The Bradley Surname and Homeopathy

The Bradley surname produced several homeopaths.

**Daniel Heister Bradley **1849 -

of Wilkesbarre, Pa., was In born near West Chester, Pa., September 15th, 1849, and is consequently in his twenty-fourth year. He comes of a highly respectable family, his father being Caleb H. Bradley, Esq., and his mother Caroline Hiester, a descendant of General Hiester, a brother of Ex-Governor Hiester of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Bradley was fortunate in having parents whose position enabled them to give him a liberal education in the High Schools of West Chester and Coatesville, and finally at the Chester Valley Academy.

He early commenced the study of homœopathic medicine and took his degree at the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in the class of 1871-72.

During his collegiate career Dr. Bradley enjoyed the privilege and advantage of being under the tuition of Malcolm MacFarland, M. D., professor of clinical surgery, whose assistant he became.

Soon after graduating he was appointed by the faculty to the position of Quizmaster and assistant to the Chair of Clinical Surgery in the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia.

He however resigned this position, and in the fall of 1872, removed to Wilkesbarre, Pa., where he is now practicing as a homœopathic physician and surgeon.

Dr. Bradley is still a very young man, and necessarily his experience cannot be as large as that of many of his brethren ; but if we may judge from what he has already achieved, there lies open before him a long and brilliant career of usefulness and fame in the practice of the principles inculcated by the illustrious Samuel Hahnemann.

Eben or Eber Bradley 1828 - 1909 was the first homeopathic physician west of Toledo in the Northern counties of Ohio.

EBEN BRADLEY was born in Williston, Vt., March 20, 1828. He married Miss Cynthia P. Farrington of Newark. Vt., March 17, 1854. They have had seven children, five of whom are living: William W., Albert J., Henry S., Grace I. and Lydia S.

His ancestors came to America in 1630, and were among the very first settlers of Boston. He came to Lucas county in 1855. For many years he was a prominent sheep-raiser.

Since he has resided in Lucas county he has practiced medicine. He was the first homeopathic physician west of Toledo in the Northern counties of Ohio.

Eben’s sister in law Eliza died of tubercolosis:

A homeopathic physician in Toledo, Dr. Franklin Bigelow , wrote to Eber four days later,

"l am very sorry to hear of Eliza's death.. .She was too delicate and too far gone." ...

Eber had started dabbling in medicine, ordering homeopathic medications from Dr. Bigelow and getting pointers from him. The Toledoan recommended medicines for little Willie, warning emphatically,

“You cannot be too careful about his getting cold feet.”

Another recommendation,

“Slipery Elm tea is always good if it can be relished.”…

(Eber’s sister ) Minnie was in Ohio where she worked as an assistant to her brother Eber, sometimes writing letters in his name and signing them “Per M. M. Bradley.”

Presumably for her own reference, she kept a notebook of homeopathic medical words including these:

“Anticeptics - Such medicines as resist putrification. Infection - An unhealthy and poisonous composition formed during the putrification process of dead organic matter. Typhus - The nervous fever… ”

In his letter with the news of ague in the family, Myron (Eber’s brother) had tried to achieve a palatable combination of good and bad news. Eber, lonesome and distant from his loved ones, could not see it that way at all.

“Disasterous & disagreeable” was his description in his letter to his wife two weeks later from Michigan. “All to be sick with the Ague & Clover not cut till the 20th of July” dismayed him.

The nascent physician urged them all to

“take medicine right along”… “take the Cathartic pills to purify the liver & Cleanse the stomach.”…

In the same mail he (Henry Bogart, Eber’s travelling companion) sent brief notes to Harmon, complaining about tardiness in cutting the clover; to Myron, wondering why he and Josiah had not started work earlier; and to Hiram, assuring him that Strongs medicine had broken up an attack of ague for Eber without hindering business for a moment…

(Eber explains) “I had a good shake of the ague.” Agreeing with his prospective employer’s high opinion of the efficacy of a particular patent medicine, he was wishing for “a box of Strongs pills.”

Eber subscribed to the Weekly Blade, holding an 1858 receipt for his subscription at one dollar the year. At some time, according to his own notes, he was the Whitehouse correspondent for the paper…

Cyntha’s fourteen-year-old sister Lydia, in Vermont, acknowledged (January 22, 1860) receiving a picture of the late John Brown. The gift of the photograph suggests in what high regard Eber held the abolitionist hero.

He has always been foremost in doing what he could to promote the welfare of his town. No person ever appealed to him for help that it was not readily responded to so far as his means permitted.

For several years he has been prominently identified with labor organizations of the county. His residence has been in the village of White House since coming to Ohio. continue reading:

The correspondence of Fred Bradley’s grandfather Eber Bradley, indicates that the family moved west from Williston, Vermont to Whitehouse, Ohio in the 1850s to seek fortune in the sheep farming business. When the Civil War brought the demise of the wool business, Eber began to practice medicine as a “homeopathic practitioner.”continue reading:

Eber had broken the ice, reporting himself as a physician. He was 42, reported no real or personal estates although he, in actuality, owned both. His household consisted of Cyntha 36, William 13, Albert 10, Henry 5, Grace Isabelle 10 months, and Cyntha’s mother 66.

Eventually, Eber revised his personal history to suit himself, stating that he had started practicing medicine and surgery at twenty-five, palpably incorrect, perhaps to meet the requirements of an 1868 Ohio law requiring certain formal medical education except for persons who had practiced medicine for ten years or more.’

During his doctoring years, he identified himself as a homeopathic practitioner with ‘to quote his own notes’ expertise in “obstetrics, extracting teeth, doctoring children, burns, old sores and cancerous ulcerations (with an) average of 600 patients per year” and about nine home visits daily.

He commonly prescribed “golden seal root” for mouth cankers, turpentine and lard for chest colds.

Considering the often uninformed state of the medical arts in those days, “Doctor” Bradley might have done about as much good, and not much more harm, as many more orthodox practitioners. Certainly he was remembered with admiration by many patients.

In 1933, an old-time resident recalled his “heroic work during the scarlet fever epidemic of 1869-70.” continue reading:

Timothy Meigs Bradley, Eber’s uncle, born in 1788, served as Justice of the Peace form 1822-1825, as Town Treasurer in 1825, and owned a general merchandising company in Williston, Vermont.

The Bradley Family Papers are held at the Center for Archival Collections.

His ?father’s biography was written by Myron Bradley.

H L Bradley and L H Bradley are mentioned as homeopaths in the The California Homoeopath in 1889.