“He continues, with his usual Success, to carry on his Operations”

The Newport Mercury advertisement I quoted yesterday was just the start of a campaign extolling Dr. John Newman’s cancer cure.

On 3 May, another letter appeared in the newspaper addressed to printer Henry Barber and signed by “Your Constant Readers.” This listed ten more Rhode Islanders who had been cured in the last two months, eight from Newport plus one each from Bristol and North Kingston.

On 28 June, “A Friend to Mankind” reported:

Mr. Benjamin Blossom of Massachusetts State, was sorely afflicted with a Cancer, seated near the eye; which extended itself round both his eye-lids; its progress had been so rapid that the eye-lashes were eaten off, insomuch that in the opinion of good judges it was thought incurable.

However, he applied to the said Doctor, who by his method of cure, in ten days fully extracted the Cancer, without giving the least pain or inconvenience to the eye.

That might have been Benjamin Blossom (1722–1797) of Dartmouth or his son, Benjamin, Jr. (1753–1837), of Fairhaven.

The longest letter yet appeared on 6 September. It was signed “D.G.,” but the writer identified himself (or herself) as the writer of previous “observations on the conduct of Doctor JOHN NEWMAN” published in the paper.

This letter added three more people to the list of Newman’s patients: “Col. Ebenezer Sprout, of Middleborough, Massachusetts State”; “Mr. Elihu Robertson, of Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts State”; and “Mrs. Parker, her place of residence I have forgot.”

According to the letter, the Middleborough man “had a Cancer, which had eaten out one of his eyes, two years before he applied for relief: entirely extracted and will soon be effectually cured.” This could be the militia colonel Ebenezer Sproat, who would die in 1786, or his namesake son (shown above), a former Continental Army officer who would help to lead the settlement of Marietta, Ohio, where he died in 1805. Reportedly the Shawnee called the younger man “Hetuck,” meaning “eye of the buck deer/buckeye,” but authors connect that to his height rather than the prominence of his eyes.

“D.G.” closed by saying: “I am not intimately acquainted with the Doctor, but as his reputation for humanity seems generally acknowledged, I must own I have a great partiality in his favour.” Frankly, I can’t help suspecting that Newman wrote all those letters himself.

Newman himself spoke out in yet another letter dated 22 November:

For the Benefit of the Public.

DOCTOR JOHN NEWMAN advertises his Removal from his former Place of Residence in the Ferry Wharf-Lane, to the House No. 113, in Louis-Street, at the Sign of the Pestle and Mortar: Where he continues, with his usual Success, to carry on his Operations in the Cure of the Cancer, and other Disorders incident to the human Body:

And in a more particular Manner, has discovered a new and safe Method for the Cure of the Venereal Disease, which he accomplishes in Six Days (provided the Patient adheres to his Advice) without the least Inconvenience—and takes this fresh Opportunity of acknowledging to the Public the many Favours received by their most obliged Servant.

I can’t help noting that only the first Newport Mercury letter about Dr. Newman, published the month after the legislature lowered his sentence for corresponding with the enemy, stated that he would offer his cure for free to anyone who couldn’t pay.

COMING UP: The cure from Fort Pitt.