Y'all know who John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were? Let's just start by saying they were REALLY RICH guys who earned tons of money by being ruthless businessmen. Rockefeller was an oil magnate, a robber baron, America’s first billionaire, and a natural-born monopolist. Carnegie was an industrialist (think: Pittsburgh and the steel industry), a businessman, and a philanthropist. Some claim that his "philanthropy" was more of a payoff or a way of quieting a guilty conscience. I leave that for the reader to decide. 

By the turn of the 20th century, Rockefeller controlled 90% of all oil refineries in the U.S. through his company, Standard Oil, which was later ordered broken up to become Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, etc. 

At that same time, around 1900, scientists discovered “petrochemicals” and the ability to create all kinds of chemicals from oil. For example, the first plastic — called Bakelite — was made from oil in 1907. Scientists were discovering various vitamins and guessed that many pharmaceutical drugs could be made from oil.

This was a wonderful opportunity for Rockefeller who saw the ability to monopolize the oil, chemical, and medical industries at the same time! The best thing (for him) about petrochemicals was that everything he developed could be patented and sold for high profits. You can't patent plants. God owns that one. 😉

His biggest hurdle was the number of doctors that were practicing holistic medicine at the time. Natural/herbal medicines were very popular - probably because they worked, right? Rockefeller himself had said that homeopathy was "an aggressive and progressive step in medicine".

Rockefeller turned to Andrew Carnegie. They teamed up and devised a scheme to not only discredit Homeopathy, the natural competition to their new money-making pharmacological products, but to vilify it as well. Homeopathy and natural medicines were mocked and demonized. Doctors were even jailed over it. 

They "philanthropically" gave a lot of money to colleges and institutions, forcing a switch to teaching only about pharmacological medicine. (Money talks and those "institutions of healing" sold out on us.)

They gave huge grants to scientists who would research plants, identify the substances in them that worked to heal diseases, and then synthetically recreate them in a lab (making similar substances, not identical, mind you) - giving Rockefeller and Carnegie medicines to patent and sell at huge profit. 

They controlled the course of American medicine with profit, not healing, as its driving force. 

I recently read a quote from a pharmacological industry insider who said that his responsibility was to his shareholders, not to any patients. 😥 I'm sad, but not one bit surprised. He is the product of the Rockefeller-Carnegie money-making scheme of some 100 years ago. They are all still in it for money, not for the greater good. 

Oh yeah, guess what Rockefeller used for his own health ailments (and he had many). . . Holistic Medicine. Smart man. 

As we’ve seen, the history of medicine has been heavily influenced by the drive for profit, often at the expense of natural, holistic approaches. But here's the good news: We can choose a different path.

In my follow-up post, It’s Not a Conspiracy. It’s Just History… How Natural Healing Was Pushed Aside, I take this story from boardrooms and big industry to something a little closer to home—like what’s sitting on your bathroom shelf.