Practicing Folk Medicine Part 3
Naturopath Jesse Mae Newsome picking medicinal plants in White Springs, Florida, Courtesy of the Florida Memory Project
In her research, medical historian Susan E. Cayleff found that the Midwest served as one of the hotbeds of the naturopathy professionalization movement in the 1950s. The degree requirements when Dr. Alvenia Fulton (1893-1999) attended Lincoln College of Naturopathy is unknown. Today “naturopathic doctors are required to graduate from an accredited four- year naturopathic medical school and pass an extensive postdoctoral board examination administered by the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations Board in order to receive a license,” writes Cayleff. Today, licensed practitioners of naturopathy must meet “annual state- mandated continuing education requirements and have a state- defined scope of practice.”
