No Harm Was Done-Alternative Medicine in Lockport, New York
is based up a series of published articles and lectures from 2015- 2017. When studying care and healing in Western New York the author discovered a number of offerings that were based upon an alternative view of health that differed from the traditional (often called allopathic) medicine of the time. The mainstream medicine practiced in the 1800s into the early 1900s was primitive. Doctors were often untrained, science lacking, and licensing was not formalized. Bleeding, ingestion of toxic substances and surgeries were heavily used. People had little confidence in traditional doctors.
The alternative medicine providers, who were Western New York healers, used a variety of techniques and vibrant aids to help their patients. Allopathic (traditional) medicine, at that time could be much more dangerous.