Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health

4. Thomas Jefferson: Advocate for Healthy Living

« 169 » 4 Thomas Jefferson Advocate for Healthy Living [Exercise] is necessary for your health, and health is the first of all objects. —Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson, March 28, 1787 The state of medicine is worse than that of total ignorance. —Thomas Jefferson to William Green Munford, 1799 In 1766, 23-year-old Thomas Jefferson traveled from Virginia by horsedrawn carriagenearly three hundred miles toPhiladelphia tobeinoculated for smallpox. Jefferson was at the time a tall, fit, lanky young man in fine health, but he undertook the then-controversial treatment to prevent contractinganacutefuturecaseofthedevastatingdisease .InoculationwasillegalinVirginiaatthetime ,asmanyfearedtheprocedurewouldspreadinfection .Jeffersonwasencouragedtoundergovariolation,astheprocedurewas popularly termed, by his old friend and former classmate at the College of William and Mary, Dr. George Gilmer. Gilmer introduced Jefferson to Dr. John Morgan, who was then advocating inoculation in Philadelphia.1 MorganturnedJeffersonovertohiscolleagueDr .WilliamShippen,asMorgan’s practice excluded “surgical” procedures like inoculation.2 Shippen later served as a surgeon in the American army from 1776 to 1789. Like so many American-trained physicians of the era, Gilmer, Morgan, and Shippen all receivedtheirmedicaldegreesfromtheprestigiousUniversityofEdinburgh. Although Jefferson experienced no ill effects from the smallpox procedure , as we learned, inoculation by live human virus, which produced 170 « Thomas Jefferson immunity through a mild case of the disease, could sometimes cause serious illness and was potentially fatal. Like John Adams, Jefferson probably followed the same contemporary prescribed preparation prior to the induction of the human “matter” beneath the skin, which permitted a bland diet but abstention from wine and meat products, followed by the administration of a variety of potions to induce purging to cleanse the system. By undergoing the process, the young Jefferson was demonstrating his familiarity with emerging medical knowledge about infectious diseases and signaling his lifelong progressive commitment to personal and public preventative health. Indeed, his private interest in averting smallpox would evolve into his support of public health initiatives for the nation. Influenced by Enlightenment thought, like Washington , Franklin, Adams, and Madison, Jefferson viewed political, social, economic, and physical health as part of a reciprocal relationship.3 Although he is best known for his iconic role in the American Revolution , his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, and his two terms as America’s third president, as Jefferson himself famously declared, “Science is my passion, politics my duty.”4 For Jefferson, medicine was perhaps the most important branch of science, and he became one of the first American presidents to make public health policy a significant focus during his tenure in office. A true Renaissance man who possessed a brilliant mind and a wide breath of knowledge in both the arts and the sciences, like his hero Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson displayed a special interest in health and medicine. Jefferson was never reluctant to question contemporary medical wisdom, nor hesitant to criticize the doctors who practiced it. Although he clearly viewed nature as the best healer and believed in the efficacy of a regimen of healthy living augmented by the use of medicinal herbs and plants, he consulted physicians when he deemed it necessary and approved of the use of medications that proved effective. In other words, his empirical approach to science meant that he always emphasized proven fact over theory. In many aspects Jefferson’s views on health were astute and forward thinking, even revolutionary at times. His Enlightenment outlook on human progress and the belief that science should contribute to the advancement of human welfare and happiness influenced his role as an early leader in the field of American public health. Moreover, Jefferson believed that a free and republican government actually encouraged Advocate for Healthy Living » 171 good health, since he viewed the health of the body and the health of society as intertwined.5 In addition to supporting smallpox inoculation by personal example, while president of the United States, Jefferson used his influence to endorse the use of the safer, more effective method of smallpox vaccination introduced by Dr. Edward Jenner in England at the end of the eighteenth century, encouraging its popular use. According to one of his biographers, Jefferson, who regularly read medical literature and closely followed new trends, “was probably as well informed on matters of health, if not even more so, than most physicians of his time.”6 Jefferson’s Family Roots Future president, statesman, politician, scientist, diplomat, and author Thomas Jefferson was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, on April 13, 1743, to Jane Randolph, the British-born daughter of a distinguished Portrait of...