So I want you to picture the ideal country doctor
in like 19th century Massachusetts. You are probably
imagining a carriage. Maybe a black bag. Right.
Maybe some leeches. Exactly. Some leeches and
just a very pious, upstanding member of the church.
The whole Norman Rockwell painting. Yeah. The
full Norman Rockwell. But today we are looking
at a man who completely shatters that image.
We're doing a deep dive into Charles Knowlton.
Oh, this is a wild one. It really is. So Knowlton
was born in 1800 and he was a respected physician
by day, you know, riding a circuit of 30 towns
to heal the sick. But by night. By night he was.
a grave robber he was a grave robber a convicted
criminal and he was a philosopher who wrote books
in a jail cell that completely challenged the
religious and legal structures of the 1800s he
really lived two completely different lives simultaneously
I mean, on one hand, he's the guy you call when
your child has a fever. And on the other, he
is what the religious establishment considered
basically a moral terrorist. Right. And for this
deep dive, we're pulling from a bunch of historical
records, biographical details and court transcripts
regarding his life and his medical practice.
Because our mission today is really to unpack
this guy. To figure out how he bridged that gap
between medical curiosity and social taboo. Exactly.
Because the irony is the thing that made him
a terrorist, quote unquote, to these people wasn't
violence. It was a little book. Literally a tiny
pamphlet. Yeah, a pamphlet that sparked an international
legal firestorm. But the kicker is the real explosion
didn't even happen until 27 years after he was
dead. Which is just the ultimate example of the
Streisand effect. I mean, before Barbara Streisand
was even born. Right. But to understand why a
country doctor became such a lightning rod, we
kind of have to look at the world he was born
into. So this is 1800. Medicine wasn't really
science yet. No, it was a lot of guesswork. Guesswork,
prayer, balancing humors. Heroic medicine was
the standard, which usually meant bleeding you
until you passed out or just dosing you with
mercury. And into this world comes Charles Knowlton.
But he didn't start out as a rebel. If you look
at the records from around 1818, when he was
18, he was actually terrified of his own shadow.
He was a massive hypochondriac. Yeah, extremely
concerned about his health is the polite phrase
the biographies use. Right. He was suffering
from what they called gone -ness. Gone -ness.
Yeah, this sort of debilitating weakness and
anxiety. It totally consumed him. He thought
he was dying every single day. And this is where
the story takes a turn into what feels like science
fiction to me. Because he doesn't go to a priest
and he doesn't go to a standard doctor. He goes
to Winchendon, Massachusetts to see a man named
Richard Stewart. Who is not a doctor. No, not
a doctor at all. He's described as a jack of
all trades. You have to think of Stewart as that
eccentric genius living on the edge of town.
He was experimenting with electricity. Which
in 1818 was basically magic. Effectively magic,
yes. Mary Shelley had just published Frankenstein.
The idea that electricity was the actual spark
of life was heavily in the zeitgeist. So Stewart
is building these galvanic batteries, these primitive
electric machines in his house. Right. And young
Knowlton goes there for essentially shock therapy.
But, and I just love this detail, he finds a
different kind of spark because he meets Stewart's
daughter. Tabitha. Tabitha, yes. The records
are actually a bit ambiguous on the causality
here. Was it the galvanic shocks from Richard
Stewart's machine that cured him? Or was it falling
in love with Tabitha? I'm going to bet on the
romance. Probably. But the result was binary.
He was instantly cured of his gone -ness. But
the exposure to Stewart's workshop did something
else, too. It turned Knowlton toward materialism.
Yes. He saw that physical forces like electricity
could literally change how we felt. It wasn't
about demons or sin. It was about mechanism.
It was biology and physics. Right. So he decides
to become a doctor. He heads to Dartmouth for
their medical lectures. Which was the standard
education at the time. He sat in a lecture hall
for 14 weeks twice. You listen to a professor
talk about it. anatomy. But you didn't touch
anything. No. You rarely touched a patient and
you almost never touched a cadaver. And that
just wasn't enough for Knowlton. He had this
burning need to know how the human machine actually
worked. But in the 1820s, there was a massive
legal problem. The Anatomy Act hadn't passed
yet. Exactly. Legally obtaining bodies for dissection
was nearly impossible. So if you wanted to really
learn anatomy. You had to become a resurrectionist.
Meaning you had to dig them up yourself. You
had to dig them up yourself. And we are not speaking
metaphorically here. We are talking about Knowlton
in the dead of winter. shoveling frozen dirt
in a graveyard to drag a fresh corpse out of
the ground. It is gruesome work. It is. But for
him, it was completely necessary work. He fundamentally
believed you couldn't treat the living if you
didn't understand the dead. However, society
strongly disagreed with that logic. Strongly.
In 1824, right after he gets his M .D., he moves
to Hawley, Massachusetts and almost immediately
gets arrested for illegal dissection. So he's
a brand new doctor. The ink is barely dry on
his diploma. And he's sitting in the Worcester
County Jail for two months. Now, most people
would take this as a sign to maybe conform a
little bit. Like, okay, society says no digging
up bodies, I'll stop. Right, learn your lesson.
But Knowlton uses the jail time to double down.
He becomes the jailhouse philosopher. Yes. He
isn't just sitting there sulking in his cell.
He starts outlining a book. And it's not a medical
textbook. It's a full philosophical treat. It's
called Elements of Modern Materialism. I read
some excerpts from this in the sources, and it
is really heavy stuff for 1829. He's not talking
about materialism in the sense of like buying
nice things. No, he's talking about ontological
materialism. Right. He's arguing that the universe
is made of matter and absolutely nothing else.
Which was a direct attack on religious dualism.
That whole idea that the body and soul are separate.
It went right after it. He did. Knowlton argued
that what we call the soul or the mind is just
a function of the brain and the nervous system.
He was effectively describing early behaviorism
a century before it even became a field of psychology.
He really believed that if you change the biology,
you change the person. Which tracks perfectly
with his experience with that electricity machine
back in Winchendon. Exactly. He felt his own
soul, quote unquote, change because of physical
shock. And he was trying to systemize that. But
he wasn't just keeping a diary. He was incredibly
ambitious. He actually quotes John Locke on the
title page. He genuinely thought this book would
make him the American John Locke. He really thought
he had solved the riddle of human existence.
And this leads to what I think is the most heartbreakingly
human moment in his biography. The one horse
load. Oh, man. The one horse load. It's the summer
of 1829. He has self -printed a thousand copies
of elements of modern materialism. He loads them
onto a wagon, a literal one horse load. And he
travels from rural Massachusetts all the way
to New York City. Just picture that journey for
a second. It's summer. It's hot. He's dusty.
He's dragging hundreds of pounds of paper across
the entire state. Convinced that when he gets
to the city, the intellectual elite are just
going to embrace him. And instead. Silence. Absolute
commercial failure. He didn't sell a single copy
to a bookseller. Not one single copy. He had
to drag that same heavy cart all the way back
home. It's just a crushing defeat for an intellectual.
He's screaming into the void and the void is
just not listening. However, he didn't come back
entirely empty -handed. He did meet some people
in the city, some free thinkers. People like
Robert Dale Owen. Yes, and that connection really
mattered to him. He even named his second son
Stephen Owen Knowlton after his new friend. So
he returns to Massachusetts, bruised but not
broken, and he moves to Ashfield in 1832 to restart
his medical practice. And this is where the narrative
shifts from eccentric failure to public enemy.
Because in Ashfield, he meets his... absolute
nemesis. The Reverend Mason Groszner. It is the
classic setup. The Second Great Awakening is
in full swing. Religious fervor is extremely
high everywhere. And Groszner is a new minister
who wants to stamp out infidelity and licentiousness
in his town. And who does he see? This materialist
doctor who used to dig up bodies and thinks the
soul is just brain chemistry. But the funny thing
is, Groszner didn't go after the philosophy book.
Probably because nobody read it. Right, exactly.
He went after something else entirely. Knowlton
had written a new book, a tiny book this time.
The Fruits of Philosophy or The Private Companion
of Young Married People. And we need to be very
clear about what this book actually was. It wasn't
pornography and it wasn't philosophy in the academic
sense. No, it was a medical manual on reproduction.
It covered infertility, impotence, and the physiology
of conception based on the best science he had.
But the real dynamite, the thing that caused
all the trouble, was chapter two. Because Knowlton
provided a specific practical method for birth
control. Right. Let's get into the weeds here
a bit, because I know you listening are probably
wondering what exactly was he prescribing in
1832. This is way before latex condoms or the
pill. He advocated for post -coital douching.
Okay. He described using a syringe to wash out
the vagina immediately after intercourse. And
he was very specific about the chemical solutions
you needed to use. Like what? He recommended
solutions of Ellen Pearl ash. Or a decoction
of white oak bark. Alum and white oak bark. So
those are astringents. Right. His theory, which
was based on the medical knowledge of the time,
was that you needed to either kill the spermatic.
or animalcules, as they called them, or mechanically
flushed them out before conception occurred.
And it's so important to note, he didn't write
this to be a bestseller initially. He was just
giving this to his own patients. He saw women
in his practice who were physically broken by
repeated pregnancies. Or families who literally
couldn't afford to feed the children they already
had. He saw birth control as a medical necessity.
He did. He called it a check on population, sure.
But mostly it was about individual health. But
you can't keep a secret like that in a small
town. A printer named Abner Neeland in Boston
eventually got a hold of it and printed a proper
edition. Widening the circulation completely.
And once it was in print, Reverend Grubner finally
had his weapon. And this wasn't a slap on the
wrist like the grave robbing charge. The state
came down really hard. He was prosecuted in Taunton,
Massachusetts, and then he was imprisoned in
East Cambridge. And we need to clarify the conditions
here. This wasn't just standard jail time. The
sentence was hard labor. Yeah, in 1830s Massachusetts
hard labor usually meant stone breaking or working
in the prison workshops under absolute silence.
It was explicitly designed to break you physically
and mentally. For three months this educated
physician was treated like a common felon. And
the charge was essentially obscenity, corrupting
the morals of youth. The authorities were terrified
that if people could have sex without consequences,
meaning children, the entire moral fabric of
society would just dissolve. It's the separation
of sex from procreation. That was the real heresy
to them. Absolutely. But Knowlton was incredibly
stubborn. Even after surviving the hard labor,
he just didn't stop. He was dragged into other
trials, too, like Abner Nealon's blasphemy trial
in 1838. His work was a central issue there.
But he kept fighting Grosvenor back in Ashfield.
It was an ongoing feud. And eventually he won.
Not in the Supreme Court, but in the court of
public opinion. Yeah. Two separate local juries
in Franklin County refused to convict him in
later attempts. Why do you think that was? Was
it just that they liked him as their doctor?
I really think so. You have to remember, he was
the guy who delivered their babies and set their
broken bones. Right. He was the beloved physician,
despite the heresy. He had a ride that covered
30 towns. If you were sick in western Massachusetts...
Knowlton was the guy you wanted. He was indispensable.
He was. And eventually Reverend Grosvenor realized
he just couldn't run Knowlton out of town. So
Grosvenor left instead. He did. He actually quit
the ministry entirely and became an insurance
agent. Which is just a career pivot for the ages.
Truly. Meanwhile, Knowlton thrives. He stays
in Ashfield. He becomes highly respected and
even contributes articles to the Boston Medical
and Surgical Journal. And he starts organizing.
In 1845, he is instrumental in founding the Friends
of Mental Liberty in Greenfield. Which is such
a fascinating group. It's a free thought society
right in the middle of a rural farming community.
And their constitution is incredibly progressive.
I mean, it defends the right to free inquiry
into all religious truth. But there's one specific
clause that really jumps out. The gender equality
clause. Yes. The Constitution explicitly stated
that female members of this society shall enjoy
the same rights and privileges as male members.
That is radical for 1845. I mean, this is three
years before the Seneca Falls Convention even
happened. But it makes perfect sense, though.
His entire medical contribution with birth control
was about giving women control over their own
bodies. So it follows that he would view them
as autonomous political equals too. Exactly.
So Charles Knowlton dies a few years later in
1850. He's only 49 years old. He leaves behind
a legacy as a good doctor and a local troublemaker.
And if the story ended right there, he'd just
be a footnote. A weird curiosity in the local
archives. But the story doesn't end there at
all. The little book, The Fruits of Philosophy,
kept circulating underground. It drifted across
the Atlantic to England. And 27 years after Knowlton
is in the ground, that book absolutely explodes.
This is the London trial of 1877. This is the
moment the Streisand effect goes completely nuclear.
So set the scene for you listening. We're in
Victorian London. It is deeply conservative and
publicly very prudish. Two famous secularists.
Charles Bradlow and Annie Besant decide they
want to challenge the censorship laws. They need
a test case. They need a book that is medically
sound, but legally dangerous. And they pick Knowlton's
book. They pick the fruits of philosophy. They
republish it with the specific intent of getting
arrested just to test the law. And the authorities
took the bait. Hook, line and sinker. Yeah. The
trial was an absolute sensation. It was on the
front page of every newspaper. You had prosecutors
reading excerpts of Knowlton's douching methods
in open court, arguing that it would destroy
the purity of English women. And what did that
do to the sales? Oh, man. Before the trial, the
book sold maybe 700 copies a year. It was a very
niche pamphlet. Right. Because of the trial publicity,
in just three months, it sold 125 ,000 copies.
That is staggering. It became an overnight bestseller.
It broke the dam. That trial effectively launched
the modern birth control movement in the UK.
Because after the trial, Annie Besant wrote her
own birth control manual, cementing the movement
that Knowlton had helped start. The Malthusian
lead was formed. The birth rate in England actually
began to drop significantly in the years following
that trial. And was all because the government...
tried to ban a book written by a dead country
doctor from Ashfield, Massachusetts. It really
proves that you cannot arrest an idea whose time
has come. Yeah. Knowlton was a materialist. He
believed in the physical reality of the body.
He looked at the problem of unwanted pregnancy
not as a sin, but as a biological mechanism that
could be managed practically. And in the end,
that practicality won out. It's amazing to think
about that journey. From the 18 -year -old kid
terrified of his own heartbeat, cured by a homemade
electric machine, to the grave robber. To the
prisoner breaking rock. With the posthumous godfather
of the birth control revolution. It's a true
testament to the power of dangerous knowledge.
Which brings us to a final thought for you listening
right now. We look back at the fruits of philosophy
today, a book about douching with white oak bark,
and it seems almost quaint that people went to
prison at hard labor over it. But every era has
its forbidden knowledge. The authorities always
have a line that cannot be crossed. Exactly.
So what is the fruits of philosophy of our time?
What is the information or the technology or
the scientific truth that is currently being
suppressed or demonized today? And if history
is any guide? How does that suppression actually
guarantee that it will eventually spread to the
masses and change the world? That is definitely
the question to keep you up at night. Thanks
for joining us on this deep dive. We'll see you
next time.