William Tod Helmuth and Andrew Jackson Howe. Surgical sectarianism in 19th-century America

Nineteenth-Century American society was particularly prone to the establishment of numerous unorthodox medical practices and their alternative therapies. The most influential of the unorthodox medical groups were the homeopathic and eclectic sects. From within the ranks of homeopathy and eclecticism, William Tod Helmuth and Andrew Jackson Howe, respectively, emerged to become the best-known sectarian surgeons of their era. Through a review of their lives this forgotten chapter in the history of American surgery is recollected.