USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume II pt 1 > Part 16
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In 1881 a board of dental examiners was constituted by act of the general assembly, said board to be elected by the Alabama Dental asso- ciation, and to be composed of five members. Licenses were granted, without examination and without fee to all dentists legally engaged in practice prior to the passage of the law; after which licenses were to be granted to all applicants standing satisfactory examination. The fee for examination was 85 .; and the penalty for illegal practice not less than $50, nor more than $300; but there was no penalty for the simple extraction of teeth. In 1887 an amendatory act was passed making some minor changes in the details relating to the appointment of the members of the board, but which need not be mentioned here.
THE ALABAMA STATE DENTAL ASSOCIATION.
This association was organized in 1869. Its sessions have been held at the following times and places, with the following presidents: 1869, Mont- gomery, Dr. J. C. McAuley; 1870, Selma. Dr. J. C. McAuley : 1871, Mobile, Dr. Samuel Rambo: 1872, Montgomery, Dr. J. W. Keyes: 1873, Montgom- ery, Dr. William Deason. The meeting for the year 1874 was to have been held in Mobile, under the presidency of Dr. Wheeler, but for some reason the meeting did not take place, and there were no more meetings until 1880, when the association met in Montgomery and was reorganized with Dr. Dunlap as president. 1-81. Selma. Dr. Dunlap: 1852, Montgom- ery, Dr. J. M. Rousseau: 1883, Montgomery, Dr. J. C. Johnson: 1884, Birmingham, Dr. E. S. Chisholm: 1885, Montgomery, Dr. E. Wagner, 1886, Montgomery, Dr. Jolin C. Wilkerson: 18-7. Tuscaloosa, Dr. R. U. Duboise; 1888. Selma, Dr. T. P. Whitley: 1889, Mobile. Dr. A. Eubanks; 1890. Birmingham, Dr. J. C. Wilkerson; 1891. Anniston, Dr. R. C. Young; 1892, Montgomery, Dr. George Eubanks; 1893, Birmingham, Dr. C. L. Boyd.
MEDICAL SCHOOLS IN ALABAMA.
The first charter for a medical school in Alabama was issued in 1845, and was for the creation of the medical university at Wetumpka. It con- tained the usual provisions for a board of trustees, who were authorized to elect a medical faculty, which was to teach the various branches of medicine; and to grant diplomas carrying with them all the privileges
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attached to the diplomas of the most reputable medical colleges in the United States. This charter was amended, in 1-46, so as to authorize the board of trustees to locate the projected institution at any other place in the state, if a better place could be found. than Wetumpka. Nothing further seems to have resulted from this movement.
In 1849 the general assembly granted a charter for the organization of the medical college of the state of Alabama at Montgomery. This charter also contained the usual stipulations, and was to run for fifty years, but it was never utilized. In 1873. when the charter had virtually lapsed on account of the death of so many. of the trustees that a quorum could not be assembled, an amendment was obtained filling up the vacan- cies in the board. But there is now no longer a quorum of the board of trustees living, so that this corporation has ceased to exist.
In 1852, the Græfenburg Medical institute was chartered for ten years, with all the usual privileges, and authorized to hold property to the amount of $25.000. In 1856 this charter was amended so as to run for twenty years from the original date. The leader in this enterprise was Dr. Sheppard of Dadeville, in Tallapoosa county, near which place in the piney woods the college buildings were erected. Dr. Sheppard was a man of unusual energy and acquirements: and with no more clinics than were afforded by a country practice. and, with a supply of anatomical material necessarily scanty. he managed to run a live medical college in the backwoods for some eight years, up to 1860. The school was entirely regular, and its diplomas are fully recognized by the medical boards of the state. The first diplomas were issued in 1856. During the war, Dr. Sheppard died, and the college buildings were burned down. No attempts has been made to rebuild the institution, and the charter has long since lapsed. More than twenty of the graduates of this school are still prac- ticing medicine in Alabama.
In 1854 there was chartered the Hydropathic institute, which was to be established at Rockford in Coosa county, and of which the diplomas where to authorize the holders of them to practice the hydropathic art of heal- ing. This scheme promptly miscarried.
In 1856, the general assembly granted a charter, with all the usual privileges. for the establishment of the Alabama Medical college at Mobile. The act was vetoed by the governor. John A. Winston, but was passed over the veto by the constitutional majority. But the institution thus chartered was never organized.
In 1859, the charter was issued by the general assembly of the Med- ical college of Alabama, which was to be erected in Mobile. By the terms of the act, this institution was to be recognized as the medical department of the university of Alabama, and in case the college build- ings should ever cease to be used as a medical college they are to become the property of the university. At the same time the Medical college has a separate board of trustees which are self-perpetuating, and the
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trustees of the university have over it no power of control; and it is never to receive any of the funds of the university for its support. The state appropriated $50,000. toward the erection of the college buildings and the purchase of the necessary outfit. In return for this appropria- tion the college is to receive annually without charge for lectures one indigent medical student from every county in the state. now sixty-six in number. The trustees are to have perpetual succession, and the prop- erty held by the corporation is not to exceed $100,000 in value. The first faculty of the college was composed as follows: Josiah C. Nott. M. D., professor of surgery: William Henry Anderson, M. D., dean and pro- fessor of physiology; George A. Ketchum, M. D., professor of theory and practice of medicine; Frank A. Ross. M. D., professor of materia medica and therapeutics and clinical medicine; J. W. Mallett. Ph. D., professor of chemistry; F. E. Gordon, MI D., professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children; J. F. Heustis, M. D., professor of anat- omy; Goronwy Owen, M. D, and A. P. Hall, M. D., demonstrators of anatomy.
The first session was in 1859-60. It was taught in rented rooms, the college buildings not being rented for occupancy. The number of matric- ulates was 111. In the second session, 1860-61, the number of matricu- lates was 120. In 1861, the war broke out and the sessions of the college were suspended until 1868, since which time, with many changes in the faculty of teachers, the sessions have gone on without interruption, and with gradually increasing classes. The college building at the time of its erection was the most commodious and elegant structure devoted to medical teaching in the south; and the museums of anatomy and materia medica are very complete and valuable. After 1893, the college will require three annual courses of lectures as a pre-requisite for graduation.
THE ALABAMA INSANE HOSPITAL.
According to the statement made by Dr. A. G. Mabry in his address at Mobile in 1869. as president of the state medical association, Dr. Drewry Fair, who was Dr. Mabry's partner, suggested in the summer of 1847, that Alabama should have a hospital for the insane portion of its population. On the 23d of June of that year, the Selma Medical society instructed its secretary (Dr. Mabry) to make inquiry as to the fitness of the old capitol at Tuscaloosa for a lunatic asylum, and the probable amount it would cost to fit it up for such use. In the following Decem- ber this society appointed Dr. Fair to repair to Montgomery, to urge upon the legislature the propriety of carrying the plan suggested into operation. In the meantime, in order to add strength to the movement, a convention of the physicians of the state was called to meet in Mobile. This convention resolved itself into the State Medical association, and this body took the enterprise in hand. What steps were taken in this matter during the next two years is not stated in any record accessible
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to this writer; but in 1850. a new committee was appointed to memo- rialize the legislature at its next session, and also to go to Montgomery to assist Miss Dix. whose services had been enlisted in the same cause. This committee was composed of Drs. A. Lopez, S. Ilolt. W. H. Ander- son, H. V. Wooten, W. O. Baldwin, and William Bolling. In 1853, Dr. Lopez reported to the association that the hill to establish a state hos- pital for the insane had became a law; that he had been appointed by the governor a commissioner to visit the various insane institutions of the United States for the purpose of obtaining information and preparing a plan; that this commission had been duly executed and the plan pro- posed by him adopted. The suggestion to make use of the old state house was abandoned, and the linear Kirkbride plan whch had been approved by the association of superintendents of insane hospitals was chosen for the projected building.
Miss Dix contributed very largely toward securing the favorable ac- tion of the legislature. On the 15th of November she submitted to the legislature an elaborate memorial soliciting a state hospital for the insane, of which 2.000 copies were printed. But it was not until Febru- ary, 1852, that the law establishing the institution was at last enacted. The institution was not opened for the reception of patients until July, 1861, nearly ten years afterward .. It consisted at that time of a large center building, four stories high, with wings on each side three stories high, and with accommodations for about 300 patients. The cost was $250,000.
The law of 1852 appropriated for the building fund 5 per cent. for four years of the net revenues of the state. How much this percent- age amounted to the writer is unable to state; but in 1860, an appropria- tion of 825,000 was made to furnish the hospital, and in 1863. there was an appropriation of $6,570 for extra work. In 1871, the state made an appropriation of $25.000 to the improvement fund. In 1890, an appro- priation of $100.000 was made, which was 'expended in the construction of two additional sections to the wings of the building, capable together of accommodating some 300 additional patients. In 1891, a special appro- priation of 812,500 was made for the purchase of Graystone farm, which is near the hospital. These various appropriations run up somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.000. But the institution has cost very much more than this. A large amount of improvement has resulted from the labor of the indigent patients themselves; and another large amount from savings out of the regular income of the hospital. This income is derived from the board of the pay patients. at from 825 and upward a month, and by the allowance by the state of at first $4 a week. afterward reduced to $2.25 for the support of each indigent patient. The cost of this institution. however. does not give any accurate conception of its magnitude. Perhaps nowhere else in the history of public buildings in this country has so much been accomplished with so small an expenditure
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of money. This hospital was originally planned for the accommodation of 300 patients. It has accommodations now for about 1.200. The whole number of paid attendants in all the departments is now about 140.
The main characteristics in the management of this hospital are three: First, The extreme economy with which it has been constructed and the equally extreme economy with which it has been conducted. Secondly, The extent to which the patients are engaged in industrial occupations. In regard to this the following is quoted from the last biennial report of the hospital, recently issued:
The industrial system of the Alabama Insane hospital has for many years been one of its most prominent and distinctive characteristics. Almost all of the patients who are not sick, helpless or acutely insane, are employed at least a portion of the time in useful labor. with a most gratifying result in benetit to the individual patients as well as a material saving in cost-amounting to some thousands of dollars annually-to the state, each insane person who engages in work being to that extent self- supporting. The effect of systematic occupation upon the general disci- pline of the house is most salutary, affording as it does a channel through which the restlessness and nervous energy of many cases of chronic excitement can be safely as well as profitably directed. This. together with the fact that the patients are not crowded together on the wards in idleness, but scattered through the various shops and work rooms, or employed out of doors, accounts in no small measure for the unusual good order which prevails, and the little need for restraint, seclusion or seda- tives. It is shown by our records that some 75 per cent. of all classes are constantly employed. The farm is cultivated almost entirely by the patients; the greater portion of the clothing wornsi made by the female patients; the work in the laundry. ironing room, dining rooms and other domestic departments is in large part performed bythe patients; the art shop employs some fifty men in mat making. wood work. and the manu- facture of fancy articles. wall ornaments, etc. Patients find employment in the dairy, kitchen. vegetable room. cow house. gas house. stables, and brick yard; a large number are constantly employed in terracing or other earth work, and there is scacr ly a work of any kind at the institution not in part at least carried on by patients' labor.
Thirdly, The disuse of coercive measures, with regard to which we also quote from the last report:
The disuse of mechanical appliances for restraining excited, destruc- tive or suicidal insane patients, and the gradnal growth and development of the so-called non restraint system during the twelve years which have passed since the introduction into our wards by Dr. Bryce of this to us most rational method of treatment. has been attended by such uniformly good results in diminishing excitement. noise, violence. and discontent. as to admit. in the minds of all conversant with the facts. but one opinion as to its expediency and immense advantage as a measure of hospital poliey over even the most judicious use of mechanical restraint. To speak of the adoption at any certain time of the system now followed in the treatment of the patients at the Alabama Insane hospital is scarcely correct, since our present practice is the result of gradual devel- opment and evolution from past experience, and is liable to still further modification. It required several years of gradual but steady reduction in the frequency with which restraining apparatus was employed to
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demonstrate the fact that insane patients can be cared for as well and as safely without the crib beds and muff's and camisoles as with them; but since the final disappearance of such appliances a dozen years ago, no reason for their return has adduced itself. Following the abolition of mechanical restraint, and as a direct result of its disappearance, came a diminished necessity for the development of seclusion and sedatives. , Seclusion is now resorted in ten-fold less degree that during the days of "judicious restraint." The quantity of sedative medicine of all kinds administered during the past twelve months does not equal the tenth part of that formerly considered necessary. Our chloral bill is small. Hypodermatic injections of hyoscin are few and far between. I find upon inquiry that some eight months have elapsed since the last dose of hyoscin was administered by a member of the medical staff.
Good results from the use of sedatives are infrequent, and we conse- . quently make use of this class of remedies.
The chief argument of those who still favor the employment of mechanical appliances for restraint is that excited, destructive and suicidal patients need control which. if restraining apparatus be not used. must be given by the hands of attendants, or by seclusion, or by the excessive employment of sedatives. We are not prepared to dispute the claim that an excited patient can, better than by any other means. perhaps, be con- trolled by mechanical devices: the chairs. straps, leather muffs. crib beds, and straight jackets. as also the chains and leg irons of a hundred years ago are admirably adapted to the control of violence of any kind: six stout attendants can render ineffectual the struggles of the most excited man; seclusion confines the conflict to a somewhat smaller area besides saving the attendants much trouble: and the liberal use of chloral and hyoscin will paralyze the activity of any mania case. We do, however, dispute the claim that any patient is benefited by such "control." Our experience seems to indicate as the source of nine-tenths of the disorder and turbulence among the insane. the very means considered necessary and provided for its suppression-the more coercion, the more disorder. Cases of acute mental disease we treat. in bed. as far as possible; after the acute stage is passed. employment of some kind is provided; those of known suicidal tendencies are not left alone, but are neither restrained nor secluded. The personal liberty and wishes of the individual patients are interfered with as little as possible.
A patient who is brought to us and finds that, however excited, he is not assaulted aud held by his nurses. is not put in solitary confinement, is not strapped to a chair nor trussed up helpless in a straight jacket, is not even drugged into insensibility. forgets to be violent in the surprise at finding that no cause for violence is given him. He discovers that he is neither a criminal nor an object of suspicion: and upon recovery. which ensues all the more quickly for the fact that he is not been ac- tively "treated" by the measures above mentioned, retains a very differ- ent impression of the hospital and of those who cared for him during his sickness, and looks back upon this period with less of horror and distress than would have been possible had even the most kindly coercion been employed. "Non restraint" is practiced at the Alabama Insane hospital for the most practical of all reasons-it is found by experience to be cheaper, and less troublesome to all concerned. But our institution is not a paradise: we have much disorder at times. Our patients, in common with the rest of the human race, have their quarrels, fights and grievances; they are not free from the vice of profanity: they display the weakness ..
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immoralities and general lack of inhibitive power seen in other members of the degenerate and eliminative classes of the world at large; they are, the lower classes of them. careless and dirty in their habits. Until human nature changes, we will have these evils upon us: our endeavor is not to increase them by either neglect or by ill-judged and awkward attempts at repression.
POST SCRIPTUM.
By the general assembly now in session the name of the hospital has been changed to the Alabama Bryce Insane hospital, thus perpetuating the name and fame of the eminent superintendent, Dr. Peter Bryce, who con- triubted so much to the remarkable character of its development. See the biographical sketch in this volume. The present superintendent is Dr. James T. Searcy. for several years a member of the board of trust- ees. The great extent of this institution can be judged of by the fol- lowing statement: The extreme length of the main building is 1,196 feet. There are four other buildings for the reception of patients-two lodges about 200 feet long each. one large brick building about 500 feet long, and a building at the farm-all for the accommodation of colored patients. The main building accommodates at present (1893) 875 white patients. The colored patients number 290. In addition to the buildings mentioned there are extensive stables, workshops, barns, laundries, bakery, gas house, and many others.
MONTGOMERY SOCIAL MEDICAL CLUB.
The Social Medical club of Montgomery deserves a brief mention in this sketch. It consists of ten members, and was organized in 1872. During the twenty years of its existence it has been an important factor in promoting and maintaining that harmony and high ethical tone which so remarkably characterizes the medical profession of Montgomery. During the cooler half of the year it holds meetings every two weeks in succession at the houses of the members. These meetings are purely social, all medical discussions being forbidden. At each meeting there is a supper and much social conversation. The members attend in full dress.
MEDICAL PERIODICALS.
So far as this writer has been able to learn. no medical periodical was published in Alabama before the war. In July, 1856, Dr. J. D. S. Davis and Dr. W. E. B. Davis began the publication of the Alabama Medical and Surgical Journal, which was continued for about sixteen months. The Alabama Medical and Surgical Age, edited and published by Dr. J. C. LeGrand of Anniston. made its first appearance in 1558, and is a live, progressive, practical southern medical journal. In its first issue the editor made it a representative state journal, and it is generally so recognized. At the session of the state medical association in Mobile in 15-9 the president, Dr. M. C. Baldridge, in his annual message,
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called attention to this journal, and urged the doctors of the state to support it. This journal has been in thorough accord with every advanced move made by the state medical association. The editor shows commend- able determination to make the journal continually more interesting and profitable. Volume V., which begins with the number for December, 1892, shows indications of decided improvement.
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JUDICIAL HISTORY.
CHAPTER IX. JUDICIAL HISTORY .*
BENCH AND BAR - GENERAL HISTORY - COUNTY COURTS - CIRCUIT COURT - SUPREME COURT, ETC.
HE commonly accepted opinion of lawyers is not ill-expressed in the old story that tells how the bodies of dead lawyers are "disposed of. From this story, it appears that lawyers are never buried: there is no necessity for their burial. A dead lawyer, it is said, has only to be prepared for interment and left alone in a room over night; in the morning there will be a powerful and penetrating odor of brimstone in the apartment and the lawyer will have disappeared. Peter the Great gave utterance to a like view of the character of the profession, when, on being asked in England how many lawyers there were in his kingdom, replied there were two, and he intended to hang one of these as soon as he got back to Russia. The laity still hold to opinions akin to these, but always with a sense like that of the Chinaman concerning his Josh; he feels the object is ugly, but knows it is powerful.
It would not be hard to array an imposing list of historians and critics that should testify to the dominant influence of lawyers upon the course of human affairs. Sir Henry Maine, for one. has identified for us the law- yer and the priest, and finds among the Hindoes, Greeks and Romans that the priest was the first lawyer, a finding that will not be unaccept- able to the modern thinkers, who hold law to be the most broad and deep expression of the morality of mankind. Certainly, whether we concede, for instance, that lawyers have mainly inspired the great contests for lib- erty, there can be no hesitation in assigning them a leading role in Amer- ican history. The revolution might be called a lawyers' war. so deeply was the legal mind impressed upon that great controversy ; and our civil war might never have come to pass, if lawyers, in congress and out, had not inflamed public opinion concerning antagonistic construction of the supreme law of the land. Prof. Bryce, in his noble treatise on "The American Commonwealth." has expressed the opinion that, in the United States, the bar has fallen from its high estate, that the days of its revo-
*This chapter had been placed by the publishers in the hands of ex-Gov. Thomas H. Watts, who was to be aided by Thomas H. Clark, Esq,, of Montgomery, in its compilation, but the untimely death of Gov. Watts threw upon Mr. Clark the task of performing the larger part of the labor, in fully carrying out the plan of Gov. Watts.
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lutionary power and influence are irrecoverably gone; that the develop- ment of a class of people who make politics a business has tended to break down the influence of men who. while they love politics, have their clients' interests to engage and absorb their time. Bryce's work has, the opinion may be hazarded, too much of the city, or even too much of the metropolis, in its composition. To the inland and country student, the book bears the marks of a close study of political conditions in our great cities and in New York more especially : but. as might have been expected, the British statesman has found it impossible to observe minutely the widely scattered social phenomena of the union at large. Occasional gusts of political opinion shake and threaten the power of the bar in pub- lic affairs, but the history of almost any American state, taken in its whole course, will prove, we venture to think that to-day. as well as yes- terday, the lawyer is the priest sitting in judgment upon the conduct of his fellow-citizen, legislating, and formulating decrees upon that legisla- tion. In Alabama, the history of whose bench and bar is the more imme- diate object of this sketch, it remains true that the lawyer is a distinct and potent factor in political life, and so, of course, an influence to be reck- oned with in the making and the writing of history. So long as law is formulated and armed public opinion, so long as this opinion continues to touch more and more intimately the manifold social, political and indus- trial activities of our life, so long will the men who make law a study and a profession, not lack for power and influence, whatever may be the public view at any given time of the reailty and extent of that power and influence.
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