USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume III > Part 23
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Dr. Allen McLane was born in Smyrna in 1786. His father, Col. Allen McLane, served in the Continental army through- out the Revolution as a lieutenant in Caesar Rodney's regi- ment, and was under General Washington in his great battles at Long Island, White Plains, Trenton and Princeton ; and as
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a major in Lee's legion at Paulus Hook, Stony Point and Yorktown. Col. Allen was Speaker of the House of Assembly and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Marshal of Delaware, and Collector of the Port at Wilmington for many years. Dr. Allen McLane received his medical diploma from the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, his preceptor being Dr. Benjamin Rush. He served as surgeon in Caesar A. Rodney's company in the War of 1812. He was one of the leading physicians in the city of Wilmington and his death was deplored as a pub- lic calamity. His obsequies were held by Bishop Lee, and the Rev. John McCullough of the Episcopal church, of which he was a member, the Rev. John Kennedy of the Methodist Episcopal church and the Rev. William Hogarth of the Pres- byterian church, assisting.
Another name widely known and highly esteemed as man and as physician, through a long and diversified course of public and professional usefulness, is that of Mr. Henry F. Askew, born in Wilmington in 1805. He was a descendant of Sergeant John Askew, who, after the surrender of New Amsterdam in 1664, accompanied Sir Robert Carr's expedi- tion against Fort Casimir, as New Castle was then styled by the Dutch, and was present at the storming of the fort, receiv- ing for his services the grant of a piece of land near where the City of Wilmington was afterwards built, and where his descendants settled and are yet living. He read medicine under Mr. William Gibbons, and then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1826.
After spending a short time in Ohio, he returned to his native city where he won great success. His practice was enormous, at least one-half of his nights in the whole year being given to poor and rich alike. His charming manners and genial and social qualities made him very popular, and he was honored with many offices, State and city ; and had he been less devoted to his profession, it is conceded he might have had any gift in the State at the hands of the then domi- nant party, the Democratic, to which he belonged. He was a
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member of the various City, State and National Medical So- cieties, and was chosen president of them all. He was also one of the founders of the Delaware Historical Society, and for some years its president. He was, moreover, a member of many other societies of a business, social and philanthropic character. Indeed, few men ever came more widely and more usefully in contact with their fellows in private and in public station than did Dr. Askew. A year before his death, in 1876, he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dr. Henry Fisher Hall was born in Lewes in 1789, and was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He studied medicine under Dr. John White, and in 1814 was appointed surgeon of the Forty-second Infantry by President Madison. After seven years' service he resigned, to serve creditably there- after in the Northwest as surgeon in the Third Infantry. Ile was commissioned Brigadier-General in Sussex County in 1814 by Governor Maull, and afterwards made Collector of Customs at Lewes. He died in 1865, having practiced medicine fifty- four years.
Dr. James P. Loffand was a noted physician in Kent County where he was born in 1793. After graduating from the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, he entered the office of Mr. Benjamin Rush as a student of medicine, and was also associated with Mr. Franklin Bache, for many years Professor of Chemistry in Jefferson Medical College. Receiving his degree, Mr. Lofland settled in Milford where he got a large practice that placed him at the head of his profession and often caused him to be called in consultation in various parts of the State. His genial and courteous bearing, and his high regard for the dignity and usefulness of his calling together with a kindly charity that gave earnest attention to the poor, so greatly endeared him to all classes, that after his death he was mourned as a personal friend. His charitable services were long remembered by many poor, both white and black. He was a great admirer of Henry Clay and a personal friend of John M. Clayton. IIe served several terms in the Legislature, and was once Speaker
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of the Senate. His remains were followed to the grave by an immense concourse of people, and the rites of Masonry, in which order he had filled all stations of honor, were also paid his memory.
Dr. Robert R. Porter was born in Wilmington in 1811. Graduating in 1835 from the University of Pennsylvania, he spent a year at Blockley Almshouse and Hospital, gaining further experience through clinics and lectures. In 1836 he began practicing in Wilmington, and specdily attained promi- nence in the profession. Highly esteemed for his many good qualities both as a physician and citizen, he was called upon to fill many positions of trust in public and in private life. He was devoted to letters, and a warm supporter of the His- torical Society of Delaware. He died in 1876.
Dr. Jacob Jones, known to every school-boy as Commodore Jones, was practicing physician in Dever before he entered the navy, having studied medicine under Dr. James Sykes, Sr., whose sister he married. He early abandoned medicine to enter the United States navy, where with another son of Dela- ware, whose father was a physician, he was to win a deathless fame, and save his country from defeat in the War of 1812. An account of his wonderful career with many victories, is elsewhere fully presented in this work.
Dr. John Vaughan studied medicine with Dr. William Currie of Philadelphia, and attended lectures in 1793-4 at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1799 he removed his practice to Wilmington. He was a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine, the Delaware Medical and American Philosophical Societies, besides other similar bodies, and lec- tured in chemistry and natural philosophy before the Dela- ware Society in 1799 and 1800. In 1802, when the yellow fever raged in Wilmington, he was unremitting in his care of those afflicted with that awful disease, and to Dr. John Vaughan belongs the high distinction of being the only physician who remained during the continuance of that fearsome epidemic.
The next year, at the request of the American Philosoph-
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ical Society, he wrote a pamphlet entitled " A Concise History of the Yellow Fever." To Mr. Vaughan the further credit is owing of introducing vaccination into Wilmington so early as 1802. He died of typhoid fever, March 25, 1807. The un- timely death of the kindhearted, heroic young physician, but entered upon his promising career, was a severe loss to the profession and the public to whose service his talents were so unselfishly, so nobly dedicated. Of him it was truly said " The tears of the poor and friendless bedew his memory !"
Dr. Lewis P. Bush was born in Wilmington, October 19, 1812. After graduating from Jefferson College vith the degree of M. A., he entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which, in 1835, he received the further degree of M. D. He spent fourteen months there- after as resident physician at the Blockley Hospital, and in 1837 removed to Wilmington, where a large practice occupied him until his death. Dr. Bush prepared and read before the State Medical Society, of which he was president in 1860, many valuable papers on medical subjects, and warmly advo- cated many sanitary reforms and prophylactic measures, since adopted.
He was officially connected with a number of historical societies in Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania ; was presi- dent of the Association of Resident Physicians at Blockley Hospital, president of the American Society of Medicine, and the Delaware Bible Society. For these various societies he wrote many articles of a scientific, historical and biographical character, among them several on the History of Medicine and Physicians in Delaware. He also wrote the admirable chapter on these topics in Scharf's History of Delaware, to which excellent work the present writer confesses his in- debtedness.
His style is felicitous : and the correctness of his judgment is only surpassed by his kindly and generous temper in awarding to his fellow practitioners meed of recognition and commendation. Like many of the leading physicians in
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Delaware, Dr. Bush was a Presbyterian. His useful life closed its early career on the fifth day of March, 1892, and an ap- preciative memorial paper upon his life and labors was read by Dr. Irving S. Vallandingham before the Board of Health, of which important organization Dr. Bush was for many years President. The address was printed in their Seventh Biennial Report for the years 1890-1892.
This able and genial physician, a gentleman of the old school, Dr. Irving S. Vallandingham, died in Middletown, December 30, 1903, at the age of sixty-three years, after hav- ing practiced medicine for forty-one years with great success.
Of the famous medical men of Delaware, quite a number have won their laurels in other and wider fields than those of their nativity.
Dr. Robert M. Bird, born in New Castle in 1805, was an associate editor and publisher of the North American and United States Gazette of Philadelphia, Professor of Materia Medica in the Pennsylvania Medical College from 1841 to 1843, and the author of a number of literary works widely known, e. g., the dramas, "Metamora" and "Gladiator," in whose leading roles Edwin Forrest won great distinction. In recognition of his labors Dr. Bird was elected in 1886 presi- dent of the American Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Theophilus Parvin, the honored, world wide known Professor of Obstetrics, and author of numerous treatises, and Professor Joseph Hearn, M. D., are second to none for ability and integrity.
Dr. Edward O. Shakespeare, the histologist and bacteri- ologist, whom the nation honored in sending to Europe and Asia as a special representative of the United States to study Asiatic cholera, comes from a well-known Delaware family in Dover. The results of Dr. Shakespeare's investigations were afterwards published by the Government at Washington.
Dr. Louis Starr, the author of works on the diseases of chil- dren, and the late Professor T. L. Buckingham, M. D., D. D. S., one of the founders of two Dental Colleges in Philadelphia, were both Delawareans.
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Dr. Martin W. Barr, a grandson of the Dr. William Barr, whose biography has been given, is the head of that noble charity, the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble Minded Children, at Elwin, Pennsylvania. Dr. Barr is one of the leading alienists in the country and the author of a work of standard character on mental diseases entitled " Mental De- fectives."
Dr. W. G. A. Bonwell, born in Delaware, has the credit of the practical application of electric force to automatic mallets which was probably the forerunner of the modern electric triphammer and the rock-drilling and tunneling machines to which our railroads are so deeply indebted. Like Dr. Physic, who invented the surgical needle with the eye at the point, without which the sewing machine would have been impos- sible, Dr. Bonwell was the progenitor of many modern inven- tions.
Another ingenious Delaware physician, Dr. Henry C. Register was the inventor of many delicate appliances for dental and surgical engines.
Professor James E. Garrettson was born in Wilmington in 1828, and after graduating in dentistry in Philadelphia when twenty-nine, received two years later the degree of M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Strongly inclined towards surgery, his associations with Dr. D. Hayes Agnew in the Philadelphia School of Anatomy so ripened his attainments that he gradually created the new specialty known as Oral Surgery, and became in this department the accepted authority throughout the English-speaking world. His operations, though of the most bold and heroic character, were singularly free from fatal endings. As the inventor of procedures for the removal of bone and tumors about the head and face without leaving scars, he was eminently successful. He filled various chairs in the Philadelphia Dental College, of which he was Dean for many years, and in the Philadelphia School of Anatomy ; and his lectures drew great concourses of students and others.
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He was also one of the founders of the Medico-Chirurgical College and Medico-Chirurgical Hospital, and president of both institutions. Under his hand their success was very great. Dr. Garrettson also published a series of philosophical writings under the non-de-plume of "John Darby." His crowning life-work was his "System of Oral Surgery," now become a classic in medicine, and his title to a worldwide fame. His was a life of ideal nobleness. Deeply, unobtru- sively pious, of a generous, kindly nature, his forty years of professional activity were filled with countless deeds of charity and philanthropic usefulness.
Dr. John Janvier Black, son of Dr. Charles H. Black, was born in Delaware City, November 6, 1837. After graduating from Princeton college, and in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, he began his medical career in 185S in San Francisco, California, some account of which is given in his "Forty Years in the Medical Profession." Dr. Black served in the medical corps of the United States army from Novem- ber, 1862, to September 2, 1864, and after spending a year at the Blockley and Philadelphia hospitals as resident physician, began practicing in 1867 in New Castle, and is still so engaged. Besides being a contributor to medical, agricultural and horti- cultural journals, he is the author of a work on the " Cultiva- tion of the Peach, Pea, Quince and Nut-Bearing Trees ;" " Eating to Live," a work of 350 pages, is now passing through the Lippincott Company's press. His "Forty Years in the Medical Profession," a work of 497 pages, published in 1900, is a valuable contribution to medical literature and is charm- ingly written, being filled with graphic accounts of the per- sons of distinction in medicine, science and statesmanship whom Dr. Black met at home and abroad in the course of his extended travels in the United States and Europe.
In addition, this learned and versatile writer gives an instructive survey of the field of modern medicine, including the latest discoveries in bacteriology, aseptic surgery and preventive medicine. It is a work of unusual merit and
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interest, and should have a wide reading by both the profes- sion and the laity. In 1902 Dr. Black published a pamphlet on "Consumptives in Delaware," wherein he set out with force and clearness the gravity of the "white plague " peril, and the imperative duty of the State and people at once to take appropriate measures to combat it by the establishment of a sanitarium in Delaware, patterned after the highly successful one at Rutland, Massachusetts, whose methods and results the doctor details in his earnest appeal.
Dr. William R. Bullock, one of the most learned physicians Delaware ever produced, though past his 80th year, is in the full enjoyment of his faculties, and though withdrawn from active practice, is still often in professional request by those ac- quainted with his great ability. His superb translation of "Cazeaux on Midwifery," attests his complete mastery of the French language. Being too busy to attempt a new edition, he consented to translate the notes of Dr. S. Tarnier in the Fifth American from the Seventh French edition.
Dr. William N. Hamilton, who for many years practiced medicine in Odessa and Middletown, and in the country around, was a physician of remarkable ability and skill. He was a born diagnostician, with a rare gift in discerning the causes in disease. Medicine lost a mighty career when this talented doctor chose "along the cool and sequestered vale of life, to keep the noiseless tenor of his way." He died in Odessa in 1894, in his 74th year.
Among the able and successful practitioners of medicine of this State, must be included a number of women, among these, Dr. Hannah M. Thompson, Dr. Josephine M. R. White de La Cour, of the old school, and Dr. Clara M. Ferguson of the new. Several of Delaware's physicians of color have won a high standing in the profession among whom are Dr. Samuel G. Elbert, Dr. Henry C. Stevens, and Dr. J. Bacon Stubbs, all of Wilmington, well known and skillful members of the fraternity.
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HOMEOPATHY.
Webster defines Homeopathy as the " art of curing by re- semblances, the theory and practice that disease is cured tuto, cito et jucunde by remedies which produce on a healthy person the effects similar to the symptoms of the complaint under which the patient suffers, the remedies being usually given in minute doses. This system was founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, and is opposed to allopathy." It is but just to declare that homeopathy as a system has quite trans- passed the domain of controversy, and become a fact both therapeutic and legal. The hard logic of numbers abundantly attests this, since in the United States there are one thousand two hundred homeopathic physicians, and their system has representatives in every quarter of the civilized globe.
Homeopathy was introduced into Delaware in 1839 by Dr. J. C. Gosewich, a graduate of the North American Academy of Homeopathic Healing Art, at Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Jaw forbade any one not in practice in the year 1802, practicing medicine or surgery without first obtaining a license from a Board of Examiners composed of three members of the old State Medical Society. Although Dr. Gosewich passed a satisfactory examination, he was refused a license. This action lead to the passage, by the next Legislature, of an Act exempting the homeopathic and two other systems from ex- amination by that Board. Dr. Gosewich, the militant pioneer of Delaware Homeopathy, died in 1854.
Drs. Harlan, Negendank, Thomas, Tantum and others, fol- lowed him, and for a number of years carried on a controversy with the other school through the medium of public debate and newspaper discussion, until Homeopathy became estab- lished in Delaware. In 1876 there were nine homeopathic physicians in Wilmington and about twenty in the State. There are now twenty-five in the City and about thirty-five in the State.
After two abortive attempts to found a medical society in
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1868, and some years later, the third was successful when in 1883, pursuant to a call issued by the physicians of Wilming- ton to the homeopathic physicians of Delaware, Dr. A. Negendank, L. Kittinger, L. A. Kittinger, Isaiah Lukens, J. Paul Lukens, J. M. Curtis, C. H. Lawton, J. Harmer Rile, Peter Cooper, A. E. Frantz, and S. Chadwick of Wilmington ; J. W. Crumbaugh of Hockessin ; C. O. Swinney of Smyrna ; and T. H. Cooper of Chestertown, Md., on the 10th day of January organized the present " Homeopathic Medical Society of Delaware and the Peninsula " with Drs. L. Kittinger, pres- ident ; T. H. Cooper, vice-president ; J. H. Rile, secretary ; W. F. Kennedy, treasurer; and Drs. Negendank, Swinney and Crumbaugh, censors, and Dr. J. M. Curtis, Delegate to the American Institute of Homeopathy.
A very interesting and successful meeting of the Society was held at Dover, November 11, 1886, where a number of mem- bers were received, and a rule adopted referring candidates wishing to read medicine with any member of the Society, to a Board of Examiners for examination as to their educational fitness to study medicine.
Dr. Caleb Harlan, the true nestor of Delaware Homeopathy, was born in Milltown, New Castle County, in 1814. He was a Quaker, and in 1836 after a three years' medical course, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Though in- heriting a very frail constitution he was able by abstemious living and careful dieting, beside living much in the open air, to practice medicine for over fifty years without the loss of a single day from sickness ! In 1847, having become a convert to homeopathy, he began to practice the new system. In reply to the great opposition he met, he published a " Lecture on Allopathy and Homeopathy," which the eminent Dr. Herring highly commended.
Dr. Harlan wrote a work on "Plowing under Green Crops for Manure," based upon years of highly successful experi- ments upon his own farm, which was published in a second and revised edition by Lippincott of Philadelphia. This
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treatise on farming with green manures is said " to have had no equal in Europe or America," and was long in demand as a text-book and reference work on that subject. The doctor was fond of belles-lettres, and wrote some excellent verse in the heroic couplet.
Nothing could better prove the confidence men placed in his honesty and judgment than the circumstance that a cousin of his, John Ferris, of Wilmington, who died in 1882, chose him the sole executor and trustee, without bond, of his estate, estimated at a quarter of a million dollars. After the estate was settled there was $80,000.00 left to be applied by Dr. Har- lan for the benefit of the necessitous portion of the human family that may come to his knowledge, the testator suggest- ing a "House of Refuge." The Ferris Reform School was thus established and endowed. Dr. Harlan published a memoir of John Ferris, and a work on " Mental Power, Sound Health and Long Life Through Diet," being himself a re- markable example of the truth of his system.
Dr. August Negendank was of German birth, educated in medicine both in Germany and America, and was one of the early and successful physicians of this school practicing in Wilmington. He was a member of several medical societies and gave his services as attending physician to the Home for Friendless Children and to several orphanages. Dr. Joseph R. Tantum graduated in 1865 from the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, and practiced in Wilmington until his death in 1887.
Dr. William W. Thomas was born in Wilmington, and hav- ing long been a sufferer from asthma, upon being cured through homeopathy, was led to read this system of medicine and to practice till 1877.
Dr. Isaiah Lukens, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, practiced for eight years in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and in 1855 came to Philadelphia where for six years he was Professor of Oral Surgery in the Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1868, becoming a convert to homeopathy, he re-
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moved to Newport, Delaware, and in 1880 to Wilmington, where he continued to practice the new system until his death in 1887.
Dr. Leonard Kittinger was born in Philadelphia in 1834, and graduated from the Philadelphia Homeopathic Medical College, and after practicing two years in New Jersey, came to Wilmington where he won a great reputation as a specialist in obstetrics and diseases of women and children. He was physician to the Home for Aged Women, a noble charity con- ducted by the benevolent ladies of Wilmington. In 1869 he was elected a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy and in 1871 was appointed one of the physicians to the New Castle Almshouse and Insane Asylum. He was honored by his fellow members with an election to the presidency of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State and Peninsula, whose interests he greatly advanced by the well earned emi- nence in his profession which he held unto his death.
His oldest son, Leonard A. Kittinger, also graduated at the Philadelphia Homeopathic Medical College, and began prac- tice with his father in 1881, and has continued since, being recognized as one of the leading homeopathic physicians of the city. Dr. Charles H. Lawton was born in Newport, R. I., in 1832. After practicing electrotherapeutics for fourteen years, he was led to investigate the claims of homeopathy, and to enter the Hahnemann Medical Institute from which he gradu- ated in 1872. He assisted in founding the Delaware Homeo- pathic Medical Society and served as secretary, censor and president, and was twice chosen delegate to the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Dr. Clara M. Ferguson, a talented physician, and the present Secretary of the State Homeopathic Society, is the only woman practicing homeopathy in the State.
EPIDEMICS AND VITAL STATISTICS.
Little is known of the diseases or epidemics from which the early settlers of Delaware suffered.
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