ELLIS, ERASTUS R. – Biographies – History of Homeopathy

LLIS, ERASTUS R., M. D., of Detroit, Mich., was born at Pittstown, Rensselaer county, N. Y., March 3rd,
1832. He is the youngest of two sons of Deacon Richard Ellis of Otisco, Mich. The latter was born on the homestead of his great-grandfather Richard
Ellis, of Ashfield, Franklin county, Mass., the first settler of that town about fifty years prior to the revolutionary war. Here the family suffered
all the hardships incident to a newly settled country, not the least of which being those arising from the occasional incursions of bands of hostile
Indians. The Ellis’s are of Welsh extraction, and, though settled in this country for nearly one hundred and seventy years, would appear to have
retained to a great extent the characteristic features of their race, as the subject of this sketch has been recognized by some who have recently
arrived from Wales as bearing a striking family resemblance to those of his name who still remain in that country.

     At the age of twelve years, Dr. Ellis removed with his parents to Michigan, where he enjoyed as liberal
an education as the schools of the times could afford, finishing his studies at St. Mark’s College, at Grand Rapids, Mich., at that time a branch of the
University of Michigan.

     Previously to beginning the study of medicine, Dr. Ellis gave considerable time to a course of civil
engineering under the direction of the lamented Lieutenant Gunnison, of the engineering department of the United States Army, who was afterwards
brutally murdered by the Mormons or their emissaries in the Western Territories.

     In 1853, at the age of twenty-one years, he commenced the study of medicine tinder the tuition of his
uncle, Dr. John Ellis, then residing at Detroit, who had been the first to introduce the homœopathic system into the State, creating for the new
science a reputation in those early days, which is even at the present time often referred to by the older residents with a laudable pride.

     His medical education was received in the medical department of the University of Michigan, and at the
Homœopathic College, at Cleveland, Ohio, where he graduated in the spring of 1857, Shortly subsequent to this event, he established himself at Grand
Rapids, where he built up a large practice, and maintained a sound reputation.

     During five years of his residence at Grand Rapids, he held the position of United States Examining
Surgeon of Pensioners, the duties of which he fulfilled to the entire satisfaction of the Pension Department, until he removed to Detroit, in the fall
of 1867.

     His partiality for surgery had always been predominant, and during the war, whilst many of the
prominent allopathic surgeons were with the Army, nearly all the surgical operations within many miles of Grand Rapids were performed by him. Amongst
many others we must not omit to mention one operation remarkable alike for the extraordinary skill and judgment displayed in its execution, and the
singular nature of the case, and which justly entitled him to rank with the first surgeons of the country. This was a case of inversion of the uterus of
seven months standing. The patient in her first labor suffered the accident of inversion. Her attendant, instead of returning the womb to its normal
condition at the time, had allowed it to remain in its inverted state, and when involution had taken place it was found to be turned

inside out, so that when the patient stood upright,
it presented itself externally. By an exceedingly ingenious contrivance, consisting of an India-rubber bag connected with a stem and cup, pressure was
gradually brought to bear upon the uterus, during about six days, when the womb was found to have passed upwards and resumed its natural position. The
radical nature and completeness of this cure are fully attested by the fact that the lady has since become the mother of two healthy children.

     As is well known, the homœopathic physicians of Michigan had been making efforts to obtain a
recognition of their system by the university of that State, and as early as 1855, the Legislature passed an Act, providing “that there should
always be one or more professors of homœopathy in the medical department of said university.”

     This law the regents of the university persistently refused to comply with, though signifying their
desire to give the new system the benefit of a connection with the university as a separate department, located in Detroit, provided this plan should
prove satisfactory to the homœopathy of the State, and receive the approval of the Legislature. In order to give the matter a practical test, and unite
the physicians in carrying out a more practicable plan than the “one chair” system, the Detroit Homœopathic College was organized in the fall
of 1871. The most influential physician in promoting this enterprise was probably Dr. Ellis, who was appointed to fill the chair of Surgery. He is the
Secretary of the college, and to his constant and unwearying efforts are mainly due the high standing and reputation to which the institution, in so
short a space of time, has attained. The course of instruction has been full in every department, and the favor it has gained amongst the profession in
the State has induced them almost unanimously to petition the Legislature to authorize the regents of the university to carry out their proposed plan.

     The subject of our biography was married, in 1857, to Miss Mary Minerva Ellis, daughter of Edward D.
Ellis, Esq., of Monroe, Mich., a gentleman extensively and favorably connected with the early history of the State. This union has been blessed by four
children, three daughters and a son, and he has found in Mrs. Ellis a helpmate of remarkable force of character, and one universally and deservedly
beloved by all her friends and acquaintances for her amiable disposition and her many brilliant qualities.

     In 1868, he published a small treatise of one hundred and fifty pages, entitled, “Homœopathic
Family Guide, and Information for the People,” which, though mainly intended for local circulation amongst his friends, was so highly esteemed and
admired by the public and the physicians, who saw it, that the first edition of twenty-five hundred was speedily exhausted. He now publishes the
Michigan Journal of Homœopathy, a quarterly magazine partly intended to sustain the interests of the college with which he has been so long and
usefully connected.

     Dr. Ellis has no connection with any religious organization, yet he strongly inclines to the philosophy
of Swedenborg which, as is well known, is a pure Spiritualism in contradistinction from Materialism.

Source : Cleave’s Biographical Cyclopædia of Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons By
Egbert Cleave