Bradford, Thomas Lindsley, 1847-1918

Dr. Thomas Lindsley Bradford was born on January 6, 1847 in Francestown, New Hampshire, to Thomas Bixby Bradford and Emily Hutchinson Brown, daughter of the Honorable Titus Brown who served as congressman from 1824 to 1825. Bradford is a descendant of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts. Bradford’s interest in medicine and homeopathy began as a child when his life was saved by a homeopathic doctor. He attended Harvard Medical School from 1866 to 1867. He also attended the Homeopathic College of Pennsylvania, from which he earned his degree in 1869. He specialized in the treatment of pediatric diseases. He practiced medicine in Skowhegan, Maine for approximately three years before traveling “abroad to Europe to study homeopathy at various hospitals,” (wholehealthnow.com). He returned to Maine and renewed his practice at Skowhegan, until 1877 when he moved to Philadelphia where he became the first resident physician at the Children's Homeopathic Hospital, which was newly founded by the Hahnemann Club. He worked there from 1877 to 1878 when he opened his own private dispensary. Bradford married Eliza Virginia Hough on June 15, 1887.

In addition to practicing homeopathy in Philadelphia, Dr. Bradford was the curator of the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia library from 1894 until his death in 1918. During his tenure as curator, Dr. Bradford “established the collection known as Bradford’s Scrapbook,” (Winston, p. 120), which consists of thirty-five volumes of letters, photos, essays and ephemera relating to homeopathic physicians. Dr. Bradford expressed his devotion to the biography project with the following inscription which appears on the title page of the first volume; “Biographies of Homoeopathic Physicians: Collected and arranged in twenty years and now given present form, to the Library of Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia by Thomas Lindsley Bradford, M.D., For Many Years its Librarian. These books are not to be taken from the Library Reading Room, and are to be kept under lock and key. Excerpts may be made from them by any responsible person. It is hoped that they may never be mutilated by literary vandals. They represent much labor, but it has been a labor of love. -Philadelphia, 1916.” From 1895 to 1900, Dr. Bradford lectured on the history of medicine at the Hahnemann Medical College as a faculty member.

A prolific writer, Dr. Bradford authored the Homeopathic Bibliography of the United States, 1892; Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, 1895; The Pioneers of Homeopathy, 1898; the Logic of Figures, 1900; and the Index to Homeopathic Provings, 1901; as well as articles for the four volume History of Homeopathy by William Harvey King, MD, LLD (1861-1942). He also authored the Autobiography of a Baby, 1903 which is regarded as a "literary gem" (Hahnemann Institute).

Dr. Bradford died December 13, 1918. During his medical career, he “was considered a capable and conscientious homeopathic practitioner … steadfast in his adherence to Hahnemannian principles and strongly critical of other medicinal approaches,” (www.wholehealthnow.com).

Bibliography:

"Prominent Homoeopaths: Thomas Lindsley Bradford." The Hahnemann Institute (January 1896), p 5-7.

“Thomas Lindsley Bradford (1847-1918).” Whole Health Now. http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/thomas_bradford.html (accessed September 29, 2009).

Winston, Julian. 1999. The faces of homœopathy: an illustrated history of the first 200 years . Tawa, N.Z.: Great Auk Pub.

From the guide to the Bradford collection of biographies of Homoeopathic Physicians, 1868-1918, (Drexel University: College of Medicine Legacy Center)