On Sept. 29, 1881, Christopher Burke Wilson sat down and penned a letter to a lady known as Madame Secor.

 "It is with much pleasure that I inform you that the success that you have met in doctoring my wife and sister has been altogether beyond my expectations. My wife's complaint being the valvular disease of the heart, and she has been troubled with it so long, and as it was growing worse every day we had become quite discouraged."

The letter went on to say, "It is my candid belief that if she had not called on you at the time she did that she would not have lived over three weeks at the longest as she was, at that time, unable to swallow anything but liquid, and that with a great deal of exertion, and she had been under the treatment of a large number of the best physicians that we could hear of but they were of no avail. But I am certainly confident that your medicine have the desired effect and I would heartily recommend your skill and treatment in the care of tumors and all troubles peculiar to ladies and also any kind of heart disease."

 Wilson was a 54-year-old who resided in Warwick with his 33-year-old wife Sarah (Millerd). Sarah, having allegedly been cured of her ailments by Madame Secor, lived for another 20 years, succumbing to pneumonia on Feb. 9, 1901.

According to public testimonies, Sarah was just one of thousands who had been ridden of disease by the great Madame Secor. Her legal name was Elizabeth (Secor) Shewell and she was the wife of Providence physician John Shewell and a mother of four. Previous to opening an office on Snow Street in Providence, she worked out of Boston where she supervised and controlled her own medical laboratory. There, boxes and bottles of concoctions were prepared for local sales and shipment around the world. Her goods were said to be only slightly pricier than regular patent medicines. Her Providence office was open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9 to 4, offering “scientifically compounded” medicines and treatments with “no quackery.”

She sold a tumor preventative for $2 per bottle and promised to cure uterine issues with a special tonic, which also sold for $2 per bottle. For one dollar, one could purchase a bottle of Madame Secor’s Alternative Syrup, said to eradicate skin ailments or mercury poisoning. Her Cinchona Bitters, priced at $5 for six bottles, was said to be a delicious treatment for issues concerning digestion and the nervous system as well as kidney and bladder weakness. A one-dollar bottle of Cholera Specific promised to cure not only cholera but diarrhea and teething problems in children.

She also offered small boxes of Vegetable Cathartic Pills for 25 cents, to cure chronic constipation, and Nervous & Neuralgia Pills, priced at $1 per box, to stop seizures. According to her testimonials, which she would share with potential customers upon request, Secor had provided service to Rhode Islanders unmatched by physicians. She claimed to have cured Mrs. Ira Johnson of Pawtuxet of an ovarian tumor which doctors had determined to be incurable. Mrs. Olney Cargill, of Valley Falls, was alleged to have been cured of four tumors. All across the state, highly respected individuals vouched for Secor as “a Christian lady and fine physician.”

She was referred to as a doctor, a professor of diseases and a highly gifted healer. She passed away on April 15, 1900 at the age 59, after which her widowed husband moved to New York to live with their daughter Helena, an actress.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.