USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 29
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He did not hesitate to express his disapprobation of any course of treat- ment that an attending physician had been pursuing, if it did not meet his approval. Indeed a case is mentioned, where he openly rebuked a practitioner, who had been attempting to follow with servility Dr. Martin's own advice, as laid down in his published essay, giving the astonished doctor to understand that the best of written rules were a bad substitute for even a poor judgment-a declaration, which of course, was unanswerable, and made with a coarseness that was unpardonable. In his practice he always expressed a preference for surgery, his services in the military hospital and in the dissecting room having given him man- ual dexterity with the knife and other instruments. But situated as he was in the country, there were few opportunities afforded him for the employment of his skill, or an indulgence in his surgical penchant.
The reputation he had acquired in Talbot, and which really had extended into distant portions of the state, persuaded him, in the year 1818, to surrender his practice to his son-in-law, Dr. Edward Spedden, and to remove from Easton to Baltimore, believing that he would there be able at once to acquire a remunerative and less laborious practice; and besides would attain that distinction among his professional brethren which was his ambition, and which he felt to be his due, but from which he was debarred by reason of the secluded section in which he lived But, like most physicians who have attempted similar adventures, he was disappointed in his expectations, and after a short residence in Baltimore he returned to Easton, resumed his former practice, in the laborious prosecution of which he spent the remainder of his life.
The career of the practitioner of medicine, especially of the country practitioner, is but little diversified. His life is spent in one round of duty, full of petty crises involving life and death it may be to a few, but marked by no great events that can interest the world at large, or that can distinguish his own career. But there are a few circumstances in the life of Dr. Martin which should not go unrecorded, as they will serve to characterize him, and also to illustrate the annals of this county.
In the year 1793 there was much alarm in the town of Easton because of the presence in Philadelphia of the yellow fever. A public meeting of the citizens was held to devise measures for the prevention of its introduction into the town, and its propagation, if it should appear. Among others adopted was the appointment of a Board of Health to inspect all persons coming from the infested city. This Board was constituted of physicians exclusively, of whom Dr. Martin was one.
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It may be well enough to say, no cases of the disease were known in Easton or the county, during the epidemic.
In the year 1798 a number of the leading physicians of the State united in a petition to the General Assembly for an act of incorporation, and in January of the following year their petition was granted by the pas- sage of a bill constituting certain persons therein mentioned a body corporate, under the title of "The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland." Among the provisions of this bill was the granting to this society the power to issue licenses to practice medicine within the State, to those persons who should prove their competency before a "Board of Examiners" to be selected, seven from the Western and five from the Eastern Shore. Of the original petitioners and cor- porators Dr. Ennalls Martin was one; and at the first meeting of the Faculty, June 11th, 1799, at Annapolis, he was elected one of the Board of Examiners for this Shore, the other members of that section of the board being Doctors James Anderson, Jr., of Kent, James Davidson of Queen Anne's, Perry E. Noel and Stephen Theodore Johnson, of Talbot.4 At a general meeting of this Faculty at Baltimore in July, 1802, committees for each city and county in the State, entitled Med- ical Censors, were appointed, the principal duty of which was to see that "the Medical and Chirurgical law be not infringed by unlicensed practitioners, and that the penalties thereof be inflicted upon tres- passers." Dr. Ennalls Martin and Dr. Stephen Theodore Johnson were selected as the Censors for Talbot. At this same meeting Dr. Martin was made one of an Executive Committee of fifteen, selected from the two sections of the State, and the members of this committee were also Examiners. These honorable positions in this society he held for many years. In 1818 he was elected president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, which is indicative of the estimation in which he was held by his professional brethren. How long he held this place is not known. In the year 1830 he received a similar testimonial from this body by being chosen one of its delegates to the General Medical Convention, which assembled at New York, in the spring of that year, for the pur- pose of revising the American Pharmacopæia.
To Doctor Martin this county is largely indebted for the introduction of one of the greatest benefactions that medical science has conferred upon the human race, namely vaccination. The discovery of the pro-
4 The first meeting of the Board of Examiners for the E. Shore, for granting licenses to practitioners, was held on the 2nd Monday of April, 1800.
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phylactic modifying influence of the cowpox upon the terrible disease of variola, dates as it is well known from 1796. Its introduction, however, into common use met with many prejudices and other impedi- ments, so that it was not until 1803 that it was resorted to in Talbot county. In 1802, an article appeared in the Maryland Herald, published at Easton, recommending its virtues; but in 1803 a still more extended one was printed over the signatures of Dr. Martin, and other prominent physicians of the county. This was doubtless from his pen. It asserted with great positiveness the efficacy and safety of vaccination, and the opinions of the signers were corroborated by certificates from leading physicians of Philadelphia, then regarded as the very fountain head of medical knowledge in America. The vaccination of the poor gratui- tously was offered by the gentlemen issuing this paper. Somewhat later Dr. Martin was compelled to defend his position as to vaccina- tion being a preventive of smallpox, because of the occurrence of a case of varioloid in a person who had been subjected to the vaccine im- pression. The arguments he used are now but the common places of medical science, but then they were its novelties. It would seem that considerable time was necessary to dispel doubts of the value of this agent, to allay fears of its dangerousness, and to eradicate prejudices that were almost of the nature of superstitions, as to the propriety of its employment; but unquestionably to this sensible physician much credit is due for its introduction, and for its being brought into general use in this county within a reasonably brief period after its virtues had been made known.
In the last days of the year 1812 a disease of a peculiar type made its appearance in Talbot. It became epidemic during the winters of 1813 1814, in this and the adjoining county of Queen Anne's. A few cases appeared in Caroline and Dorchester. Such was its severity, or such were the results of its improper treatment, that in five months no fewer then five hundred persons, at a very moderate computation, perished in Talbot alone, out of a population of about fifteen thousand. The disease presented symptoms of pneumonia, masked however by such severe cephalic pain, that it acquired the popular name of the "head complaint." It was treated by the means ordinarily employed for pleurisy or pneumonia, which were repeated venesection and other depleting remedies. Dr. Martin was not slow to discover that this method was attended by most unsatisfactory, indeed disastrous results; and he had the good sense, and resolution to abandon 'system,' and adopt the suggestions of experience. An employment of mild, soothing, and
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as it were negative treatment was attended by most gratifying success; or if active remedies were used at all they were just the opposite of those prescribed by 'system,' namely, stimulants and corroberants.5 This success brought him great reputation among the people and with the profession: and very deservedly for he had shown great perspicacity and great independence. What better evidence can there be of profes- sional ability than to be able to step out of the beaten track, and to anticipate, as it were, that which the science and the observation of the future prove to be the correct line of procedure. Medical men will notice that Dr. Martin's treatment of this disease, which would now be called a typhoid pneumonia, was precisely that which is employed by the most enlightened physicians of this day, though it was directly contrary to the received practice of his time.
As might be expected of one so devoted to his profession as Dr. Mar- tin was; of one possessed of his knowledge of medical science and of his experience in medical art; of one of his independence of opinion and originality of methods, he was a contributor to medical literature. He is said to have been a frequent contributor to the Medical Repository, a journal published in the city of Philadelphia, but there are no means of identifying his papers. Besides these casual Essays, he published in the year 1815 a tract on the epidemic diseases, noticed above.6 In this tract he attempts to account for the appearance of this epidemic (in Dec. 1812) after a season of unusual healthfulness, and he assigns as the remote cause, the vitiation of the atmosphere by tuleric and meteoric phenomena, mentioning the occurrence of an earthquake shock in 1812 and the appearance of a comet-to so late a date have such professional superstitions survived. In his attempts to assign the predisposing, exciting and proximate causes of the disease, for he had the pedantry of systematists, if he contemned their methods, his etiology is hardly less curious. But when he comes to treat of the cure of the disease he is thoroughly rational, and, as has been before stated, he has actually anticipated the best treatment of modern therapeutics. The style of this essay is lucid except where the mind of the writer has
5 This and other statements respecting this epidemic are taken from Dr. Mar- tin's Essay upon the epidemics of 1813 and 1814, hereafter to be noticed.
6 An Essay on the Epidemics of the winters of 1813 and 1814, in Talbot and Queen Anne's counties of the State of Maryland. By Ennalls Martin, M.B., Practitioner of Medicine, in Easton, Maryland. 'I do not contend for my own opinion, but for reason, or what carries the appearance of reason.'-Sealiger, Baltimore: Printed by Joseph Robinson, 96 Market Street, 1815, pp. VII. 71.
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been confused by the jargon of the schools, and he attempts to explain the inexplicable.
Besides this tract an essay upon fever was published. This is char- acterized in a brief biography by his son, Dr. George T. Martin, as an "Oration upon Fever." In all probability it was a paper read before some Medical Society, and printed by request of that body. As no copy of it has been discovered no account can be given of its contents. It is said to contain "with a few objectionable paragraphs much worthy to be remembered."
At the time of Dr. Martin's death he was engaged in the preparation of an extended work upon "The Epidemic Diseases of the Eastern Shore;" but this was left in such an unfinished state as to prevent its publication.
Before closing this review of the professional career of Doctor Martin, and this appreciation of his abilities, it may be well to quote the opinion of a contemporary, and also that of a number of the faculty, who living nearer than the present to his time, had every opportunity to learn from those who knew and were capable of judging him what estimate was placed upon him during his life. In an obituary notice of his death published in one of the county papers it was said:
Although it is not pretended that Doctor Martin was endowed by nature with an intellect around which genius cast its lustre; yet it can- not be denied that he possessed a mind of the most searching and laborious study. *
* * Zealous in the cause of science, generally, and in that of his profession particularly, he was rarely idle in the pursuit of knowledge. It could not therefore be otherwise than that one so laborious should readily obtain and easily hold, a preeminent rank in his profession.
Dr. C. C. Cox, in his eloquent eulogium of Dr. Tristram Thomas, pronounced in August 1847, thus refers to Doctor Martin, the cotem- porary of Dr. Thomas:
Dr. Martin indeed held a high rank, not only in Talbot, but through- out the State as a successful practitioner of medicine and surgery, and a sound and forcible writer. His name is a household word in many a family circle and will long be cherished among the proudest memorials of his native county. * * * His excellent character, remarkable men- tal endowments and distinguished public services have justly endeared him to the people of Easton.
This same gentleman in a private communication in referring to the brusqueness of his manners has very aptly characterized him as "the Abernethy of Talbot."
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But Dr. Martin did not confine his attention exclusively to medicine and surgery. Every man, however independent he may be, is more or less affected by his surroundings, or catches the spirit of the locality in which he may be placed. Living as he did in the midst of an agricultural people, it was natural he should share with them an interest in this one pursuit. It is proper to say also, that in the early part of this century, in this county, a great deal of intelligence was brought into exercise upon the subject of farming, both in its theory and practice. The remark is ventured, and it is believed it may be substantiated by proof, that fifty years ago there was a better judgment and a more accurate observation applied to our agriculture than at present: and this too, notwithstanding the progress of agronomy and the subsidiary sciences, the multiplica- tion of farm journals and agricultural schools, and the fostering care of this fundamental industry by the government. A large number of well educated gentlemen were then engaged in a pursuit that is now too commonly abandoned to those of the least mental culture. The leisure afforded by the possession of slaves who performed the drudgery of labor under the supervision of overseers gave the masters the opportu- nity for the study of farm methods, and for coordinating the results of his own and his neighbors' observation and experience. The result was a vast amount of correct agricultural knowledge, which came near to science, if it were not science, and a system of farming which has not been excelled by those who are most accustomed to undervalue it, and which has been the admiration of those capable of estimating it without prejudice. Dr. Martin as a close student of the laws of nature, found agriculture a congenial subject. Like medicine, it is an empirical science, and an experimental art. The theories and the practice are tentative. Nothing is settled. There is an unlimited field for the expatiation of the imagination, and an inexhaustible supply of materials for observation. A study of the laws of life are at the bottom of both. The same facul- ties of the mind are exercised in the practice of farming as in the practice of medicine. The liabilities to error are the same, and the criteria of truth are the same. It is not to be wondered at that Dr. Martin who was so much of a medical philosopher, and so earnest a practitioner of his art, should have been, with his environments, an enthusiastic agri- culturist. His farming operations, however, were carried on upon a small scale, and were rather a diversion than work. He was fond of speculat- ing and experimenting and as a matter of course fond of airing his theories and displaying the results of his experience and observation in the public prints. But Ceres no more than any other of her sex,-deity or dame,
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admits of a divided worship. It must be confessed that Dr. Martin's success as a farmer was not commensurate with his success as a physician.
In the earlier years of his life he was a warm politician, but there is no evidence that he ever sought any political position. Like his farm- ing his partisanship was an amusement, not a pursuit. He early adopted the opinions of the Federalists, and with them, or those that succeeded them in their opposition to the Democrats, he continued to act through life. He was fond of political controversy, probably more for the mental exercise or stimulus it afforded, and for the oppor- tunity it gave him of measuring himself with others in an unaccus- tomed field of discussion, than for the purpose of attaining any end, even the success of his party. As upon medicine and upon agriculture, he was fond of exercising his pen upon political subjects. He wrote frequently for the Maryland Herald, the only paper published upon the Eastern Shore up to the year 1800, and did not spare his opponents. He did not confine himself to argumentation. He was fond of personal attack. Private character was too often assailed, and that in a manner so gross as to admit no justification. One of his most noted contribu- tions was that entitled "The Grand Caucus," published in the year 1798. In this dramatic satire the most respectable characters, and some not so respectable, belonging to the Republican or Democratic party, in this county, were most mercilessly ridiculed. Its wit is of the broadest kind, and had its point in the fact that it displays to the pub- lic the private conduct of some gentlemen, in some affairs, which they were most desirous, and indeed which propriety demanded, should be concealed and forgotten. This satire was thoroughly characteristic of the writer. It involved him in a personal collision, with one of the persons satirized-a man much like him in character, and fully his equal in mental and physical ability. This affair had this most curious and ridiculous denouement that the gentleman who had been worsted in the fight, and had received a grievous wound, called in as his attending surgeon the one who had inflicted the hurt. But a more serious injury was inflicted by Dr. Martin upon himself, by this injudicious publica- tion, and others of a political nature. These, with his fondness for politi- cal disputation, prevented his acquiring much practice which otherwise would have come to him; for all were not as well disposed, to disregard his violence of opinion, when about to employ a physician, as was the gentleman mentioned above. Later in life, however, when his own feelings had become somewhat tempered, and party rancor in a measure subsided, Dr. Martin without changing his political associations or
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transferring his allegiance, abandoned active participation in party contest.
A too persistent study of the physical, to the disregard of the spiritual; a too intense regard for wellbeing of men's bodies, to the neglect of the interests of their souls, which the profession of medicine promotes, is apt to lead the physician into indifference to religion, or even into abso- lute skepticism. Where there are three physicians, then there are two atheists, has long been made the reproach of the faculty. Of the atheists or skeptics Dr. Martin was not one. Notwithstanding his calling, and again notwithstanding the very constitution of his mind, as being essen- tially masculine in its character, the very opposite to that belonging to most devout persons, he was really a pious man; more particularly after his earlier years. Of course there could be in such a man as he, no sanctimoniousness, but there was an abiding conviction of his depend- ence upon and responsibility to a higher power. He conformed to the usages of the Protestant Episcopal Church and accepted its confession of faith. His life was thoroughly examplary, for though his manners were rough, and his conduct was not of that gentle kind which is thought to characterize the religious; yet no one could lay to his charge any act that was inconsistent with a sincere profession of piety. In the year 1827 he was so unfortunate as to lose a son, Bartholomew Ennalls Martin, who was thought to be promising. That the grave of this young man might be saved from the desecration which so often comes to those that are made in private burial-grounds, the afflicted father gave to the vestry of Christ church, at Easton, the lot of ground in which he interred the body of his son (the first to be there deposited), and this became the graveyard for the burial of the dead of that congre- gation.7 Beside the remains of this son repose those of the father.
7 Although it is generally said this young man was the first to be buried in the Protestant Episcopal grave yard at Easton, another person may have pre- ceded him; and as the circumstances of this burial are highly creditable to the sensibilities of Dr. Martin, it may be related. He was in attendance upon a poor woman, of respectable character, who being about to die, manifested a solicitude about something, which she long hesitated to communicate. Know- ing her perfect resignation to death, and her lively hope of a happy resurrec- tion; Dr. Martin was at a loss to understand her anxiety. She finally confessed that this sprang from a knowledge that she would have to be buried as a pauper in the potters-field, at which her self-respect or pride revolted. Dr. Martin's sympathies were aroused in her behalf, and to quiet her mind, he promised that she should be decently buried in a secluded part of one of his lots. This promise he faithfully performed; and those who relate this incident say it was
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In his immediate family he was kind and indulgent. Though by no means genial, for he always was busy and preoccupied, yet he was honest- ly cordial with his friends, and to them he dispensed such a lavish hospi- tality as prevented the accumulation of a fortune, which but for this liberality his great practice must have achieved.
Dr. Martin possessed a vigorous physical constitution. In personal appearance he was a man of large frame, above the medium height and well developed. He was capable of great endurance. His complexion was dark and sallow, and his temperament what would be called san- guineo-bilious.
Dr. Martin was married to Miss Sarah Hayward, the daughter of Benjamin Hayward, Esq., an estimable citizen of Dorchester county. By this lady was born to him a family of five sons and two daughters, only one of whom survives to the present.8 All of these children held most respectable positions in society, and some of them rose to distinc- tion in civil life. The family is represented in this state by Mr. Robert Martin, the son of Dr. George T. Martin, late of Baltimore, and now the engineer of the new water works in progress of building, for the use of that city. But other descendants of Dr. Ennalls Martin are found in distant parts of the Union, and all of these are proud to claim as an an- cestor one so gifted by nature, and so honored by men.
After a long life full of the labors of usefulness, this worthy died Dec. 16th, 1834. Neither filial piety nor public gratitude has as yet marked his grave with even a modest stone, but tradition preserves his good name and the memory of his sterling qualities. If this inadequate sketch of his life shall perpetuate these traditions it will not have failed of its purpose.
the request of this poor woman and his own compliance with it, that first suggested the presentation of the lot of ground where she was buried to the Episcopal Church as a permanent grave yard.
It is proper to add the lot was deeded to the Vestry without any reserva- tion, and that body subsequently authorized a plot to be laid off for the interment of the family of Dr. Martin. This grave yard now makes a part of Spring Hill Cemetery, near Easton.
8 The children of Dr. Ennalls Martin were these: William Hayward Martin, who was at one time upon the bench, in the state of Mississippi; Dr. Geo. T. Martin, who was a reputable practitioner of medicine, first in Caroline county and then in Baltimore city; James Goldsborough Martin, a merchant of New Orleans; Charles Martin, a merchant of Savannah, Georgia; Bartholomew Ennalls Martin, who died early in Easton; Mary Martin, wife of Dr. Ed. Spedden, of Missouri, and still living, and Elizabeth Martin, who died unmarried.
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THE REVEREND THOMAS BACON, D.D. 1700-1768
In the recent numbers of The Easton Star there was published an ac- count of the "Charity Working School," set up in this county in the middle of the last century, by the Reverend Doctor Thomas Bacon. The establishment of this school was but a single act, though a laudable and an important one, in the founder's busy life of laborious usefulness; and the narrative should properly have made but a part of the more complete story of that life which it is now proposed to tell with as much fullness as the very imperfect records and meagre memorials will permit.1
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