USA > Illinois > Madison County > Centennial history of Madison County, Illinois, and its people, 1812 to 1912, Volume I > Part 53
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In East Alton: Chemical products, I; ice plant, I ; miners' supplies, I ; powder, I ; car- tridges, 2; sewer pipe brick, I.
In Wood River : Oil refinery, I.
In Federal: Lead smelter, I; box-board, I ; car repair shop, I.
The Illinois Glass Company is the largest employer of women-with 151 on its pay roll.
The last inspection made of the leading towns of the county shows the following summary according to the figures of the Fac- tory Board :
Places
Inspected
Total
Employes
over 16
Women
over 16
Children
under 1 6
Alton
148
4,398
3,887
365
I51
Highland
81
502
372
107
23
Collinsville
103
683
608
71
4
Granite City
.284
3,028
2,684
337
7
Edwardsville
.I86
722
634
76
I2
Troy
59
552
523
29
861
9,885
Men
8,708 985 197
Other industrial details appear in the sev- eral township sketches.
CHAPTER XLIX
MEDICAL PRACTICE AND PRACTITIONERS
PAST AND PRESENT FACILITIES-THEY SIMPLY "CALLED THE DOCTOR"-PROGRESS OF MEDI- CAL EDUCATION-MEDICAL SOCIETIES-FIRST ACT FOR MEDICAL REGULATION-LATEST REG- ULATING ACT-THE COUNTY'S FIRST PHYSICIAN-EDWARDSVILLE'S FIRST DOCTOR-FIRST PHYSICIAN IN EASTERN MADISON-PIONEER MUSICIAN-A SOUTHERN POLITICIAN-PROMI- NENT IN THE CIVIL WAR-A "THOMSONIAN" CERTIFICATE-M. D. AND D. D .- OF IN- TERNATIONAL FAME-TOO SYMPATHETIC FOR A DOCTOR-TWO "OLD FAMILY DOCTORS"- IN PRACTICE FORTY-ONE YEARS-DR. JOSEPH POGUE-HIGH-GRADE SWISS PHYSICIANS- DR. CHARLES DAVIS-PIONEER IN PUBLIC EDUCATION-THE FATHER OF NEW DOUGLAS.
By Dr. E. W. Fiegenbaum Edwardsville, Ill.
Whoever writes the life-story of any people cannot claim that his work is complete unless it also includes the story of the medical men of that people, because in all history the im- pression made upon the community by the representatives of the medical profession has been of great and permanent value. If we take the recorded history of ancient peoples we find that the position taken by the medical man, in private and civil life, has been an exalted one.
In the olden time the care of the wounded and the treatment of the sick was delegated to the servants of the temple, and for many centuries the office of doctor and priest, was held by one and the same man, a man who from his early youth was consecrated and set apart for this work, representing at all times the highest and best type of mankind. Later on the office was separated, the priest con- tinuing to serve at the altar, while the task of administering to the sick was delegated to men who devoted all their time to this occu- pation.
Even then the "medicine man" was of the
same type of morality and honor as was the class from which he sprang. This was the origin of the men who represented the prac- tice of medicine in the dark ages, and who were our immediate predecessors. They were men of the highest type in each epoch, as civ- ilization advanced, and who handed down their traditions from age to age, even to this day.
Emanating from the priesthood, the moral part of their lives became inseparable from their professional life, and to this day the doctor is regarded in his community as the exponent of all that is moral and upright, all that is meant by the higher life. When we analyze the traditions that come to us from barbarous and half civilized nations we find that the "medicine man" occupied a position of honor and veneration, not exceeded even by the chief of the tribe.
PAST AND PRESENT FACILITIES
And so in writing the history of the lives and doings of the people of Madison county for the past hundred years, the story would
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
not be complete unless it contained an account of the impress that the lives and acts of its early medical men made upon the community in which they lived and the part they took in the development and progress of events.
One hundred years ago the practice of medicine was not what it is now, and it would be very interesting to know just how the doctors managed to succeed with the meager facilities then on hand. All the travel of the earliest physicians was made on horse- back for there were no roads in 1800, only Indian trails connecting the various settle- ments, and the doctor was compelled to put his stock of medicines and appliances in the old saddle-bag, which only the oldest of our citizens can remember, and make his visits from one patient to another by means of his faithful steed. It must · be remembered too that doctors were not as plentiful as now, and very often the old-time physician visited patients at a distance of from twenty to one hundred miles. This was physical work, to- gether with the mental strain of administer- ing to the sick, and the doctors of those days necessarily had to be men of strong physique and sound constitution.
We find that the first wagon road in our county was not completed until 1812 and led from Edwardsville to Cahokia, and it was not until 1822 that our citizens first beheld a stagecoach. In our day of well-traveled roads, buggies and carriages, automobiles and street cars, to expedite our work, it seems al- most incredible that the men of the frontier and of the saddle-bags could and did do the work credited to them by the early traditions.
When we come to consider their instru- ments and appliances we find no well stocked armamentarium either in drugs or instru- ments. They had to do without a stethoscope or fever thermometer ; they had no Esmarch's tourniquet or hypodermic needle ; no hospital with well appointed operating room, with lights adjusted to the proper angle, but they
had a marvelous knowledge of anatomy even in those long ago days. And yet they did the work and did it well and no citizen of any class was held in higher esteem and honor than the old time medical practitioner. It is a far cry before a doctor can be named who occupies the position in any community today, which was universally accorded the family physician, who was friend, counselor, confi- dant and advisor as well as medico.
THEY SIMPLY "CALLED THE DOCTOR"
There is another point of difference that we must note in the general progress of medi- cal practice and that is generalization as com- pared with specialization. Now-a-days we go to a certain doctor if something affects our nose, ear or throat; to this man, if our eyes trouble us, while we are very certain that for surgery no one can excell that man. For the kidneys it is well known that especial study has been made by this man, but his competi- tor is proper authority on heart disease. One man is a pathologist, while the other is a mar- velous diagnostician. But in the times of which we write they "called the doctor," and that was all there was to it; and to his credit be it said that he was ready for anything. He may not have been shaved that day, but the chances are that it was because he had rid- den all night over a, weary round of country roads. There was no luster on the stout boots he wore, but his fingers were none the less steady when he came to perform some deli- cate operation to save some precious life.
PROGRESS OF MEDICAL EDUCATION
When we come to study the educational facilities of the early days, we find the same primitive situation that obtained in other con- ditions of that period. . In 1765, Dr. John Morgan, a native of Philadelphia, induced the trustees of the College of Philadelphia to establish the first medical college in this coun- try and thus became the father of medical
373
HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
education in America. When the nineteenth century was born, there were only four medi- cal colleges in existence; the College of Phila- delphia which was organized in 1765, inti- mately connected with the Pennsylvania Hos- pital. In 1791, this school was merged with the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania under which title it is still in existence today. This joining of forces was the first of a long and still continuing series of medical school mergers. The second medical school was the medical department of Kings College, established in New York in 1768, and which was united 46 years later with the College of Physician and Surgeons of New York, under which name it is still in existence. The third was the well kwown medical department of Harvard College,
opened in Cambridge in 1783, and later moved to Boston to take advantage of the hospital facilities there. The fourth and last of the quartette was opened in 1798 by Dr. Nathan Smith, a graduate of the Harvard School, as the medical department of Dart- mouth College.
Comparing this early condition of medical education with the status of the present day we find that four hundred and fifty-seven medical schools have been born in the United States and Canada since that time. In 1904 we find 166 medical schools flourishing in the United States, being about one half of all the medical colleges in the world. Since that time, there has been a decrease, owing to the work of the Council on Medical Edu- cation of the American Medical Association. Some of the weakest were closed up entirely, and others made stronger and better by merg- ing two or more. This weeding-out process continued until we find the total number of schools reduced to 120. Of the thirty-nine medical colleges born in Illinois during the past century only eight survive, all located in the city of Chicago.
Although we find only four educational
centers at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it would seem as if they were more than sufficient to fill the demand, for we find that some of them experienced a season of suspended animation owing to lack of stu- dents. This was but natural owing to the sys- tem then in vogue. The medical student of that day was not expected to go to college, in fact it was only the most energetic, the most determined one, that ever did go. When the young man of that day felt the bud of genius sprouting in his brain, he simply en- tered an apprenticeship with some old, well established practitioner in the community, usually the family doctor. He washed bottles, spread plasters, rolled pills, made himself generally useful about the office, and in his leisure time read the books that he found in the library, which were none too numerous, but contained what was thought essential at that time. Later on he assisted his preceptor in surgical operations or in his general work, making an occasional visit to the sick in the old doctor's absence. After a longer or shorter apprenticeship, but usually at the end of two years, the young man felt that he was able to enter the practice, and he in turn secured a horse and a pair of saddle-bags, opened up an office, hung his sign out to notify the world at large that he was a full fledged doc- tor. Occasionally the young doctor remained for a while as partner of his preceptor, but in the great majority of instances he started his professional life in some near-by settle- ment.
This describes in brief the evolution of the doctor in those days; such was the system then in force, which was recognized as the proper course by every one, even by the medi- cal colleges, for they did not intend, by their instructions, to supplant the system of appren- ticeship, but to supplement it, holding that a year of technical education in a college, would prepare the young doctor much better for his life's work.
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
We must remember too that in this earlier day, medical schools did not have as much to teach, as we have in our day. They did not have to teach the safe use of anæsthetics, for chloroform and ether had not been dis- covered; the microscope was not used for clinical research, because the bacterial origin of disease had as yet not been recognized. They did not teach antiseptic or aseptic sur- gery but were living in the day when they still talked of laudable pus, and the healing of wounds by first and second intention. In abdominal surgery, that great field in which so much successful work is done today, they taught that a gunshot wound of the abdomen must be severely let alone; no probing after the bullet was allowed for fear that the doc- tor would be held as an accessory to the death of the patient, if he died, by having aggravated conditions with his meddlesome and ill advised surgery. Today the exact op- posite is not only taught but demanded, and the surgeon who does not promptly open up the abdominal cavity to repair any injury that the missile may have done, does not give his patient a fair chance for recovery and lays himself liable to the charge of gross negli- gence. The early medical instruction was con- fined to the elementary branches of the science such as anatomy, physiology, chem- istry, therapeutics, with more or less of Latin, all of which however was taught with great thoroughness.
The apprentice system held undisputed sway, with more or less modification, during all of the first three-quarters of the last cen- tury, during all of which time it was possible and permissible for any one to undertake the practice of medicine and surgery, without having had a residence in any college, medical or otherwise. Anyone who felt inclined to do so, could practice medicine, without let or hindrance, and the great majority of the prac- titioners of that day, began their life work with only such education as they gathered
from their preceptors and from the study of such medical works as were available. And they did good work too, how good only the students of the various far-reaching epidem- ics of the middle of the past century, know.
They were of a distinct type which is fast passing away and in most regions has already vanished. A change has taken place in the profession and one by one the doctors of the old school are dropping by the wayside. The old type is disappearing and a new one com- ing in. Better did you say? Well, let us hope so. Will the new doctors be as patient and sympathetic as were they of the saddle bags ? Will they be as conscientious? Has not com- mercialism crept in and destroyed every ves- tige of the old time intimacy between the family and the doctor? Does the new genera- tion of doctors help to bear the family bur- den, share in the family joys and woes, or do they furnish so much service, for so much cash? Brave old heroes, they did the best they could with the appliances they had at that time, and did it well. All honor to their memory.
"He never sought in life's industrious ways A large return or loud or lasting praise ; But to the sacred task which Heaven assigned, In pain's hushed chamber, gave his strength and mind,
Believing so he served his Master best Trusting the Great Physician for the rest."
MEDICAL SOCIETIES
In 1821, one Dr. Cadwell, then a member of the State Senate, representing Madison county, secured the passage of an act for the establishment of medical societies in the state. Just what was done under this act can not be stated for we find no record of such soci- eties until May, 1850, when the Illinois State Medical Society was organized with Dr. Wil- liam B. Herrick, of Chicago, who had been professor of anatomy in Rush Medical Col- lege since 1844, as its first president. This
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
society has been in uninterrupted existence of all births and deaths. This law clearly ever since, numbering among its officers and members, men of not only national but inter- national fame, and carrying upon its roster today the names of about 6,000 physicians of Illinois. It is considered one of the best medi- cal societies in the United States and has to its credit a great deal of advanced work both in the field of medical research and in clinical medicine.
Only a few years after the establishment of the State Society, the physicians of this county organized the Madison County Medi- cal Society, and one of its earliest secretaries, Dr. Joseph Pogue, of Edwardsville, is still alive and in active practice. This society after a stormy career, with intervals of suspension, is still in existence and in a most flourishing condition, with a membership of ninety active, hustling doctors, who meet in regular session once a month.
In the reorganization of medical societies in 1903, the county society was made the unit, and now no physician can become a member of the State Society or the American Medical Association, nor can he retain his membership in the state or national bodies, unless he acquires and retains membership in his county society. This act has given a great impetus to organization and the time is not distant when every practitioner will identify himself with the, organized profession, through the medium of his local medical society.
The act of 1821, above referred to, pro- vided for the "division of the state into four medical districts, making the physicians in each district a body corporate, and making it their duty to meet at stated intervals to exam- ine students and grant diplomas to such as were qualified to practice medicine." The act also provided that no one could practice medi- cine except those possessed of a diploma from one of these societies or from some respect- able university of the United States. This act also required physicians to keep a record
fore-shadowed the creation and defined the duties of, a State Board of Health, the reali- zation of which was not accomplished until fifty-six years later. Although this law was on the statute books, we can find no record of its enforcement, particularly with refer- ence to the granting of diplomas. It seems to have been, like a great many of our present laws, a dead letter, not put into execution, however beneficent its results might have been, thus allowing the apprenticeship system full sway. And who can say that this system was not good for these early times? Who can say that it was not adequate for the edu- cation of the early doctors and did it not fill the requirements for them, that our higher education does for us now ?
Another section of the law of 1821 "pro- vided that the board might examine all phy- sicians' bills which any patient considered . exorbitant and make such deductions as to the board seemed reasonable; that the physician could not collect the excess and he was re- quired to refund it if it had been paid." This provision, in the light of modern methods of doing business seems to us a "joker," but undoubtedly was passed in good faith. His- tory does not tell us whether this section was enforced or not, but we of this generation would regard the enforcement of such a law, a rather difficult undertaking.
FIRST ACT FOR MEDICAL REGULATION
It was not until 1877 that the first attempt was made to regulate the practice of medicine in this state. In that year an act was passed by the general assembly, creating a State Board of Health and it was one of the duties of this board to pass upon the qualifications of every one attempting to practice the heal- ing art. If a graduate, the diploma conferring his degree had to be exhibited. If found genuine, and if the person named therein was found to be the person claiming and present-
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
ing the same, the board granted a certificate signed by all its members, and such diploma and certificate gave the lawful holder thereof a right to practice medicine in this state. If not a graduate, the person desiring to practice medicine had to present himself for examina- tion, and if such examination was found sat- isfactory, the Board issued a certificate and the applicant became a legalized practitioner.
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In deference to the older practitioners, the law contained a provision exempting all doc- tors who had been in active practice for ten years or more, and the Board issued certifi- cates to this class of applicants, upon proof of having practiced the required number of years. The supreme court of Illinois in pass- ing upon the constitutionality of the act, said : "The Statute was passed to protect the health and promote the welfare of society, and to protect it from imposition and fraud. The purpose was to prohibit and punish fraud, deception, charlatanry and quackery in the practice of medicine, to prevent empiricism and bring the practice of medicine under such control that, as far as practicable, the ignor- ant and unscientific practitioner shall be ex- cluded."
At this time it was the custom of all medi- cal colleges to require but two years' instruc- tion before graduation. This comprised at- tendance on a course of lectures extending over a varying period of from four to six months. The next year the student would listen to the same set of lectures, for the same length of time, after which examination would follow and a diploma be granted. Evi- dently this was a very limited amount of in- struction, and the newly born doctor could not complain of an over-amount of knowl- edge in his chosen profession.
Owing to the demand for higher education, the act of 1877, was subject to various amend- ments for the purpose of improving it and raising the standard higher and higher from
time to time. The medical colleges extended their lectures over three years and then over four years, of eight and nine months each and presented a graded course to take the . place of the oft repeated lectures. They also demanded an examination in the common school branches, before allowing students to matriculate, which was soon raised to include graduation from a recognized high school or its equivalent. Not satisfied with even this progressive step, twenty-two of the best medi- cal colleges of this country now demand not only a high school degree but proof that the matriculant had attended some reputable uni- versity for at least two years. Rush and Northwestern in our own state are included in this number and one by one the better colleges of the land are advancing their en- trance requirements, in order to stand on the same high level with the best. In truth it may be said that more progress in higher medical education has been made since 1900, than in all of the nineteenth century. This is as it should be, for the demand of the times now calls for men of the highest type, of the most scholarly attainments, and there is now no place in the medical profession for the uneducated and unfit. The trend of progress is ever upward, and it will not be long before every medical student will be required to exhibit proof that he is a graduate of some reputable university or college, and has re- ' ceived his degree before he will be permitted to enter upon his studies in any medical col- lege.
.
Although rapid and effective strides, for the elevation of the medical standard, were made by all the medical colleges of the United States, during the last ten years, we find that the law has not only kept pace with the rapid progress, but has exceeded all requirements of the schools in its demands for higher edu- cation.
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
LATEST REGULATING ACT
Not content with all the amendments made since 1877, the last general assembly placed upon the statute books a law which was ap- proved May 29, and took effect on July I, 19II, the salient features of which are hereby quoted and made a part of this record :
"The State Board of Health shall require that every applicant for a license to practice medicine and surgery in all their branches, in the State of Illinois (excepting only those physicians who may be entitled to a license under section 3a of the Act to which this act is an amendment) shall present :
"I. Proof satisfactory to said board that he is a graduate of a medical college in good standing, as may be determined by the state Board of Health, and
"2. Pass before said board, an examina- tion embracing those general subjects and topics, a knowledge of which is commonly and generally required of candidates for a degree of doctor of medicine, by reputable medical colleges in the United States ;
"3. Provided, that the State Board of Health, may, in its discretion, admit to exam- ination a student who has completed, in a medical college determined in good standing, the course of instruction required by the rules of said board in medical colleges determined in good standing, and who has passed the ex- aminations of said college, but has not re- ceived a diploma ;
"4. Provided, further, that the said medi- cal college shall require as a prerequisite to graduation, a course of study extending over at least five calendar years.
"5. And if said student pass the examina- tions of said board it may issue to him a lim- ited license authorizing him to practice medi- cine and surgery in a hospital approved by said board and in no other place whatsoever in the State of Illinois.
"6. Which limited license shall remain in
effect for a period not exceeding eighteen months from the date thereof, and the State Board of Health may then issue to the appli- cant the regular permanent license of the board without further examination or fee, on the condition that the applicant present a diploma from the medical college in which he had completed a course, as prescribed by the rules of said board, previous to the issu- ance of the limited license hereinbefore men- tioned, and otherwise complies with the re- quirements of the board and with the pro- visions of the Act to which this Act is an amendment."
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