Jesse Weldon Fell

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Title page from A Treatise on Cancer (1857)

Jesse Weldon Fell (born August 3, 1819 in Belvidere , New Jersey ; died November 6, 1889 in London ) was an American physician, known at the time as the inventor of an allegedly revolutionary treatment for cancer . His therapy was based on the application of a caustic ointment, the main ingredients of which were Canadian tormentil and zinc chloride .

Life

Early years

Fell was the son of the doctor Samuel W. Fell (1788-1825) and Lydia Dusenbery (1790-1839). His grandfather was the eponymous Jesse Fell , inventor of an open grate for burning coal . In 1839 he married Catherine Menagh Dunn (1820-1853) and settled in Port Colden, Warren County , where he worked as a clerk in the shop of William Dusenbery, a maternal relative and founder of the village of Port Colden. At the age of 22 he gave up this position, moved with his family to New Hampton and started with Dr. Robert McClenahan, a local doctor, received medical training. In the fall of the same year 1842 he moved on to New York , where he enrolled at the newly founded Medical School of the University of New York (now the New York University Grossman School of Medicine ) and graduated there two years later. He began the practice and became a co-founder of the New York Academy of Medicine on January 13, 1847 . Apparently, a dispute soon broke out because he offered to leave on July 5, 1848. The background is unclear and the matter dragged on for several years. It was probably the allegation that Fell had worked with a notorious quack , which is why they tried to deny him an honorable dismission . It seems a certain Dr. Gilbert, with whom Fell is said to have worked on a novel cancer therapy.

Fell suffered further adversity when his wife died of tuberculosis in 1853 . Of the couple's four children, Samuel Weldon (1839-1840), George Slocum (* † 1842), Alice Blanche (1843-1850) and Jessie Helen Dennis (1847-1902), only the youngest daughter survived. In May 1855, he married the then 23-year-old, from a Puritan -derived family Elizabeth Ayrault Smith (1832-1888) and went along with his daughter and his new wife on a trip to Europe, first to the World Exhibition in Paris to visit . In fact, Fell seems determined to leave behind the hostility of his opponents in the academy and to seek a continuation of his career in Europe.

London

Warwick Square. The house rented by Fell is roughly in the middle of the row of houses on the right.
Northumberland House 1820

Fell settled in London, where he initially established himself in relatively poorly furnished rooms in Pimlico , but in December 1856 he opened a new practice in a prime location on Warwick Square. He rented an apartment in Northumberland House , ran a large house with horses, a carriage and servants, paid a high rent of $ 1,250 a year and prominent visitors from the United States such as PT Barnum and the opera singer Jenny Lind were among his acquaintances.

The Canadian tormentil in a botanical journal from 1791.

He began using his new cancer therapy in his practice, but initially did not seek public or academic attention. In his search for a cure for cancer, he had come to the conclusion that surgery, with all its risks and uncertainties, was not the right form of treatment, but that the healing knowledge of indigenous peoples would point the way to cancer therapy. He came across a medicinal plant used by North American Indians on the shores of Lake Superior , called puccoon by the Cherokee Indians , scientifically Sanguinaria canadensis or "Canadian bloodroot". With this plant as the main ingredient, he developed a paste with which he began treating superficial canker sores. To improve the effect, he later added the caustic zinc chloride to the ointment . The effect was remarkable, according to Fell, as “large canker sores disappear within a few weeks, with little or no pain for the patient.” During the treatment, the skin was incised flat in several places to give the active ingredient access to the ulcer. Cotton strips coated with the ointment were then placed in the incisions. "After two to four weeks, the disease is destroyed and the cancerous tissue falls off, leaving a flat, healthy wound that generally heals very quickly." The preparation subsequently became known as "Fellsche Ointment" ( Fell's paste ). In addition to this ointment made from tormentil and zinc chloride, Fell used another paste for tumor treatment, the active ingredient of which was lead iodide , a highly toxic lead compound.

The trial at Middlesex Hospital

As Fell in London, as a foreigner and a representative of unconventional cancer therapy, had to fear attacks from established colleagues, he hit upon the idea of ​​opening his practice to interested colleagues one day a week and demonstrating his therapy. The offer was accepted and, according to Fell, over 100 doctors visited him on these open practice days, including some of the most respected medical professionals in the country, who are said to have "spoken the highest" about his work. Not all were impressed, in particular Spencer Wells, editor of the Medical Times and Gazette , expressed doubts that the therapy should in fact cause little pain, as Fell claimed.

At least Fell managed to attract public attention. It was reported in the press, taken note of in journals such as the Lancet , and some surgeons at Middlesex Hospital , then a hospital with a particular research focus on cancer treatment, were so interested that Fell was asked to do a clinical trial at Middlesex Hospital, provided that he discloses his methods to the resident doctors and publishes the results within six months. The trial began in January 1857 and Fell took over cases on three wards with about 60 patients. In June, Fell published A Treatise on Cancer, and Its Treatment , an essay on cancer in general and its cancer therapy in particular. In October, a report from doctors at Middlesex Hospital appeared on the trial. The report found that Fells' treatment method was less bloody than surgery and less painful than other forms of treatment with corrosive substances. In addition, it is not necessary for the patients to stay in bed; on the contrary, they are encouraged to exercise in the fresh air, which is beneficial for their well-being. However, no statements can be made about the long-term success of the therapy. Of 21 patients treated by Fell, the outcome was still uncertain in 7 cases, and of the remaining 14 cases only 4 had a relapse . It must be noted here, however, that at that time it was not possible to differentiate benign tumors from malignant tumors , for example by means of a biopsy and subsequent microscopic examinations. How many of the treated cases actually involved cancer must therefore remain open.

It was precisely here that the criticism of the Lancet , which increased in the course of the following months , established that in numerous cases there was no question of a cure because the cancer had not disappeared and new tumors had developed. The initially practiced secrecy of the ingredients used in his ointment was also criticized by Fell. The British Medical Journal finally stated that Fell had succeeded in establishing an extensive and certainly highly lucrative practice in a short time, whereby it clearly indicated a certain professional envy of the smart and successful Yankee . Especially after the publication of A Treatise on Cancer , the reactions of the medical establishment became increasingly aggressive. The Lancet called Fell a "western medicine man". In particular, that Fell had made use of the healing knowledge of American Indians, aroused offense, and the British Medical Journal disparagingly referred to it as science from savagery ("science of the ignorant savages"), it was a charming fable from the backwoods of America , a " American jungle fairy tale ”, and the therapeutic efficacy of the bloodroot was questioned. Zinc chloride, the use of which in cancer treatment had already been thoroughly investigated by other doctors, for example by Benjamin Collins Brodie , one of the leading physicians of the time , remained an effective component of Fell's ointment . In addition, Fell was assumed to be an enterprising secretary, which implicitly placed him in close proximity to the manufacturers of patent medicines and the sellers of snake oil.

The Emily Gosse case

Philip Henry Gosse with his son Edmund in the year of the death of Emily Gosse (1857)

One of Fells' patients whose cancer returned in new tumors and eventually led to her death was Emily Gosse. The case is best known from the report by Edmund Gosse , who in his 1907 autobiographical novel Father and Son describes in Chapter 3 the illness and death of his mother, who died of breast cancer in 1857 and had been treated by Fell. Medical details of the treatment are not found here, but in a memorial written by the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse , Edmund Gosse's father, which he wrote shortly after the death of his wife and in which he described the illness and therapy in detail.

In April 1856, Emily Gosse noticed a lump in her breast and, on the advice of a friend, went to see a doctor who diagnosed breast cancer. The diagnosis was confirmed by two other doctors, most recently by James Paget , who was considered the authority on cancer at the time. Paget recommended immediate breast amputation. However, the risks of such an operation made the Gosses hesitant. Henry Salter, one of the doctors consulted, pointed out the novel cancer therapy developed by Dr. Fur down. Salter had attended one of Fell's “open practice days” and was impressed by what he saw. His report led Emily Gosse to seek treatment from Dr. To go fur. During her visit to Dr. Fell was shown photographs and numerous "fallen" tumors preserved in alcohol and presented to a middle-aged woman who had been undergoing treatment for breast cancer for three weeks, whose tumor appeared dead and isolated and who assured that the pain of the treatment was hardly worth mentioning . Fell claimed that his and other "co-owners of the secret in the United States" were successful in over 80% of the cases. That convinced and in May 1856 the treatment of Emily Gosse began.

For the next four months, Emily Gosse drove three times a week from Islington to Fell's practice in Pimlico , where her tumor was treated with ointment applications. Emily Gosse found that the pain caused by the caustic ointment was considerable and almost unbearable. Nevertheless, at the end of the summer no progress was noticeable and Fell now recommended the "extraction" of the tumor. To do this, the skin of the chest was first dabbed with nitric acid , then several shallow incisions were made about ½ inch apart. A plaster with a “purple-colored sticky substance” was placed on the area prepared in this way. The following day the procedure was repeated and the procedure continued until the depth of the incisions allowed narrow strips of linen covered with the purple substance to be inserted into the incision wounds. The pain caused by this treatment was described by a friend of the patient as "torture" which caused the patient to "deteriorate rapidly". Sleep was only possible with the help of opiates , which Dr. Fell described it as "absolutely necessary". After four weeks the incisions were 1¼ inches deep and Dr. Fell said that it had reached the bottom of the tumor. Ring-shaped plasters were then placed around the tumor to make it fall off.

On November 23, the tumor finally fell off. “There it was on the table, a solid block of black mass in size and shape similar to a boletus, with deep scars on one side and almost smooth on the other. The corresponding cavity in the chest was raw meat with a partially purulent rim, but overall healthy in appearance. ”That was not the end, however, because two days later, Dr. Fell another tumor, which also fell off after another four weeks of treatment, "about the size of a hen's egg". However, hopes of a cure were dashed when Dr. Fell discovered two other tumors and now found that the disease was apparently "in the blood".

At that time there were two conflicting theories about the nature of cancer, namely a "local" and a "constitutional" disease. A local disease has its cause, for example, in a tumor and can be cured by removing it, whereas a constitutional disease affects the whole body and spreads within it. As we know today, both are true. Since the Gosse couple now lost hope and the prospect of the extraction of new tumors was unbearable, and Philip Henry Gosse also saw no point in trying to cure a constitutional disease locally, the treatment was discontinued and placed in the hands of John Epps, a homeopath and member of the Plymouth Brothers , an evangelical free church group to which the Gosses belonged. Emily Gosse recovered a little from the ordeal of the Fell treatment, but the end was inevitable and she died on February 10, 1857.

Late years

Little is known about Fell's later years. Since his daughter married in New York in 1862, he may have been in the United States at the time. He became a member of the British Medical Association . In 1871 he had a practice in the London borough of Holloway and lived there at 63 Tollington Park. Lucy Gayson Fell, née Dickie, who was named as his wife in the census of 1871 and 1881, is said to have only married in the summer of 1888. The following year Fell died at the age of 70. His grave is in Highgate Cemetery .

Medical historical reception

Fell and its ointment were largely forgotten for decades. In 1943 a letter Fell to George Palmer Kern was printed in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine . In 1949 a first biographical sketch by Ruth T. Farrow appeared in the same journal and in 1994 another article by LR Croft in Medical History . In popular literature, Fell's treatments were described with noticeable indignation by Judith Flanders at The Victorian House .

The evaluation of Fell's therapy is difficult and has to be seen in relation to other contemporary therapies. The fact that new tumors appeared elsewhere after “extraction” of a cancerous tumor was also the case with other therapies; surgical removal entailed considerable risks and also offered no security against the recurrence of tumors. It may be that the Canadian tormentil is humanly considered to be of no therapeutic use in cancer. On the other hand, Benjamin Collins Brodie, a medical luminary , recommended treatment with sassaparilla in cases where patients refused to undergo surgery . The fact that the treatment was associated with excessive pain in view of the uncertain success for the patients was denied by Fell, but this contradicts the reports on Emily Gosse's illness, and it can also be assumed that the treatment will be very painful, as the treatment lasts for weeks dragging away the diseased tissue ran out. On the other hand, in the Victorian era, opiates were used extensively in a way that is very harmless for today's terms , mostly in the form of laudanum , which one could buy in any amount in the pharmacy. Fells therapy was technically a treatment of cancer “without a knife” (as the title of a Fells writing from 1868), if no extraction of the tumor was necessary, as in the case of Emily Gosse, but extensive cauterization certainly does not correspond to our current understanding of gentle medicine.

Fell was undoubtedly business-minded, there is no other explanation for the lavish lifestyle and the rapid growth of a wealthy patient base. In the above-mentioned letter Fell bluntly wrote that he had now settled in London in order to " rid John Bull of his surplus of 'British gold'". However, there are no reports that Fell has requested fees that are out of the ordinary. In addition, allegations against Fell in this direction on the part of the British doctors are thoroughly hypocritical, because they themselves also by no means work for God's wages. In the same letter, for example, Fell is outraged about the British practice of fee-splitting , which is the very common requirement of a commission for the referral of a patient. One of his colleagues reportedly wrote to him that he had a patient "with a simple tumor, let's tell her it's cancer - (you must understand that I'm the authority on the subject here) and you charge $ 500 or $ 600, and we do then share. "

Canadian tormentil and zinc chloride, the components of Fellschen ointment, are still used today as "black ointment" in non-approved, in Germany and the USA banned, alternative medical cancer therapies .

bibliography

literature

  • Agnes Arnold-Forster: Gender and Pain in Nineteenth-Century Cancer Care. Wiley, 2020, doi : 10.1111 / 1468-0424.12468 , ( online ).
  • LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the "New and Fantastic Cure" for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History Vol. 38, No. 2 (April 1994), pp. 143-159 ( Digitalsat PDF ).
  • Ruth T. Farrow: Odyssey of an American Cancer Specialist of a Hundred Years Ago. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine Vol. 23, No. 3 (May / June 1949), pp. 236-252.
  • Sarah M. Fell: Genealogy of the Fell family in America, descended from Joseph Fell, who settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1705: With some account of the family remaining in England, & c. Sickler, Philadelphia 1891, pp. 207f. http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dgenealogyoffellf00fell~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D207~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DS.%20207f.~PUR%3D(No. 870).
  • Judith Flanders: The Victorian House: Domestic Life From Childbirth to Deathbed. HarperCollins 2013, ISBN 978-0-00-740498-8 , pp. 311-314.
  • Edmund Gosse : Father and Son: Biographical Recollections. Scribner 1907, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dfatherson00gossiala~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D . German edition: Father and Son: A representation of two temperaments. Translated by Meret and Hans Ehrenzeller. Afterword by Hans Ehrenzeller. Manesse, Zurich 1973, ISBN 3-7175-1465-2 .
  • Philip Henry Gosse : A Memorial of the Last Days on Earth of Emily Gosse. James Nisbet, London 1857.
  • Ashley Montagu, MF, WJ Musick: A Yankee Doctor in England in 1859. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine , Vol. 13, No. 2 (February 1943), pp. 217-228 (reprinted from a letter from Fell to George Palmer Kern dated May 13, 1859).
  • Alexander Shaw, Charles H. Moore, Campbell de Morgan, Mitchell Henry: Report of the Surgical Staff of the Middlesex Hospital, to the Weekly Board and Governors, Upon the Treatment of Cancerous Diseases in the Hospital, on the Plan Introduced by Dr. Fur. John Churchill, London 1857. Excerpt: Extracts from the Report of the Surgical Staff of the Middlesex Hospital. London 1858.
  • Anna Shipton: Tell Jesus: Recollections of Emily Gosse. Morgan and Scott, London 1863 (based on the report by Philip Henry Gosse).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The middle name Weldon comes from his grandmother Hanna Welding. See Ruth T. Farrow: Odyssey of an American Cancer Specialist of a Hundred Years Ago. 1949, p. 238. His father's middle name was believed to be Welding. The first name “Welding” appears frequently in the Fell family , see Sarah M. Fell: Genealogy of the Fell family in America. 1891.
  2. ^ A b c d e f Sarah M. Fell: Genealogy of the Fell family in America. 1891, pp. 207f. http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dgenealogyoffellf00fell~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D207~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DS.%20207f.~PUR%3D(No. 870).
  3. ↑ Ruth T. Farrow: Odyssey of an American Cancer Specialist of a Hundred Years Ago. 1949, p. 241, states September 30th as the birthday.
  4. ↑ a b Cross marking the grave of Jesse Weldon Fell (1819-1889), and his wife Lucy Gayson Fell. In: The Victorian Web. May 6, 2021, accessed on May 21, 2021 (English, illustration with legend).
  5. ↑ The company Gilbert & Co. - that's Dr. Samuel Gilbert and Dr. Silas Gilbert - was based in 746 Broadway. See LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History 1994, p. 149, footnote 60.
  6. ^ A b Ruth T. Farrow: Odyssey of an American Cancer Specialist of a Hundred Years Ago. 1949, pp. 241-245.
  7. ↑ Jessie Helen Dennis Fell Dellicker , at findagrave.com , accessed May 22, 2021.
  8. ↑ The address was 70 Warwick Square . See MF Ashley Montagu, WJ Musick: A Yankee Doctor in England in 1859. 1943, p. 218. House number 70 is on Belgrave Road. Ruth T. Farrow incorrectly gives the address as 70 Warwick Place, Belgrave Square , near Buckingham Palace (p. 243). Fell's apartment in Northumberland House was in Trafalgar Square , from where the mall led to Buckingham Palace. Farrow also blends information about Fell's London apartment with information about a summer residence rented for the family in Richmond .
  9. ^ WF Bynum: The rise of science in medicine. 1850-1913. In: WF Bynum, Anne Hardy, Stephen Jacyna, Christopher Lawrence, EM Tansey: The Western Medical Tradition: 1800-2000. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 0-521-47524-4 , p. 206 [1] digitized]http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DAKPt9cALKeQC~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA206%5D~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  10. ^ A b MF Ashley Montagu, WJ Musick: A Yankee Doctor in England in 1859. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (February 1943), pp. 223f.
  11. ^ A b LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History, April 1994, p. 157.
  12. ↑ "[W] ith this compound large ulcerated tumors were removed in the space of a few weeks and with little or no pain to the patient. [...] generally in the course of two to four weeks the disease is destroyed, and the mass falls out, leaving a flat, healthy sore which generally healed with great rapidity. " A Treatise on Cancer, and Its Treatment. 1857, pp. 58, 60.
  13. ^ A b LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History, April 1994, pp. 150f.
  14. ↑ a b c LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History, April 1994, pp. 154-156.
  15. ↑ Ruth T. Farrow: Odyssey of an American Cancer Specialist of a Hundred Years Ago. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (May / June 1949), pp. 246-250.
  16. ↑ Dr. Fell's Medical Treatment of Cancer. In: British Medical Journal , 1857, pp. 416f. Also pp. 545-547.
  17. ^ LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the "New and Fantastic Cure" for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History 1994, pp. 145f.
  18. ^ A b LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History, 1994, pp. 147f.
  19. ↑ “There it lay on the table, a hard and solid block of black substance resembling in size and shape a penny bun; deeply scored on one surface and on the other nearly smooth. And then on the breast, was the corresponding cavity, raw and partly lined with pus, but presenting an apparently healthy appearance. " Philip Henry Gosse: A Memorial of the Last Days on Earth of Emily Gosse. 1857, p. 32. Quoted from LR Croft: Edmund Gosse and the “New and Fantastic Cure” for Breast Cancer. In: Medical History 1994, pp. 147f.
  20. ↑ “operating upon John Bull and trying to relieve him of some of his surplus 'brittish [sic] gold'”. Quoted from: F. Ashley Montagu, WJ Musick: A Yankee Doctor in England in 1859. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (February 1943), p. 218.
personal data
SURNAME Fell, Jesse Weldon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Belvidere , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1889
PLACE OF DEATH London