DeForest Clinton Jarvis (March 15, 1881 - August 18, 1966) was an American physician from Vermont. He is best known for his writings on the subject of folk medicine. He recommended a mixture of whole, raw apple cider vinegar and honey that have variously been called switchel or honegar, as a health tonic. He promoted the use of vinegar to keep the acidity of the body more acidic than alkaline, which he believed treated medical problems like burns and varicose veins.
Video D. C. Jarvis
Biography
Jarvis was born in Plattsburg, New York into a fifth-generation Vermont family and grew up in Burlington, Vermont. His parents were George Jarvis and Abbie Vincent. He graduated from the University of Vermont Medical College in 1904, and began practicing medicine in Barre, Vermont in 1909.
Jarvis's wife was named Pearl Macomber, and they had a daughter, Sylvia Jarvis Smith (b. June 29, 1914, d. December 27, 2009), who graduated from the University of Vermont in 1936. His hobbies included making jewelry and playing the cello, and he managed a children's orchestra for 22 years.
Jarvis's 1958 book Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health. The book was on The New York Times Best Seller list for two years, ultimately selling over one million copies, more than 245,000 copies in a single year, and was still in print as of 2002. Wrote one reviewer, "Pliny, the ancient Roman originator of the doctrine of signatures, used honey and vinegar to cleanse the system and promote good health. D. C. Jarvis, M.D. in Folk Medicine has re-popularized the use of honey and apple cider vinegar in modern times."
He died at the Girouard Nursing Home in South Barre, Vermont, at the age of 85. The cause of death was a chronic kidney infection, coupled with cerebral thrombosis and arteriosclerosis.
After his death in 1966, Jarvis's office was dismantled and shipped to the Shelburne Museum, where it was reconstructed and is still displayed, as an example of a small-town Vermont doctor's office.
Maps D. C. Jarvis
Critical reception
In 1960, copies of Jarvis' book Folk Medicine were seized by the Food and Drug Administration in connection with sales of "Honegar". Physician Louis Lasagna noted that:
"In Albany, New York, FDA agents seized $60,000 worth of "Honegar," a mixture of honey and apple cider vinegar, because its labeling failed to bear adequate directions for treating nearly fifty diseases and conditions for which "Honegar" was intended to be used. Seized with the mixture were reprints and quotations from Jarvis' book. (Jarvis was apparently uninvolved in the commercial manufacture of the product.)"
Jarvis promoted the idea that apple cider vinegar and honey could be used to cure arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and many others. Medical authorities dismissed these claims as nonsense and quackery.
Historian Nancy Tomes has written that most physicians have dismissed Jarvis's ideas.
Books
- Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health (1958). New York: Holt. ISBN 978-1447446378
- Arthritis and Folk Medicine (1960). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
References
External links
- Works by or about D. C. Jarvis at Internet Archive
- D. C. Jarvis biography
- Article from Vermont Life magazine, 1960
- Article about Sylvia Jarvis Smith
- Article about Sylvia Jarvis Smith
Source of article : Wikipedia
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