Medical science had not advanced very far by the early nineteenth century. However, doctors had begun to organise themselves into self-regulating professional groups. These groups claimed their formal learning was superior. They dismissed the many alternative practitioners who made a living peddling unorthodox cures. Lack of affordable treatments often drove desperate patients into the arms of these ‘quacks’, occasionally with disastrous results.
There was no shortage of self-appointed health gurus promoting pseudo-scientific ideas about disease causation and treatment. One such was Albert Isaiah Coffin. He was an American herbalist who came to Britain in 1832. There, he published his popular Botanic Guide to Health. This book, and the Medical Botanic Society that he founded, appealed to many Birmingham residents. Their hopes were raised by his encouragement to practise self-help instead of relying on orthodox practitioners. He also promoted his patent medicine made from lobelia and cayenne, claiming it would cure almost any disease.
On 1st April 1848, a canal worker by the name of Flowers returned home. He found Hannah, his wife, ill and suffering from paralysis on the right side of her body. This occurred following an injury to her face. A devoted member of the Medical Botanic Society, Flowers sought the help of one of his colleagues. Together, they prepared some herbal remedies using recipes in Coffin’s book. Hannah seemed to rally briefly but then collapsed into a much worse state. Her husband did not call a doctor. He was confident the herbal medicine – a combination of capsicum and lobelia – would work. He wanted to give it time to do so, but sadly, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she died.
Dr Birt Davies, the Birmingham coroner, was asked to hold an inquest into Hannah’s death. He ordered an autopsy. This concluded she had contracted lockjaw (tetanus) due to her injury. The failure to treat it properly led to her death from apoplexy (stroke). The herbal remedy she had been given was entirely inappropriate for her condition.
Birt Davies severely reprimanded Flowers for experimenting on his wife and for failing to call in qualified medical help. He publicly warned Coffin and his followers that they must face the consequences if any other deaths ensued.
Tragically this was not the last occasion on which Birt Davies came across deaths resulting from reliance on Coffin’s remedies. Two years later he had to oversee inquests into two such cases in a single month, both involving babies. In both cases, the baby’s parents had administered the useless remedies, so had to take the blame. But Birt Davies believed the quacks who had promoted these remedies held the criminal responsibility. This conclusion was deeply frustrating for him because there was little he could do legally to hold them to account.
