Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 25

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166

USA > Georgia > Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II > Part 25

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

school to northern universities. £ The legislature granted his petition. The academy went into operation with three professors and a promising class. Its name was shortly afterward changed to institute, and it was permitted to confer

174

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

the degree of Bachelor of Medicine. The patronage which the institute received induced him, with his friends, to elevate its character and in 1833 he appeared before the state legislature and obtained a charter for the medical college of Georgia, with full power to lecture, examine and confer the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The last effort he made for his profession in the state was to secure for it proper medical literature. To this end he established the "Southern Medical Journal," and for several years was its editor. Dr. Antony nobly won reputation in his career. He was highly esteemed as a physician. Two distinguished univer- sities conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of medicine. He, with signal ability, filled the chair of professor of institutes and proctor of medicine, midwifery and diseases of women and children in the medical college of Georgia from its organization to the time of his death in 1839. In discharging his duties as professor he won the admiration and affection of his pupils, who delighted to honor him and secure his regard. He received not long before his death an invi- tation to allow his name to be presented as a candidate for professorship in another university, which he declined, believing his honor pledged to the state to adhere to her institutions. As a physician Prof. Antony possessed ability of the highest order, in his profession he combined acute and quick perceptions with protound judgment, and with these qualities of mind (a union rarely found) he associated an excellent memory, which enabled him to profit in the greatest degree by his observations and experience. The eminence he enjoyed was evinced, not only in the extent of his practice at home, but by the avidity with which patients and physicians at a distance constantly sought his advice and counsel in important and difficult cases. He was not content to keep pace with the improvements constantly made in medicine and to adopt the suggestions of others; endowed with a mind of uncommon strength, activity and originality, he thought for him- self on all subjects and made improvements of his own. He was a man of multi- form attainments. Eminent as a practitioner of medicine, he was also equally as skilled in gynecology and surgery. He was the first gynecologist to adopt the knee-chest position in uterine luxations. He also perfected the treatment of fractures of the thigh by weight extension. He was a bold and marvelously skilled surgeon as evidenced by a case in which he, in 1821, successfully excised portions of the fifth and sixth ribs and removed portions of the lung tissue. This case was reported in the "Philadelphia Medical Journal," vol. 6, page 108, 1823. Dr. Antony's treatment of this case was so original and bold that Dr. George Foy, fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Dublin, Ireland, republished it in 1893 in the "Medical Press and Circular" and commended the skill and boldness of the operator. Dr. Antony's contributions to medical literature were numerous and valuable. I regret that I have not been able to obtain a full list of his medi- cal writings. The above is an imperfect sketch of his career as a medical man. It began under clouds, its zenith was unobscured, reflecting luster upon his profession and state. Dr. Antony was a most laborious man. The task of self-education was to be accomplished and he commenced and finished it with noble devotion. The science he had selected, requiring unremitting appli- cation and study, can only be mastered by unceasing effort. He loved not ease. He rarely allowed himself more than four hours for sleep. Amid the duties of practitioner, professor and editor, he could find moments for cultivating his taste for music, painting, poetry and literature. He commenced and closed his life a student. As a man, he had his reverses; he shared largely in the sorrows of life, opposition in many forms appearing against him, and was heard to say he had never attempted any important end without incurring the displeasure of some of his fellows. This to him was a matter of exceeding regret. Possessed of

175

MEMOIRS OF DECEASED PHYSICIANS.

refined sensibilities, he suffered much with patience. These things, however, never affected his sense of duty, nor caused him to relax his efforts; they served rather to wed him more closely to his pursuits, and to increase his desire to fill "the measure of his days" honorably, virtuously and usefully. This he deemed his high privilege, his solemn duty. His course is the demonstration of the singular motto on his "Journal:" "A truly virtuous will is almost omnipotent." Such a man must have necessarily been a Christian. He was thoroughly grounded in the doctrines of the bible, and exhibited their effects in his life. His knowl- edge was sanctified and his benevolence expanded by his piety. There was one department of morality in which he labored with unabated zeal-that of temperance. Possessing an affectionate disposition and winning manners, he secured the regard of his patients and entered upon the difficult task of conversing with them on eternal things with great success. His labors of love were greatly blessed. His body was interred in the college grounds, the slab covering his grave bearing this inscription:

"Mortale quicquid caduit hic depostum Milton Antony, M. D. Conditor collegi medici Georgiensis Exegit monumentum aere perenius, Vixit annos quinquaginta, Obiit die xix Septembris, A. D. MDCCCXXXIX."

In the lecture room on the first floor of the college is inserted in the wall a handsome memorial tablet with the following inscription:

"In Memory of Milton Antony, M. D., Founder of this College. A martyr to humanity and the duties of his profession, During the fatal epidemic of 1839. Cheered by Religious Faith through the Griefs and Trials of this life He passed from the cure of the sick to the sleep of the just, Amid the tears and blessings of the poor. True to his own favorite maxim, That a virtuous will is almost omnipotent, He overcame by study the defects of education And patiently toiling to eminence, bequeathed to Posterity A noble example of Genius and Industry, Animated and directed by Patriotism and Benevolence."

RICHARD DENNIS ARNOLD, born in the city of Savannah, Ga., August, 1808; died in the same city, July 10, 1876, of phthisis pulmonalis. His early education was obtained from a private instructor. He graduated with high honor from Princeton college, New Jersey. After graduating from Princeton, he studied medicine in the office of Dr. W. R. Waring, of Savannah. In 1830 he was graduated M. D. by the university of Pennsylvania. After receiving his degree in medicine, he was awarded the position of house physician in Blockly hospital, Philadelphia. His term of service in Blockly hospital terminated in 1832, when he located in Savannah as a general practitioner of medicine. He soon established himself as a physician of acknowledged skill. In 1835 he was appointed one of the physicians to the Savannah hospital, and held this position for thirty years. He was noted for his sympathy with and services to the poor. With him, there was in the practice of medicine something higher and better than mere money-getting, i. e., the rich

176

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

blessing of being permitted to do good to his fellow-beings. He was truly a good Samaritan. All through life, although he was the physician of the wealthiest citizens of Savannah, he found pleasure in gratuitous services to the poor of the city. Dr. Arnold was one of the ablest and most prominent physicians of Georgia. He was one of the founders, and the first secretary, of the American Medical association, which was organized in 1846, the meeting being held in New York city. He was one of the committee of the American Medical association which drafted its code of ethics-a code of laws second only to the Book of Books; a code of laws which challenges the admiration and willing observance of every honorable physician in the regular school of medicine in America. That these men builded wisely is attested by the fact that, with a few minor amendments, this code remains as it was adopted in 1847, and to-day governs every medical society of the regular school in America. Dr. Arnold has held many prominent positions in the American Medical association. In 1852 he was elected vice-president. He was also one of the founders of the Medical Society of the State of Georgia; was chairman of the committee which drafted the constitution and by-laws of this society. At its organ- ization he was elected first vice-president, and in 1851 was elected president of the society. In 1853, when the medical college of Savannah was organized, Dr. Arnold was elected professor of theory and practice of medicine-a position which he held for years, and the duties of which he discharged with great credit to the college and himself. Fluent of speech, eloquent in words, unusually gifted in professional acumen, he was an ideal teacher of medicine. As a teacher he had few equals-no superiors. He was an active member of the Georgia Medical society of Savannah, for fifteen years its president, and for a long number of years its leading member. Dr. Arnold constantly labored to organize the medical profession of his city, state, and nation into a brotherhood promoting every necessary reform. In all these societies he was ever a leader. Tall in stature, commanding in appear- ance, courtly in manner, remarkably gifted as a public speaker, he had few equals in debate. Utterly unselfish, he acted always from a sense of duty, and ever in the interest of truth and justice. His manliness, his high sense of honor, his utter unselfishness, his love of justice, and his great ability won for him the respect and confidence of his confreres in whatever body of men he appeared. He was a man of marked humor and possessed of wonderful power in satire, though it was never wielded so as to wound or offend. While fully in love with his profession, he took great interest in all public measures affecting the welfare of his city and state. No man labored more assiduously to promote the sanitary condition of Savannah. When rice fields were permitted to exist within the city of Savannah and the immediate vicinity, and thus decimate the inhabitants by malaria so engen- dered, Dr. Arnold used his great influence in moulding public sentiment and legal enactments to suppress the evil. Every sanitary measure had his advocacy. It was largely due to his influence that an ample and healthful public water supply was secured in Savannah. He was chosen president of the water commission of that city, and served in that position for thirty-five consecutive years. He was for a number of years a member of the board of health of Savannah; a member of the masonic fraternity for fifty years, holding high official positions in the order, and member of the board of managers of the Savannah city hospital. He was also one of the founders of the Georgia Historical society. His interest in public affairs naturally led him into politics. He was repeatedly elected an alderman, and in 1843, 1851, 1859, and 1863, was elected mayor of Savannah, the latter term extending to the close of the war. He was several times elected to the general assembly of the state, serving in both the house and the senate. In the general assembly he exerted a commanding influence. Although fond of politics and actively engaged therein, he never lost his interest in and love for his profession. His reputation as a

177

MEMOIRS OF DECEASED PHYSICIANS.

medical teacher and practitioner was not limited to his city or state. He was well and favorably known to the medical profession of the United States and Europe, by reason of his classic treatise on yellow fever. He was an expert in this disease, and did great service in teaching the medical profession of the world the differential diagnosis of yellow fever from malarial fevers. His description of the pathological anatomy of the liver in yellow fever, with the colored plates he had prepared under his personal direction, showing the boxwood-colored liver of the disease, is authority upon the subject at the present day. The following is a partial list of the contributions of Dr. Arnold to medical literature: "Dengue, or Break-Bone Fever, as it Appeared in Savannah in 1850;" an essay on "The Relation of Bilious and Yellow Fevers," read by request before the State Medical society in 1850; address, as president of the Georgia State Medical society, on the "Reciprocal Duty of Physicians and the Public to Each Other;" "Identity of Dengue, or Break-Bone Fever and Yellow Fever;" "Address before the Georgia Medical Society;" "Cases of Yellow Fever ;" "Yellow Fever;" "Yellow Fever;" "The Epidemics of Savannah, Ga., in 1847 and 1848." In the several epidemics of yellow fever in Savannah during Dr. Arnold's life, he rendered valuable and conspicuous service. Dr. Arnold was truly the beloved physician in the hearts of the citizens of Savannah. His death was an irreparable loss to his city and state. When he died, the mayor of Savannah convened the board of aldermen in special session, and feelingly announced the death of the great and good physician. The board of aldermen adopted resolutions expressive of the high esteem in which Dr. Arnold was held in that city, and subsequently attended his funeral in a body. The funeral was one of the largest ever held in the state-all classes thus testifying their great love for the deceased. In the death of Dr. Arnold the city of Savannah and the state of Georgia lost one of its noblest, best citizens, and the medical profession of that city, the state and the nation mourns the loss of a good Samaritan and savant.

RICHARD BANKS, M. D .* Richard Banks, the subject of this sketch, was born at the paternal homestead in Elbert county in 1784. After such prelimin- ary training as the schools in the vicinity afforded, he was transferred to Athens, the seat of the state university, and pursued his classical studies in the class which graduated the Hon. Joseph Henry Lumpkin, the great chief justice of the supreme court of the state of Georgia. Having selected medicine as a profession, he studied it diligently and successfully under private instruction. He then matricu- lated in the university of Pennsylvania, and after a pupilage of two years in it he graduated M. D. in 1820. After another year's residence in the hospital he returned to Georgia and established himself in practice in the village of Ruckers- ville, in his native county. With his fine opportunities, his thorough preparation, his sturdy intellect, his talent for original observation, his cool courage in adopting and executing the conclusions of his judgments, mingled astonishment and regret are excited at his not having chosen a wider theater for the growth and display of his extraordinary powers. His innate modesty, his scorn of all the little arts of the charlatan, sometimes employed to attract notice, his aversion to every appear- ance of a desire to court notoriety, doubtless influenced his determination. In the obscure village, remote from any large town, as an humble country doctor, he achieved an enviable distinction, worthy of lasting commemoration.

As a practitioner of medicine, his fame spread rapidly and widely. All over the upper part of Georgia and South Carolina his counsel was sought by physicians and by the laity, and the country is still filled with the traditions of his skill and beneficence. Unhappily, nothing but tradition remains of his intuitive percep- tions of the exact essence of disease, and of his wondrous power to stay its progress.

*From the "Atlantic Medical and Surgical Journal."

4 II-12

178

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

Medical journals in the south were then unknown, and the busy doctor had little time and less inclination to make a permanent record of his experience. As an operative surgeon he early gained in the south the highest rank, and stood for many years confessedly without an equal. Fresh from the lessons of the adroit surgeons who then controlled the hospitals in Philadelphia, reliant on his own common sense and personal tact, he felt competent to perform any needed opera- tion, and taking the whole of surgery for his province, he shrank from not even the most difficult. Dr. Banks preserved no notes of his cases, and never, it is believed, published an account of them. They were in vast numbers, and of every possible variety. No one within a hundred miles of his residence thought of applying to anyone else, if his assistance was possible. The loss of so vast a volume of experi- ence is a public calamity. A single case, related by a non-professional eye- witness, follows in his own language:

"It was a child three or four years old; the upper lip and roof of the mouth were cleft open, so far back that there was no bridge to the nose, and you could see far down the throat. It was really hideous to look at. In those days anesthetics were not used. Dr. Spalding and another held it still during the opera- tion. I would remark that I was as much impressed at the time by the heroism of the child's mother (she held it in her lap all the time) as I was by the Doctor's cool- ness and steadiness of hand. I was much affected, and of course cannot undertake to speak positively of the modus operandi. I recollect, however, that the inner edges of the opening were scarified; the bones of the upper jaw were divided with an instrument something like a pair of scissors; the parts were forced together with strong ligatures. The point of the nose projected considerably: this was scarified and turned down to make a bridge for the nose, and fastened in place either by adhesive strips or thread; can't remember how long the operation lasted, very short, I think. I saw the child some weeks after when it was brought for the Doctor to see it. The mouth was almost natural; looked as if it had been marked by a fall, but had cured up. The bridge of the nose had not adhered well at the bottom; this was remedied by scarifying, and forced to adhere by being held with stitches. I remember well that it was quite a good-looking child when I last saw it, and no one would have supposed it was the hideous thing brought to be operated on. Dr. Spalding wrote a report of the case for a medical journal, and on submitting it to Dr. Banks, he would not consent to its publication. You know how modest he was. He laughed, and said he could not bear to see himself in print, especially in the florid style Dr. Spalding had employed."

Of the great number of such cases as usually occur in the practice of surgeons of wide-spread fame, but little notice was taken. Dr. Banks had a horror of notoriety, and seldom spoke, even privately to his friends, of the extent or success of his business. It is known, however, that every surgical disease brought to his notice elicited his prompt attention, and when the implements in use, or accessible, were not adequate to the emergency, he possessed inventive skill enough to devise and have made others suited to his purpose. One of his earlier triumphs was the successful removal of the parotid gland at a period when the best anatomists and surgeons of this and other countries were hotly discussing the question of its possibility. The details of this operation are all lost to the profession, except the fact that he dislocated the inferior maxillary articulation in order to facilitate it. The operations which gave him greatest celebrity, from their frequency and success, were those for cataract and for stone in the bladder. For many years he was the only surgeon in a large extent of country who attempted either, and patients sought him from great distances. How many cases of cataract he oper- ated upon is not certainly known, nor is the exact percentage of recoveries-the

179

MEMOIRS OF DECEASED PHYSICIANS.

number of both reported seems large and cannot now be verified-but it is certain that he was generally successful. Sometime before his death he stated to a friend that lie had performed lithotomy sixty-four times with but two unsuccessful cases. Whether this long list was subsequently added to is not known.

Dr. Bank's manner of making botlı of these capital operations was different from the methods now generally practiced. He never removed a cataract by extraction, but always by couching or absorption. He thought these methods gave better results, and were safer, inasmuch as, in cases of failure of the first attempt, it could be repeated as often as might be necessary, whereas the failure of an operation by extraction necessarily resulted in permanent loss of vision. These reasons had greater weight before the discovery of anaesthetics than now. The use of them has given greater facility to the operation by extraction, and it is now generally performed by the miost distinguished oculists. Lithotomy he always performed with the gorget, an instrument almost unknown to the present generation of surgeons. The lithotome, double or single, or the bistoury, in adroit hands, have supplanted it, and are now universally. employed; but by no new instrument or other method have better results been secured than by the gorget in the hands of Dr. Banks, or by Prof. Dudley, of Kentucky, who followed the same method. In this, as in many other instances, that instrument is best which the operator can inost skillfully handle. Statistics do not declare decisively in favor of either. In reviewing Dr. Bank's professional career, with the unfavorable surroundings as a country doctor, we are filled with admiration at his magnificent success, and share the regret of a personal friend, that his charac- teristic modesty prevented his removal to some large city, where his skill and learning would have made for him a world-wide reputation; but, like his near neighbor, Dr. Crawford Long (another Georgia doctor), he did not seem to comprehend the importance of what he did for mankind. In 1832, Dr. Banks removed to the village of Gainsville, in Hall county, where many of his profes- sional triumphs were achieved, and where he resided until his death in 1850. Gainsville was within a few miles of the territory then occupied by the Cherokee Indians. The smallpox prevailed among them at one time. Dr. Banks was employed by the Federal government to visit and carry to them the knowledge and benefits of vaccination; he performed this duty faithfully, and gave them also the benefits of his surgical skill. He greatly enjoyed the wonder of these simple people at the restoration to sight of many of them who had been blind for years. "The great medicine man" they thought possessed of superhuman power and superhuman beneficence. Dr. Banks acquired and enjoyed an ample fortune. His prudence, judgment and good sense were as remarkable in the conduct of his pecuniary as of his professional business, and enabled him to leave to his widow and to his children a good estate. In honor of his memory, the general assembly of the state of Georgia gave to a sub-division of her territory the name of "the County of Banks."

WILLIAM GASTON BULLOCH, M. D. William Gaston Bulloch, M. D., was born in Savannah, Ga., on Aug. 4, 1815, and was sixty-nine years, ten months and nineteen days of age when he died. He came of a long line of distinguished ancestry and was the great-grandson of Dr. John Irvine and Dr. Noble Wimberly Jones. Dr. Bulloch was the great-grandson of Hon. Archibald Bulloch, president and commander-in-chief of Georgia in 1776, and a direct lineal descendant of the colonial judges, James DeVeaux, James Bulloch and Noble Jones, and a direct descendant of the ancient families of Irvine of Cults, Douglas of Tilwhilly and Baillie of Dunraven. Dr. Bulloch attended Dickerson college,

180

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

Pennsylvania, and graduated from Yale college in 1835, and in medicine from the university of Pennsylvania in 1838, after which he visited Europe and attended a private course of medical lectures in Paris, France. Returning to America in 1840 he commenced the practice of his profession in Savannah, where, for nearly forty years, he resided until his death on June 23, 1885. He was at one time the chief if not only surgeon of note in Savannah and one of the most eminent in the south, and was an oculist of considerable repute as well as a noted physician and humanitarian, as evidenced by beautiful testimonials presented to him in the shape of silver pitchers given to him by the citizens of Beaufort, S C., in the yellow fever epidemic of 1854, whither he had gone to aid suffering humanity, and also a testimonial from the female orphan asylum. It is needless to recount the various capital operations performed by this distinguished surgeon; suffice it to say that he was one of the first southern surgeons to perform the operation of ovariotomy. He repeatedly performed the operation for cataract, and many other difficult operations. He was one of the founders of the Savannah Medical college and professor of surgery therein, one of the consulting surgeons of the Savannah hospital, Georgia infirmary, Abraham's home, admitted on Dec. 21, 1869, as a corresponding member of the Boston Gynecological society, president of the Medical association of Georgia, and alderman of the city. He was a writer of considerable merit. When the late war between the states came on he patriotic- ally gave his services to his country, and held the rank of full surgeon with the title of major, serving in Richmond, Va., where he helped organize the first hos- pital. He was a member of the Charleston, S. C., medical examining board, and in charge of a hospital nearly all through the war in Savannah, Ga. All through life he was a highly useful citizen, an honest man, kind to his family, generous and hospitable. He was an example of the chivalrous southern gentleman. In army life he was the idol of the soldiers because of his tender, skilful, loving ininistrations to the humblest follower of the Confederacy. Many a poor, ragged Confederate soldier found in him a friend and benefactor. Peace to his ashes, honor to his memory.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 25

Author: Publication date: 1859 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association Number of Pages: 1166

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166