The Origins of Integrative Medicine—The First True Integrators: The Postwar Years and the Zenith of Alternative Medicine

Abstract

By the early 1950s, natural healing—an alternative to conventional medicine practiced by chiropractors and naturopaths—reached its peak. Practitioners were spread throughout the United States, and their common philosophy was based on a belief in the vital force—the inherent healing power within all of us. The leadership of W. A. Budden and Robert V. Carroll was critical to the professional growth of natural healing from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. They led a professionalization movement within natural healing that brought these practitioners to the peak that was reached in the post-World War II United States.

Credit to Budden and Carroll

The leadership of W. A. Budden and Robert V. Carroll was critical to the professional growth of natural healing from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. Their alliance had begun formally in late 1934.¹ From 1935 forward, Budden was the trailblazer in natural healing education. Robert Carroll became a trailblazer in professional organization of natural healers, and through a network of common associates they each supported the work of the other.

Budden accepted the basic sciences as a necessary part of a “nonmedical” physician’s education though he continued to argue that professional examinations were best given to candidates by each profession’s licensing board. He actually, in time, came to view the Oregon exams as quite fairly conducted and his students gained a high passing rate as the curriculum focused on these subjects as part of the core education in both chiropractic and naturopathy.²

What is the Vital Force?

What bound this natural healing profession together was a belief in the vital force, and a resistance to “suppressive drugs,” those pharmaceuticals that suppressed symptoms without treating the underlying disease state. Between the mid-1930s and the early-1950s—separate from Benedict Lust and his publications—this doctrine of the vital force became central to natural healing in a manner most consistent with Walter Cannon’s concept of homeostasis:

Yet, we must ever keep in mind that there is no disease to be cured; there are only sick people to be healed …

The physician must support the inherent nature of the patient by whatever means … By supporting the inherent power—the vital force—we re-establish a harmonious functioning of the disordered parts or functions.

It is not the physician that cures, but the indwelling vital force that heals. Since it is the vital force that heals, we must seek those methods and do for the patient those things which will best support the natural healing powers of the particular person; we must be careful to do nothing that would interfere with that healing force.

If we are not to interfere with the workings of the vital force in its attempt to heal, then we must carry on our practice in conformity with … the laws of nature.

The mere use of a naturopathic method or modality does not mean you are practicing Naturopathy in conformity with its principles and philosophy. If such methods are used as a suppressive treatment, the physician is practicing Allopathic and not Naturopathic medicine.

As naturopathic physicians we must work … in accordance with natural law.³

Education

He continued at all times to commit his Western States College (WSC) programs to provide a sound and thorough education to his students in both the School of Chiropractic and the School of Naturopathy. He worked tirelessly to improve the standards for all similar colleges and took the lead at every turn in increasing the course work and prerequisites required. The life and career of A. R. Hedges, DC, ND, of Medford, Oregon, will be discussed in a future column.

But it must be understood at all times that Dr Budden considered chiropractic and naturopathy as complementary, as part of a complete package, and his friends and allies were like minded; they were “DC, NDs.” Emblematic of this view were 2 things that were done in the mid-1930s: WSC joined in the school alliance known as the “Affiliated Universities of Natural Healing,” and he also recommitted WSC to a broad natural healing, drugless, progressive curriculum.

The first of these, the affiliation, was the brain-child of Homer G. Beatty, DC, ND, the president of University of the Natural Healing Arts in Denver, Colorado. The 4 schools that were advertised as in 1935 as being “affiliated” were WSC and UNHA joined by Metropolitan College of Chiropractic and Physiotherapy of Cleveland, Ohio, and the University of the Healing Arts of Hartford, Connecticut. These schools were affiliated in recognizing that the goal of “a regular standard, 4 years of 9 months each, course in Chiropractic and allied subjects is warranted by our profession and offered by the … school members of this affiliation.”⁴

The commitment to curriculum was significant, and an area where WSC was a leader especially in naturopathy. WSC was, as of 1933, located at 538 S. E. Alder Street, Portland, Oregon, and remained at this location until late 1939. The WSC schedule of classes and hours first printed in May, 1933, and in use through the college’s stay at the S. E. Alder location, set out a curriculum for both the chiropractic and naturopathy programs of 4000 hours of total study in the course of 4 school years of 8 months of residential attendance each. The school year was September through July of the following year. The Western States College, School of Chiropractic and School of Naturopathy, schedule of classes and hours was obtained from the library archive collection at the University of Western States.

The programs had 2750 hours of common study, starting with the basic sciences, and then “upperclass” requirements of 1250 hours specific to each program. Both courses of study had coursework in “physiotherapy, electrotherapy, and hydrotherapy,” with the major differences between the programs being the chiropractic coursework in clinical neurology versus the naturopathy coursework in herbology and biochemistry.

In actual practice, students enrolled in the chiropractic program and then added the naturopathy program as provided for in the schedule: “After receiving either the DC degree or the ND degree, the other degree may be secured by an additional 4 months’ work; both degrees cannot be awarded within the regular course.” The graduating class of July 1937 was typical, with 7 DC graduates, 4 of which also received the ND degree. The Oregonian newspaper of Portland, Oregon, for Monday, June, 28, 1937, had the announcement of the commencement to be held that evening.

And Dr Budden was firm in his commitment to a broad natural healing education and a corresponding view of the DC, and ND, professions. In 1935, he wrote to the Chiropractic Journal to object to the idea that “coagulation of tonsils and dehydration of hemorrhoids” were construed as surgery and therefore not defensible as part of chiropractic. He said “Western States College stands foursquare behind the members of the profession who are engaged in the practice of electrotherapy as a part of chiropractic.”⁴ As the schedule of classes and hours noted, under Oregon law chiropractic was “that system of adjusting with the hand or hands the articulation of the bony framework of the human body, and the employment and practice of physiotherapy, electrotherapy and hydrotherapy.” As Dr Budden’s letter went on to say, “There is no reason to back down or retreat from the position we have already established.” And he did not, either in the classroom, in clinical practice or in any public forum.

And finally, he made friendships and alliances deeply within both the chiropractic and naturopathic professions of his day. His chiropractic contributions and their effects on the DC profession have been written about elsewhere, but his naturopathic contributions and their effects have not been written about and so some attention to his efforts in naturopathic education and professionalism will be paid here. He is known as a great chiropractic educator, one of the classic “school men,” but he is also remembered “as a great naturopath.”

A Profession

When Benedict Lust criticized the alliance formed by Budden and Carroll in late 1934, he was well aware of the Oregon Ballot Campaign, and how hard the DC, ND, alliance had fought in that 1934 effort. To emphasize the “push” that was necessary in that fight Budden had addressed the 1934 Oregon Naturopathic Association Annual Meeting in June of the year on the fight ahead. And through A. R. Hedges, DC, ND, and others in the ND community (which may have included Washington’s Carroll) and to boost interest, the Oregon Naturopathic Association (ONA) had Lust come out from New York for the meeting. This was noted in the author’s personal correspondence with Gerald Farnsworth, DC, ND, of British Columbia, Canada in June, 2015. He was a personal and professional friend and colleague of Joseph Boucher, ND, WSC Class of 1953 and the brother of Earl Farnsworth, ND, class of 1955.

Carroll, by all accounts of the events of the next 15 years of activities within the naturopathic profession, was frustrated by Lust’s interference in the political situation in the Pacific Northwest. What Lust had said struck at the very philosophy of WSC its School of Chiropractic and School of Naturopathy. During the next 15 years, Carroll did 3 things: He wrested control of the ANA out of the hands of Lust, the “president-for-life,” he made it a much more professional organization, and he backed Dr Budden and WSC at every turn in the process. A lot of the story up to 1943 is told--from Dr. Lust’s point-of-view—in the Naturopath and Herald of Health (NHH) volumes for July 1942, “Dr. Lust Speaking” and January 1943 “The American Naturopathic Association: Its Purposes and Objectives.” Any other volumes of NHH and any other sources will be noted.

At the 1935 ANA convention in San Diego, Carroll pushed through a new constitution and supporting bylaws modeled on those perfected by the American Medical Association. The state associations would have House of Delegates members based on the membership size of each state. The board of directors and officers would be elected annually and the board would conduct much of the business of the ANA, primarily through its executive committee. Lust was elected again as president, but the “president-for-life” status was effectively rescinded. The constitution and bylaws adopted in 1935 were printed and published in Naturopath and Herald of Health, November, 1935, and om January, 1936. From this point forward, there were more voices within the ANA.

Gradually, Robert Carroll took control of the reins of the naturopathic profession. The final split from the personal grip of Benedict Lust occurred in 1942. The annual convention of the ANA was scheduled for June, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. The news of this location for the annual meeting had been released at the 1941 annual convention in St Louis, Missouri, and continually publicized since November of that year as evidenced in the Naturopath and Herald of Health, November, 1941, and January, 1942. By the spring of 1942, Lust came to realize that he was to be challenged for the presidency of the ANA by a group led by Carroll that was seeking a more committed professional development within naturopathy. This group was largely from states that had licensing laws of some kind in place for naturopaths. The Naturopath and Herald of Health, July, 1942; August, 1942; January, 1943; and a newsletter from the American Naturopathic Association, Office of the Secretary (Midland, Texas) dated March 1, 1947, listed Robert A. Carroll as president. The American Naturopath, Volume 3, Number 4, of June 1947; the Herald of Health and Naturopath, October, 1947 and November 1947 (Published by T. J. Schippell, Washington, DC) in the editor’s column, “This Month with Dr. Schippell,” all have been parsed through to gather this history. This material is in the collected archives at the National University of Natural Health, in Portland, Oregon.

As these naturopaths met in Chicago and elected Frederick Dugdale of Portland, Maine, as their president, Lust and his close associates, Jesse Mercer Gehman of New Jersey and T. M. (Teresa) Schippel of Washington, DC, hurriedly convened their own meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This meeting of approximately 70 naturopaths from the eastern United States, almost entirely from unlicensed states, was declared the convention of “the real ANA.” Please see list of sources and materials in the preceding paragraph for further evidence.

Even though Lust would contest the validity of what he called the “pseudo-group” of “pseudo naturopaths,” until he passed away in the late Summer of 1945—and his eastern followers would continue this even longer—it is clear that Dr Carroll and the western group acted within the full authority of the constitution and bylaws of the association and were in the “right” in this dispute.

In any event, as Schippel wrote at the time, the western, “insurgents” led by Robert Carroll had been working to “attract many outstanding naturopaths to their ranks, (and bring) in many state organizations to their membership …” and had many “well-known practitioners.” Carroll assumed the presidency of the western ANA at the July 1946 convention and held the office 3 years, until July 1949.

The Merging of Efforts

Carroll was a friend of WSC as President of the ANA, and afterward as the group’s past president. In many ways, WSC came to have a favored status among schools that were connected with the teaching of naturopathy where Dr Carroll and the Western ANA were concerned. As the Western ANA grew in stature, it began to make 3 goals clear: to unify all naturopaths in 1 professional organization (which meant unity with the smaller Eastern group left after the death of Benedict Lust in 1945), to advance the goal of a naturopathic profession based in licensed states, and to develop its own clear educational standards. Unity was supposed to take place at the strong and successful Salt Lake City, Utah, convention in July, 1948, during Carroll’s presidency. It did not. But professionalism was much advanced by the creation of a strong committee and organizational structure that Carroll ushered in, and by the enlistment of quality professionals such as Alton C. Johnson, DC, ND, of California—the author of Principles and Practice of Drugless Therapeutics—into the western ANA membership. The career of Alton C. Johnson, DC, ND, will be covered in a future article.

And the association adopted Budden’s model of a 4-year, 36-month residence course of study as its educational standard, passing a resolution at its July, 1949, convention in Houston, Texas, against recognizing any school that (1) offered any of its instruction by correspondence, (2) offered diplomas rather than course of instruction, (3) offered to grant multiple degrees for the same course of instruction, and (4) granted any advanced standing or transfer credit that was based on study at schools not recognized by the ANA, the American Osteopathic Association, or the National Chiropractic Association. More information can be found in the “Outline of Curriculum for Schools and Colleges Teaching Naturopathy” by the ANA Committee on Education and Council on Schools and Colleges, adopted by the ANA House of delegates at the annual meeting in July, 1948, at Salt lake City, Utah, and reported in Journal of the ANA, Inc, in December-January, 1948-1949, on pages 11 to 21.

This was done as some of the last business conducted under Carroll’s presidency. In December, 1949, the Journal of the American Naturopathic Association first published its list of approved schools, listing 3 schools that would require basic science credits from an outside institution of higher education, and WSC as the only school offering residency education in all four years of required curriculum.

Moreover, Carroll strengthened the connections between the Oregon DC, ND, community and WSC with the Western ANA. Carroll personally quelled unrest among some of the ND community and WSC in the postwar years. He visited a regular meeting of the Oregon Naturopathic Association in December, 1947, whereas the ANA president, together with his successor as president of the Washington State Naturopathic Association (Dr Helena Winters of Kelso, Washington). He then made another visit to the ONA monthly meeting a year later in December, 1948. As reported in Oregon Pioneer, unrest began in the fall of 1948 within the ND community around WSC that the school was becoming known more as a chiropractic school, or a school of “chiropractic and drugless physicians” outside of the college. Carroll made the purpose of his 1948 visit as ANA president to express his support for Dr Budden and WSC as Budden saw fit to operate the college. The first visit is reported in The Oregonian, Friday, December 3, 1947 and the second visit is reported in the Journal of the ANA, February, 1949, at page 13. “National News Notes” reported on the ONA’s convention in December, 1948, also attended by a student delegation from Western states of 23 students, and further described in a newsletter of the Washington State Naturopathic Association for February, 1948, a copy of which is the John Bastyr Archive papers at Bastyr University.

After leaving the presidency in July, 1949, Carroll remained active—somewhat more behind the scenes—in matters of the ANA and the Pacific Northwest. The largest issue for the Western ANA for 1950 was the unfinished business of unification with the remaining naturopaths in the Eastern group, and for the year between the annual conventions of 1949 and 1950, this was almost all consuming. In addition, legal issues arose in Washington State in 1950 regarding the 1919 Drugless Healing Act under which the naturopaths in that state were licensed. These legal issues threatened to do severe damage to the profession’s legal status.⁵

Unification under the Western group’s national structure was achieved in St Louis in 1950, although the amalgamation remained messy until the very end. Then, Dr Robert V. Carroll, a true giant within the naturopathic profession and a friend of WSC until the end, passed away suddenly in April, 1951.⁶ More information can be found in the Journal of the ANA, Volume 4, Number 6, published in June 1951 at page 8. This journal has an “In Memoriam” box noting Carroll’s passing on Friday, May, 11, 1951, and the Obituary in the Seattle Times notes her passing on Sunday, May 13, 1951.

Natural Healing at Its Peak

In March, 1952, Henry J Schlichting, Jr, ND, appeared before the 42nd annual convention of the Oregon Association of Naturopathic Physicians in Portland, Oregon. At the time, Schlichting was the president of the American Naturopathic Physicians and Surgeons Association (ANPSA). Schlichting succeeded Robert Carroll as president of the Western American Naturopathic Association (ANA) in 1949; in 1951, the association changed its name to the ANPSA. Schlichting was quoted as saying that 2 major national issues facing naturopaths were that alternative schools got no tax support and that naturopaths could not be admitted to tax-supported hospitals. This created “a heavy demand on our profession and the lay public to meet rising … costs.”

“Despite these problems, the profession “is making definite progress on a national scale as evidenced by licensing in over 20 states,” [and] insurance companies are recognizing naturopaths “because they are getting satisfactory results,” Schlichting was reported to have told the convention.⁶

Although the “licensing in over 20 states” was a generous count, there was no question that at the time Schlichting was speaking the natural healing alternative was at its peak. Schlichting was from Midlands, Texas, a western Texas city where all major oil companies had a presence in a state where there were almost 500 licensed naturopaths. Schlichting gave this number in an interview on the first day of the convention (Thursday); the interview appeared in The Oregonian on Friday, March 7, 1952, at page 45. Specific licensing of naturopathy was in place in 8 states (of 48), 2 states had naturopaths practicing under drugless licensing and about a dozen other states had broad, “mixer” licensing of chiropractors. In other states, naturopaths were fairly openly practicing without licensing but consistently pursuing legislation. Natural healers were practicing in approximately 40 of the 48 states. Licensed states were Connecticut, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Utah and Oregon. Naturopaths were licensed in Washington as drugless healers and in Ohio as “others-mechanotherapy.”

Coming next issue: “H. R. Spitler’s Basic Naturopathy: The Careers of H. R. Hedges and W. Martin Bleything; the WSC Class of 1953.”

Biography

George W. Cody, JD, MA, BA, received his undergradute degree from Stanford University, his law degree from Willamette University, and his master’s degree from University of Washington. He practiced law for 25 years and has worked in public affairs, health policy, and medical history research. His original history of natural medicine is part of The Textbook of Natural Medicine.