Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 70

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes > Part 70

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languages, he bent his entire energies to in- vestigations in his favorite department. As a means of furthering the objects of his very earnest pursuit after surgical knowledge, he concluded to avail himself of the advantages of a winter's dissection and clinical observa- tion at Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- phia, where the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon him in the spring of 1836. Rapidly attaining a reputation throughout the length and breadth of Indiana which might satisfy the most vaulting ambition, he was tendered by the trustees of Asbury Uni- versity a chair in the medical department of that institution, then about being established at Indianapolis. The position was accepted. "How well he acquitted himself in his new relations has been well stated by the late Hon. J. W. Gordon, one of his former students who long enjoyed his most intimate friend- ship. To quote his exact language, he says : 'I made the acquaintance of Professor Bobbs during the winter of 1850. He was then pro- fessor of surgery in the Indiana Central Medical College and dean of the faculty. I was a member of the class and, while making all due allowance for the partiality likely to arise in my mind from the relation between us as professor and student, I believe I but express the judgment of a fair and just ap- preciation of his lectures and operations be- fore his class, when I say, that in both respects he was fully up to the highest standards of the profession. His description of healthy and diseased action and the changes from the one to the other have never been surpassed in point of clearness, accuracy, graphic force and eloquence. All that is possible for words to accomplish in bringing before the mind those great changes upon which health or disease, life of death depend, was effected by him in his lectures. The student who did not carry away in his memory such a portrait of each disease described by the professor as to be able to detect the original when presented for examination, must have lacked some men- tal endowment essential for success in his pro- fession. Nor was he less remarkable for self- possession, steadiness, rapidity and accuracy in the use of the knife. No man ever saw his hand tremble or his cheek lose its color, in the presence of the most terrible complica- tions attendant upon great and dangerous operations. But his self-control on such oc- casions was never the result either of igno- rance or indifference to the consequence threatened and imminent in such cases, for he combined the clearest insight with the most thorough knowledge of the situation in which he was placed, and with a tender sensi-

bility almost feminine in its character, felt every pang which disease or his efforts to re- move it inflicted upon his patient. Shallow observers, incapable of penetrating through the mask which his stern self-command held up between them and his profound soul of love and pity, often pronounced him harsh and insensible to human suffering. Nor did he ever stop in the high career of duty to correct their unjust judgments, satisfied that it is better to "feel another's woe," and labor effectually to relieve it, than to receive the applause of the multitude for services never rendered, and pity never felt for the suffer- ing children of men. He scorned to seem, but labored to be a true benefactor of man- kind. Such was the impression of the man, which I carried away with me at the close of the term in the spring of 1851; and an inti- mate acquaintance of nearly twenty subse- quent years never presented a single fact or ground to lead me to doubt its entire ac- curacy.'

"He always held his profession sacred, high above all trickery and quackery, and labored with incessant diligence to place it in public estimation upon the same- footing it held in his own. regard. The most earnest and elo- quent words that I have ever heard came from his heart and lips, when urging upon the minds of his classes the duty of fidelity to the cause of scientific medicine. In that duty he was ever faithful even to the moment of his death, and left his brethren, both in his words and deeds, a lesson they should never forget, to be true to the great field of truth and duty committed to their culture. To the poor and needy he was always wisely kind and beneficent. When called upon pro- fessionally to attend the sick of this class, he was known in innumerable instances to fur- nish, besides gratuitous service and necessary medicine, the means of life during their ill- ness. The great beauty of his character in this respect was that his charities were always rendered without display or ostentation. Many illustrations of this are worthy of record: One pathetic instance of this is re- lated by a resident physician, who invited the professor, not long before his death, to a consultation in the country. Returning from the object of their visit, the doctor was hailed by a person from a cabin on the wayside, and requested to see a sick child. Discovering that the case was a bad one, he slipped to the door and asked the professor to see it. Hav- ing examined the patient he returned to his carriage, leaving the doctor to make out his prescription. As the latter approached the carriage, he said to him: 'Doctor, this child

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

is going to die, and the poor woman will not have wherewith to bury it.' Withdrawing his hand from his pocket, and presenting it with the palm downward, as if to conceal from the left what the right hand was doing, he dropped into the extended hand of the narrator a ten-dollar gold piece. 'Give that,' he said, 'to the widow; it will comfort her in the approaching extremity.' In this phar- isaic age, it is indeed refreshing to find in- stances of unobtrusive charity which tell of the exercise of that noble virtue without pub- lic demonstration. He was a model friend .: He saw the real character of all whom he admitted to his intimacy, and while to all the outside world he faithfully hid their faults, he candidly and fully presented them to him whose character they marred. This duty, the highest and most delicate and difficult of all, the duties of friendship and of love, owed by man to man, he had the good sense, discrim- ination and tact, to perform always without insulting or wounding his friends. He was superior to all dissimulation, and spoke the truth with such frankness and earnestness that it was impossible to take offense at it. His friendships all stood upon a higher plane than any mere selfish interest. He accepted or rejected men as friends for their manhood, or want of it. The personal or social trap- pings and circumstances of men neither at- tracted nor repelled him. He felt and knew that

'The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that.'

And selected his friends not for the image and superscription which family or position had impressed upon them, but for the orig- inal metal. So selected, he grappled them with hooks of steel, and never gave them up until they had shown, by some violation of principle, that they were unworthy of his re- gard. He discriminated wisely the faults that proceeded from impulse and enthusiasm from those that grew out of calculation and self-interest. To the former he was as kind and forgiving as a mother to the faults of her child. The latter he never forgave.

"For a short time he engaged in politics ; not, however, as a matter of choice, but from a sense of duty. He carried with him in the political arena the same thorough and ex- haustive preparation, the same scrupulous re- gard for truth and fair dealing, the same se- vere devotion to reason, and the same lofty and fiery eloquence that lent such a charm to his professional address. It is almost need- less to say that in this episode of his life he met the obligations of his position and per-

formed them so as to win the confidence and approbation of his constituents. Dr. Bobbs was a man of the highest and coolest courage. Nothing could daunt him. During the first campaign of the Civil War in West Virginia, he accompanied the command of General Morris, and on one occasion, while the army was engaged in irregular skirmishing with the enemy in the woods that lay between the lines at Laurel Hill, he accompanied the skirmishers to the front. There being no regular line maintained on either side, every man acted pretty much upon the suggestion of his own inclination. In this way one young soldier got far in advance of the rest and thus isolated was fatally shot by one of the enemy. His screams when struck created a momentary panic in those who were near- est him, and they all started on a precipitate retreat. Dr. Bobbs was near and promptly stopped the retreat, led the party to the spot whence the screams had come, and brought off the remains of the young man who was found dead. Throughout the entire af- fair he bore himself as a veteran and won the admiration of the entire party which he led to the rescue. He was a man of indefatig- able industry. Up to the period of his death he was a devoted student, laboring at his books as few men work. With a slender con- stitution at best, and a system worn down by disease contracted in the army, he labored in- cessantly. Hia days were given to the duties of an ardent surgical practice, his nights spent almost wholly in his library, the ar- senal'a morning gun very frequently sum- moned him to the few hours of repose al- lowed himself." Nothing daunted by his en- feebled health, Dr. Bobbs did not hesitate to enter with his usual spirits into the project of a new medical school in his city, giving to the enterprise the prestige of his high reputa- tion, and to the faculty the aid of his dis- tinguished ability as a teacher. The very able and conclusive manner in his inaugural address before the Indiana State Medical So- ciety (three years previous) in which he com- bated the arguments directed against the establishment in his state of a journal and a school in the interest of medical progress, and the very liberal bequest to the college his efforts had contributed so largely to found are among the numerous proofs he has left be- hind of his loyalty to legitimate medicine and earnest zeal in the cause of a science he so much loved, and to the advancement of which he had devoted his short but active and use- ful life. Dr. Bobbs was appointed by Gover- nor Morton during the Rebellion as an agent for his state and in this capacity he visited

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the soldiers of Indiana in fields and hospitals and had supervision of their medical and surgical treatment, and did valuable service in looking after their general welfare. As has been mentioned, he was the professor of surgery in the first medical college organized in Indiana. He was a forcible writer on all questions that engaged his attention and wrote much on professional and public sub- jects both in newspapers and medical jour- nals. In all public movements affecting the interest of his city, whether concerning him professionally or not, he was always active and effective. He was an adroit and thor- ough politician, as well as a skillful and ac- complished physician. He was the first sur- geon to perform the operation of cholecyst- otomy.

The account given by Dr. Kemper derived from the "Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society for 1868," should be noted in this connection as affording not only the initial step, but the earliest result on record of the fulfilment of a radical measure for the relief of occlusion of the gall bladder, and serves as an illustration of the practical in- sight gained by this successful operative pro- cedure of Dr. Bobbs. "His patient was a lady thirty years of age. The growth of the gall bladder had been gradual for about four years. The true nature of the enlargement was in doubt, prior to the operation, but the patient insisted upon operative measures. Accordingly, on June 15, 1867, assisted by a number of medical gentlemen, Dr. Bobbs per- formed the operation as follows: An explor- atory incision was made through the abdom- inal wall, extending from the umbilicus to the pubis. This revealed extensive adhesions of the omentum to the adjacent tissues. The in- cision was then extended two and a half centimeters above the umbilicus and laterly over the most prominent point of the tumor. Tearing through the adhesions with his fin- gers he reached a sack about thirteen centi- meters long and five centimeters in diamter evidently containing a pellucid fluid. As no pedicle could be discovered, the lower point of the sac was incised, 'when a perfectly lim- pid fluid escaped, propelling with consider- able force several solid bodies about the size of ordinary rifle bullets.' The gall bladder was thus emptied, the incision in its walls stitched, and the end cut closely and returned into the abdominal cavity. The external wound was properly closed. Her recovery was rapid without an untoward symptom. In four weeks she was able to ride out." Refer- ring to this case, Dr. Kemper, in Woods' "Reference Hand-book of the Medical Sci-

ences" (Vol. II, p. 118), says: "When the operation of cholecystotomy shall have been placed on a firm and scientific basis, and recognized and acknowledged by our profes- sion-as assuredly it will-and its literature fully considered, the luster of no name on its roll shall exceed that of Dr. Bobbs." In his recent address before the New York State Medical Society, Dr. D. F. Dennis, speaking of the operation under consideration, gives full credit to the subject of this sketch for having first performed it, and several times of late in historical addresses the same credit has been given, and the fact is now well es- tablished and understood. Referring to this case, Dr. Gaston writes: "Though not a pre- meditated cholecystotomy, it serves to guide us in similar proceedings, authorizing in suit- able cases the suturing of the opening in the gall bladder separately from the abdominal wall and dropping it back into the abdominal cavity. With a practical outlook as it is at present. we can glance back to the illusions of Sharke, Goode, Black, Morgagni, Andre, Petit and Morand as paving the way to the more precise suggestions of Thudicum, Daly and Maunder, which preceded the perform- ance of the first cholecystotomy in due form by Bobbs."

Dr. Bobbs was married in 1840 to Miss Catherine Cameron, a sister of the Hon. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bobbs has left the record of a life fragrant with kindly deeds and memorable for its useful- ness. He bequeathed $2,000 to establish the Bobbs Dispensary for the benefit of the suf- fering poor of Indianapolis, managed by the faculty of the Medical College of Indiana. He also founded the Bobbs Library, which is under the same direction and contains the most valuable collection of medical works in the state.

HENRY WARRUM, a native son of the Hoo- sier state, a member of one of its sterling pioneer families, a well known and popular citizen of Indianapolis, has attained to no equivocal prestige as one of the able and rep- resentative members of the bar of the capital city and he has also been a resourceful and potent factor in connection with the manœu- vering of political forces, being a stalwart in the camp of the Democratic party and hav- ing effectively championed its cause as a pub- lic speaker in this and other states. He gave an able administration of the office of city attorney of Indianapolis, of which position he was incumbent for two years, and hé has been prominently identified with much im- portant litigation in both the State and Fed- eral courts.

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

Henry Warrum was born on the old home- stead farm of the family, in Jackson Town- ship, Hancock County, Indiana, four miles east of the City of Greenfield, and the date of his nativity was June 19, 1867. He was the second in order of birth of the four children of Noble and Anna M. (Wood) Warrum, the former a native of Wayne County, Indiana, and the latter of Virginia. Noble Warrum was one of the early settlers of Hancock County, where he developed a valuable farm and became a citizen of prominence and in- fluence, having several times represented his county in the lower house of the state legis- lature and having also served in various offi- ces of local trust and responsibility, indicat- ing the high regard in which he was held in his community. His wife was a representa- tive of an old and honored Virginia family, being a lineal descendant of Patrick Henry's sister Lucy, who married Valentine Wood, a gallant colonel in the Continental line during the War of the Revolution. The paternal grandmother of the subject of this review was Edith (Butler) Warrum, a member of the stanch old Butler family of South Carolina, long prominent in the Society of Friends, both in that state and in Indiana. Noble Warrum and his devoted wife continued to reside in Hancock County until their death, and their names are inscribed on the roll of the honored pioneers of that section of the state.

Henry Warrum paid due fealty to the great basic art of agriculture during his boy- hood and early youth, and his preliminary educational discipline was received in the dis- trict school near the old homestead farm. In 1885 he was matriculated in De Pauw Uni- versity, at Greencastle, Indiana, in which in- stitution he completed the work of his sopho- more year, after which he began his prepara- tion for the legal profession, pursuing his atudies for some time under effective private preceptorship and then entering the law de- partment of the celebrated University of Michigan, in which he. continued his tech- nical studies during the collegiate year of 1887-8. In the latter year he was duly ad- mitted to the bar of his native state and his novitiate in the practical work of his profes- sion was served in the City of Greenfield, where he continued in practice until 1893. when he removed to Indianapolis, where he has since continued in practice and where he has gained distinctive success and precedence as an able and versatile advocate and well fortified counselor. In 1896 Mr. Warrum re- ceived the nomination on the Democratic ticket for the office of reporter of the Su-

preme Court of Indiana, and two years later he was the party candidate for the position of clerk of this tribunal. In the latter year he made a vigorous and state-wide campaign, but he met with defeat, as in the former elec- tion, the Republican victories having been de- cisive in Indiana in both of these elections. In 1903 Mayor John W. Holtzman appointed Mr. Warrum city attorney, and in this office the latter did much important legal work for the city. He drafted the track-elevation stat- ute and thus inaugurated the greatly needed improvement providing for the elevation of railroad tracks at grade crossings in the City of Indianapolis. He also drafted the ordi- nance granting a municipal franchise to a company for the furnishing of gas at the rate of sixty cents a thousand feet and success- fully handled the important litigation in- cidental thereto. This franchise provides for municipal control and ultimate ownership of the gas plant and has been a subject of considerable comment throughout the coun- try. In his private practice, to which he has devoted his attention since his retirement from the office of city attorney, Mr. Warrum retains a large and representative clientage, and he is recognized as one of the able and valued members of the bar of the capital city.

The services of Mr. Warrum as a cam- paign speaker have been in requisition in the various national campaigns of late years, especially that of 1908, when he did much active work on the stump in a num- ber of the western states, as well as. in In- diana. He is a forceful and interesting pub- lic speaker, utilizing a graceful and classical diction, and he has done no little work on the lecture platform, especially in the delivering of his effective lecture on the life and works of Robert Burns. He has fine literary taste and discrimination, and has read widely and with marked appreciation. In the time-hon- ored Masonic. fraternity Mr. Warrum has at- tained to the thirty-second degree of the An- cient Accepted Scottish Rite, and he is also identified with the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in which his affiliation is with Murat Temple, in Indianapolis.

On the 23rd of April, 1889, Mr. Warrum was united in marriage to Miss Mary E. Mattler, daughter of Stephen Mattler, of In- dianapolis, Indiana, and they have one child, Helen, who is one of the popular young ladies in the social circles of the capital city.

THOMAS C. DAY, who for some time has been at the head of a prosperous business con- sisting of the loaning of money on farm lands in Indiana and other states, was long known

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

throughout the state as an energetic and prom- inent man in financial circles as well as in religious and charitable enterprises. He is also well known for his leadership in the Y. M. C. A. of Indianapolis. Mr. Day is an English- man of pure stock, born February 28, 1844, to Thomas and Mary A. (Gould) Day. His ancestors were prominent manufacturers of Devonshire, and owners of the famous Stoke Mills. For twelve years Thomas Day, the father, was connected with a widely known grocery house of H. H. and S. Budgett & Com- pany of Bristol and London, England, rising from an inferior position to the head of its spice department. In 1848 he brought his family to the United States and settled near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but urged by the Wis- consin Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to take the step, he abandoned all busi- ness and entered the ministry of that denom- ination. He was very successful as an or- ganizer and church builder. Retiring from the ministry, he died at Indianapolis, at the age of ninety-three.

Thomas C. entered the preparatory depart- ment of the Hamline University then located at Red Wing, Minnesota, and was making good progress in his studies when overtaken by the financial crisis of 1857-8 which swept away his father's property and forced the youth to be- come self-supporting. He therefore com- menced to teach in connection with his studies, and had completed his freshman year when he was obliged to abandon all hopes for a higher education. At this period of his life his only brother enlisted in the Civil War and he him- self was very desirous of entering the Union army, but as his health was delicate his parents dissuaded him from doing so. Later with the outbreak of the Sioux War in the northwest, young Day joined the United States cavalry and served in that.branch of the service until the conclusion of the Indian troubles. At the age of nineteen he was sent to England by a Hartford, Connecticuit, publishing house, and after remaining in the mother country for one year returned to the United States to engage in the life insurance business. In this field his success was prompt and decided, and it was not long before he was acting as state agent for Minnesota and Northern Iowa for the Aetna Life Insurance Company. At the latter date he and his brother formed a part- nership, receiving the appointment of general agents for Minnesota, Wisconsin and Northern Towa. In 1872 Thomas C. was placed in charge of the Chicago office of the Aetna Com- pany, which agency included the northern half of Indiana. While residing in Minnesota he had induced the Aetna Life Insurance Com-

pany to make certain loans upon farm lands. This venture resulted so favorably in that state that Mr. Day was induced to establish the same line of business in the State of Indiana. In 1877 he located at Indianapolis and has since given his entire business attention to the loan- ing of money upon agricultural lands and city properties in various states. In 1882 he formed a partnership with William C. Griffith, and the business was thereafter conducted under the name of Thomas C. Day and Company un- til its dissolution by the death of Mr. Griffith in January, 1892. It has since been conducted under the style of Thomas C. Day and Com- pany, Mr. George W. Wishard and William E. Day, a son of Thomas C. Day, being the other partners in the firm.

Since coming to Indianapolis Mr. Day has been active both in religious and charitable work. For years he has been a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church of that city and his faithful and effective labors in the Y. M. C. A. of Indianapolis have been highly ap- preciated by his associates and the general pub- lic. For three years he served as president of the local association and for another two years was at the head of the Boys' Club. Mr. Day was a vigorous advocate of a Compulsory Edu- cation Law, and, as a member of the commit- tee having in charge a bill for that purpose, advocated its passage before the general as- sembly of 1896-7. He was also a persistent advocate of a Juvenile Court for Marion Coun- ty and took an active part in pushing the passage of the hill introduced in the legisla- ture of 1902-3 which resulted in the present law in force in Indiana. Mr. Day also served as chairman of the general committee which prepared the present school law of Indianapolis. Besides his business connections already noted Mr. Day was a charter member of the Com- mercial Club and one of the organizers, and has long been a director and member of the executive committee of the Union Trust Com- pany of Indianapolis. On February 10, 1873, he was united in marriage to Miss Katharine Huntington, daughter of the late Rev. William P. Huntington, and their five children are Florence, Dwight Huntington, William Ed- wards, Frederick Huntington and Helen Hunt- ington. All the members of the family are well known in social circles of Indianapolis, New York, and Hartford, Connecticut.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 70

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 972

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972