USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 51
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Minot and Murphy, working with the diets which seemed to be most efficacious in the treatment of pernicious anemia, with a knowledge of the rôle played by food in curing patients afflicted with certain diseases having much in common with this blood disease, tried a diet rich in mammalian liver and containing also liberal amounts of muscle meat, green vege- tables and fruit, but with little fat. Their first investigations showed that 105 cases treated on such a diet-the liver being raw, cooked in one of twenty different ways, or administered as a liver extract in fluid or powder form-showed a marked increase in the number of red corpuscles, more than had been observed following any previous form of treatment. The symptoms, excepting those caused by degeneration of the spinal cord, were much alleviated. Those who have followed this diet for from one to two years have remained in good health. The results have been confirmed by others. The treatment is now in use all over the civilized world.
SOME PROMINENT DOCTORS
Mention should be made of the pioneer ovariotomists of Massachusetts, those who relieved women of immense tumors before the days when asepsis made operations safe. The best known were Walter Burnham and Gilman Kimball of Lowell and John Homans of Boston. Walter Burnham (1808-1883), a graduate of the University of Vermont in 1829, removed
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PROMINENT DOCTORS
his first ovarian tumor in 1851, and in the next thirty-one years performed the operation about three hundred times with a mortality of 25 per cent.
Gilman Kimball (1804-1892) a graduate of Dartmouth, began to operate in 1855, at a time when the profession thought him too daring. He relieved many women from long suffering even though his mortality was much higher than today-it is now about 2 per cent. John Homans (1836- 1903), an army surgeon, operating in the beginning of the aseptic period, did 500 operations on ovarian and uterine tumors between the years 1872 and 1900, besides giving in- struction to a large number of the rising surgeons of his time.
Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890), the leading surgeon of New England during his lifetime,-he who was present at the first etherization,-was a picturesque member of the Boston profession. He was a son of the eminent Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879), physician, botanist and originator of Mount Auburn cemetery. Henry went abroad to study medicine when he had received his M.D. from Harvard, and returning with a thousand dollars worth of instruments, drove rapidly through the streets of staid Boston in a gaily decked carriage, the horses caparisoned in the latest European harnesses. He established a private dispensary, and challenged attention by his distinguished looking figure and manner of holding him- self. He dominated medicine both at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was visiting surgeon, and at Har- vard Medical School as professor of surgery from 1849 to 1882.
1
Bigelow's retirement was due to one of a group of clashes between the professional schools of Harvard University and the new president, Charles William Eliot, who took office in 1869. Eliot ruled that, being president of the University, he was head of each component faculty. He favored new and progressive policies, and Dr. Bigelow had to go, but he had made several important medical discoveries. He had discovered the so-called Y-ligament of the capsule of the hip joint, and had showed how it controlled the reduction of dis- locations of this joint ; he devised a method of crushing stone in the bladder and of removing the fragments, all at one
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MEDICINE
sitting. He was a clever inventor, a brilliant operator and a good teacher.
Another important teacher of surgery in the latter part of the nineteenth century was the successor to Bigelow, David Williams Cheever (1831-1915), surgeon to the Boston City Hospital. The opposite of Bigelow in temperament, of puri- tanical aspect and behavior, he was possessed of rare surgical sagacity, was a bold operator and a teacher beloved by his pupils. He was sententious; he used the right word in the right place.
In more recent time, Maurice Howe Richardson (1851- 1912) was perhaps Boston's most active surgeon. A native of Athol, he went to Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, graduating from the latter in 1877. He spent many years in the dissecting room of the school as demonstrator of anatomy, and then as surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Early in his career he opened a man's stomach and extracted a set of false teeth from his gullet, the man making a good recovery. The newspapers got hold of this unusual surgical feat and Richardson was a marked man. Soon after Fitz's paper on appendicitis, Richardson began to operate for this disease; by 1898, his cases numbered 757. He wrote much, especially on abdominal surgery. He was a hard worker, and his genial personality and charitable temper made him welcome at many social functions.
Charles Sedgwick Minot (1852-1914) made investigations in the laboratories of Harvard and wrote a textbook on embryology that gave him an international reputation. Henry Pickering Bowditch (1840-1911), professor of physiology, established at Harvard Medical School in 1871 the first laboratory in America for the teaching of that subject. He championed the cause of medical research and proved the tirelessness of nerve structure. Walter Bradford Cannon, successor to Bowditch in the chair of physiology, has shown that the ductless glands take possession of the body under the influence of fear and anger. Theobald Smith, Professor of Comparative Pathology (1896-1915), worked out the dis- tinction between the tubercle bacillus of animals and of man, and by brilliant methods of research discovered the cause of Texas fever among cattle, a discovery which added millions
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to the wealth of the Southwest. Otto Folin, medical chemist, has furnished many important articles on urine analysis and blood analysis. James Gregory Mumford (1863-1914), surgeon, wrote on medical subjects and the history of medicine for the public. Harvey Cushing has done much to advance the surgery of the brain. His Life of Sir William Osler, which was issued from the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1925, has been one of the outstanding biographies of the time.
This list might be increased by the names and achievements of scores of men and an increasing number of women, who have extended the bounds of medical knowledge, have worked out remedies by the severe processes of laboratory and clinical tests, and have perfected medical and surgical technique. The medical profession of Massachusetts may claim that it has given to the world the discovery of the cause of puerperal fever, the supreme blessing of surgical anesthesia, the dis- covery of appendicitis and its proper treatment. The phys- icians of the Commonwealth brought about the establishment of the first State Board of Health and the first sanatorium for the care of tuberculosis in the United States, not to mention the medical examiner system in place of incompetent coroners. Moreover they were pioneers in social service and hospital standardization, they improved the established treat- ment of diabetes and made a previously fatal disease, perni- cious anemia, curable by the liver diet. During three cen- turies it has been the glory of the profession that it has been ever ready to learn new methods, to develop fresh lines of investigation and above all to perceive, through the agency of an adequate medical library, and to apply the discoveries from all over the medical world. Massachusetts medicine has been progressive, it has been national and it has been world-wide.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boston Medical & Surgical Journal (1828 and later years).
BRADFORD, WILLIAM .- History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1912)-Edited by W. C. Ford. Several other editions.
BOWDITCH, HENRY PICKERING .- "Growth of Children" (MASSACHUSETTS : STATE BOARD OF HEALTH .- Eighth Annual Report, Boston, 1877)-See pp. 275-326.
BOWDITCH, HENRY PICKERING .- "The Growth of Children, a Supplementary Investigation. With Suggestions in Regard to Methods of Research"
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MEDICINE
(MASSACHUSETTS : STATE BOARD OF HEALTH .- Tenth Annual Report, Boston, 1879)-See pp. 35-62. Also published separately.
BURRAGE, WALTER LINCOLN .- A History of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 1781-1922 (Privately printed, Norwood, Mass., 1923).
The Commonwealth (1913 and later)-For a series of articles on the con- trol of cancer by the State of Massachusetts see Vol. XIV, pp. 39-54. FARLOW, JOHN WOODFORD .- The History of the Boston Medical Library (Privately printed, Norwood, Mass., 1918).
GARRISON, FIELDING HUDSON .- An Introduction to the History of Medicine (Phila., Saunders, 1924). Fourth Edition, 1929.
HARRINGTON, THOMAS FRANCIS .- The Harvard Medical School, a History, Narrative and Documentary. 1782-1905 (N. Y., Lewis, 1905).
HARVARD UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATON .- Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates (Cambridge, 1890 and later years).
HARVARD UNIVERSITY : CANCER COMMISSION .- Annual Report of the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research and of the Laboratory of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University (Bos- ton, 1913 and later years).
HAYWARD, GEORGE .- "Some Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation in Surgical Practice" (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1847, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 229-234).
HODGES, RICHARD MANNING .- A Narrative of Events Connected with the Introduction of Sulphuric Ether into Surgical Use (Boston, Little, Brown, 1891).
Journal of American Medical Association (Chicago, 1883- )-See especially the Hospital Number of March 29, 1930, Vol. XCIX, with hospital statistics of the United States.
KELLY, HOWARD ATWOOD, and BURRAGE, WALTER LINCOLN-Dictionary of American Medical Biography, N. Y., Appleton, 1928.
LEARY, TIMOTHY .- "The Medical Examiner System" (Am. Medical As- sociation, Journal, Vol. LXXXIX, pp. 579-583, Chicago, 1927).
MASSACHUSETTS (Commonwealth) .- Acts and Resolves, Passed by the General Court (Boston, 1839 and later years).
MASSACHUSETTS : COMMITTEE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON TUBERCULOSIS, 1908 .- Tuberculosis in Massachusetts (Boston, 1908)- 'Edited by E. A. Locke.
MASSACHUSETTS : DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH .- Annual Report (Bos- ton, 1915 and later years).
MASSACHUSETTS : DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH .- Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts (Boston, 1919).
MASSACHUSETTS : DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH, AND DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE : SPECIAL COMMITTEE .- "Cancer in Massachusetts" (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1926, Vol. CXCIV, pp. 388- 393).
MASSACHUSETTS : GENERAL COURT .- Manual for the Use of the General Court (Boston, 1876, and later years).
MASSACHUSETTS : GENERAL COURT : COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE MEAS- URES FOR THE RELIEF OF CONSUMPTIVES .- Report (Boston, 1907).
MASSACHUSETTS : GENERAL COURT : SPECIAL RECESS COMMITTEE APPOINTED
TO INVESTIGATE METHODS EMPLOYED IN CHECKING THE SPREAD OF TUBERCULOSIS .- Report (Boston, 1914).
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL .- First Annual Report of the Social Work Permitted at the Massachusetts General Hospital, October 1,
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1905, to October 1, 1906 (Boston, 1906)-This report is signed by Richard C. Cabot, M.D.
MASSACHUSETTS : STATE BOARD OF HEALTH .- Annual Reports (Boston, 1869-1914).
MINOT, GEORGE R., and MURPHY, WILLIAM P .- "A Diet Rich in Liver for the Treatment of Pernicious Anemia" (Am. Medical Association, Journal, Vol. LXXXIX, pp. 759-766, Chicago, 1927).
"Reform of the Coroner Laws" (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1877, Vol. XCVI, pp. 204-205).
STONE, ARTHUR K .- "Massachusetts Tuberculosis-The State Sanatoria" (NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION, Transactions of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting, N. Y., 1918)-pp. 57-72.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA (1889-1930)
BY FREDERIC GILBERT BAUER Colonel, Judge Advocate General's Reserve Corps
COLONIAL MILITIA (1630-1775)
The militia of Massachusetts is as old as the Colony itself. The first settlers were familiar with the militia system as it existed in England under the county lieutenants; and when they settled here the necessities of self-preservation at once obliged them to provide a similar system, based on the liability of every man to render military service in defense of the state. By a long series of colonial, provincial and State statutes, every man within certain ages was obliged (unless exempt by law) to be enrolled in the militia company within whose terri- torial jurisdiction he lived; to provide himself with the arms, equipment and ammunition prescribed by law; and to report for drill on the prescribed training days-which in 1631 were every Saturday, but as time went on became less and less frequent.
A fair sample of these laws is the Act of November 22, 1693, which fixes the age for liability to military service at from 16 to 60 inclusive, and orders that every infantryman shall provide himself with "a well fixt firelock musket . . or other good firearms to the satisfaction of the com- mission officers of the company, a snapsack, a coller with twelve bandeleers or cartouch-box, one pound of good pow- der, twenty bullets fit for his gun, and twelve flints, a good sword or cutlace, a worm and priming wire fit for his gun." Troopers were bound to provide their own horses and horse equipment in addition; and each town must provide guns for those too poor to provide their own, and "a barrel of powder, two hundred weight of bullets and three hundred flints for every sixty listed soldiers." Each company was obliged to drill "four days annually and no more"; and regi- mental drills outside of Boston were limited to once in three
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VOLUNTEER COMPANIES
years. Officers were elected; as may be supposed, social and political prominence rather than military knowledge or experi- ence were the usual passports to promotion.
LIMITED SERVICE OF COLONIAL MILITIA
It was not to be expected that such a body of men with no common tie except residence in a given district, ununiformed, with no continuous training and with but little training of any kind, under officers who were usually without military experi- ence and who were dependent upon the votes of those under them for military preferment, should constitute an efficient military force. In practice the territorial companies were seldom called out for active duty; but were used rather as a reservoir from which the number of men needed for any par- ticular service was obtained as occasion required, either by volunteering or by impressment (the equivalent of a draft). An excellent example of how this system worked out in prac- tice is shown by the "French and Indian War Rolls" in the Archives of the Commonwealth.
Occasionally, however, these territorial companies were called out, as at the occupation of Dorchester Heights, March 4, 1776, and during the British blockade of the coast in 1814. On the former occasion their qualities in battle were not put to the test; and on the latter the few companies which were in actual conflict with the enemy in most instances gave any- thing but a good account of themselves.
VOLUNTEER COMPANIES (1700-1783)
The inadequacy of this system as the sole reliance for defense was recognized from the start; and as there were then no regular troops in the colonies, men formed volunteer companies which met at stated intervals for drill. These com- panies, in later times at least, provided themselves with uni- forms, and usually had a high esprit de corps. Although their social features were often predominant, they provided their members with some military instruction of real value, and were the only school where such instruction could be obtained. Some of these companies still exist, and have made a credit- able record in more than one of our wars.
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
Since members of these companies were exempt from duty in the territorial company within whose district they lived, the volunteer or "chartered" companies, as they were some- times called, constituted a corps d'élite in the general body of militia. When we read the strictures of Washington and others of that period upon the "militia," we must understand their remarks as applying to the ununiformed local organiza- tions which were called out or drafted upon from time to time to meet emergencies, and were nearly always flung into battle without preparation or even adequate organization. Washing- ton himself would have been the last to apply these strictures to such well-equipped, uniformed and trained companies as Captain Morris's Philadelphia troop of cavalry, which ren- dered such efficient service in the Trenton and Princeton campaign; and yet this organization also was "militia."
That these trained volunteer companies were even then regarded as the backbone of the American military system is shown by the fact that the scheme of defense drawn up just after the Revolution by General von Steuben (a copy of which is in the Library of Congress), which embodies the essential features of the National Defense Act of 1920, provides for a consolidated military force including one "legion" (roughly corresponding to our division) composed of regular troops, the other being just such militia organizations.
ADOPTION OF THE VOLUNTEER SYSTEM (1815 -1865)
The inefficiency of the territorial companies was clearly shown, not only in Massachusetts but throughout the country, in the War of 1812. Eventually, by Chapter 92 of the Acts of 1840 the farce was abolished, and it was expressly enacted that, though all citizens should be liable to draft in time of war or emergency, "the active militia of this Commonwealth shall consist and be composed of volunteers or companies raised at large." Thenceforth these volunteer companies have formed the sole organized military force of the Common- wealth. They gave a good account of themselves in the Civil War, particularly in 1861, when few other States had any trained, organized and equipped troops to offer the national government; and they continued performing their duty quietly
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Courtesy of the Author
FACSIMILE OF MILITIA RECORD OF MAY 1, 1804
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CHARACTERISTICS
and without substantial financial reward until the period of which this chapter more particularly treats.
REDUCTION OF FORCE (1865-1889)
The number of militia companies had been gradually re- duced since the Civil War, and in his inaugural address of 1876 Governor Alexander H. Rice recommended that the ex- pense of maintaining the militia be cut down. Accordingly, by Chapter 204 of the Acts of that year, the legislature re- duced the force to 60 companies of infantry, 3 of cavalry, 3 of artillery, and 2 of cadets, the reduction to be accomplished by disbanding those which after inspection were found to rate lowest in efficiency.
As a result 26 companies of infantry, 2 of artillery, and 2 of cavalry were disbanded. The infantry companies which survived the test were organized in 3 regiments of 8 com- panies, and 3 of 12 companies; and all the troops except the cadets were grouped into two mixed brigades. This was the organization of the militia in 1889, except that there had been added to each brigade a signal corps by Chapter 230 of the Acts of 1884, and an ambulance corps by Chapter 236 of the Acts of 1885. Also by Chapter 411 of the Acts of 1887 the number of infantry companies had been increased to 72, there- by making all the regiments consist of 12 companies.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERIOD (1889-1930)
The history of the militia from 1889 to 1930 naturally divides itself into three well-defined periods. (1) From 1889 to the War with Spain is the period of the development of the militia as a State force, dependent almost entirely upon its own initiative and resources. (2) From the close of the Spanish War in 1899 to our entry into the World War in 1917 is the period of gradual federalization of the militia. (3) The period from the return of the troops in 1919 to the present time is the history of the federalized National Guard as a component of the "one army" of the United States, the creation of which was one of the most beneficial military results of our World War experience.
Most States by 1889 had given up the title "militia" for
574 THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
their citizen soldiery, because of its association with the old territorial companies and the ridicule which the old militia had earned for itself in the War of 1812. Instead they adopted the term "National Guard." Massachusetts, however, reso- lutely retained the historic title "Massachusetts Volunteer Militia" until compelled to adopt the new title under the provisions of the National Defense Acts of 1916 and 1920.
ORGANIZATION OF 1889
The Massachusetts Volunteer Militia (or "M. V. M.," as it was popularly called) was in 1889 organized as follows:
First Brigade
First Regiment of Infantry, located chiefly in Boston and adjoining cities, with one battalion in the southern part of the State ;
Second Regiment of Infantry, located in the four western counties ;
Sixth Regiment of Infantry, located in Middlesex and east- ern Worcester Counties. In this regiment was the only colored company in the militia, located in Boston ;
Troop F of Cavalry, located in Chelmsford and adjoining towns;
Battery B of Field Artillery, located in Worcester ;
Signal and Hospital Corps, located in Boston.
Second Brigade
Fifth Regiment of Infantry, located chiefly in the manu- facturing centers of Middlesex County, with three companies south of Boston;
Eighth Regiment of Infantry, located entirely in Essex County, except for one company in Somerville ;
Ninth Regiment of Infantry, with seven companies in Boston and the rest scattered north and west of Boston;
First Battalion of Field Artillery, consisting of Battery A of Boston and Battery C of Lawrence;
First Battalion of Cavalry, consisting of Troop A (National Lancers) of Boston and Troop D (Roxbury Horse Guards) of Roxbury;
Signal and Hospital Corps located in Boston.
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IMPROVEMENT IN STATE SERVICE
The total authorized strength of the militia was 390 officers and 5468 enlisted men. The only important changes in organi- zation during this period were the transfer of the First Bat- talion of Field Artillery (except Battery A) from the Second Brigade to the First in 1891, thus leaving Battery A as an unattached battery, and the consolidation of the two brigade ambulance corps into a single independent command in 1894.
APATHY ON PREPAREDNESS (1865-1889)
Although the organized militia of the States was the only organized force on which the national government could call in an emergency needing more than the Regular Army, the relations of the War Department with the militia were of the slenderest sort, being limited to apportioning among the States an annual appropriation and detailing officers to inspect and report upon the condition of the militia. After the Civil War-as after each of our wars-the false prophets of peace predicted that there would be no more wars and that the veterans of that war furnished an adequate reserve, so that there was no need of spending money on the militia. Governor Rice's inaugural address of 1876, mentioned above, was a sample of the prevailing sentiment.
IMPROVEMENT IN THE STATE SERVICE (1889-1898)
By 1889, however, the reaction against this had begun. Labor troubles throughout the country had shown the need for troops; the veterans of 1861 to 1865 had already passed beyond the age for service in the ranks; and the more pro- gressive States, Massachusetts among them, were beginning to realize the necessity of making their militia forces some- thing more than parade organizations.
The adjutant-general's reports of this period contain many suggestions for improving the field efficiency of the troops. So far as organization is concerned, the M. V. M. was in one respect ahead of the Regular Army, in that our infantry regiments had for many years been organized into battalions of four companies, each commanded by a major, whereas the Regular Army did not attain this organization until the Spanish War. The First Regiment of Infantry had begun
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
to take up heavy artillery work, later to become its specialty.
Formerly the cities and towns where companies were located had provided armories, some of them of little value for drill purposes. Chapter 384 of the Acts of 1888, however, had provided that the State should gradually furnish adequate armory facilities for the entire force. The first three armories to be built under this new law, the South Armory in Boston and the armories at Lowell and Worcester, were even then under construction, and were occupied in 1890.
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