Tumblety in Canada

[A.P. Wolf]

No apologies for this.
Massive, but this guy knows how to rock and roll.

Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb
Doctor": Politics, Professionalism,
and Abortion in Mid-Nineteenth-
Century Montreal
MICHAEL McCULLOCH
Abstract. By examining the Montreal activities of Francis Tumblety, the "Indian
herb doctor" and "prince of quacks"
in
the fall of 1857, this article illustrates that
institutional and political changes in the 1840s and 1850s are the necessary frame-
work for an understanding of the move towards professional medical hegemony
in the Atlantic world. In particular it focuses on Tumblety's arrest on the charge of
attempting to procure an abortion for Philomene Durnas, a prostitute
in
the city, an
arrest that elicited considerable discussion in the English-language newspapers of
the city. Tumblety's background in Rochester, New York gives further insights
into the connections among political, national and medical activism.
R6sum6. En analysant les activith que Francis Tumblety, surnornm6 ale doc-
teur aux herbes indiennesn et de prince des charlatans,,, eut Montreal en au-
tomne 1857, cet article demontre que les changements politiques et institutionnels
des
annh
1840 et 1850 constituent le meilleur cadre permettant de comprendre
le mouvement d'hegemonie de la profession maicale dam le monde atlantique.
L'article insiste sur le retrait des charges d6posCks contre Turnblety, accuse
d'avoir fait avorter Philom5ne Dumas, une prostitu6e montr6alaise- retrait que
provoqua de vives discussions dam le journaux anglophones de la ville. Le passe
de Tumblety Rochester (fitat de New York) rev6la plus tard la nature des liens
I
existant entre les niveaux politique, national et medical de l'activisme.
"THE PRINCE
OF
QUACKS"
Some time
in 1856, "the
well-known and justly celebrated Indian herb
doctor,
F.
TUMBLETY,"
arrived in Canada West from Rochester, New
York, bringing with him "a high reputation" embodied in "a splendid
Michael McCulloch, Department of Philosophy, History and Politics, University College
of the Cariboo, Kamloops, British Columbia
V2C
5N3.
CBMH/BCHM
/
Volume
10: 1993
/
p.
49-66

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50
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
testimonial" subscribed by "a large number of the most influential and
intelligent" of his fellow citizens. Tumblety travelled around much of
southern Ontario. While remaining based in Toronto, he visited Lon-
don, Brantford, Paris, Woodstock, Burlington, and Hamilton. Notices
of his cures appeared in such small-town papers as the Brantford Chris-
tian Messenger, Courier, and Herald, the Woodstock Spirit of the Times
and Sentinel, the London Free Press, Atlas and Prototype and the Hamil-
ton Spectator, Morning Banner, and Christian Advocate.
In Toronto, from January to May of 1857, he became sufficiently
known that the Globe made the following guarded but far from critical
remark:
We have been visited by a great many patients of the doctor, who come to de-
scribe the cures he has effected. We know nothing of his method, and of the re-
sults only from the patients themselves, but there remains very little room for
doubt that he has been remarkably successful in a number of cases.
Among the diseases cured that were listed in these testimonials were
fever sores, consumption, deafness, "scurvatic disease," dropsy, swell-
ings in the throat, ulceration of the liver, asthma, scrofula and wasting
resulting from a "disease peculiar to the [female] sex." Many of these
illnesses were "of long standing" and had been pronounced incurable
by dctors.
In the fall of 1857, Tumblety moved to Montreal, promising to stay
there "from 1st September to 1st May next."3 By the end of the year,
Tumblety had established himself as a prominent, if controversial, fig-
ure in the city. In the Montreal Annual Hunt Steeple Chase a horse
named "Turnblety" was entered and wonq4 The Montreal Gazette and
La
Mineme reported that Tumblety had received a numerously signed
requisition to run in the Irish interest for the city in the provincial elec-
tion of 1857-58.5 At the beginning of 1858, the Montreal Pilot hailed
I
Tumblety as "the prince of quacks" in a long, satiric poem describing
the electoral alliance between the city's Irish community and the En-
glish and French-Canadian radicals, les
rouge^.^
The largest part of his fame, however, came from his widely reported
arrest on 23 September 1857 on the charge of attempting to induce a mis-
carriage. It was alleged that in the presence of Detective Simard he had
sold to a prostitute, Philorntme Dumas,
a
box of pills and a bottle of liq-
uid for $20.00 in cash.' C.-J. Coursol? the presiding magistrate, refused
bail. The Court of Queen's Bench declined to issue a writ of habeas cor-
pus. Finally, on 1 October, after another application for the writ, Tum-
blety was released.
On
24 October the Grand Jury returned a verdict of
"no true bill." By the end of the year he had left Montreal.
Little else is currently known about Francis Tumblety, although it is
hoped that further research will uncover details about his earlier and

Page 3

"Dr. Tumblety, the
Indian
Herb Doctor"
51
later life. It is the intention of this article to look at his brief Montreal ca-
reer in the context of three interrelated themes: the struggle
sf
some
members of the mainstream medical profession to establish its monop-
oly, the role of changing municipal and provincial politics in that
struggle, and the importance of abortion as an issue in the conflict.
PROFESSIONAL AND ANTI-PROFESSIONAL MILITANTS
Recent studies of the medical profession have shifted from the trium-
phal advance of "true" medicine over "quacks" to the way in which
different models of medical care CO-existed or competed? In the nine-
teenth century the impact of professionalism in the English-speaking
world created a new degree of polarization, On the one hand, certain
medical practitioners advocated the legal monopoly of a profession
whose "respectability" was guaranteed by its gentlemanly status and
whose "credibility" was derived from formal credentials. Popular nov-
elists and essayists of the Atlantic world touched upon the importance
and ambiguity of the position of the physician.1°
In opposition, there emerged an explicitly anti-professional ideol-
ogy. The alternative practitioner invoked the common sense and expe-
rience of potential patients by appealing to testimonials from past cli-
ents. The "quack" thus sought credibility from the lay power structure
outside the control of the orthodox practitioners.ll This, of course, was
but a continuation of eighteenth-century practice: What was new was
that the medical mavements of the first part of the century explicitly at-
tacked established practitioners. John Harley Warner has insisted that
"Before the early nineteenth century, medical sects did not exist in the
United States, and not until the 1820s did sectarianism become an im-
portant factor in American medicine."" Roy Porter observes the same
phenomenon in the United Kingdom. The multitudinous new medical
I
movements of the first part of the century
all made their epistemological break with regular allopathic medicine and
disassociated themselves from the medical profession. Each argued in its own
language that the entire system of regular medicine was wrong. Characteristi-
cally, they accused the orthodox of erroneously striving to destroy disease with
poisonous drugs. Each of these movements proclaimed itself to be in posses-
sion of a more subtle understanding of the true nature of disease as an integral
part of the active processes of Nature. Each offered a new plan of life based
upon Nature's way and claimed to use more natural modes of healing.
. . .
A
common "physical puritanism" set great store by temperance, moderation and
self-control.13
For them, "respectability" was part of the rhetoric of character and
service, rather than of station and education.

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52
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
Social snobbery managed to contain the challenge of the medical
fringe in Great Britain; in the United States the tide of Jacksonian
democracy supported the principle of patient autonomy, and licensing
regulations all but disappeared. In Canada doctors faced the pull of
both the British and American experiences.14 This was made worse by
the fact that during the 1840s and 1850s there was "a crisis of confi-
dence about the efficacy of allopathic medicine."15 Linguistic and
therapeutic factionalism, the failure of all branches of medicine to deal
with the cholera epidemics of 1832,1849, and 1854, and the competing
claims of different medical academies undercut the credibility of the
orthodox. Geoffrey Bilson has pointed out that "many people chose ir-
regular practitioners because they preferred them and because there
was no social or scientific reason for choosing regulars."16 In 1858, Dr.
R. H. Russell, a Canadian medical activist, informed his colleagues that
popular objections to orthodox doctors had reached the point that "at
this moment the public was ready to crush them like dogs."17
As elsewhere, "respectability" was the principal battle ground. In
1852 a Canadian medical journal complained about "root doctors,
steamers and quacks." They were displacing the regular practitioners
by "ingratiating themselves into the good opinions of the farmers and
country shopkeepers, and descend to familiarities with the lower
classes, to which educated gentlemen cannot toop."'As was inevit-
able in any mid-Victorian debate over respectability, questions of sex-
uality and the family were raised. Orthodox medical militants at-
tempted to portray alternative practitioners as socially destructive by
identifying them with abortion, seen as a solvent of sexual morality
and the antithesis of the Christian family. Constance Backhouse has
gone so far as to suggest that this issue lay behind the push towards the
establishment of medical orthodoxy. The abortion rate, she argues,
"was catapulted into public attention by one sect of practitioners, the
1
regular^,'^
and used as a tool through which to argue for monopoly
control over the newly-emerging medical profesion."'Angus and
Arlene Tigar McLaren have argued that by the end of nineteenth cen-
tury promises of a safe and secret "cure" for the problem of unwanted
pregnancy lay behind much of quack advertising20
THE LAW AND THE LAWYERS
The Tumblety case is useful in understanding the interaction between
the abortion issue and the rise of professionalism. The major Canadian
works on the period have concentrated primarily on the very different
world of late Victorian Canada.21 Tumblety is an early case. The statute
under which Tumblety was charged had been passed in 1841. It declared:

Page 5

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
53
Thqt whosoever, with intent to procure the Miscarriage of any woman, shall
unlawfully administer to her, or cause to be taken by her, any poison or other
noxious thing
.
.
.
shall be guilty of Felony, and being convicted thereof shall be
liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be imprisoned at hard labour in the Pro-
vincial Penitentiary for the term of his natural life, or for any term not less than
seven years.
. . .
22
The law had not been passed as the response to any pressing social
concern in Canada. Rather, it was a small part of a wide-ranging re-
form of criminal law in 1841, known as the Black Act after its sponsor,
Henry Black of Quebec City. The intention of the act was simply to
bring Canadian law into accord with Sir Robert Peel's revision of Brit-
ish law.23 Despite the lapse between 1841 and 1857, J.-C. Coursol, the
presiding magistrate, commented that "The charge is a very grave one,
and fortunately a very rare one
.
. .
the first of the kind ever brought for-
ward in this
Another aspect of the case makes it interesting. Tumblety was not ac-
quitted by a trial jury; rather, the Grand Jury handed down a verdict of
no true bill, making a trial unnecessary. Under Canadian law, the Grand
Jurors were called by order of name from lists prepared by the Sheriff.
An 1850 provincial statute redefined the qualifications for a Grand Juror
for the Court of Queen's Bench. They had to be at the least tenants paying
annual rent of E60 and lawyers, clergymen, dwtors, and apothecaries
were explicitly barred.25 Clearly, such a group represented middle-class
but non-professional opinion.
In
addition, the Grand Jury was meant to
serve as a check on arbitrary prosecutions. As such, its proceedings may
suggest nuances of lay-professional relations that would have been lost
in
the more formal framework of a full
Finally, Bernard D e l i n
and Lewis Thomas DrummondZ8 acted for
Tumblety's defence. Neither were ordinary lawyers, and both were
heavily involved in Montreal's Irish politics. Bernard Devlin as a
I
young man had been denied the right to practice medicine by the med-
ical board at Quebec. He was the stormy petrel of the Montreal Irish
community, and closely associated with its most radical and violent
elements. In this character, he played a part in securing for Thomas
D'Arcy McGee, the ex-rebel of 1848, the support of the Irish voters and
in arranging his alliance with the anglo-rouges in the election of
1857-58.29 McGee won the election. L. T. Drummond's participation in
the case also suggests a political association. Drummond was an im-
portant figure in Lower Canadian politics, and the fall of 1857 and the
beginning of 1858 marked a major shift in his career. As the organizer
of the Irish vote in Montreal, he had helped to construct LaFontainels
Liberal party in the 1840s. In May of 1856, he resigned from his position
as Attorney-General for Canada East in the Liberal-Conservative ad-
ministration. Tumblety's was his first professional case after his resig-

Page 6

54
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
nation,30 In the election of 1857-58 he ran against the ministry, and in
August of 1858 he served in the short-lived Clear Grit-rouge adminis-
tration of George Brown and A.-A. Dorion. The involvement of these
lawyers alone suggests that the case may have had wider implications
than appear on the surface.
TUMBLER AS A
THOMSONIAN
J. T. H. Connor has challenged, as far as Ontario is concerned, the idea
that the ultimate triumph of medical orthodoxy was the result of the
militancy of scientific
practitioner^.^^
In particular, he has suggested
that the most influential groups of alternative practitioners, the Eclec-
tics, accepted the professional ethos of the orthodox and ultimately
.
amalgamated with them.32 It is thus no longer enough to identify Tum-
blety as a non-orthodox practitioner to place him in the middle of the
debate over professionalism; it is vital to establish his sect. Fortunately,
this can be done, for Tumblety's rhetoric, his approach to medicine and
his way of life link him to Thomsonianism.
Between 1820 and 1850 Thomsonianism was the most influential and
most widely disseminated source in the English-speaking Atlantic
world for the content of ':alternative" medicine. Drawing on the tradi-
tion of the eighteenth-century herbalism, Samuel qomson promoted a
program of health based on herbal medicines, rather than the blister-
ing,
bleeding, and mineral drugs of the orthodox. Thomson himself
claimed to have been instructed by an Indian woman, and lobelia (In-
dian tobacco) played an important part in therapy. The social dimen-
sion of Thomsonianism was as important as its therapeutic approach.
Thomson denounced the rising cost of medical treatment as a burden
on the poor, and promoted his program for health as understandable
and accessible. This emphasis on reason and understanding he placed
I
in opposition to the obfuscation of the orthodox.33 Thomson, and other
such anti-professionals, showed their philosophy in their way of life.
Rather
than
remaining fixed in one place with a defined clientele, the
herbalists in Britain and North America were itinerant.34 Part of the
rhetoric of the Thomsonians was an attack on the greed and self-serv-
ing nature of the orthodox. As a leading British Thomsonian put it,
"science" in medicine was "invented for no end, save the final prostra-
tion of the human intellect at the shrine of monopoly, in order to dig-
nify and confer wealth on a few individuals, and to support institu-
tions which have thus grown upon
In the 1840s and 1850s this
current of thought began to circulate in Canada.36
Tumblety's advertisements clearly place him in the tradition of
Thomsonianism in treatment as well as in travel. They called upon the
reader to "Listen to the Voice of Truth and Reason, and be profited by

Page 7

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
55
it," and announced that "The time has come that all who will, can es-
cape the iron grasp of Mercury and other mineral poisons" by adopt-
ing "those only true and safe medicines from Natures's garden, which
has for its author the great and All-wise Physician above!"37 Mani-
festly, Tumblety was challenging the whole basis of orthodox medi-
cine, symbolized by mercury salts, one of the favourite ingredients in
"heroic" allopathic therapy.
Tumblety's advertising also emphasized
a
particular model of re-
spectability. The editor of the London Atlas told Tumblety that his "ur-
banity and gentlemanly character have won for you the good opinion
of those who have made your acquaintance." Tumblety also implicitly
attacked the mercenary motives of regular practitioners. His principal
,
advertisement concluded, "The Poor will be liberally considered." Tes-
timonials often referred to the money wasted on traditional treatment.
The Brantford Christh Messenger commented "there is one thing
which affords us much pleasure in noticing-a thing that much re-
dounds to the praise of the medical gentleman above alluded to-
namely that he gives medicine to the poor free of charge." Instances of
his generosity were cited, and the Woodstock Spirit of the Times called
his behavior "good Samaritan-like at all events."38 Here again, Tum-
blety was echoing the rhetoric of Thomsonianism.
Pinally, Tumblety was from Rochester. Edward
C.
Atwater has iden-
tified the 1840s and 1850s as a period of turmoil in the city's medical
profesion.
A surplus of practitioners led to "increasing geographic
mobilityf140 and overt conflict between the "orthodox" and botanical
practitioners, especially Thomsonians?' Atwater's figures suggest a
decline in the number of resident botanic doctors after 1845?2 Finally,
he notes the rise in the mid-1850s of "venereal" specialists who qpenly
advertised contraceptives and abortifacients, and an increasing nurn-
ber of abortion trials.43 Sexual regulation appears to have already
I
emerged as a major battlefield between the militant professionals and
anti-professionals.
THE RESPONSE OF THE MILITANT PROFESSIONALS
Tumblety can thus be seen as a representative of a movement that at-
tacked both the methods and the motives of the regular medical profes-
sion. Lower Canadian orthodox militant were sensitive to these chal-
lenges.
On
16 September, two days after Tumblety's first advertise-
ment appeared in the Montreal Pilot, a letter from "Civis" appeared
in
the paper:

Page 8

56
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
When a new "Doctor" takes up his residence amongst us, apparently without
certificates, references, or perhaps Colonial Diploma, should not the medical
men of the city call the attention of the chief magistrate to the fact? Failing re-
dress in that quarter, let them find out a
[I]case
where some unfortunate being has
perhaps been made miserable for life, by swallowing some horrible mixture
destructive to both stomach and bowels, and thereon take action.44
Some medical men in Montreal, however, were not prepared to wait
for any sort of "case." Central to Tumblety's defence was that it appeared
that at least one doctor, in alliance with the police and a magistrate, con-
spired to entrap Tumblety on the charge of attempting to procure an
abortion. PhilomcSne Dumas was recruited by Detective Simard, whom
she knew from his two visits to the brothel where she worked. According
to her testimony, she was told what to say to Tumblety in the magis-
trate's room by a man whose name she could not remember but who
was, she thought, "a doctor."* For Devlin, this was the most shocking
aspect of the case, the image of "a Doctor pretending to respectability
closeted with a notorious prostitute, and in a place too which ought to be
the Sanctuary of Justice, planning the destruction of a fellow man."46
Connor's discussion of medical pluralism in Ontario would suggest
that the involvement of prominent medical men in the Rebellion of
1837 had impaired their ability to use the political apparatus to secure a
professional monopoly. Thus, "Ontario physicians were to a great ex-
tent bereft of any political adantage."' In Canada East, an entirely
different set of circumstances obtained. While some medical men had
been prominent supporters of Louis-Joseph Papineau in 1837, Louis-
Hippolyte LaFontaine's successes in the 1840s had rehabilitated those
prepared to support Responsible Government. Orthodox professionals
had played an important role in the development of the party system
in Canada East, and in particular in the development of the ruling Lib-
eral-Conservative party.48 Amongst these the most prominent was Dr.
l
Wolfred Nelson.49 He developed from a
patriote
general to a loyal sup-
porter of the LaFontaine party, and maintained that attachment well
into the 1850s.
Nelson was also an exemplar of the militants passionately com-
mitted to the development of the medical profession. Possibly the best
doctor in the colony, he pioneered the use of ether and chloroform, par-
ticularly for lithotomies. He had been one of the founders of the Moat-
real School of Medicine and Surgery, and in 1849-50 he was President
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada. As Presi-
dent, he worked strongly for the highest degree of self-regulation pos-
i b l e .
He was also active in the Legislative Assembly, proposing bills
to establish the official monopoly of the duly acredited.
Such parliamentary approaches were unsuccessful. At the same
time, however, professional men were playing a major part in estab-

Page 9

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
57
lishing the structures of the new municipal politics of the lower prov-
ince. Nelson was again one of the most prominent, having been elected
mayor of Montreal in 1854 by popular ballot. He had only withdrawn
from municipal politics in 1856. Indeed, in both Montreal and Quebec
City the professional classes and the business community together
dominated municipal
This is important, for in the first half of
the 1850s control over municipal police had been transferred from the
provincial government to the municipal authorities
in
Canada East.53
The intertwining of municipal politics and policing was a source of
comment in the late 1850s. A week before Tumblety's arrest the Pilot
called for a return to the old centralized system, since "under the sway
of the Corporation the establishment of an efficient police force would
be all but a miracle."54 Responsible Government allowed for the devo-
lution of power to local elites bound to the government by ties of party
loyalty. In Canada East, these local elites included some of the most de-
termined medical militants. The status of the orthodox medical profes-
sion in Lower Canada was more a result of partisan activism than of
scientific competence. Consequently, in Montreal, the idea of
a
police-
professional conspiracy was quite plausible.
Papers reported that in both Toronto and Montreal rumors circu-
lated that Tumblety was an abrtionist.
Particular attention was
given to pamphlets such as "Dr. Tumblety's Private Medical Treatise"
that the herb doctor distributed among "young girls and lads espe-
cially." Their material and language were "such as no parent would
wish his young children to peruse."56 The issue of entrapment, how-
ever, emerged as the most important point of debate. This divided
even elite opinion.57 The two most important French-language papers,
La Minerve and Le Pays, endorsed the tactics of the police.58 The Mont-
real Witness, already a strongly anti-quack newpaper;declared "It is
something worth knowing that Canada has such an excellent law as
that under which he is arrested, and that it is not suffered to be a dead
I
letter.'jO The Pilot, on the other hand, commented that "laying a trap for
a man.
. .
seems contrary to all our ideas of justice and fair play, and an
adoption of that system of espionage which has always been consid-
ered
as
one of the most detestable features of tyranny."61 The Montreal
Herald and the Commercial Advertiser also expressed reservations about
the practice.62 Tumblety himself made the question central in his "Ad-
dress to the citizens of Montreal." He spoke of "the foul and criminal
conspiracy by which it was sought to ruin my character and degrade
me in your esteem."63
The question touched ultimately upon the credibility of the medical
profession and the police. Tumblety's assistant, John Guy, testified that
he had been present during the interview with Simard and Dumas, and

Page 10

58
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
that Tumblety had stated clearly that the medicine was for headaches,
nervousness, and backaches. The technical evidence given at the pre-
liminary hearings also created doubt. John Birks, a chemist, received a
box of pills and a bottle of medicine from a Dr. Jones. He testified that
the bottle of medicine contained "black helebore
[sic]"
and the pills
"cayenne pepper, aloes, oil of savine and cantharides." These ingredi-
ents, he testified, would procure an abortion.64 Several doctors en-
dorsed this tetimony.
The evidence was challenged. Devlin argued
that Birks had relied upon scent alone for his analysis, an insufficient
indicator of the composition of the draught. Also, the lawyer pointed
out, there was no evidence that the liquid Jones had given to Birks was
the same as that given by Tumblety to Dumas. The chemist who had
composed the pills upon Tumblety's prescription testified that the ma-
'
terial for the pills had contained no abrtifacients.
The implication was clear. Either the doctor who had provided the
material for analysis had substituted a more lethal substance, or Birks
had allowed himself to be intimidated or bribed by the doctors into
giving evidence beyond his competence. Devlin concbded his appeal
for bail by asking
where would be our security against that class of unprincipled wretches who
having no regard for the sanctity of an oath, would for the sake of
a
few shil-
lings thrust into their hands, be ready to do the dirty work of any hidden mis-
creant, who might think he could make
a
name and withdraw himself from ob-
scurity at the expense of the life, honor and property of a cmpetitor.'
TUMBLETY AND HIS SUPPORTERS
Tumblety did not rely exclusively on the rhetorical skill of his lawyers.
It was in the period between his arrest and the Grand Jury's verdict
that he flooded the
Pilot
with his testimonials from Rochester and the
towns of Canada West.68 After his release on bail, he continued " 'the
l
even tenor of his way' in curing all curable diseases." The
Pilot
itself at-
tested to Tumblety's cure in a case of consmption.
The herb doctor
secured a certificate from his supporters in Toronto on 9 October 1857.
It denied that they had "ever known or heard of any unlawful methods
practised by him such as he is charged with in Montreal." The
53
signa-
tories declared their belief that "the present attempt to destroy his rep-
utation is the work of malice and wicked design." Other, smaller certif-
icates from the Toronto region also appeared?O
Fifty of the signatories to these certificates and testimonials listed
their occupations. Eleven described themselves as grocers or mer-
chants, and four as connected with hotels or restaurants. A solicitor, a
law student, and a surgeon comprised all the members of the tradi-
tional professions. An alderman and a City Councillor were the only

Page 11

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
59
two occupants of official positions. The remaining thirty represented a
diversity of occupations. These included five connected with printing
establishments, three chemists, four express agents, two artists, an op-
tician, an auctioneer, a superintendent of a telegraph office, a book-
seller, a contractor, a broker, a land agent, an architect, a jeweller, a
'Ctragedian," and, the very first name on the list, a "Professor of Pen-
manship." It would appear that Tumblety in Toronto drew his support
from the same indeterminate non-professional middle class from
whom the Grand Jury in Montreal was drawn. Such middling mem-
bers of society were the source of Tumblety's endorsements, his pool of
potential clients, and the base of his support.
Ten of the 18 jurors were French-Canadian. This is interesting, be-
cause the great bulk of Tumblety's practice lay with anglophones. Of
the 41 Montreal testimonials that appeared in his favor, only four were
from French Canadians. La Minerve, the French-language organ of the
Liberal-Conservative government, attacked the contents of Tumblety's
pamphlet as "le tissu de salet& le plus infame qu'il soit possible d'ima-
giner."71 Tumblety's lack of direct contact with a local French-Cana-
dian constituency is perhaps the reason he claimed to be a "M. D. Gra-
due de l'Universit6 de Paris, member du College royal de Pharmacie
[sic]." La Minerve cited this as a proof of his quackery since, the paper
claimed, he probably knew little French." Without the usual array of
endorsements, it is possible that Tumblety was prepared to invoke a
fictitious connection with orthodoxy. The French-language press of the
city gave relatively little coverage to the actual trial, compared with the
English press.73 Nonetheless, it does not appear that ethnic divisions
played a role in the Grand Jury's decision.
The only reference in the court proceedings to religion, the other tra-
ditional division in Montreal society, was in imard"s testimony. The
detective gave witness that the only question Tumblety asked after the
I
request for an abortion was whether Philomene Dumas was Catholic
or Protestant. Only after receiving assurances that the girl was Protes-
tant did'the herb doctor agree to sell the medicine. Devlin, on Tum-
blety's behalf, denied that there had ever been any discussion of abor-
t i n .
Regardless of the truth of the testimony, the Grand Jury's ver-
dict suggests that religion was not a factor in Tumblety's acquittal.
MILITANT ANTI-PROFESSIONALS AND POLITICS
It would be a mistake, however, to see the issue as simply a conflict be-
tween professional and non-professional middle-class opinions on the
issue of sexual regulation. Connor has commented that Thomsonian-
ism was attacked "less for what it actually meant or did medically, but
rather for what it stood for socially."75 In the same way, Thomsonians

Page 12

60
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
were defended for what they stood for, socially and politically. There
existed a long tradition of connection between the alternative practi-
tioners and populist political radicalism. The connection in the United
States between the advent of Jacksonian democracy and the abolition
of medical licensing requirements has already been noted. A similar as-
sociation in England existed between "social reform and fringe medi-
cal
movement^."^^
The British and American experience had their shadows in the
United Province of Canada. In the 1850s a resurgence of radicalism
challenged the conservative hegemony created by the heirs of L.-H.
LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. Among the targets of this renewed
populism were professional claims to monopoly. The Clear Grits in
Upper Canada supported the total repeal of all licensing require-
m e n t .
Similar currents existed among the French-Canadian and En-
glish-speaking rouges of Canada a s t ?
Connor and Connor have
noted the republican flavor of Thomsonian rhetoric and its broad-rang-
ing programme of radical reform.79 This fitted well with the annexa-
tionist past of both the English- and French-speaking rouges and their
ongoing commitment to fundamental change in Lower Canada's social
framework. The vehicle for Montreal's English-speaking radicals, the
Herald, had been in 1849 the foremost Montreal proponent of annexa-
tionism, and continued its support for radical policies well into the
1850.O
It was virtually alone in taking a decidedly pro-Tumblety
stance. The paper announced, "In every case of disease, the Doctor
seems to be triumphant, and the medical faculty must acknowledge the
following certificates." In commenting on his case, the Herald linked it
with its political views: "There is indeed, as much room for reform in
Medical Jurisprudence, as in the Science of Plitics."'
It is this political dimension that helps to explain Tumblety's law-
yers. Devlin's and Drummond's association with the anglo-rouges has
I
already been mentioned. The Irish associations of Tumblety's lawyers
were also important. The doctor's Rochester roots are again significant
in explaining his apparent popularity with the Montreal Irish commu-
nity. The Irish were "the most restless of Rochester's
citizen^."^^
Col-
lections were taken to aid the struggle for Irish independene.
The
period of organization for the Fenian brotherhood was 1857-58, and the
Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser was one of "the most vociferous"
of the pro-Fenian
newspaper^.^^
The Rochester paper gave coverage to
the political situation in Montreal, and in particular to Thomas D'Arcy
McGee's candidacy in 1857-58.85 Devlin himself was reputed to have
had Fenian connections in the 1860s. It is not necessary to identify
Tumblety as a covert Fenian organizer to understand how he could be
taken as a representative of certain strands of Irish radicalism.

Page 13

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
61
There is of course no need to separate out the different elements of
political machination, professional conspiracy, and popular resistance
to social regulation that are involved in the Tumblety case. Exclusivist
claims to power by professionals were the social dimension of the po-
litical changes associated with the rise of Responsible Government.
Qissident members of the professional class capitalized upon popular
resentment against new forms of social control to promote a revival of
political radicalism. Irish nationalism was one vehicle for this radical-
ism in North America. In this context, the question of Tumblety's ac-
tual "guilt" is not essential. In my opinion, some of the purchasers of
Tumblety's potion believed that the medicines would promote miscar-
riage, and the herb doctor tacitly or explicitly encouraged the idea. As
the Pilot pointed out, "it requires some faith to suppose that he would
charge
a
person in the humbler walks of life twenty dollars for a few
pills and a draught to cure a temporary pain in the back."86 It was the
association with deviance that made Tumblety an attractive target for
the orthodox practitioners; it was the chance to publicly humiliate the
professionals linked with established political parties that motivated
his defenders.
THE
DEFEAT OF TUMBLER
Despite his acquittal, Tumblety was ultimately the loser.
On
21 De-
cember, he published a supplement to the Pilot, itself an unusual event.
It was filled with "Certificates from the Citizens of Mntreal."
This
attempt to reestablish himself by his accustomed methods was a fail-
ure. Tumblety had initially pledged himself to remain in Montreal un-
til 1 May 1858; in fact, by the beginning of January of that year he had
returned to Tor nto.
His advertisement continued to appear in the
Globe until mid-February and then ceased. I have found no later refer-
ences to him in Canadian newspapers.
1
Tumblety's Montreal experience seems to have coincided with, if not
caused, a shift in the advertisement of patent 'medicine in Montreal.
Connor has suggested that poor postal service delayed the expansion
of Thomsonianism in Upper Canada.89 Further improvements in the
Canadian mail system, however, also played a part in the downfall of
the itinerant herbalist. The changes in the efficiency and price of mail
order service were the direct result of the elaboration of the Canadian
railway system and improvement in the post office after 1850. These
made possible extensive "agency" systems, whereby local dealers han-
dled consignments of centrally marketed goods. Among the most
prominent of these centrally marketed goods were patent medicines.
Patent medicines drew their popularity from the same anti-orthodox
theory and sentiment as the Thomsonian itinerant. At the beginning of

Page 14

62
MICHAEL
MCCULLOCH
December 1857, advertisements appeared in Montreal for "Dr. Morsels
Indian Root Pills." His Almanac showed "how diseases are cured in
accordance with
NATURE'S
laws with innocent Roots and Plants." The
advertisement also called for local agents for the medicine.
The Pills promised "the mother a safe and easy delivery" and "a
stqut and healthy constitution to the child." The American promoters
were perhaps seeking to disassociate themselves from the stigma of
abortion attached to "Indian" herbs. Other promoters were less
squeamish. One of the American-based patent medicines most widely
advertised in British North America was "Radway's Regulating Pills
Ready Relief and Renovating Reolvent."
This was "A Vegetable
Substitute for Calomel, Mercury and Antimony" that could correct "all
irregularities of the female system" including "retention of the men-
ses." The McLarens have cited this as one of the proofs of the continu-
ing relationship between self-induced abortions and patent medi-
c i n e .
Itinerants like Tumblety were in competition with an increasing di-
versity of products in both reputable and more dubious markets. Pat-
ent medicines were also cheaper. The price for MorsYs Pills was 25
cents a box, and five boxes for a dollar.92 Tumblety at the same time, of-
fered his medicine at 25 cents, 50 cents and $1.00 per bottle. It is
strongly probable that the economies of scale made locally distributed
patent medicines more profitable. In short, if the itinerant quacks had
established their position by developing a different marketing strategy
than the orthodox, they found themselves displaced by further devel-
opments in that line.
Quackery was evolving, however, under social as well as economic
pressures. Professionalism, after all, was an ethos, not a therapy, and
increasingly "eclectic" practitioners imitated the credentialism of their
allopathic competitors. Formal medical schools gave them a training
I
that differed increasingly little from that of the orthodox curriclum.
In Upper Canada in 1861 a distinct licensing board was established for
eclectics, modelled on those created for regular medical doctors and
homeopaths. In 1869 the three boards were fused, "hugging Homeopa-
thy and Eclecticism to death" as an Ontario doctor put it?4 The alterna-
tive practitioners accepted the professional paradigm of the regulars.
The ethos of professionalism and the economics of patent medicines
between them marginalized the itinerant herbalist.95 Francis Tum-
blety's Montreal career casts light on the defeat of itinerant anti-profes-
sionals in North America.

Page 15

"Dr.
Tumblety,
the Indian
Herb Doctor"
NOTES
1 Montreal Pilot, 14 September 1857.
2 Cited in the Montreal Pilot, 15-24 October 1857.
3 Montreal Pilot, 14 September 1857.
4 Montreal Pilot, 19 November 1857.
5 Montreal Gazette, 5 December 1857; and Montreal La Minerve, 5 decembre 1857.
6 Montreal Pilot,
4
January 1858.
7 Montreal Pilot, 23 and 24 September 1857.
8 Lorne St. Croix, "Coursol, Charles-Joseph," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (hereaf-
ter DCB), Vol. 11, p. 206-7.
9 Roy Porter, Health for Sale: Quackery in England
1660-1850
(Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1989); W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, eds., Medical Fringe and Medical
Orthodoxy,
1750-1850
(London: Croom Helm, 1987); Norman Gevitz, ed., Other
Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1988); S. E. D. Shortt, ed., Medicine in Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives (Mont-
real: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1981); Charles G. Roland, ed., Health, Disease
and Medicine: Essays in Canadian
History
(Toronto: Hannah Institute for the History of
Medicine, 1984); Jacques Bernier, La mtdecine au QuCbec (Quebec: Les Presses de
l'Universit6 Laval, 1989); Geoffrey Bilson, A Darkened House: Cholera in Nineteenth-
Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980); Sylvio LeBlond, MCde-
cine et mtdecins d'autrefois (Quebec: Les Presses de l'Universit6 Laval, 1986); Constance
Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice: Women in
Law
in Nine[eenth-Century Canada
(Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1991); Constance Backhouse, "Involuntary Motherhood:
Abortion, Birth Control and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada," Windsor Year-
book of Access to justice, 3 (1983): 81-130; S.
E.
D. Shortt, "Physicians, Science and Sta-
tus: Issues in the Professionalization of Anglo-American Medicine in the Nineteenth
Century," Medical History, 27,l (January 1983): 51-68; Angus McLaren and Arlene Ti-
gar McLaren, The Bedroom and the State: The Chnnging Practices and Politics of Contracep-
tion and Abortion in Canada,
1880-1980
(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986);
Wendy Mitchinson, The Nature of Their Bodies: Women and Their Doctors in Victorian
Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991); J. T. H. Connor, "Minority Medi-
cine in Ontario, 1795 to 1903: A Study in Medical Pluralism and its Decline," PhD
Thesis, University of Waterloo, 1989; J. T. H. Connor, "'A Sort of Felo-De-Se': Eclecti-
cism, Related Medical Sects, and Their Decline in Victorian Ontario," Bulletin of the
History of Medicine, 65 (1991): 503-27; and Jennifer J. Connor and
J. T.
H. Connor,
"Thomsonian Medical Literature and Reformist Discourse in Upper Canada," Cana-
dian Literature, 131 (1991): 140-55.
I
would like to thank Dr. Larry Stewart of the Uni-
versity of Saskatchewan and Professor J. T. H. Connor of the University of Western
Ontario for their advice and guidance in this area.
10 William Makepeace Thackeray, The Adventures of Philip Firmin (Kensington Edition,
1891), p. 142-43; and Dr. Charles Lever, Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men and Women and
Other Things in General (London: Ward Lock &Co., n.d.), p. 220-22.
11 Porter, Health for Sale, p. 52-54.
12 John Harley Warner, "Medical Sectarianism, Therapeutical Conflict, and the Shaping
of Orthodox Professional Identity in Antebellum American Medicine," in Bynum and
Porter, eds., Medical Fringe, p. 235.
13 Porter, Healthfor Sale, chap. 8, especially p. 229-31.
14 Joseph F. Kett, "American and Canadian Institutions, 1800-1870," in Shortt, ed., e d i -
cine in Canadian Society, p. 194-202.
15 R. D. Gidney and W. P. J. Millar, "The Origins of Organized Medicine in Ontario,
1850-1869," in Roland, ed., Health, Disease and Medicine, p. 74; Bemier, La mtdecine au
QuCbec, p. 65-82; and Bilson, A Darkened House, p. 174.
16 Geoffrey Bilson, "Canadian Doctors and the Cholera," in Shortt, ed., Medicine in
Canadian Society, p. 122.

Page 16

64
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
17 Toronto
Globe,
January 22,1858.
18 Cited in Geoffrey Bilson, "Canadian Doctors and the Cholera," in Shortt, ed.,
Medi-
cine in Canadian Society,
p. 121.
19 Backhouse, "Involuntary Motherhood," p. 76-77.
20 McLaren and McLaren,
The Bedroom and the State,
p. 32-34.
21 Backhouse,
Petticoats and Prejudice,
p. 140-66; McLaren and McLaren,
The Bedroom and
the State;
and Mitchinson,
The Nature of Their Bodies,
p. 125-51.
22 4&5 Vic. Cap. 27 sec. 13 in A
collection $Some of the Most Useful Acts and Ordinances in
force in Lower Canada relating to Criminal
Law
and to the Duties of Magistrates
(Quebec:
Stewart Derbishire and George Desbarats, 1854). I would like to thank Peter G. Neil-
son, AB, LIB, for his advice on the legal aspects of Tumblety's case.
23 B. A. Testard de Montigny,
Histoire du Droit Canadien
(Montreal: Eusebe Senbcal,
1869), p. 416-18. The Canadian law had been modeled directly after the British statute
1 Vic. Cap. 95.
24 Montreal
Pilot,
24 October 1857. Backhouse's standard article, "Involuntary Mother-
hood," mentions "less than half a dozen" documented abortion cases, and none be-
.
fore 1875
b.
82).
.
.
25 10&11 Vic. Cap. 13, sec. 4 (qualifications); sec. 22 (disqualifications). The property
ualifications for Grand Jurors for Quarter Sessions were lower.
26 f o my knowledge, this is the only abortion case from this period where we have de-
tailed accounts of the submissions to the Grand Jury.
27 J.-C. Bonenfant, "Devlin, Bernard,"
DCB,
Vol. 10, p. 229-30.
28 J. I.Little, "Drummond, LewisThomas,"
DCB,
Vol. 11,
p.
281-83.
.
29 Montreal
Pilot,
2 December 1857; and 8 January 1858.
30 Montreal
Pilot,
15 October 1857.
31 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p.
191ff.,
268ff.
32 Connor,
"
'A Sort of
Felo-De-Se,'
"
p. 516-22.
33 William G. Rothstein, "The Botanical Movements and Orthodox Medicine," in
Gevitz, ed.,
Other Healers,
p. 42-46; and Connor, "Minority Medicine,"
p.
269.
34 Porter,
Health for Sale,
p. 61-62. In the United States the tradition merged into the
Chatauqua circuit, and in the American South lasted until the beginning of the twen-
tieth century.
35 Cited in P. S. Brown, "Social Context
and
Medical Theory in the Demarcation of
Nineteenth-Century Boundaries," in Bynum and Porter, eds.,
Medical Fringe,
p. 220.
36 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p. 283-84!
37 Montreal
Pilot,
15 October 1857.
38 Cited in the Montreal
Pilot,
15-24 October 1857.
39 Edward C. Atwater, "The Medical Profession in a New Society, Rbchester, New York
I
(1811-60),"
Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
47,3 (1973): 221-35.
40 Atwater, "The Medical Profession," p. 223.
41 Atwater, "The Medical Profession," p. 231-33.
42 Atwater, "The Medical Profession," p. 226 (fig. 3).
43 Atwater, "The Medical Profession," p. 228.
44 Montreal
Pilot,
16 September 1857. Emphasis in the original.
45 Montreal
Pilot,
24 September 1857.
46 Montreal
Pilot,
30 September 1857.
47 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p. 193.
48 Jacques Monet,
The Last Cannon Shot
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969); and
Michael McCulloch, "English-speaking Liberals in Canada East, 1840-1854," PhD
Thesis, University of Ottawa, 1986.
49 John Beswarick Thompson, "Nelson, Wolfred,"
DCB,
Vol. 9, p. 593-97.
50 Bernier,
La midecine,
p. 73.
51 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p. 302.
52 Guy Bourassa, "Les 6lites politiques de Montreal: de l'aristocratie la
democratic,"
in
Vincent Lemieux, ed.,
Personnel et partis politiques au Qdbec
(Montreal: Bor6al Ex-

Page 17

"Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor"
65
press, 1982), p. 255-76; and Michael McCulloch, "The Defeat of Imperial Urbanism:
Power Structures in Qubbec City 1840-1855," presented at the conference "The Nine-
teenth Century Canadian City: Internal Change and External Links," the Centre of
Canadian Studies, University of Edinburgh, 6 May 1989.
53 14&15 Vic. Cap. 12,
S.
85 (1852) for Montreal; 18 Vic. Cap. 159
S.
51 (1855); and Michael
McCulloch,
"
'Most Assuredly Perpetual Motion': Police and Policing in Quebec City,
1838-1858," Urban History Review, 19,2 (October, 1990): 100-13.
54 Montreal Pilot, 16 September 1857.
55 Montreal Pilot, 2 October 1857; and Montreal La Minerve, 29 septembre 1857.
56 Montreal Witness, 26 September 1857; Montreal Pilot, 2 October 1857; and Montreal La
Minerve, 29 septembre 1857.
57 Montreal Pilot, 2 October 1857.
58 Montreal La Minerve, 29 septembre 1857.
59 Montreal Witness, 29 August; 5 and 16 9eptember 1857. The Witness was a Temper-
ance paper, and saw quack medicines as brandy and gin in disguise, It refused adver-
tisements from "quack doctors, theatres, circuses, saloons etc." (Montreal Witness, 31
'
October 1857).
a
60 Montreal Witness, 3 October 1857.
61 Montreal Pilot, 2 October 1857.
62 Cited in Montreal
La
Minerve, 29 septembre 1857.
63 Montreal Pilot, 30 October 1857.
64 Montreal Pilot, 24 September 1857 (testimony at initial inquiry).
65 Montreal Pilot, 26 September 1857.
66 Montreal Pilot, 26 September 1857. The ingredients were "five ounces of socotrine
aloes, one half ounce of steel cast soap, one ounce gamboges, one ounce colicinth, one
ounce extract of gentian, one ounce mandrake, two ounces capsicum, one half
drachm of oil of peppermint."
67 Montreal Pilot, 30 September 1857.
68 The Montreal Witness attacked other papers for allowing their columns to be used by
quacks for "puffery" (Montreal Witness, 17 October 1857).
69 Montreal Pilot, 21 October 1857.
70 Montreal Pilot, 30 October 1857.
71 Montreal La Minerve, 29 septembre 1857.
72 Montreal La Minewe, 29 septembre 1857.
73 Montreal La Minerve, 1 septembre 1857 to 31 dkcembre 1857. La Minerve reproduced
Le Pays's coverage of the initial examination, and added its own comment. This was
the only substantial piece of coverage I have found in the French press.
74 Montreal Pilot, 24 September 1857.
I
75 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p. 317.
76 J. F. C. Harrison, "Early Victorian Radicals and the Medical Fringe," in Bynum and
Porter, eds., Medical Fringe, p. 198-201.
77 Gidney and Millar, "The Origins of Organized Medicine," in Shortt, ed., Medicine in
Canadian Society, p. 71.
78 M. E. McCulloch, "English-speaking Liberals," p. 451-52; Gordon 0. Rothney, "San-
born, John Sewell," DCB, Vol. 10, p. 641-43; and J.-P Bernard, Les Rouges: Lib&alisme,
nationalisme et anticl6ricalisme au milieu du
XIXe
si2cle (Qukbec: Presses de I'universite
de Qukbec, 1971), p. 103-52.
79 Connor and Connor, "Thomsonian Medical Literature," p. 142-43,146-48.
80 McCulloch, "English-speaking Liberals," p. 438,625.
81 Cited in Montreal Pilot, 21 December 1857.
82 Blake McKelvey, Rochester, The Water Power City
1812-1854
(Cambridge: Harvard,
1945), p. 334.
83 McKelvey, Rochester, p. 288.
84 W. S. Neihardt, Fenianism in North America (University Park: Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity Press, 1975)' p. 99.

Page 18

66
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH
85 Montreal Pilot, 21 December 1857.
86 Montreal Pilot, 2 October 1857. In the 1870s, a female servant earned between
$5.00
and $6.00 a month. See Claudette Lacelle, Urban Domestic Servants in 19th Century
Canada (National Historic Parks and Sites, Environment Canada-Parks, 1987), p.
100.
87 Montreal Pilot, 21 December 1857.
88 Toronto Globe, 2 January 1858.
*
89 Connor, "Minority Medicine," p. 276.
90
I have found advertisements for this in the Montreal True Witness, the Montreal Ga-
zette, the Barrie Northern Advance, and the Toronto Globe in the 1860s and 1870s. It con-
tinued to be popular until the late nineteenth century (McLaren and McLaren, The
Bedroom and the State, p. 33).
91 McLaren and McLaren, The Bedroom and the State, p. 32-34.
92 Montreal Pilot, 5,7,8 December 1857, and 12 January 1858.
93 Rothstein, "The Botanical Movements," p. 48.
94 Cited in Gidney and Millar, "Origins," p. 87.
95 The late development of an elaborated railway network in the American South may
explain the enduring image of the Southern "Snake Oil Salesman." I would like to
thank Professor Lany MacDonnell of the University of Saskatchewan for this sugges-
tion.

[A.P. Wolf]

Well I gotta say, after reading through this completely unbiased and unrelated article by McCulloch, that I am absolutely gob-smacked. It's not a word I like, but that's what I am.
Instead of being spoon-fed complete and utter crap about Dr Tumblety's early career in Canada here we have something that finally resembles a truth, and I guess it is a bloody awkward truth.
Instead of Tumblety, the mass abortionist who stood trial for his hideous offences, we have a 'Thomsonian' medical practioner who was never tried by a trial jury; and whose case was thrown out of court by a Grand Jury as serving 'No True Bill'.
Worse than that it does appear that Tumblety was set up for this charge of 'attempting to procure an abortion' by the police, courts and a rival doctor, using the evidence of a 'notorious' prostitute as taught to her by the conspirators.
This article has completely and utterly changed my view and opinion of much of the work that is being produced by researchers and writers in this field of study; and I see their efforts as being self serving and far removed from a simple truth.
I am ashamed for myself, and many others.
It is all hype and tripe.

[A.P. Wolf]

And then to take it one step further, when the substances given by Tumblety to the hired prostitute were clinically examined they were found to be 'not toxic to humans'; and the only remark the examiners made was that the cayenne peppers used in the preparation did indeed burn the tongue.
Well, what a bastard he was, going around and burning innocent folk's tongues.
He must 'ave been Jack the Ripper.
What a diabolical bastard!
(Le Courier du Canada, 4th November 1857)

'A good Samaritan' was how many writers of that time described Tumblety 'who gives medicine to the poor free of charge'.

Now should we believe them, the reporters of history in the Victorian Age?
Or should we believe these modern Indian Herb Doctors of our own age who want us to swallow their ill-advised remedies for a social illness?

[Joe Chetcuti]

You've got to give Michael McCulloch credit. He wrote an essay that Ripper folks have been smartly referring to for the past 14 years or so. The Evans & Gainey book extensively quoted from his study, the old Casebook message boards posted up a direct link to this writing, and I too recently included a McCulloch reference in the Journal of the Whitechapel Society. I'm just guessing here, but it seemed like McCulloch wrote his 1993 essay before it was revealed that Tumblety was the Littlechild suspect. I only know of two other 20th century writing about Tumblety where its author didn't realize the doctor was involved in the Whitechapel case.

One of which was the Web of Conspiracy (1959), and the other was in 1989 when Daniel Johnson wrote of the Tumblety/Portmore matter. When Tumblety was revealed as a Ripper suspect, Johnson wrote again of Portmore's death, and that material can be found on the web. There you'll read about Portmore's reaction after he ingested Tumblety's "medication." That would burn the heart out of a man, was Portmore's quote.

Portmore's conditioned worsened, yet he crazily requested for more of the quack's services. Tumblety came to Portmore's deathbed to swipe and pocket the additional "medication" he had previously provided for his patient. On the night of Sept 26th, the carpenter would be dead and a few days later Tumblety was courageously galloping across the border. (See the Morning Freeman September 29, 1860.)

As for McCulloch's findings on the Dumas case, he made it clear that newspapers in both Toronto and Montreal circulated information that pretty much labeled Tumblety as an illegal abortionist. I always liked the objective approach the Courier du Canada expressed in their Nov 4, 1857 article on the Dumas case. A good quote from it stated if Tumblety's medicines which he sold to Dumas were of a completely inoffensive nature, then Tumblety "...had committed a deception in aggravated circumstances, and if on the other hand the medicines were a type to cause the least danger to health under the alleged cirumstances, then Tumblety was guilty of an atrocious crime."

[A.P. Wolf]

Nicely done, and well said Joe.
The only problem I see is that those same researchers and writers who quoted from this McCulloch work of 1993 ignored the essential detail that would have made their own theories and designs untenable right from the very start.
Apart from that...

I think this writer, Kaylor, has used a very sharp hammer indeed to smack the beast in the following quote from his work on Oscar, 'Secreted Desires', Part 4, Chapter 5 entitled 'Paedobapistry':

'What is striking here — even after a dismissal of the above suspicions as
‘spurious speculation’ — is that a correlation was drawn, at least by the Scotland
Yard investigators and by later ‘Ripperologists’, between the paederastic and/or
homoerotic dalliances of Tumblety, Druitt, Stephen, Prince Eddy, and others, and
the propensity to commit the most famous criminal rampage of the Victorian
period. In the hierarchy of ‘sins’, paederasty was (and often still is) seen as the
pinnacle, an observation that was made in ‘Chapter One’ in relation to a 1993
review of a new supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, a review in
which the anonymous reviewer, despite noting the inclusion of various
murderers, states that ‘the vilest person here commemorated is probably
Frederick Rolfe, “Baron Corvo”’.'

My reading of that is that yes, Jack may well have had a 'down on whores', but modern writers, researchers and theorists may well have a 'down on gays'; and this is what makes Tumblety and Druitt such glowing suspects for them.
They are forging steel from oil.
And claiming gold.

[A.P. Wolf]

Joe, I'll respond to your thoughts on Portmore etc here as I've been trying to keep the two issues apart... Tumblety's time in Canada and then the USA.
McCulloch establishes a very good argument in his report that Tumblety was being victimised and sabotaged by the more orthodox medical practioners who were somewhat envious of the good reputation that Tumblety enjoyed amongst the 'common' folk, concluding that 'the idea of a police-professional conspiracy was quite plausible' in the hostile environment of the war between the 'Thomsonian' herbal practioners and their more orthodox 'doctors' and 'surgeons'.
I think he has hit the nail there with a very powerful hammer.
The Grand Jury's decision to find 'No True Bill' in the case of Dumas seems a very strong indication of their sincere doubt about guilt on Tumblety's part.
Devlin's defence statement in court left no doubt:
'The image of a doctor (he means the other doctor, not Tumblety), pretending to respectability, closeted with a notorious prostitute, and in a place too, which ought to be a sanctuary of justice, planning the destruction of a fellow man (and here he does mean Tumblety).'
In other words the conspiracy involved the medical profession, the police and the court magistrate.
It is not difficult to imagine that a similar conspiracy was at work in the case of Portmore.

[Joe Chetcuti]

In regards to the Portmore case, we've heard the comment about Tumblety's "decoction of parsley tea" which he claimed to have given to Portmore. For those who are wondering where a source of this information can be found, just click here:


http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/morning_freeman/601016.html


The article was properly introduced by the Morning Freeman's writer in the opening paragraph.

Tumblety didn't recite that Portmore-tale for the purpose of having it believed. I think he sent it from Maine to New Brunswick to crudely mock the local physicians who sent him up before the St. Johns Police Magistrate on July 30, 1860.

Tumblety wrote on July 1, 1860 that he brought along a killing air with him to St. Johns, and the scoundrel made good on his warning.

On a different note, I'd like to thank the man who sent me the private information on Lispenard's Clinic this morning. That back-alley establishment was pretty much like I imagined it would be. I can understand why a man like Tumblety chose to be schooled there.

[A.P. Wolf]

Joe
I've been looking at a lot of detail in this regard Joe, and I fear we ignore the whole here in favour of a tiny slice of history, which just happens to involve Tumblety.
Pharmacists, Physicians and Herb Doctors were always sailing close to the wind in the 1860's & 1870's, especially in Canada, and generally speaking the potions they supplied were outside of that prescribed by the law of the land.
In 1870 a pharmacist calling himself 'JBD' wrote to the Toronto Globe:

'Even now, while I am writing, occurs an instance of the inefficiency of the law as it now stands. A lady had just entered the shop and request[ed] a remedy for toothaches, with which she is at the time sorely tormented. I immediately (knowing her well) offer her a mixture—properly labelled—of chloroform, camphor, laudanum, &c. which I have reason to believe will at once give her relief … At the same time, I know I am breaking one of the laws of the country … and am rendering myself liable to the infliction of a penalty. But what is to be done?'

Just like Tumblety, this pharmacist could have been charged with the offence of manslaughter if his patient had died.
But, hey Joe, supplying a person with medicine designed to cure them of their ills is not really an act of premeditated murder; nor is it a reasonable sign that dictates that the supplier of those medicines will then go on to commit mass murder.
If that were the case then every single pharmacist and physician in Canada from the mid 1880's could be the Whitechapel Murderer.
For they all slaughtered someone in their career... with a pill, or potion.
It was the norm.

[A.P. Wolf]

Okay Joe, Lispenard's clinic, let's rock and roll on that one.
What I have here to post is a load of gobbledegook, a very corrupted file indeed that has almost sunk my pc, but nonetheless it contains gems.
Study it carefully and you will see that it is an actual advertisement from the said Dr Lispenard from the New York Press from the time period we discuss.
This is the man that you would have as Tumblety's mentor and trainer for his future crimes.
You will note, I hope, that Dr Lispenard is at great pains to point out that his medicines and potions are not to be used by women of a certain condition - in other words 'pregnant' - but only by women experiencing problems with their 'monthly' cycle.
And I think this is where the rub doth lay.
Enjoy Joe. I hope you can read cipher.

2 C Years Experience.
ill) ESTABLISHED HOSPITAL.
Quick Cures and Low prices^
Private Diseases and
their Antidote*
,
Vr. MSPENARD, riutVnr oftii
•' Guide, or FriVHle Med
/e-t'iRe. Professor of Die
of Women and Children,
ami Licentiate ol'lho College o
Physicians and fturfreons of (he
Untied States University, Ac.,
Ac t continues as heretofore to
beconfidential!? and successful-
ly consulted on ail forms and
ical
^ I A
OT8T5AWIS,
athisold quarters, No. 5 Beavcr-
iLHANV, N; Y.
111B UniJerNigMctt Kotirit HIP attention of the public to
their
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BOKIOII
May 10.
UAVLIV AND ALLEN.
474
Family Groceries.
Basement Ansable House.
CASH JPRICES!
Good Oreen TC;I^,2B- IO 4M. 6d.. always sold from 3d. \o
; choic H l k T
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7«.; choice Hlack Ten*. .^K-t . to 1s 6d , « »ld a
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every store
In town at 4« »o Biditd 6s ; PuTe'.favu coffe«\ enly Is, Hold
at \* \t\ everywhere; choice/rood coffees af lOcfs.; M«>l««-
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Ibrt for SI 00, Sf. croix rxlra. R«fine<lSu«Mrs and Loaf Uo.
lower thnn
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be bnuglit af any slore in town; Haleratnp,
1 lbs for 2-*.; Pepper Is. rerlb., R- My everwho re for Is. 4d :
(tinker K cfs.: hnperior Pearl Sfarrh only 9 rfs., hlways
heeiiHnld for IK ; and a general assorlm ntol Po k, Flour,
and Fiih by the nound or barrel; ra sins, nnfniojrs, pp'tep,
flavoring cxirarts, ketchups, wiucrs, oysters, pickled fi uitp.
Fi^.s currants, cit»on lemons, nuts conleclionanep. wood
h
ill
l
use of Doctor L,
J
s remedies iu
secret diseases, and the many
dfli«r effected by him in recent ns
8
old lingering attacks, 1 •iiclusiveidence* Jhat the WeU
SICK AND UNFORTUNATE
cando^no betteithan consul the Doctor wj.osc> whole
time is devoted to the exclusive treatment of th|k muob
neglected branch of practice.
LOOK AT THIS.
Dr. Lispenard cures recent cases of diseaaelu frotnthree
to six days,and chronic or !onjsUridlugdi*oa«e*in a very
short 'ferliid of time, withouttTie use of Mercury, without
thelo sof time change of diet, or detention fiom
D.ULY EMPLOYMENT.
In SyphimB GonorchiEi, Gleet,Strictures,Enlargement
of the festiclesand Cords, Bubo, Chancres Pitnpkeaod
Scaly Eruptions, Sore Throstsund Noses,Chancres on tlie
tonKiic. tender shin bours, and disea
t
eti«»f theskin, and
impureblood. Dr. Liepenard's remedies »re above all
iraise.and frequenlly cure when allothcrshadiaueu
EVEN TO REMEVE.
More than 5,000 patients huve during the past year ex-
perienced the benefit of the Doctor's extraordinary skill in
rea!ing
4
se ret diseases-among which, di eas s oftlie
bladder and kldneyu have foinicd a goodly proportion.
YOUNUMKN,
• .
who by indulging ill s«*cm habits have injured theirhealth
and prostrated tUeirintsllectual faculties,and \her3by de-
prived tUemMlveu of the pleasure of married llfe,ahould
coimuh Dr. Llspenard without u moment^ "***/. Umi-
dreds have been resjtoretl to health, society aud menus,
under my peculiar mode of treatment, alt ough vaAt Hums
of money iiaU beon sacriflccd without any benefit. My
remedy for thWdiseaae is pleAsan1 to take, has uo offensive
smell and
. . . . . . . - . • • • •
C U R E S WITHOU T ? A l t
....•••
tt3r PerWoiiBHo uuC>rtuuatc as t«> be dseased. although
thoy m^y have visit* dhnjf a dozen DoctorStand had med-
icine *ent them a dozen times with no benefit would ex-
hibit window by making their case known to that
FRIEND
OP THI riiOK, Dr. Lispenard, who never charges for advice
an«i warramsallhis cure». Thft sick are oUeu at a lost
whereto apply forrelief, AND TIS HO wow DM, as hun
deeds stand ready to plunder the unfortunate victim of PBI
VATS
D1S8A8B, or secret habils with ut one thought for
his life and health. Alltlms deceive • will hndafricnd,ard
modorate char^eH.in conKiilting the Doctor who usss MO
MBRCORY
and curcH every time.
N. H.—PersoiiBfrom a distance vriien vj iting Iheclty in
search of a physician ami frii-nd will be foriunate if they
succeed in e«capinx the many ilons of imposllion,conduc-
ted by unprincipled men, dcHiitut* of character knowledge
or name, who fleece the unfortunate v.cum of disease of
hiu l»ardearned money, and his remaining health. Pdticnte
who have no acquaintance iu the city anouldmake inquiry
of some rcBpeciublo citizen, or the editor or proprietor of
any of the city paper*, t<> ascertain who is the most relia
b!e physician to apply to.
FEMALE DISEASES.
Dr
f
lispenard from on experience seldom or neir<»r
enjoyed by any other medical man, is enable to treat, with
every hope of succes, all and every variety of Female
Oompluiuts—with •»'• and pleasant remedies—and has
without doubt cureci wlfhlnthe pnst five years more than
3000 females afflicted withdiaeaBCsof the Bladder, Womb,
&c.4tc. Ladies afflicted with suppression or stoppage Qf
their monthly turns, will recollect that Dr. Lispenard is
itill tho sole American agent for.
DR.VICHOPS
;
J
FEMALE MONTIIKY PILLS.
i
*^he unprecedented sale of more than 16,000 boxes of
these excellent Mis. and the good results which always
follow their ujje. Is conclusive evidence of their utility in
stoppages, Ac. Caution—MarriedLathes tn certain deli-
cate situations should not'Us* them—for reasons see di-
rections with each box. Pricegl. tent by mailtoallparfF
of the world.
. .
.
Married Persons and those about to Marry, should en-
Icose 124ceo»8rH>si paid to Vr. Lispenard^ snd obtaina
copy of his Marriape Guido.or Privae Trcitise, a bewifch-
in^ little Work of nearly
:
100 pHf^s. ilrustrated. Every
thing that maorrie«l persons
CMI
desire or wish to
*HWW. \K
Jierecxplained. Persons who from poverty or sickocss
have nodosir^To ihdrba^c thclf fatni'v, w 11 prifl necessary
instruction in the Marriage Guidov One copy I94«eutse 6
copies 50 cts | 12 copies »I-r-m;iiled fresco apy part of the
world.
•
N. B —P^tieptstreated by letter, and medicine* s«r»l,
with AiH tilreetionftft>rUPO, tott)4 writer's a^ttrest, AM
communications destroyed or returned.
'
Ni> mercury pf>e<liu any case- ssid all eu^s wsfrwntrd*
No boys or precociouu studeiits allowed: timed persous
take notice.
Friendsof Dr. L When rreomw^ndiBg pal4ents to rmt
care will recollect our number ,5 Beaver St., three,doors
from South Broadway.
ll mmitat onott from 7 A. NL.ff>4P. M.,snd on Sundays
from I to 4 P.M.
Nocharge foradvicc, although no medicine m«y bed©

[jmenges]

AP, et al

If the above was this, then I believe this may be a little more readable...

From the Essex County Republican (NY, USA)

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w223/jmenges/lip1.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w223/jmenges/lip2.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w223/jmenges/lip3.jpg

It says (last section) that

"Dr. Vicholi's Female Monthly Pills" should not be used by "married ladies in certain delicate situations- for reasons see directions with each box"

JM

[SirRobertAnderson]

Okay Joe, Lispenard's clinic, let's rock and roll on that one...
.
You will note, I hope, that Dr Lispenard is at great pains to point out that his medicines and potions are not to be used by women of a certain condition - in other words 'pregnant' - but only by women experiencing problems with their 'monthly' cycle.
And I think this is where the rub doth lay.



Unfortunately, A.P. , I have a dark and twisted view of humanity, and I think one could argue that his stating that his potions must not be taken by a pregnant woman could indeed be a subtle way of advertising abortion inducing medicines.

Not to mention that a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is indeed having a big problem with her 'monthly'.

[jmenges]

Unfortunately, A.P. , I have a dark and twisted view of humanity, and I think one could argue that his stating that his potions must not be taken by a pregnant woman could indeed be a subtle way of advertising abortion inducing medicines.

Not to mention that a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is indeed having a big problem with her 'monthly'.

(edit) The ad states "Persons who from poverty or sickness have no desire to increase their family will find necessary instruction..."
It seems this is a birth control, or sterility pill.

I believe the caution is made to protect Dr. Lispenard from criminal prosecution in the event that his birth control pill causes an unwanted abortion. In the mid-19th century, the majority of "anti-abortion" laws (enacted on the State level) were really anti-poisoning laws specifically targeting herbal potion remedy salesmen like Lispenard. Abortion by choice at this time was discreet, but common, while causing an unwanted abortion was highly illegal.

Abortion up until the 5th month was allowed in the United States until laws slowly began to be enacted in states around 1860. This was a reaction to the fact that the majority of women getting abortions were white, protestant and middle-class, while those not getting abortions were Catholics and immigrants. This created a fear that the USA would eventually be overrun by heathens.

The warning was made IMO because Lispenard did not want to go to jail in the event his pill caused a woman to lose her child. Tort protection.

JM

[A.P. Wolf]

Thanks for posting up that original version of the corrupted text, JM, much appreciated.
I think the implication of advertising the fact that the pills should not be used by married women when pregnant, to encompass both what Sir Robert suggests; and what JM avows.
Quite clever really.
If you search for 'Professionalism and the Boundaries of Control Pharmacists, Physicians' on Google you'll find a truly excellent article covering all the aspects of abortion and legal, and illegal drugs in Canada during the LVP... it also discusses the conflict between the orthodox and non-orthodox 'doctors' of the time period.

Am I not right in believing that in Tumblety's case the final analysis revealed that there were absolutely no traces of the suspected abortifacient in his potions and pills?

[jmenges]

Thanks Ap, I'll read through your suggested article.

You posit that the caution is to cover his ass legally, while promoting the true purpose of the pill. This is a possibility, although I am having trouble finding an abortifacient in pill form at this time period (mid 1850s). The concoction for abortions seems to be mainly in liquids.

While I understand, after all, that what is advertised seems to be one...in pill form.

JM

[cappuccina]

...from the corrupted text...(I'm leaving now; yes, I'll go to my room for a time out! :D)

...Enlargement of the festicles and Cords...

[A.P. Wolf]

JM
if you look at the long running series of adverts in Morning Herald, New York, 1840 to 1842, from Madame Restell, you'll see her offering 'female monthly regulating pills' with the following warning:
'It is necessary for the married, under some circumstances, to abstain from their use for reasons contained in the full and particular direction enclosed inside of each box.'

In 1843 Madame Restell changed the warning to:
'They can be used by married.'

I think there to be a hint of a home kit abortion there; but also in 1843 Dr F Melveau of New York, advertising in the same journal, went the whole hog and left no doubt in his reader's minds about the 'Portugese Female Pill' he was making and selling by post:
'Their certainty, in all cases, being such that they must not be used during pregnancy, for although mild, safe and healthy, they are certain to produce miscarriage if used during that period.'

Now, just say you were a young lady in 1843 with an unwanted pregnancy and saw that advert? What would you do?

[A.P. Wolf]

Devlin's statement - made on the 30th September 1857 - in defence of Tumblety seems very conclusive to me:

‘But, this is not all, we also have the evidence of Mr. Kenneth Campbell, who produces Dr. Tumblety's prescription from which the pills were made, and he upon his oath, declares that contained neither oil of savine or cantharides, two of the poisonous ingredients credited to them by Mr. Birks. The same witness examined the bottle which Mr. Birks asserted contained black hellebore, and after applying his, Mr. Birks' test, unhesitatingly gave it as his opinion that it was a grave mistake to suppose it did.’

(Montreal Pilot).

[jmenges]

AP,

I see your point, though I do still believe these warnings to primarily serve as a safeguard against prosecution in the event miscarriage is caused by their digestion, as that was big risk the "doctors" faced if their patients suffered that unwanted outcome.

JM

[A.P. Wolf]

Agreed JM
but if you have a read of an article floating around on World Magazine, 'Crusading on Social and Political Issues', it does supply a lot more background on the cases we discuss.
'ere is just a snippet:

'Other abortionists began advertising their "willingness to treat the private ailments of women" in terms that clearly indicated the availability of abortion services. Advertising of generally ineffective abortifacients, like that of patent medicines, also boomed. "Dr. Peter's French Renovating Pills" were sold as "a blessing to mothers . . . and although very mild and prompt in their operations, pregnant women should not use them, as they invariably produce a miscarriage." Dr. Monroe's French Periodical Pills displayed prominently the "precaution" that they were "sure to produce a miscarriage." Dr. Melveau's Portuguese Female Pills alerted consumers that they were "certain to produce miscarriage."[17] (http://www.worldmag.com/world/olasky/Prodigal/c11.html#17)'

So maybe the advertising worked but the pills and potions didn't?

[SirRobertAnderson]

"pregnant women should not use them, as they invariably produce a miscarriage."

"sure to produce a miscarriage."

"certain to produce miscarriage."



I'm a cynic, but I see these as having one clear message and really one message only: take this, and you're rid of your pregnancy. They go way beyond legal boilerplate by asserting the certainty of a miscarriage.

[A.P. Wolf]

Quite right Sir Robert, that is the accepted view.
Someone, somewhere, said that advertising in the press of the time was cheap and easy... well, Madame Restell's annual outlay for such advertisements in the 1850's was $60,000.
What would $60,000 of those dollars be worth today.
Three million? More?
That aint cheap.
I was somewhat surprised to find out that her hubbie was none other than the famous Dr A. M. Mauriceau who wrote one of the best sellers of the time on how to avoid a baby.
I just pray he wasn't a Malay cook.
Maurice, where are you?
I need a curry.