USA > Indiana > A Medical History of the State of Indiana > Part 5
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attack of the disease, and the few deaths in pro- portion to the sick, was a remarkable circum- stance."
THE MEDICAL COLLEGE AT LAPORTE.
Dr. Tompkins Higday, formerly of Laporte, records in the Transactions of 1874, p. 24, some historical facts concerning the Indiana Medical College at Laporte, Ind., from 1842 to 1850, from which the following quotations are made:
"Daniel Meeker, the originator of the college, was born in Schoharie County, New York, Dec. 17, 1806; attended his first course of lectures at Fairfield, N. Y .; graduated at the close of his second year, at Willoughby, Ohio, and located in Laporte in May, 1835. He first organized a spring course of lectures, which was given dur- ing March and April, 1842. A charter for the Laporte University was then secured, and the first regular course of medical lectures began the following autumn, thus :
"Spring Course, Eight Weeks .- Daniel Meeker, M.D., anatomy and surgery. Jacob P. Andrew, M.D., obstetrics and diseases of women and children. Nine matriculates.
"1842-3. The regular courses were sixteen weeks. Daniel Meeker, M.D., anatomy and sur- gery. Franklin Hunt, M.D., materia medica and botany. Jacob P. Andrew, M.D., obstetrics and diseases of women and children. Gustavus A. Rose, M.D., theory and practice. John B. Niles, A.M., chemistry. Thirty matriculates; one grad- uate.
1843-4. The same, except Jacob P. Andrews, M.D., in place of G. A. Rose, M.D., theory and
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practice. Forty-three matriculates; four grad- uates.
"1844-45. Daniel Meeker, M.D., surgery. George W. Richards, M.D., St. Charles, Ill., an- atomy. Moses L. Knapp, M.D., of Chicago, materia medica. Nichols Hard, M.D., of Au- rora, Ill., obstetrics and diseases of women and children. Daniel E. Brown, M.D., Schoolcraft, Mich., theory and practice. John B. Niles, A.M., chemistry. John L. Torrey, M.D., of Elgin, Ill., demonstrator. Sixty-three matriculates; ten graduates.
"1845-6. Daniel Meeker, M.D., anatomy and physiology. Azariah B. Shipman, M.D., of Cortland, N. Y., surgery. Moses L. Knapp, M.D., materia medica. Nicholas Hard, M.D., obstetrics and diseases of women and children. George W. Richards, M.D., theory and practice. John B. Niles, A.M., chemistry. John L. Tor- rey, M.D., demonstrator. Eighty matriculates; 17 graduates.
"1846-7. The same corps of professors. Ninety matriculates ; 20 graduates.
"1847-8. Daniel Meeker, M.D., anatomy and physiology. A. B. Shipman, M.D., surgery. Elizur Deming, M.D., of Lafayette, Ind., materia medica. (The lectures were given by the fac- ulty.) Theory and Practice. Nicholas Hard, M.D., obstetrics and diseases of women and chil- dren. Tompkins Higday, M.D., adjunct profes- sor of anatomy. John B. Niles, A.M,. chemistry. One hundred and one matriculates; 21 grad- uates.
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"1848-9. Daniel Meeker, M.D., anatomy. A. B. Shipman, M.D., surgery. Elizur Deming, M.D., theory and practice. J. Adams Allen, A.M., M.D., Kalamazoo, Mich., materia medica, therapeutics and medical jurisprudence. Nich- olas Hard, M.D., obstetrics and diseases of women and children. T. Higday, M.D., physiol- ogy and general pathology. John B. Niles, A.M., chemistry. George W. Lee, M.D., demonstrator. Ninety-three matriculates; 30 graduates.
"1849-50. Same corps of professors as former years. George W. Lee, M.D., demonstrator. Six- ty-five matriculates; 24 graduates.
"Spring Course at Lafayette, Eight Weeks .- Elizur Deming, M.D., theory and practice. T. Higday, M.D., anatomy and physiology. Daniel Meeker, M.D., surgery. J. Adams Allen, A.M., M.D., materia medica, etc. R. T. Brown, chem- istry. Jos. M. Havens, M.D., demonstrator. Nine matriculates; 4 graduates.
"Many of the graduates of the school have be- come prominent practitioners, a few of whom are Dr. Evans, Evansville, Wis .; Dr. Lee, Shulls- burg, Wis .; Dr. Brown, Madison, Wis .; Dr. Green, Marengo, Ill .; Dr. C. Hard, Aurora, Ill .; Dr. Young, Chicago; and in Indiana, Dr. Humphrey, South Bend; Dr. Butterworth, Mishawaka; Dr. Lomax, Marion; Dr. Austin, Hecla; Dr. Pettijohn, Deming; Dr. Baker, Stockwell; Dr. Webb, Franklin; Dr. Wishard, Greenwood; and Dr. Evarts, of the Insane Asy- lum, Indianapolis. Three of the graduates only, so far as I know, have been elected to professor- ships, viz .: Wells R. Marsh, to the chair of
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chemistry, Keokuk College, Iowa; S. S. Todd, to the chair of theory and practice, Kansas City Medical College, Missouri; and T. Higday, to the chairs of physiology and general pathology, and of anatomy, in the Indiana Medical College, LaPorte, Ind.
"In 1848 the charter was amended, changing the name from "The Medical Department of the Laporte University" to "The Indiana Medical College." The spring course was given at Laf- ayette, at the instance of Dr. Deming, whose ob- ject was to arouse sufficient interest there to en- able him to erect a suitable building, and then have the college transferred from Laporte to Lafayette. Failing in this, he gave two courses in the Medical College at Indianapolis. At his death, I have been informed, he left a work on theory and practice in an advanced state of prep- aration for publication.
"Dr. Meeker gave one course on anatomy at Indianapolis and five at Keokuk, Iowa, after the discontinuance of the Laporte school. Dr. Meeker is a thorough anatomist, a bold, success- ful operator in surgery; a man of iron will, great physical endurance, and withal a firm be- liever in the resurrection of the dead; just the man to start successfully a medical college in a small town.
"'Old Death,' as the students familiarly called him, never failed to keep the dissecting-room abundantly supplied with fresh subjects."
CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY MEDICAL HISTORY OF TERRE HAUTE .- PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST MEDICAL DISTRICT SOCIETY (VINCENNES).
The late Dr. Ezra Read, of Terre Haute, in the Transactions for 1874, p. 45, has given some valuable historical facts of the early history of that city, from which we make the following ex- tracts :
"I settled in Terre Haute in the year 1843, as a practicing physician and surgeon, having been invited here by Dr. Ebenezer Daniels and tendered an equal partnership in his business. I had, at that time, some professional experience, having graduated at the Cincinnati Medical Col- lege (Drake's College) in 1836 and served four years in the military service of Texas - three years as staff surgeon of Gen. Felix Huston and one year as fleet surgeon upon the ship of war Zavalla.
"The prominent physicians of Terre Haute, in the year I settled here, 1843, were Drs. Ebenezer Daniels, Septer Patrick, Edward V. Ball and Azel Holmes.
"Drs. Irish and Brooks were here, young men, and some others not now remembered, but within a few months they sought locations elsewhere. Just prior to that time Dr. John W. Hitchcock had left, having very creditably sustained himself in his profession for several years. He was the
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pupil of Dr. Valentine Mott of New York, was a good surgeon, had professional merit and was recommended to this community by his pre- ceptor; was a brother-in-law of Dr. G. W. Mears of Indianapolis.
"Dr. Daniels was a man of learning; a grad- uate of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- phia; ambitious, industrious and jealous of his rights. He had studied the profession with great care; practiced it with care, and brought to his aid judgment, skill and learning. He was a good surgeon and partial to that branch of the profes- sion. I have rarely seen any one who could more readily bring to light latent difficulties at the bedside, or more skillfully suggest proper reme- dies. It is no disparagement to the most learned physicians of Indiana, at that time, to say that Dr. Daniels was in all respects their equal. He died of pneumonia in 1847, aged about 56 years.
"Dr. Patrick was a kind-hearted, blunt, honest physician, originally from the State of New York; had practiced medicine on the Wabash and in this place until his head was whitened, enjoying the confidence and respect of his med- ical brethren and the entire community; always poor, always industrious and faithful to the sick, and always a good physician. He attended one course of lectures in New York; was a careful observer and, from long practice, was skilled in the diseases of this locality. In the California gold excitement he went there, like many others, only to find the same obstacles he had left be- hind. He died in that state in the year 1858, aged 78 years.
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"Dr. Ball, a native of New Jersey, was an ex- cellent and highly esteemed citizen and a very careful and industrious physician, but lacked confidence in his own judgment and in the cer- tainty of medicine, and was consequently vacil- lating in his opinions and practice. He com- manded the confidence of his patients, and for more than forty years enjoyed a very large prac- tice. He died in the year 1873, aged 73 years.
"Dr. Azel Holmes was born in Herkimer coun- ty, New York, in the year 1804; studied med- icine with the celebrated Dr. Massey, and grad- uated in medicine in one of the New England schools. He enjoyed an extensive practice in this city for several years; had cultivated and care- ful ability; was exact and precise, and a most excellent physician. He went to California in the year 1850 with his brother-in-law, Joseph O. Jones, Esq., of this city, and died in Sacramento City the same year.
"The picture will not be very flattering, to those of pecuniary tastes and desires about enter- ing the profession, when told that many years of toil and drudgery had not given to any of these physicians estates exceeding in value $5,000, Dr. Ball excepted.
"It is due to my dead confréres to say that they were temperate, charitable and exemplary, and in all of their professional obligations scru- pulously exact. As physicians and citizens their lives were without blemish and without stain.
"Dr. Henry D. Lee, a native of Virginia, set- tled, in early times, on a farm ten miles from Terre Haute and near Lockport, this county.
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He was a good physician, without pretension, and at all times commanded the esteem of med- ical men and the universal respect of his neigh- bors. He was a Christian gentleman, and through life was occasionally in the habit of preaching in his own neighborhood and abroad. He died in 1871, aged 66 years, on his birthday.
"Dr. Hamilton, of Prairieton, in this county, was a graduate of one of the Philadelphia schools of medicine, and was eminently fitted, by educa- tion and habit, for a professional position, but died young-in the year 1851.
"I have named all of the prominent medical men in this county thirty years ago, not one of whom now lives. Of all these, I am alone left.
MEDICAL SOCIETIES.
"When I came here I found a medical society in existence which, at one time, had created a good deal of professional interest, but was then languishing and not well attended. Subsequently the society was reorganized and called the Vigo County Medical Society. The society has never excited among its members the interest it should, and generally has been in a sickly condition.
"In the year 1817, the next year after the set- tlement of Terre Haute and five years before that of Indianapolis, a medical society was formed at Vincennes, embracing in territory this and the county of Parke, north of us, or a distance north of Vincennes of ninety miles. Its very first mem- bers were men of distinguished character, and of earnest professional zeal, as may be known from extracts from their original proceedings, the pa-
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pers now on my table and kindly furnished by Mrs. Shuler, the widow of one of its most dis- tinguished members.
"Dr. John W. Davis, of Carlisle, Sullivan county, afterward a member of Congress, speaker of the House of Representatives, minister to China, and governor of Oregon, was one of its early members. But Dr. Lawrence S. Shuler, twice elected president of the society, sent as del- egate to the first state medical society, and a can- didate for Congress when this congressional dis- trict embraced a greater area of territory than one-third of Indiana, deserves more than a pass- ing notice, for his surgical skill has been trans- mitted from sire to son to the present time. He was a native of the State of New York, born in 1790, and was a graduate of the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons, New York. One of his tickets admitting him to lectures is before me, of date 1815; also his diploma, placed at my dis- posal by his excellent wife. The doctor was an earnest, scientific and skillful surgeon. I enclose his own notes of a false joint successfully treated. He operated at one time upon a little girl, aged 11 years, for congenital blindness, with perfect success. The child stayed at his house several months, and when vision was restored, Mrs. Shuler states, she was almost bewildered with joy at the wonders before her. Colors were with difficulty learned, and her friends only known, for a long time by the sound of their voices. 'When her father came for her he was a stranger to her eyes but a father when he spoke. He also re- moved a very large abdominal tumor from a lady
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in the seventh month of gestation. She recov- ered, gave birth to a healthy child, and is still living near Vincennes.
"I have repeatedly heard medical men, con- temporaneous with the doctor, speak of this oper- ation as meritorious and capital, but have not heard its character described, except that it was within the abdominal cavity and was considered hazardous and difficult. For several years he commanded the surgery of a very large scope of the country, and I have no doubt was eminently and justly entitled to it. He was father of the warden of the State Penitentiary at Jefferson- ville, and brother-in-law of our worthy citizen, N. F. Cunningham, former state treasurer. Dr. Shuler practiced medicine in this city four or five years prior to his death, which took place in Vincennes in 1827 while on a visit there for a change and health, aged 37 years. He contracted a cold from exposure in visiting Indianapolis the previous winter, which settled on his lungs and terminated in consumption. Dr. Shuler trans- ferred the Vincennes First District Society to this place when he came here, in 1822 or 1823, and kept it in a flourishing condition during his life.
"Dr. Charles B. Modesett was one of the earli- est, if not the first, physician who settled on Fort Harrison Prairie, the prairie on which Terre Haute is located. At that early day the Indians greatly exceeded the whites in numbers and, for safety, most persons settled at or near Fort Harrison, then a military post, three miles north of Terre Haute, the Indians having re-
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cently been hostile and in the interest or service of the British Government .. Dr. Modesett was born in Prince William county, Virginia, in the year 1784, and graduated at Prince William Col- lege in his twenty-fourth year, about the year 1808; moved to Ohio, near Cincinnati, in 1814, and to Fort Harrison in 1816. He attended the first sale of lots in Terre Haute in that year, and shortly afterward built one of the first log houses in the new town and commenced the practice of medicine. He died in January, 1848, aged 64 years. Dr. Modesett was, in manners, a courtly, dignified Virginia gentleman, and in all his intercourse with the pioneer settlers never lost sight of his self-respect and polite manners. He was a diligent and faithful physician, enjoyed an extensive practice, and deservedly ranked with the most eminent of the profession in western Indiana.
"Dr. William Clark, a military surgeon at Fort Harrison, practiced medicine among the early settlers for a few years, and moved somewhere near Eugene, on the Wabash, about the . year 1824.
"Dr. Aspinwall, from the State of New York, settled here in 1817 and died in 1824.
"Dr. Hotchkiss, from Connecticut, came here in the year 1822 and died in 1830; and Dr. Turnce, from the same state, came in 1822 and died in 1832.
"All of these physicians are highly spoken of by the early settlers as skilled in the profession, industrious and of good habits. Most of these young men had been well educated in the eastern
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states; were enterprising and hopeful, and came to a new country to toil for a few years and die.
"All of the above-named physicians belonged to the First District Medical Society at Vin- cennes or Terre Haute.
"I have thus completed, as well as I could with the material at my disposal, this imperfect sketch of the pioneer physicians of this part of the Wa- bash. It is the only attempt known to me of preserving even their names as a class.
COPY FROM ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST MEDICAL DISTRICT SOCIETY, INDIANA
"Vincennes, June 2, 1817 .- In conformity to an act of the Legislature, passed the 24th day of December, 1816, entitled an "Act to Regulate the Practice of Physic and Surgery," the follow- ing censors appointed by said act met at the house of Peter Jones, in the town of Vincennes, on the first Monday in June, 1817, viz .: Elias McNamee, Jacob Key Kendall, David M. Hale and Thomas Polke, secretary. Board adjourned until 6 o'clock p. m. the same day.
"Board met pursuant to adjournment and proceeded to an examination of Wm. C. Whit- tlesey, Philip Barton, William Clark, Lawrence S. Shuler and John L. Mccullough for the prac- tice of physic and surgery. Ordered that the same be licensed. Board adjourned until June 3, at 3 o'clock p. m., at the house of C. Graeter, Vincennes.
"At this meeting, June 3, 1817, on motion, it was
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"Resolved, That the medical censors and li- censed physicians of the First Medical District proceed, according to law, to organize the board for said district.
"On balloting for officers for the board Elias McNamee was duly elected president; L. S. Shuler, secretary ; David M. Hale, treasurer, and Key Kendall, Shuler, Barton, Polke and McCul- Jough, censors.
"At a meeting of this medical organization at Vincennes, May, 1818, on motion, it was
"Resolved, That discretionary power be given to the president to appoint three persons on be- half of this board, to meet delegates appointed by the other district societies, at such time and place as shall be agreed upon for the formation of a State Medical Society.
"This is probably the first organization in the State of Indiana for the purpose of forming a state medical society. At this meeting 'a letter from Dr. Lyman Spalding, of New York, was read and laid before the board.' At a subse- quent meeting of the society in November, 1818, Dr. Hale presented a letter from Dr. Lyman Spaulding, of New York, together with a circu- lar letter from the corresponding committee, of New York, relative to a National Pharmacopeia, which was, on motion, approved.
"To beginnings like these we are indebted for our present U. S. Dispensatory. We can scarcely appreciate our obligations to these noble and thoughtful pioneers of medicine, laboring among poor backwoodsmen in a sparsely settled country on the verge of civilization.
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"The proceedings of the First District Medical Society show an earnest and honest determina- tion to protect the purity of the profession and the lives of the community by rejecting candi- dates unfitted or unprepared to practice medi- cine, and by pursuing legal means to suppress quackery. At the semi-annual meeting at Vin- cennes, May, 1819, two candidates were presented for examination and membership rejected. At this meeting, on motion, it was
"Resolved, That two delegates be chosen to meet in convention with delegates from the other district societies for the purpose of forming a State Medical Society, and to hold such corre- spondence with the members of the district board as they may think proper in order to form the said society. On counting the ballots it appeared that L. S. Shuler and Philip Barton were elected delegates.
"On motion,
"Resolved, That Elias McNamee, L. S. Shuler, Hiram Decker, Philip Barton and William Whit- tlesey be a committee to choose a delegate to meet in convention for the purpose of forming a District Pharmacopeia, and for a general cor- responding committee.
"On motion,
"Resolved, That the corresponding committee be instructed to accept (if in their opinion it should be expedient) the proposals of Dr. J. Smith, United States agent for vaccination, for establishing a National Vaccine Institution.
"On motion of Dr. Shuler, it was
"Resolved, That the constitution be amended by the addition of the following article, 'No per- son shall be admitted to an examination before
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the medical censors without producing satisfac- tory evidence of having studied physic and sur- gery for the full term of three years.'
"Resolved, That it shall be the duty of the sec- retary to pursue such measures as may be neces- sary to carry into effect the law regulating the practice of physic and present to the Grand Jury, or to the prosecuting attorney of each county in the district, all unlicensed practitioners of med- icine.
"But few medical societies anywhere can show · a reference to so many important matters as were acted upon at this meeting. This society was the 'Mecca' at whose shrine, in spring-time and in autumn, the professional pioneers of our state came from the hamlet, from the prairie, and from the shadowy and lonely forest, to offer their devotions to medicine and kindred sciences. The paths leading hither were untrodden. They were long and weary, but at the end their noble pur- poses were strengthened and their faith and knowledge renewed. I personally knew Dr. Jo- seph Hopkins, of Illinois, long an eminent and useful practitioner of medicine in that state, who was a member of this society and regularly at- tended its meetings, although to do so he had to ride 100 miles on horseback."
FALSE JOINT-BY DR. L. S. SHULER.
"Jonathan Rathbone, aged 28 years, had his humerus fractured, near the middle, in Febru- ary, 1822. Nine months afterward no union had
* Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society. 1874, p. 57. Besides the historical interest of this case, it possesses a surgical significance of value. Dr. Read has mentioned several other interesting surgical operations per- formed by Dr. Shuler .- G. W. H. K.
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taken place. His surgeon advised sawing off the ends of the fractured portions. I was called upon to perform the operation. The fracture was oblique, a sharp point of the lower portion pro- jecting upward, near the biceps muscle, and ap- parently in contact with the integuments. The space between the broken ends was at least half an inch, filled with a fleshy or elastic substance. No exertions could extricate the oblique point from its position in the muscles or bring the bones in complete apposition. I advised the plan of Dr. Physick, and while passing the seton needle, to practice the suggestions of Charles Bell, to cut and break the callus of the broken bones. A strong needle, nine inches long, its point for three inches shaped like a common lan- cet but not sharp, with an eye sufficiently large to admit a couple of skeins of silk (the space be- tween the flattened part of the needle's eye was round), was used to perform the operation. An incision was made through the integuments with a scalpel immediately over the projecting point of bone; the needle was introduced, and was freely and forcibly pushed in different directions so as to completely disorganize the structure be- tween and on the ends of the bones. The seton shortly produced a very free discharge, but the patient, receiving no benefit, withdrew it at the end of five months. Both the patient and the at- tending surgeon had reluctantly consented to the operation, consequently but little attention was paid to the arm. It had, during the larger part of the time that the seton remained, been suf- ered to swing, not being retained in its place as in case of recent fracture. Two months after removing the seton, the patient observed that the motion at the false joint was not as free and ex-
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tensive as formerly, which induced him to retain the arm in its natural position by splints and bandages, and, in some seven or eight weeks after, a complete union was formed.
"This case, while it proves the value of the practice, which originated with our celebrated countryman, Dr. Physick, likewise furnishes us with reason to believe that the suggestions of Mr. Bell, to cut and penetrate the ends of the bones, may assist in performing a cure in cases where the seton alone would fail, and that in all cases it would hasten the process. Another fact of no less importance is that the continuance of the seton may succeed at a much greater length of time than has been usually practiced."
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