People from the lower, working-class, in particular, fell under this subgroup of the population who reaped most of the benefits from this style of medicinal practices.
Thus, the expansion of domestic medicine played a key role in education not only for the commoner but also women, a group that had previously been limited in their medical involvement.
He mentioned, “the good women had exhausted all their skill and his [the physicians] attendance could only serve to divide the blame and appease the disconsolate parents.”[3] In addition, domestic medicine encompassed a factor which the traditional medical practices ignored.
The belief was that if people could maximize hygiene and cleanliness, they could avoid any type of sickly state and, thus, there would be no need for arduous or uncomfortable remedies.
This approach worked well as patients would be incentivized to care for daily health and also resort to professional medical treatments when the need arose.
Thus, in theory, domestic medicine both empowered individuals and physicians by allowing them to concentrate in separate aspects of healthcare.
Unlike domestic medicine, Thomasonian was a more centralized medical concept in which practitioners used herbal remedies and kits only sold by the leaders of the movement.
Positive characteristics can be summarized as: Conversely, they are bounded and hampered by lack of resources and remedies are usually bio-chemically mild substances only known and available in small geographical areas.
The knowledge gap between generations has reduced the appeal of domestic medicine, although its resilience can be ascribed to its links with a "spiritual dimension" of human health.
Domestic medicine, defined as the use of herbs to treat diseases in the home, can be traced all the way to pre-Columbian cultures and was present even in the early colonial era .
This medicine was initially used to treat minor ailments such as headaches and coughs but eventually grew to encompass a multitude of diseases including tuberculosis, indigestion, and even cancer.
With growing demand for medication that individuals could implement themselves, a push grew to patent medicines in order to commercialize it without fear of someone else stealing your idea.
One of the main proponents of this system was Samuel Thomason who developed an organized a movement meant to distribute herbal medicine.
This movement was in response to Thomason's perception that formal medicine was killing patients with the toxic minerals such as calomel, which contains mercury chloride and is used to treat malaria and yellow fever .
A common practice among physicians was bloodletting as a way to reduce excess blood, which was deduced to be the cause of the disease under the humoral framework.
However, without the proper regulatory bodies in place at the time, many vendors advertising panaceas for all kind of diseases, which would, in the best cause scenario, leave the patient with minor discomfort.