the American Civil War made it possible for unscrupulous individuals to exploit the weak over- sight and unregulated state issuance of school charters. Diploma Mill traces the rise and spectacular fall of Dr. John Buchanan-educator, author, and criminal-and the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania (EMC) over the course of its three decades' existence. Founded as a legitimate educational institution, the EMC aspired to carry the banner of eclectic medicine in the eastern United States.Enter Dr. Buchanan, who during his tenure at the EMC assumed control of this small Philadelphia school and issued thousands of dubiously earned diplomas. Buchanan's political connections shielded his activities at the school for more than a decade. His ambitions for the EMC carried both him and the school into a criminal enterprise, representing the largest and most notorious medical diploma mill in 19th-century America. Despite multiple arrests on various charges during the mid-1870s, Buchanan's operations at the EMC continued unchecked until an elaborate sting operation in 1880 secured evidence for federal and state charges against him. Hoping to relocate his operations, Buchanan faked his own death and fled the country.The story of John Buchanan and the EMC contains unusually dramatic elements more typical of a novel than a work of history but does not undermine its importance. His activities ultimately resulted in stronger medical licensing laws and cast a shadow upon the minority of physicians practicing eclectic medicine. By relating the history of a criminal enterprise arising within the confines of a legitimate medical school, Diploma Mill represents a unique contribution in the literature of 19th-century American medicine.

Sujets

• Médecine
• Pensilvania
• Pennsylvania
• History of medicine
• Pennsylvanie

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 14 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631013195
• Langue: English

Extrait

Diploma Mill
Diploma Mill
The Rise and Fall of Dr. John Buchanan and the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania
David Alan Johnson
The Kent State University Press Kent, Ohio
© 2018 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-344-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
22  21  20  19  18         5  4  3  2  1
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue
Part 1: Rise
1 The Rise of Eclectic Medicine
2 The Rise of the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania
3 The Rise of Dr. John Buchanan
Part 2: Crises
4 Year of Revelations, 1871
5 Senate Inquiry and a Supreme Court Case, 1872
6 The Return of Medical Licensing Laws
Part 3: Fall
7 John Norris and the Philadelphia Record
8 The “Death” of John Buchanan
9 Trial and Imprisonment
10 Old Tricks and a New Career
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Index
Illustrations
Illustrations
Fig. 1 Lecture card from Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania
Fig. 2 William Paine, M.D.
Fig. 3 Philadelphia University
Fig. 4 Portrait of John Buchanan, M.D.
Fig. 5 Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania
Fig. 6 Arrest of Jacob Rosenzweig
Fig. 7 Willis Revels
Fig. 8 John Rauch, M.D.
Fig. 9 Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Henry W. Palmer
Fig. 10 William Singerly, owner of the Philadelphia Record
Fig. 11 John Norris, city editor of the Philadelphia Record
Fig. 12 “The Philadelphia Physician Factory” (cartoon)
Fig. 13 Smith and Windmill Islands
Fig. 14 Handbill for séance
Fig. 15 John Buchanan after his arrest
Fig. 16 Lyric sheet for “Bogus Dr. John”
Fig. 17 Eastern State Penitentiary
Fig. 18 John Buchanan’s prison record
Fig. 19 The Germicide title page
Tables
Table 1 Select List of Eclectic Medical Schools Established Prior to 1880
Table 2 Published Fees Charged by the EMC, 1863–1877
Table 3 Origins of Philadelphia Medical Schools Involved in the Diploma Mill Scandal
Table 4 Population of Philadelphia, Including Black Residents, 1840–1870
Table 5 Jurisdictions Enacting Medical Licensing Laws after the Civil War
Table 6 Number of U.S. Medical Schools by Classification
Preface
I first encountered Dr. John Buchanan eight years ago while working on a history of medical regulation. At the time, I was researching a diploma scandal in 1923 involving several state medical boards. While reading various medical journals covering that scandal, I ran across references to Buchanan diplomas, along with assertions that the story I was researching constituted the worst diploma scandal since that of John Buchanan in 1880.
The phrasing in those stories piqued my interest. Their terse references to Buchanan seemed almost a form of insider shorthand, signaling their assumption that anyone familiar with medical licensing in the early 1920s would recognize immediately the allusion they were making, and that their readers would know not only who John Buchanan was but also what was implied by the phrase “Buchanan diploma.” These writers were alluding to a man and a scandal in the history of American medical regulation that had occurred more than forty years earlier, yet they referenced Buchanan without offering any details of his misdeeds, confident that their readers would recognize the magnitude of the current scandal through their comparison of it with the scandal involving John Buchanan in 1880.
When I began investigating this subject in earnest several years later, even cursory research soon provided sufficient information to underscore the extent of Buchanan’s diploma mill activities. I learned that John Buchanan and the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania (EMC) represented the single biggest diploma mill of the nineteenth century and easily the best known. If that had been the extent of the story, however, I would have stopped digging at that point. Instead, a series of melodramatic incidents punctuating his career drew me ever deeper into Buchanan’s story, notably his alleged suicide, his flight from justice, and the sensational events regarding his estate after his death. I became entangled in a story woven out of threads drawn from a variety of important mid- to late-nineteenth-century issues—the fitful steps toward modernizing medical education, the rebirth of medical licensing laws, the internecine conflicts among the various schools of thought in American medicine, race relations in Philadelphia and America, and the rise of penny press newspapers and investigative journalism—all of them fascinating.
I have structured Diploma Mill into three parts to reflect this tapestry of events and help orient the reader. Part I describes the broad historical context in which Buchanan implemented his criminal enterprise. This section of Diploma Mill addresses not only the rise of eclectic medicine as part of a reform movement in American medicine but the rise of the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania and John Buchanan specifically. This portion of the book attempts to explain how and why Buchanan and the EMC drifted into the sale of diplomas. Part II explores the critical events of 1871–72 as a turning point in Buchanan’s career, events including his unsuccessful run for the Pennsylvania state legislature, a state senate investigation of the school, the revocation of the EMC charter, and the subsequent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that resurrected them both. This section of the book also addresses the critical role played by the reemergence of medical licensing laws in the United States at that time. Part III relates the fall of Buchanan and the EMC triggered by the melodramatic events that so captured my attention when I initially discovered them. In this section of the book, the narrative shifts to the events of 1880–1881 (e.g., Buchanan’s fake suicide, the manhunt for him, and his criminal trial) and the cat-and-mouse game conducted between John Buchanan and John Norris, editor of the Philadelphia Record , who almost single-handedly brought down Buchanan and his school.
Every extended written work presents its own stylistic issues, requiring conscious decisions by the author. Several from this book warrant mention. The first arises in Part I, regarding the use of contemporary nineteenth-century labels applied to various philosophies of medicine and their practitioners. Writers of the period, especially physicians, routinely drew a line of demarcation dividing all physicians into two broad camps. On one side stood the medical orthodoxy, with its physicians variously identified as “regulars,” “Old School” practitioners, and “allopaths.” These doctors were the intellectual descendants of Benjamin Rush and others whose practices reflected the American medical norm in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth centuries. In modern parlance, these physicians represented the medical establishment.
On the other side stood all other physicians, categorized broadly as “irregulars.” Under this umbrella we find physicians identifying themselves as botanics (later called physiomedicals), those naming themselves homeopaths, and the eclectics, who initially styled themselves as “Reformed” practitioners. Orthodox physicians, situated on the other side of this demarcation, scornfully referred to these irregulars by the derogatory epithet of “medical sects.” Without question, the naming conventions (e.g., Old School, irregulars, sects) reflected the bias of the respective groups on either side of this divide. My use of these terms is intended solely to facilitate the readers’ ease in following what may be unfamiliar players in an equally unfamiliar landscape. I intend no disparagement when using terms such as irregulars and Old School , although I am cognizant of the biases inherent in this terminology.
Another stylistic issue concerns the array of names for schools, organizations, and agencies inevitable in any written history in the field of medical education and medical regulation. Since constant use of the full titles of these institutions would be wearisome, I have opted to use established acronyms or shortened titles after the first use of the full name or have supplied one if none existed, referring to the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania, for example, as the EMC.
Small portions of this book have been previously published, first appearing in my article “John Buchanan’s Philadelphia Diploma Mill and the Rise of State Medical Boards,” which was published in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 25–58. All reference sources for this history appear in the endnotes.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is a labor of love, but make no mistake: however dearly felt the subject matter, the labor involved is how authors pay their dues and for which they in turn have the privilege of formally acknowledging the contributions of others. I have been particularly fortunate, benefiting from the support of many individuals. I am deeply grateful to Professor James Mohr of the University of Oregon for his wise counsel on this book project and early reading of draft chapters. His guidance proved invaluable. Two of my colleagues at the Federation of State Medical Boards, Drew Carlson and Frances Cain, offered encouragement throughout this process, as well as keen eyes in proofreading the manuscript. Special thanks go to the Federation’s president and CEO, Dr. Hank Chaudhry, who encouraged me to continue my efforts in historical research and publication.
Research can often be tedious and fruitless, as one chases down side paths that sometimes parallel and then rejoin the main trail but just as often lead nowhere. I am indebted to several people and institutions for their assistance in my research. My thanks go to staff in the newspaper reading room of the Philadelphia Free Library and to the library staff at the Historical Societ