Nathaniel Peabody (March 30, 1774 – January 1, 1855) was an American physician and dentist from Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, having studied at Dartmouth College in the class of 1800.
Upon becoming familiar with the work of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, Peabody used botanical medicines in small doses to treat his patients, which reduced the side effects and potential death from the heroic practices.
[3] He was descended from John Paybody of Plymouth of 1635, and in early Massachusetts records, the name of these ancestors was often spelled Pabodie.
Captain John Peabody was a sailor who lived between voyages with his family in Salem, Massachusetts.
[3] Peabody planned to get an education so that he was not held down by a life as a poor farmer in New Hampshire like his father, and later siblings.
[6] Eliza encouraged their relationship through letter-writing, sharing her poetry with him, mending his clothes, and giving him handmade gifts.
[9] Eliza's health deteriorated due to the workload of preparing for and teaching classes and the strain from rumors about the two teachers.
She went to the home of her aunt Elizabeth Palmer Cranch in Milton for a couple of months to recuperate and returned to the school in Andover in the summer of 1802.
[6] In their first year of marriage, Eliza took in her youngest brother George (14) and sister Catherine (11) and opened a boardinghouse for students.
He was an apprentice to Dr. John Jeffries, a well-educated physician and attended lectures at Harvard Medical School.
One year later, the family moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, where Peabody practiced medicine and Eliza was director of a girl's academy, which became difficult to do while also taking care of her daughters.
[15] Eliza had entry into society as a member of an intellectual family and granddaughter of General Joseph Palmer of the American Revolution.
[15] Unfortunately, the Embargo Act of 1807 against France and England stopped most sailing voyages from Salem and reduced revenues for merchants.
She engaged young women who received an education and a place to live in exchange for their domestic work.
Rather than leaning on emetics and purgatives that were considered "heroic" practices, Peabody adopted the use sassafras, belladonna, henbane, horehound, aconite, and snake venom to treat patients.
[23] Peabody practiced medicine and his children pursued their own careers in homeopathic drugs, book sales and publishing, and art.
George contracted spinal tuberculosis and was bedridden for two years before he died in November 1839 at the Peabody house in Salem.