David Osgood and George Parker

This double portrait references the temperance movement and homeopathy. George Phillips Parker, on the right, points to the United Brothers of Temperance pledge he holds in his hand, as if asking David Osgood to sign it. Members of temperance movements viewed alcohol as a root evil, impairing one’s ability to live a happy and prosperous life. A year after this portrait was made, Parker was expelled for divulging the “private business of the order” in a temperance newspaper, but he nonetheless continued as a temperance advocate. Osgood, who graduated from Harvard (a year after Parker), became a well-regarded doctor who showed charity and kindness to his poor patients. In 1839, Osgood visited with the German physician Samuel Hahnemann in Paris, who advocated homeopathy, at the time a novel form of alternative medi- cine. Later, Osgood embraced homeopathy in his practice and participated in the active community of homeopathic physicians in Massachusetts.