The Provocation and the Reply; or Allopathy Versus Physio-Medicalism in a Review of Prof. M.B. Wright's Remarks at the Dedication of the Cincinnati New Hospital, January 8th, 1869, Alva Curtis, Cincinnati, 1870
The title page of this 19th-century medical tract captures the professional tensions, antagonisms, and rivalries typical of the period. The author, Alva Curtis (1797-1881), was a founder of the "physio-medicalist" school. He is responding to the "provocation" he detected in the remarks earlier delivered by a member of the "allopathic" school. The physio-medicalists, like the Thomsonians from whom they derived, relied largely on botanic ingredients in their ministrations, whereas the allopaths included metallic compounds in their often quite vigorous pharmaceutical preparations.