Denton County African American Museum officials and Dr. Gerry Veeder will crack open the medicine box of Dr. Edwin Moten during a presentation Saturday.

Moten, who used homeopathic medicine, was the first African-American doctor in Denton during his time of medical practice in Quakertown from 1912 to 1920. Among the items in his collection at the museum are 29 remedies from Boericke & Tafel, which museum officials said was a leading homeopathic lab at the time.

The collection was obtained through community donors.

“When the museum bought that group of items from Dr. Moten’s office, this [medicine box] was one of the things in there,” Veeder said. “It’s something I think most people these days would not know what it was or what kind of medicines were in there. I think it’s pretty interesting a small-town doctor would be using these.”

Homeopathic medicine was popular at one time in this country and is still used in Europe, Veeder said. Records show Moten prescribed these as well as other medicines, including narcotics. The homeopathic method was founded 200 years ago by a German doctor who found out diluted medicines could heal patients.

“In some way, it seems to stimulate the immune system so the body actually fights off [infection],” Veeder said. “Where as in something like an antibiotic, it goes in and kills bacteria or whatever it is after.”

Homeopathic medicine became popular in the 1800s because of its success rate compared to conventional medicines of the time, Veeder said.

“One stat I do remember during the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 is that people who went to conventional doctors had a mortality rate of over 30 percent; homeopathic doctors had a rate of just over 1 percent,” Veeder said.

Veeder has earned degrees in biology, English, and radio, television and film. After retiring from the radio, television and film department at the University of North Texas in 1999, she pursed her interests in archeology of the Southwest, genealogy and homeopathy.

Robyn Lee with the African American Museum said officials there are thrilled to be able to have Veeder talk about homeopathic medicine.

Veeder said the talk is free and open to the public.

“I hope they will have an understanding of what homeopathy is and what Dr. Moten did with it,” she said.

BJ LEWIS can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is blewis@dentonrc.com .