HOLT, DANIEL – Cleave’s Biographical Cyclopædia of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons By E. Cleave

OLT,
DANIEL, M. D., of Lowell, Mass., was born in Chaplin, Conn., July
2nd, 1810. His father, Nehemiah, a local magistrate, was a man of
sterling judgment, much respected for strict integrity in all the
relations of life. He died when this son was but fourteen years
old ; but not until he had received a thorough education in those
common schools organized with the State itself, perfected by Horace
Mann, and a model over the world. So prepared, the son commenced his
classical studies at Amherst and Ashford Academies, in 1826, and, in
1831, entered the scientific department of Yale College. He secured the
degree of M. D., in 1835, and with it the highest honors of his class.

     Immediately following
graduation, Dr. Holt settled at Glastonbury, Conn. There he was tendered
the position of Assistant Physician in the State Insane Asylum at
Hartford ; but, unwilling to sacrifice a growing practice, felt
constrained to decline. For several successive years he was
Corresponding Secretary and Treasurer of the Hopkins Medical
Association, comprising the principal physicians of central Connecticut,
and requiring an unanimous vote for membership. He wrote several
valuable essays, and delivered as many medical addresses while resident
at Glastonbury -one of the former being an elaborate monograph upon

Scarlatina,
which was crowned with a prize of the Connecticut Medical Society. In
1844, he associated a former pupil in his practice, that he himself
might thereby improve his own knowledge by travel and the examination of
various systems of hospital management. It was while spending a year at
New Haven, that Dr. Holt’s active mind was led to investigate the claims
and principles of homœopathy. His former teachers at Yale recommended
this course, as he would be likely, as they said, to sift out any truth
in it ; and after devoting himself ardently to it, and applying
every test in the most rigid manner, he was won to a cordial adoption of
its theory and practice. He immediately embodied his views in a treatise
of forty-eight pages, entitled, “Views of Homœopathy ; with
Reasons for Examining and Admitting it as a Principle in Medical
Science.” In the autumn of 1845, he commenced homœopathic practice
in Lowell, Mass., where this system then was barely known. A dysenteric
epidemic of singular severity appeared in 1847, and it was subsequently
estimated that one-tenth of all who were treated allopathically died.
Dr. Shackford-now of Portland, Me. -and Dr. Holt suffered but two deaths
in one hundred and fifty cases conducted homœopathically- a
seventy-fifth to a tenth. The result was so singular as to command
report in the Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal,
in 1847.

     Dr. Holt has paid great
and studious attention to diseases of the lungs, and in an unusually
large practice has been signally successful. His record shows that in
twenty-seven years’ practice, including near six hundred cases of acute
lung disease -pneumonia, pleurisy, acute bronchitis, and catarrhal
fever- he has had but one fatal result : a record as creditable to
his skill as it is final in its demonstration of homœopathic
usefulness. He relied and still relies upon aconite, bryonia,
phosphorus, and antimony as the specifics for this class of disorders.

     Admitted to the
Massachusetts Medical Society, in 1846, and to the Massachusetts Homœopathic
Medical Society on its constitution, in 1848, Dr. Holt immediately
became one of the most valued and leading members of the latter. He
delivered its annual oration, in 1858, upon “Medicine as an Art and
as a Science.” He was chosen President of the society, in 1863. In
1856, a paper he read before the North Middlesex Medical Society of
Massachusetts, on the “Pathology of Zymotic Diseases,” was
published in the

Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal,
republished in pamphlet form, and received the unqualified commendation
of the profession generally, and especially of Dr. Alonzo Clark, the
eminent pathologist of New York city.

     Dr. Holt ascribes his
distinguished success as a physician very largely to his close study of
the pathology of disease. He has mingled very little in political
life ; but served one successful term in the Legislature. It is
eminently due to him to say that while his practice has been chiefly
among the wealthy classes, he has given freely of his services to the
poor, and has ministered very largely without reward to the clergy and
their families.

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