History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 59

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 59

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1 Oliver Wendell Holmes "Memorial History of Boston," vol. iv., pages 556-557.

2 Magnolia, book 2, chap. iv., p. 15.

3 Mass. Historical Collection, iv. 57.

+ Cotton Mather's "Magnolia " book, iii., chap. 23, page 110.

6 Church Records, Rev. Mr. Danforth, Roxbury.

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rogued, they are adjourned to Tuesday next, when they are to meet a few miles out of town, the small- pox being now in the heart of that place." The Town Records show that a committee was appointed January 29th to provide "for the relief of such per- sons and families as may stand in need thereof, in case the small-pox spread amongst us."

Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, of Boston, at about this time first introduced inoculation for the small-pox, but he encountered the most violent opposition. Of 286 per- sons who were inoculated for the small-pox but six died. Rev. Cotton Mather is accredited with having strongly advocated inoculation, based upon his knowledge of the methods of inoculation which had long been practiced in Constantinople, and had been published in the "Transactions of the Royal Society of London."

In 1730 the small-pox again prevailed to an alarm- ing extent in Cambridge. Town-meetings were held to devise means for its extermination. A vote passed indicates the public opinion regarding inoculation ; " Whereas, Samuel Danforthi, Esq.'s, late practice of in- oculation of small-pox amongst us has greatly endan- gered the town and distressed sundry families amongst us, which is very disagreeable to us ; wherefore voted that said Samuel Danforth, Esq., be desired forth with to remove such inoculated persons into some convenient place, whereby our town mayn't be exposed by them." The college studies were brokeu up for a time and the students dispersed. Again in 1752 small-pox caused the breaking up of the college work from April 22d until the following autumn.

An epidemic occurred in Cambridge in 1740 which was called the "throat distemper," and is probably the same disease that Dr. Thacher describes as an in- fluenza, somewhat resembling the recent attack of La Grippe which, iu the early winter of 1890, spread over both continents. Thacher describes it, "The amazing rapidity with which it spread through the country resembled more a storm agitating the atmos- phere than the natural progress of a disease from any contagious source., Almost a whole city, town or neighborhood became affected with its influence in a few days, and as it did not incapacitate the people in general from pursuing their ordinary occupations, it was common to observe in every street and place of resort a constant coughing, hawking, aud wheezing, and in public assemblies little else was to be heard or attended to. Although all classes of people expe- rienced the operation of the influenza, it is remark- able that a small number of people, comparatively speaking, were so ill as to require medical attend- ance, and instances of its fatal termination were of rare occurrence." 1

It proved so fatal in Cambridge, however, that the students were dismissed from college by a vote passed June 23, 1740. " Whereas, through the holy Provi-

dence of God, several families in the town of Cam- bridge are visited with the throat distemper, and the President's and Steward's families are under very afflicted circumstances by reason of that mortal sick- ness, and whereas we apprehend that there is great danger of the distemper spreading and prevailing as it hath done formerly in other places, and that the students are much endangered thereby ; thereby Voted, that they be immediately dismissed from the college and that the vacation begin from this time, and that the Commencement for this year be not un- til the expiration of the vacation." 2

Mr. Paige, in his "History of Cambridge," cites in- stances from a private note-book of a number of deaths which occurred at this time, and the interence is extremely probable that the cause was the disease which we now know under the name of diphtheria.

Captain Goelet, in 1750, describes Cambridge as follows : "After dinner Jacob Wendell, Abraham Wendell, and self took a horse and went to see Cam- bridge, which is a neat, pleasant village which con- sists of about an hundred houses and three colleges, which are a plain, old fabrick, of no manner of archi- tect and at present much out of repair ; is situated on one side of the Towne and forms a large square; its apartments are pretty large. Drank a glass of wine with the collegians, returned and stopt at Richard- son's, where we bought some fowles, and came home in the evening, which we spent at Weatherhead's with sundry gentlemen." 3

The next important incidents which occur, relating in a general way to the medical history of Cambridge, are grouped about the period of the Revolutionary War. This little, quiet university town became the focus of the early operative measures which led to the rebellion, culminating in the independence of the States. Her citizens mourned their dead after the battle of Lexington, and Cambridge became the common rendezvous of the troops forming the basis of the Continental Army. The early "New England History and General Register" found the aggregate of troops in Cambridge, in the summer of 1775, a little over eight thousand.

Hospitals were at once established in the larger houses, which were assigned by the Committee of Safety. Drs. John Warren, Isaac Rand, William Eustis, James Thacher, Isaac Foster, Thomas Kitt- redge, and others, officiated in these hospitals, under the general supervision of Dr. Church. Three houses are still in existence, rendered famous by many previ- ous and subsequent events, which were used, at this time, for hospital purposes.

Between Arrow and Mt. Auburn Sts. was the estate of David Phips, the sheriff of Middlesex, colonel of the Governor's troops, and son of Lieut. Gov. Spencer Phips. This estate was earlier that of Major-General

1 " Medical Biography," i. 28.

2 " History of Cambridge," Paige, p. 132.

3 " N. E. llist, and Gen. Register."

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Daniel Gerkin, Indian superintendent, and it was under Gerkin's roof that Generals Goffe and Whalley, the regicides, were at one time sheltered. This hos- pital was under the special care of Dr. Dunsmore.

The Rev. Dr. Apthorp's house, erected about 1761, is one of the finest examples of colonial architecture left to us. Since Dr. Apthorp was a representative man in the church episcopate service, he was received with ill-favor by the colonists, although born in Bos- ton, and he removed to England in 1764. The house was styled, in a satirical way, "The palace of one of the humble successors of the Apostles." For a time General Putnam, of Connecticut, occupied it as his headquarters, until the Committee of Safety desig- nated it for hospital purposes.

The celebrated old Brattle house, from the owner of which the street is named, recently purchased by the Social Union, and restored for permanent preser- vation, was occupied, at the breaking out of the war, by General William Brattle. This house was also used as a hospital, and afterward occupied by Gen- eral Mifflin, quartermaster-general of the Continental Army. This house was the scene of many interesting events during the siege of Boston.

Dr. Jonathan Potts, a distinguished army surgeon of the Revolution, was the brother-in-law of General Mifflin. Perhaps no residence in Cambridge is asso- ciated with the past with greater variety of interest- ing reminiscences than this of the old Brattle estate, now robbed of its wide acres of lawn and landscape garden. As an interesting incident in the life of Dr. Warren, then the active patriot, better known to his- tory as General Joseph Warren, whose loss the coun- try mourned, killed in the battle of Bunker Hill, I quote the exquisite graphic pen-picture from the diary of Dorothy Quincy: "Several of our brave Cambridge men are killed. Mrs. Hicks sent her eldest boy to look for his father as night came on. He found him lying dead by the roadside, and near him Mr. Moses Richardson and Mr. William Marcy. These three were brought home and hastily buried in one common grave in the churchyard. Ah, the sor- rows of that night! How near it brought war to our doors, this first burial of victims of British tyranny ! It was no time for funeral ceremonies ; and as the terri- fied and sorrowing friends stood around the rude grave in which was put all that was mortal of these brave men, Dr. Warren tried to comfort them with hopeful words. 'It will soon be over,' he said; 'then rightful honors will be paid to those who fell in defence of our country.' I cannot forget it. The Jurid glare of the torches, the group in the graveyard, the tender but hurried burial, without service or even coffins, and Elias Richardson's act of filial love in carefully spreading the cape of his father's overcoat upon the dead man's face, lest the cold earth should fall directly upon it. Dr. Warren himself, they say, had a very narrow escape in the affray. He ran reck- lessly into it when the British were retreating, and a

bullet whizzed past his head, taking off one of the side curls."!

The introduction of vaccination into America was by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Cambridge. He was born in Newport, R. I., March 4, 1754; died in Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 2, 1846, aged ninety-two years. He was educated in London, Edinburgh, and Leyden, where he received his medical degree. In 1783 he became Professor of Theory and Practice of Physick at Harvard College, in Cambridge, where he also pro- moted the study of Natural History, Botany, and Mineralogy. From 1811 to 1825 he was medical supervisor of the military posts in New England. In 1799 Dr. Jenner communicated to him, his dis- covery of vaccination by means of kine-pox, and Dr. Waterhouse at once tested it by vaccinating his son Daniel, a lad of five years of age, who had the dis- ease in a mild form. His first publication was in the Columbian Sentinel, dated at Cambridge, March 12, 1799. It is entitled, "Something Curious in the Medical Line," and is the first account of vaccination given to the public in America; published in a news- paper, so as to call the attention of the daily farmers to such a distemper among their cows. In the year 1800 he published a tract, entitled, " A Prospect of Exterminating the Small-pox," being the history of variola vaccina, or kine-pox, etc. In it he describes inoculating a servant boy of about twelve years of age with some of the infected thread from England. This is probably the method first adopted for pre- serving the vaccine virus, which came by a "short passage from Bristol," although in the autumn of 1802, Dr. Waterhouse records the receiving of quill points, or tooth-picks, charged with the virus. Some years ago I remember to have seen a small silver box, said to have been presented to Dr. Waterhouse by Dr. Jenner, which contained enclosed virus. The test of the faith he had in the efficacy of the vaccination of his own son recalls Dr. Boylston's heroic courage in inoculating his sou for small-pox.

"Still in the back-ground, and a little at one side, for they were not Boston physicians, but lived on the other shore of the river at Cambridge, are three figures belonging to three physicians, each of whom is a typical representative of a class, all dis- tinct images in my memory.

" Benjamin Waterhouse, whose name stands on his title-pages over an inverted pyramid of titles of great dimensions, studied in London, Edinburgh, and Leyden, at the last of which places he took his medical degree in the year 1780, the same in which died the learned Professor Gaubius, a pupil of the world-renowned Boerhaave. He was a relative of the excellent Dr. Fothergill, of London, with whom he used, as he tells us, to drive upon his rounds of medical visits. He will be long and deservedly re- membered as having introduced vaccination into the

1 " The Cambridge of 1776," page 19.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

western world. He was for some years Professor of Theory and Practice in Harvard University. He speaks of himself as Director of the Military Depart- ment comprehending the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. He may have voluntarily relinquished practice; but whether this were so or not, I never remember hear- ing of any patient under his care. He had, however, vaccinated great numbers of persons, myself among the rest. He probably liked to write and lecture and talk about medicine better than to practice it. A brisk, dapper old gentleman, with hair tied in a ribbon behind, and I think powdered, marching smartly about with his gold-headed cane, with a look of questioning sagacity, and an utterance of oracular gravity, the good people of Cambridge listened to his learned talk when they were well, and sent for one of the other two doctors when they were sick. Two brief extracts from an essay of his will sufficiently show his way of thinking and prescribing ;

"'As to planetary influence, mentioned hy Boerhaave and Mead, the various aspects of the sun and moon, their accessions, recessions, perpendicular or oblique irradiations, conjunctions and oppositions, and their effects on us through the medium of our atmosphere, we are not prepared to express a decided opinion. Millipedes have been given with good effect in whooping cough. . . . Physicians in the last century thought they could not practice without millipedes, while too many in this day believe them good for nothing.'

"All this was rather too medieval for Cambridge in the nineteenth century.

" While Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse was walking about with his gold-headed cane, like a London physi- cian minus his chariot and his patients, Dr. William Gamage was riding around on a rhubarb-colored horse with his saddle bags behind him, and stopping at door after door. Grim, taciturn, rough in aspect, his visits to the household were the nightmare of the nursery. He would look at the tongue, feel of the pulse, and shake from one of his phials a horrible mound of powdered ipecac, or a revolting heap of rhubarb-good, stirring remedies that meant business, but left a flavor bebind them which embittered the recollection of childhood. This was the kind of practice many patients preferred in those days; they liked to know they had taken something energetic and active, of which fact they were soon satisfied after one of Dr. Gamage's prescriptions. While Dr. Waterhouse was airing his erudition on foot and Dr. Gamage was jogging round on horse- back with his saddle-bags, Dr. Timothy L. Jennison was driving abont in an ancient chaise drawn by a venerable nag, chiefly, it may be suspected, to exercise the quadruped and get the benefit of the fresh air for himself, for his practice could hardly have been con- siderable, although I do remember hearing that he was employed by one family. I believe he was the

safest practitioner of the three, for he was accused of overfondness for old women's harmless vegetable pre- scriptions, which means that he gave nature a fairer chance than she is apt to have in the hands of learned theorists and heroic routinists. The young man whom Dr. Danforth found it hard to get along with, was his successor in public esteem as a practitioner. Family connection gave me the opportunity of know- ing him well. He was my revered friend as well as my instructor, and my longer and fuller acquaintance with him enables me to confirm all that Dr. Green says in his praise." 1

The Medical Department of Harvard was first es- tablished at Cambridge, and while here Dr. Water- house heid his professorsbip. I quote from Thacher's "History of Medicine in America," "The University at Cambridge, Mass., has contributed to the in terest and advancement of medical science, by an institution founded on the generous benefactions of several en- lightened and liberal individuals. Dr. Ezekiel Hersey, of Hingham, who died in 1770, bequeathed one thousand pounds, and his widow, at her decease, a like sum, to be applied to the support of a professor of anatomy and surgery. His brother, Dr. Abner Hersey, of Barnstahle, who died in 1786, and Dr. John Cuming, of Concord, were also donors to the amount of five hundred pounds each for the same laudable purpose; and William Erving, Esq., of Boston, left one thousand pounds towards the support of an additional professor. In conformity with the views of the patrons and donors, professors of talents and character were in 1782 appointed, by whom lectures on the several branches were regularly de- livered, and students received the honors of the institution. In 1780 Dr. John Warren, while surgeon of a military hospital in Boston, commenced a course of anatomical lectures, and in the following year they were attended by the students of the University. Dr. Warren furnished a plan for a medical school which was adopted by the Corporation of Harvard College, and he was appointed first Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, and Dr. Aaron Dexter, Professor of Chemistry. This was the first essay made in New England for the establishment of an insti- tution for medical education. George Holmes Hall and John Fleet were the first who were admitted in course to the degree of Doctor in Medicine at the University, in the year 1788. From a spirit of envy and jealousy towards the professors, great opposition was made to the degree being conferred upon the two candidates, and it was by the address and perseverance of Dr. Warren that the object was finally accom- plished. In consequence of many inconveniences, both to professors and students, and of the superior advantages which might result from lectures delivered

1 Oliver Wendell Holmes' " Memorial History of Boston," vol. iv., chap. x., pp. 564-5.

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in a more populous situation, the Corporation and Board of Overseers of Harvard University deemed it expedient to establish a medical school in the town of Boston. The several courses of lectures were ac- cordingly transferred, and commenced in that metropolis in December, 1810." 1

" The establishment of a botanic garden at Cam- bridge will doubtless prove, at a future period, an ex- cellent auxiliary to the study of botany and pharmacy, and facilitate a knowledge of the in- digenous plants of the country and their introduction into our materia medica. Two townships of eastern land have been granted by onr Legislature, and a subscription of $30,000 was obtained for the purchase of land and other expenses of this valuable establish- ment. It was for several years under the manage- ment of William D. Peck, as Professor of Natural History, and a Board of Trustees, of which the President of the Medical Society is ex-officio a mem- ber." 2

The transfer of the Medical Department of the University to Boston caused the medical interests to centre in Boston rather than in Cambridge. There appears to have been no organization of the Cam- bridge physicians, as such, either in society or pub- lic work, until abont 1867, when the Cambridge Medical Improvement Society was formed, with meetings at the residences of its members each month, when papers were presented and discussed, with the reports of cases of interest, etc. The attendance upon these meetings has been good from the very be- ginning of the organization, with much profit to its members and the general interests of the community.

Out of this organization grew the formation of a public dispensary, where the poor were freely treated and the city divided into districts, with physicians ap- pointed to each.

A fund was slowly accumulated for the purchase of land and the building of a hospital. A Board of Trustees was appointed for this purpose, of which Dr. Morrill Wyman was the most active member, and after years of labor, the result has been the estab- lishment of the Cambridge Hospital, with ample sur- rounding grounds, which is filling a long-felt want.

The Cambridge Hospital was opened in 1867 by Miss Emily E. Parsons, and was kept open a year, when it was closed for want of a suitable house. It was re-opened in 1869 and was closed again in 1872.

At the request of Miss Parsons the following citi- zens of Cambridge: Hon. Isaac Livermore, Rev. Sum- ner R. Mason, Dr. W. W. Wellington, Rev. Kinsley Twining, Benjamin Tilton, Rev. Alexander McKen- zie and Dr. H. P. Walcott met November 14, 1870, at the residence of the first-named and voted to apply to the General Conrt for an act of incorporation, under the name of "The Cambridge Hospital ; " on the

23d of February, 187I, an act, signed by Governor Claflin on February 13th, was accepted by the above- named persons, who, with their associates and suc- cessors, were made a corporation for the purpose of maintaining a hospital in the city of Cambridge for sick and disabled persons, to be called The Cambridge Hospital.

In the early months of 1872 it became evident, by reason of lack of interest on the part of the commu- nity, that the hospital could no longer be kept open, and, with the approval of Miss Parsons, it was closed, by vote of the trustees, May 1, 1872, there being then in the hands of the treasurer $191.47.

In December, 1873, a bequest for $10,000 was re- ceived from the estate of Mr. Isaac Fay ; $100,805.55 have been received in donations and bequests from this date to May, 1886.

In 1883 the lot of land on which the hospital stands was purchased; the erection of buildings was begun in the early spring of 1884, and the hospital was fin- ished and ready to receive patients Ist May, 1886.

The hospital building is on the south side of Mount Auburn Street, overlooking Charles River.

The site has nine and one-third acres. The soil is dry, gravelly or sandy. The surface upon which the present buildings stand is well raised above the crown of Mt. Auburn Street; it is about twenty- five feet above the level of Charles River and sufficiently distant from its bank; it has a water front of 500 feet. On the opposite bank is a park or meadow of seventy acres, given by Prof. Longfellow and others to Harvard College, "to be held by the grantees as marshes, meadows, gardens, public walks or ornamental grounds, or as the site of college buildings not inconsistent with these uses." Facing the south, the wards have the full influence of the sun and a free course for the very desirable south- west breezes of summer. The river in front and the meadows beyond effectually exclude all dust and noise from that direction, and the view is unobstructed to Corey's Hill, two miles away.

The two wards of one story and the centre building of three stories form three sides of a hollow square, the opening towards the south (the axis of the build- ings is but three degrees west of the north and south line). At the south end of each ward is a sun room eight feet wide and extending across the whole width of the ward. Along the north end of the wards is a corridor, glazed in winter, which connects the wards with the centre building, and protects all the rooms occupied by the sick and the hollow square from the cold winds of winter. This plan, known as the Lari- boisière plan, seems to be as well calculated for this small hospital as it is for the large hospitals, for which it was first designed.

The centre, forty by fifty feet, has on the lower floor rooms for the physician and the matron, a dining- room, a reception-room, an accident-room and a dis- pensary. The second floor has rooms for six patients,

1 Thacher's " History of Medicine in America," vol. i., p. 31.

2 Thacher's " History of Medicine in America," vol. i., p. 38.

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a bath-room and two other rooms. The third story has six rooms for nurses and others.

Each ward is sixty by thirty feet and twelve feet high, the ceiling higher in the middle than at the walls, giving 113 square feet of flooring and 1356 cubic feet of space for each patient ; it has ten win- dows. The sixteen beds are arranged with the heads next the wall and about one foot from it. The door and windows of the south end of the ward are near its middle; this secures the beds from troublesome draughts when they are open. The north end of the building is wider than the ward; in it are the nurses' room and the " tea-kitchen," both opening into the ward; behind this is another room not connected with the ward, for a single very sick patient, so arranged that the friends may visit it without disturbing others. In the extreme end, at the north, separated from the ward by three doors in a corridor, are the lavatory, the bath-room, the water-closet, the linen-room and the clothes-room. It will be observed that these offices are at the north, and the farthest removed from the sick. The arrange- ment of the nurses' room gives good opportunity for inspection ; standing just outside the door of her room the nurse can see every bed and every patient without change of position.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 59

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034