A Yale-educated medical doctor, Ferguson decided to work in medical education, rather than practice. (“I’ve saved hundreds of lives by not practicing clinical medicine,” he liked to say.) He was the health and medical editor of the best-selling Whole Earth Catalog, then established the journal Medical Self Care, then the newsletter The Ferguson Report: The Newsletter of Consumer Health Informatics and Online Health.
He also wrote books — more than a dozen. His consistent theme: mainstream medicine shouldn’t be ignored, but neither should alternative approaches. Rather, he argued, patients should consider any good information they can lay their hands on, including the Internet, to understand their health and the potential treatments available for their conditions. When he contracted multiple myeloma (cancer of blood plasma cells) in the early 1990s, he followed his own advice, researching different approaches to his own treatment.
“Being a doctor, he was ahead of the game,” his wife said. “He kept with the traditional party line and did what doctors told him he should do, but tweaked their advice in his own way. He read widely, worked out his own doses, and was not afraid to experiment. He lived far longer than most people with this disease do.” He died April 14 at age 62.