By Rachel Clark

One of the things that first drew me to herbalism is that being an herbalist can take many different shapes. What my practice looks like will be different depending on the day, the season, and what’s happening in my life at that time. How I tend to myself and to my clients depends on an ever-changing set of circumstances. Even when I feel certain about my approach to an herbal problem, when the answer seems so clearly black or white, the solution always seems to live in the gray. In herb school, it seemed like every question I asked was met with the same response: “Well, it depends.” It depends on the person, their constitution, the plant being used, in what form and when and how much and on and on and on. The uncertainty of it all drove me crazy. Now I find myself repeating the same answer to those I get to share herbalism with. The uncertainty still bothers me. I want to be certain that the work I do is truly benefiting others and making a difference. However the only thing I know for certain is that it will continue to be uncertain. 

In the Third Edition of her 2004 book, Hope In the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, Rebecca Solnit writes about how uncertainty is fertile ground to grow seeds of hope. She says, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty there is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.” According to Solnit, pessimists and optimists both are excused from action because they feel that the outcome is already certain, but when things are uncertain, when the path is not yet forged, the mere fact that we don’t know what the outcome will be allows us to dream, to scheme and to believe that a better life is possible even when we don’t know what it will look like.

J.M. Scudder, an early practitioner of Eclectic Medicine and physician based in Cincinnati, seems to be cut of the same cloth as Solnit. Rather than being deterred by the seemingly unknowable cures to disease, he wrote in his 1903 book Specific Medication and Specific Medicines that, “It was essential to believe that the practice of medicine was a great uncertainty.” Uncertain in the sense that what works for one person is not necessarily certain to work for another. That person’s individual circumstances, history and health conditions make for a unique situation that requires a unique approach.

 The origins of Eclecticism can be hard to trace to just one source, but is generally rooted in the early 19th century in the Ohio valley. “Classically” trained doctors were seeking a less dangerous method of healing and treatment and found inspiration from “Indian and Root doctors” who taught them how to use plants as a healing modality. The branching roots of eclecticism mirror what the practice eventually evolved into—a hodgepodge of different methods of treatment, blended together to find what best suited each individual patient. 

C.S. Rafinesque, a naturalist and early adopter of the eclectic school of thought said that, “The eclectics are those who select and adopt in practice whatever is found most beneficial, and who change their prescriptions according to emergencies, circumstances and acquired knowledge.” In other words, the Eclectics applied what they learned as they learned it, relying heavily on their own empirical evidence and the experience of their patients. Depending on the person, the situation and the symptoms present, treatment varied. Rather than taking a this-for-that black and white approach to medicine, they worked within the gray areas, knowing that some parts of healing are intangible and unknowable.

At the time the Eclectics were developing their approach to medicine, detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the body was minimal, and because of this, doctors had to use the direct knowledge they had gleaned from their own lived experience to formulate their practices. This often came from a diverse range of sources, even those whose view of medicine was at odds with their own. By learning from those with different views, Scudder helped to specify a philosophy of Eclectic practice with a more solid definition.

Allopathic and homeopathic practitioners did not use empiricism the same way as the eclectics. Latching on to lived experience as evidence, Scudder wrote, “It is a matter of interest to know the exact character of a lesion [disease], but it is much more important to know the exact relationship of drug action to disease expression.” In essence, Scudder believed that while knowing the disease pathology of a patient was interesting, it was much more important to understand how a drug, herbal or otherwise, would influence the way that that disease was experienced by the person being treated. Using a multi-pronged approach, Scudder combined pulse and tongue diagnosis, conventional allopathic treatment, and an understanding of disease pathology, with the idea that disease stemmed from a not-so-easily defined imbalance within the patient. He called these imbalances “Wrongs of Life” or a disturbance in the vital force.

It was primarily through the patient’s personal experience combined with the practitioner’s knowledge of the medicines’ actions that led to a deeper understanding of treatment of disease. As Matthew Wood wrote in his book, Vitalism: The History of Herbalism, Homeopathy and Flower Essences, “The beauty of the Eclectic approach is that it calls forth the vital force in the physician to heal the vital force of the patient.” It was the idea that disease cannot be fully understood when isolated from the living person experiencing it that motivated the Eclectics. Just as an uprooted tree cannot explain the forest, symptoms, when pulled out of the context of life, do not provide a full diagnostic picture. Two people may present with the same set of symptoms but live wildly different lives. While some of the treatment may be the same, knowing the external factors that may be influencing that individual’s health provides the practitioner a deeper understanding of how to address the root cause of the illness. 

The Eclectics came to believe that the symptoms of disease were not the primary target of treatment, but rather side effects of the underlying disturbance in the patient’s vital force. Symptoms were seen as signals and clues that pointed to the root of the issue rather than the issue itself. These practitioners sought to find patterns of disease and address the issues that caused those patterns instead of looking to find a single medicine (or combination of medicines) to specifically target an individual symptom.

Derived from the homeopathic school of thought, the Eclectics adopted the idea that there was a universality to the vital force that regulates life in all its forms. This vital force flows through the plants, animals, humans, and nature itself. It was through direct study of living humans and the world around them that this vital force was approachable and understandable. Rather than relying solely on the study of cadavers, the Eclectics studied the effects of their treatment both on their patients, and on themselves. While the lack of defining principles initially did not inspire confidence, Scudder’s work to standardize the Eclectic practice helped to form another branch in the many-rooted origins of modern herbalism. He said that the vital force, and tending to it, is the basis for health and recovery. By educating the senses, the practitioner is able to better understand themselves and, in turn, better understand how to help their patients.  

In our modern age where we are bombarded with uncertainty, the Eclectic approach to healing helps to remind us that addressing the symptoms of an issue is only part of the cure. In order to truly find healing we must find the root cause of what ails us. The Eclectics learned from those around them, from those they did not see eye to eye with, and from what they experienced with their own five senses. Even when we do not know for sure, our lived experience and the experience of those different from ourselves can help us to find a path forward to health and healing. Eclecticism affords us the space to play in the uncertainty, to be creative, innovative and generous. The answer to what ails us, both as individuals and as a whole, depends on so many factors. The Eclectics took their lived experience and the experience of the living to find what worked for them at that time. They learned from many different lineages and traditions to develop their own school of thought. This is the same in the world. In a time of fear and uncertainty, we still have the power to create the world we dream of, but it can only come from dialogue with those who think differently. The exchange of knowledge, dreams, ideas, and tools can help us to see the vital force in all things and heal the life that we all share.

Rachel Clark is a Clinical Herbalist and herbal product maker based in Spokane, WA. www.spokaneherbalist.com