Medical reformer. Fell victim of tuberculosis with severe pulmonary haemorrhages. Failing to respond to conventional medicine he accepted aid from Senecca Indians who took him into their care and treated him with simple herbal remedies, resulting in arrest of the profuse bleeding and a rapid return to normal health.
Prescribing botanic medicines for his patients from knowledge learned from his Indian friends, he met the famous medical botanist, Samuel Thomson, who taught him the elements of the craft. On his return to England lectures to his fellow doctors met with hostility. Persecution urged him to gather around him a small band of doctors and experienced laymen to study organic medicine; thus was formed the National Institute of Medical Herbalists.
Coffin left books: “Botanic Guide to Health” (1848) “Lectures on Medical Botany” (1850). He introduced Thomsonism into England thus combining British and American Herbalism.
Dr Coffin wrote: “Had we not been cured by a poor Indian woman, when all other means had failed, we should never have turned our attention to the vast resources in which nature abounds throughout the whole of her ample dominions, nor should we have dared to attempt such cures as have been performed.” (Botanic Guide to Health, by A.L. Coffin MD)
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