LIFE Summer Research Grant Reflections: Exploring Homeopathic Remedies

This is the second blog post in a series written by the 2025 recipients of the Duke University Libraries Summer Research Fellowship for LIFE Students. You can read the first post here. Hannah Auddino is a senior majoring in Neuroscience.

This summer, I continued investigating my question on the history of nursing home regulation while also beginning to explore homeopathic remedies through the lens of 19th century home physicians. The two resources I mainly worked with were The Reformed Botanic and Indian Physician: A Complete Guide to Health by Dr. Daniel Smith, and The Southern Botanic Physician – Being a treatise on the character, causes, symptoms and treatment of the disease of men, women, and children of all climates on vegetable or botanical principles by Simon B Abbott, MD. The former was influenced by Smith’s experiences growing up in areas neighboring Native American tribes, and thus being exposed to how native plants were used for healing purposes.

What I really enjoyed about both works was their emphasis on the importance of the body as a vessel. “But, alas, Man is but a flower, exposed to all the bleak winds of adversity, therefore his physical as well as mental parts must be looked after,” (Smith, 8). Additionally, there was focus on preventative, rather than reactive medicine, exploring the importance of getting to the roots of problems and working to prevent future occurrences for longevity promotion. Due to my interest in how health policy can be adapted to increase accessibility and centralization of preventative medicine, I was struck that this core idea was common to works written centuries ago.

As a healthcare worker and aspiring physician, my experiences working in a nursing home drew me to the first topic most strongly. I became really interested in learning the origins of the facility and how standardization has developed since the nursing home boom of the 1950’s. Investigative work led me to exploring the marketing of new nursing facilities, and how the Brecher’s, a journalist couple, went on a months-long road trip to evaluate the current nursing home climate in the 1960’s. Much of the complaint revolved around the food that patients were receiving, and from my own interest in how nutrition affects chronic health and how the American south particularly has struggled from vitamin deficiency disorders, I decided to pivot this question to look at homeopathic food as medicine remedies. Additionally, courtesy of Rachel Ingold, our library has wonderful History of Medicine exhibits, and I was particularly drawn to the history of aspirin as a treatment, and how it was originally derived from salicin in willow tree bark. This led to my thoughts centering on how the world around us can affect our health.

What I most enjoyed about this project was spending time in the Rubenstein’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, sifting through delicate papers, never quite sure what I would find. It was interesting, and surprising, to see how while healthcare has obviously progressed in the past 175 years, much of the terminology for the medical field has remained constant. Many of the suggestions were teas, including popular materials that are used today – ginger, honey, peach leaves. However, there were other ingredients that I had never heard of, along with ailments they were meant to cure: tar water for kidney stoppage, hoarhound for cough, turpentine for, “being in a raging fit.” The list went on for pages and pages in both novels, with some resemblant overlap. Interestingly, more “hip” homeopathic remedies such as tea tree, morphine, and taxol were not mentioned, leading me to wonder how the processes of discovery differed, and how commercialization of these products eventually came about. Additionally, while both physicians were based in the East Coast, one was based in New England and one in the South.

Questions I found myself asking involved how much of their work was from Native American influence, and should have been given due credit? What was the process of figuring out the benefits of these processes?

Along with the blatant ingredient suggestions were more general tips. They included tips that we know today, but likely without the knowledge we hold today on why these things are true. “Vegetable food is much lighter, more easily digested, and much less inclined to putrefy than animal food. Besides, from the natural stimulus which it possesses, the bile is rendered more healthy, by which the regular peristaltic motion of the body is kept up and costiveness, the source of so many evils, obliviated. This is easily proved, for everyone knows that the use of certain fruits, such as tamarinds, peaches, prunes, pears, plums, whortleberries.. Keep the bowels in a constant soluble state” (Abbott, 24).

He follows this with how pastry is “generally unwholesome” and that “nature delights in the most plain and simple food, and every animal, except man, follows her dictates.” Here, we see that what is detrimental to our health has been in discourse for centuries. We can see that much of what is being said holds true. If I was to continue this project, the next direction I would wish to take is in analyzing how some of the more specific recommended homeopathic remedies stand with today’s recommendations. Thus, I would be synthesizing current nutrition research to understand the possible truths that lay in century old health recommendations. On a biochemical level, how are these different ingestives and topicals working to prevent and treat disease? Are they antioxidants, minimizing reactive oxidative species in our bodies? Are they involved in activating or inhibiting certain metabolic pathways to increase or reduce stress hormones? I hope to explore this further through the course I am taking this fall, titled the “History of Drugs, Chemicals, and Health.”

My advice for anyone doing a similar project is to follow where the literature takes you! In finding some of the books, I was led in a slightly different direction that allowed for even more questioning and investigating. The path should not be linear, because if it is, you are at risk of missing out on enjoying the whole research process. This was something that I learned through this process, as I really do enjoy having all of my work set before me before starting. Yet, it was very fruitful to my learning to be more flexible in how I chose to spend my time – through further digging. I am very grateful for Duke LIFE and Duke Libraries for the opportunity to investigate my interests this summer, and looking forward to continuing during my senior year.