History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 118

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 118

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At the first mecting of the St. Louis Medical So- ciety in 1883, Dr. Hcacock was unanimously elected a member of that society without payment of dues for the remainder of his life.

Dr. S. Gratz1 Moses was born in Philadelphia, Oct. 6, 1813. His ancestors, who were merchants noted for their strict integrity, came to this country in the last century, and settled in Pennsylvania. His father was a Philadelphia merchant, a gentleman of means, who gave his son a liberal education. In accordance with his enlightened views, Dr. Moses received his prelim- inary education at the school in Philadelphia of the late John Sanderson, an accomplished scholar and competent instructor. He then entered the Classical Department of the University of Pennsylvania as a sophomore, and graduated at that institution in 1832.

Dr. Moses commenced the study of medicine in the fall of 1832, under the direction of Isaac Hays, M.D., of Philadelphia, editor of the American Journal of Medical Science, and graduated in 1835 at the Medical Department of the University of Penn- sylvania.

During the same year he began the practice of medicine at Bordentown, N. J., where he remained until 1839, in which year, owing to the kind recom- mendation of the well-known Professor Nathaniel Chapman, of the university, he went to Europe as the private physician of Joseph Bonaparte, eldest brother of the great Napoleon, and ex-king of Spain, who for many years had been a resident of Borden- town. His connection with Bonaparte brought Dr. Moses into contact with the most distinguished men in France, especially the famous members of his own profession, and from the adherents of the empire, particularly from the Murat family, he received many attentions.

Dr. Moses returned to Philadelphia in 1840, and in the fall of 1841 removed to St. Louis, where he still resides, having been engaged, with but one interrup- tion, in the practice of medicine ever since.

In 1842, with the assistance of Drs. J. B. John- son, William McPheeters, Charles A. Pope, J. I. Clark, George Johnson, and others, Dr. Moses was active in the establishment of the first organized dispensary in St. Louis, and became its president, continuing as such throughout its existence. This praiseworthy enterprise was the suggestion of Mrs. Vital M. Gareschè, a lady noted for her charities, and was sustained by contributions from the churches and by private subscriptions, notably from the Mul- lanphy family. The Rev. Dr. Eliot proffered the

1 Contributed by F. H. Burgess.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

basement of the Unitarian Church (then at the cor- ner of Fourth and Pine Strects) for the dispensary, and the institution was managed by the above-men- tioned physicians, who gave their serviees gratuitously for seven years, when the eity established a dispensary of its own.

Dr. Moses was eity health officer when the Hon. Luther M. Kennett was mayor, and assisted in organ- izing the sewer system and other important sanitary measures. He was also connected with the Medieal Department of Kemper College in 1842 as leeturer on obstetries and diseases of women, assisting Dr. William Carr Lane (who held that ehair in the insti- tution), and was afterwards chosen professor of the same braneh of studies in Mis- souri Medical College. He resigned this position in 1853. During the civil war, being known to have South- ern sympathies, and both of his sons being in the Con- federate army, he was ar- rested at his office, by order of the United States provost- marshal, and, after a few days spent in the military prison, was, in company with other well-known eitizens, sent under guard into the lines of the Confederaey. He at once volunteered his ser- vices, and assisted in caring for the siek in hospitals at Savannah, Ga. After the elose of the war he returned to his home, and at once re- sumed his occupation.

Poh pohnisous np

Dr. Moses was one of the founders of the St. Louis Obstetrieal and Gyneeologi- He also eal Society, and was twice its president. assisted in establishing the Mcdieo-Chirurgical So- eiety, and continues to take an active interest in the affairs and debates of these associations. He is also a member of the St. Louis Medieal Society.

In 1835, Dr. Moses married Miss Mary Porter Ashe, of Wilmington, N. C., a daughter of Col. Samuel P. Ashe, a planter and Revolutionary soldier, who was taken prisoner at the siege of Charleston by the British. Col. Ashe was a gentleman of high standing and fine eulture. By this marriage there were two sons and two daughters. The eldest son,

Dr. Gratz A. Moses, is associated with his father in the praetiee of his profession ; the younger, John A., is a merehant in Silver City, N. M.

In 1855, Dr. Moses married Mrs. Marie Atehison (widow), née Papin, a native of St. Louis, and a de- scendant of old French settlers. There have been no ehildren by this marriage.

After forty-seven years of active practice of his profession, Dr. Moses is still in vigorous health, and engages daily in the performance of his arduous duties.

Dr. John B. Johnson was born at Fair Haven, Mass., in 1817. He pre- pared for Harvard College, but his mother's ill health interfered with his plans, and he did not complete his eol- lege course. He attended his first course of leetures at the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, but not having the facilities for studying praetieal anatomy there whieli he desired, he went to Cambridge and en- tered the Harvard Medical School, and attended two courses of lectures. He then entered the competitive ex- amination for a position as house surgeon to the Massa- chusetts General Hospital, in which he was successful, and held that position for a year, while the correspond- ing position of house physi- cian was held by H. J. Bige- low. Being detained by the illness of a brother from at- tending the examination pre- liminary to graduation at Harvard, he passed the ex- amination at Pittsfield, and received his diploma from Berkshire College in 1840. Afterwards he received an ad eundem degree from Harvard. He came to St. Louis in the spring of 1841, and, as previously stated, was as- sociated with five other young physicians in establish- ing the first dispensary organized in the eity. He ascribes mueh of his sueeess in the early years of his practice here to the kindly interest taken in him by Theron Barnum, who was then the proprietor of the City Hotel, the principal hotel at that time. Dr. Johnson has for many years filled the chair of theory and practice of medieine in the St. Louis Medieal

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THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

College, and has had a very large and lucrative prac- tice among the leading families of the city. He has repeatedly been a delegate to the American Medical Association, and was a constant member of the State Medical Association, of which society he was the president in 1852. Dr. Johnson's wife is a daughter of the late James H. Lucas, and a lady of rare accomplishments and graces of mind and character.

Dr. Thomas Barbour was a son of Philip C. Bar- bour, of Virginia, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was educated scho- lastically at the University of Virginia, and profes- sionally at the University of Pennsylvania, in Phila- delphia. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1830, and soon after settled for practice in Columbia, Tenn., where he became distinguished as a practitioner and as a man of science. He was elected Professor of Chemistry in Lagrange College, Alabama ; in 1842, Professor of Materia Medica in the Medical Department of Kemper College ; in 1843, to the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, and finally, in 1846, when the medical professors of Kemper College were transferred to the University of Missouri, he was elected to the same chair, which he continued to occupy with distinguished abilities until the time of his death, which occurred in June, 1849.

At a meeting of the medical faculty of the Univer- sity of the State of Missouri, held on the evening of June 23, 1849, the following preamble and resolu- tions were unanimously adopted :

" THAT WHEREAS, It has pleased an all-wise Providence to remove by death from our faculty and from his active and dis- tinguished career of usefulness Doctor Thomas Barbour, Pro- fessor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in this institution ; therefore,

" Be it resolved, That, as co-professors and friends of the hum- ble dead, it gives us some consolation thus publicly to testify to his pure character, his high professional attainments, and his distinguished ability as a teacher, and that we mourn sincerely the afflicting dispensation which has deprived our institution of his talents and services, and the community of his useful - ness.

" Resolved, That we desire to be permitted to mingle our sor- rows with those of his bereft wife and family for the irreparable loss they have sustained in the death of one so highly and so justly esteemed; and that Professor Barret, as the organ of our faculty, address a letter of condolence to Mrs. Barbour, and ro- quest of her the loan of the portrait of her lamented husband that a copy may be taken and placed in the medical hall of the university.

" Resolved, That the foregoing preamble and resolutions be published in the city papers, and that a copy thercof be sent to the widow and mother of the deceased.

"JOHN S. MOORE, M.D.,

"Dean Medical Faculty of the University of the State of Missouri."

Dr. Barbour was a man of high professional at- tainments, and especially skillful in the treatment of diseases of women and children.

Dr. Simon Pollak was born in Prague, Bohemia, April 14, 1816, and received his medical education in the universities of Prague and Vienna, graduating at the latter place in 1836. He then spent some months in visiting the hospitals of various European cities, after which he came to the United States and located in Nashville, Tenn., where he resided some years. He came to St. Louis in 1845, March 14th. About that time Dr. Clark resigned his position in the dispensary, and Dr. Pollak was appointed to that position.1 This opened the way for him to a vast amount of unremuncrative professional labor, and it was not until August 1st that he received any com- pensation for services rendered. His first profes- sional fee was ten dollars, for attending a case of obstetrics. After that time he went on prosperously, and has been a very successful practitioner. In 1852 he secured the means through personal solicitation from the charitably-inclined citizens of St. Louis to establish the Missouri Institution for the Educa- tion of the Blind, which was supported for five years by such voluntary contributions, and then became a State institution. Dr. Pollak has been the attending physician to this institution ever since its establish- ment.

Having visited Europe in 1860, where he spent some months in the special study of ophthalmology, he re- turned'to St. Louis, and in 1863 established the first cye and ear infirmary west of the Mississippi River. This institution is still maintained by Dr. Pollak, being held now at the Sisters' Hospital, in the western part of the city, as it had been for years at the same institution when located on Fourth Street. Over eighteen thousand cases have been recorded as treated in connection with this infirmary. Dr. Pollak was a member of the United States Sanitary Commission, and of the Western Sanitary Commission during the war, and also held the position of hospital inspector. He is a member of the American Medical Association, of the St. Louis Medical Society and Medico-Chirur- gical Society, and has written many articles which have appeared from time to time in the columns of medical journals, especially those of the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal.

Dr. B. F. Edwards, who practiced for over half a century in Illinois and Missouri, was born at Darnes- town, Md., July 2, 1797. In 1820 he removed from

1 Dr. Pollak says that Dr. Clark was the only physician in St. Louis who drove in a buggy when he came to the city ; all the others rode on horseback.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Kentucky to Old Franklin, in the Boone's Lick coun- try, Mo., with Cyrus Edwards, his brother. There were living there Gen. Duff Green, the Gambles, and many other prominent Kentuckians. He then went back to Kentucky, and after a while removed to Edwardsville, Ill., where he settled, obtaining an exten- sive practice. His rides extended for forty miles, and so constant day and night were the calls for his ser- vices that he kept five horses as relays in responding expeditiously to the demands on his professional ser- vices. He next established himself for a short period in Alton, and in 1846 removed to St. Louis, where his reputation gave him at once an extensive practice. About the year 1850 he engaged in the California speculations, and shipped a lot of frame houses from St. Louis via the Horn to San Francisco, and erected them on the beach for sale to enterprising gold-seekers. He returned to St. Louis and resumed his practice until 1867, when he removed to Kirkwood, where he continued in practice till about two years before his death, which occurred April 27, 1877. Dr. Edwards was a man of robust virtues, an humble Christian, and a member of the Baptist Church.

Dr. E. S. Frazier was born in Todd County, Ky., in 1809. He was one of the first class which gradu- ated from the Medical Department of Kemper College, the whole class numbering but three. He had prac- ticed for some time before graduating in Salem, Ill. He then located in Liberty, near Peoria, and removed thence to Springfield. He married Miss Mary Moore, of Montgomery County, Tenn., a sister of Dr. John S. Moore, of St. Louis. Through the influence of his brother-in-law, he removed to St. Louis in 1847, being associated with Dr. George Johnson as resident physician of the Hotel for Invalids. This institu- tion being abandoned after a few years, he entered general practice, and soon gained a large and lucrative business. He still continues to practice, though not so actively as in former years.

Dr. G. Fischer has been for a number of years one of the most prominent German physicians of St. Louis. He was born at Prague in 1812, and graduated at the university of that city in 1837. He practiced with eminent success in the city of his birth, but in 1848, having become involved in political difficulties, he found it necessary to leave that country, and deter- mined to come to the United States, that he might rear his children in a free land. He has practiced medicine in St. Louis ever since that time, and has met with remarkable success, having won the respect and esteem of the profession and achieved popularity among the laity, two results by no means always at- tained by one man.

Among the great men whose name and fame must endure forever in the annals of surgery, that of John Thompson Hodgen will stand deservedly pre-eminent. He was born at Hodgenville, among the rugged hills of La Rue County, Ky., not far from the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, on the 19th of January, 1826. His father, Jacob Hodgen, was an elder of the Christian Church. His mother, Frances Park Brown, was a woman of sterling worth, who contributed greatly to fashion the current of his infant thoughts, and to give them a healthy direction. He regarded her as the chief source of his aspirations for the good and noble, and his affection for her was deep, tender, and rever- ential. Her declining years were brightened by the lustre of his renown, and her dying moments soothed by his tender and matchless skill.

His early years were spent in the common schools of Pittsfield, Pike Co., Ill., and his collegiate course at Bethany College, West Virginia. In childhood he exhibited a fondness for medicine, and in his twen- tieth year he entered the Medical Department of the University of the State of Missouri, where, on the threshold of his career, his ambition, industry, and bright intellect marked him as a student of unusual promise.

He graduated in March, 1848; was assistant resi- dent physician of the St. Louis City Hospital from April, 1848, to June, 1849, and was demonstrator of anatomy in his Alma Mater from 1849 to 1853. The energy with which he devoted himself to his profession secured him the chair of anatomy, beside Joseph Nash McDowell, which position he occupied from '1854 to 1858. From 1858 to 1864 he filled both the clairs of anatomy and physiology.

In 1864, the Missouri College building having been seized by the government and transformed into the Gratiot Street prison, and Dr. McDowell, its head, having gone South, Dr. Hodgen led a remnant of the shattered faculty in a noble effort to preserve the life of his Alma Mater. After earnest but ineffectual efforts he relinquished the task, and transferred his allegiance to the St. Louis Medical College, where he filled respectively the chairs of physiology and of anatomy with eminent ability. In 1875 he assumed the chair of surgical anatomy, of fractures and dis- locations, and was created dean of the faculty, which position he held at the time of his death. During the eighteen years from 1864 to 1882 he taught clinical surgery at the City Hospital.

Meantime his valuable services were sought and employed by his country, then in the throes of civil strife, in the capacities of surgeon-general of the Western Sanitary Commission, 1861 ; surgeon United

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

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THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

States volunteers, 1861 to 1864 ; and surgeon-general State of Missouri, 1862 to 1864. Upon the restora- tion of peace he relaxed neither resolution nor in- dustry, and wherever honor, science, or philanthropy called, he was always in the van. He served as con- sulting surgcon of the City Hospital from 1862 to 1882, and was president of the St. Louis Board of Health from 1867 to 1868, and a member of that body until 1871. In this position he was instrumental in organizing on an efficient basis the charity hos- pitals and dispensaries of the city, and in laying the foundation of that sanitary improvement that has since revolutionized the mortuary record of St. Louis. He was president of the St. Louis Medical Society in 1872, was chairman of the surgical section of the American Medical Association in 1873, was president of the State Medical Association in 1876, and was president of the American Medical Association in 1880.

Fame and emoluments crowned his labors, but he never paused or halted in his efforts to improve him- self as physician, surgeon, and scholar. For renown and wealth he cared but little; he never sought an honor, and his simple tastes, unselfish nature, and busy habits suggested little thought of money. The author of brilliant achievements, he never vaunted his deeds, while his blunders were always in his mouth. Devotion to duty was the mainspring of his life ; his only boast that he had never refused to heed the call of the suffering, had never paused to consider the reward, and had never failed to do his best. Conserva- tive, honest, carnest, original, and bold, he was emi- nently a man of action, appalled by no difficulty, and superior to any emergency in practice. Quick and clear in apprehension, tersc and forcible in expression, and a master of the elementary branches of the medi- cal science, he was a powerful debater, whom no sophistry confused, and one who never lost sight of controlling principles nor confounded ideas with facts. In debate with the most distinguished surgeons of all nations, convened in the International Medical Con- gress at Philadelphia in 1876, he won substantial honors, and made a record that stamped him as a great man in the midst of the greatest the civilized world could produce.

Hc possessed decided mechanical genius, but many inventions worthy of note have been lost to science owing to the fact that he neglected to record them. Among the most important of those recorded, some of which have attained a world-wide renown, are wire- splint for fracture of the thigh ; suspension-cord and pulleys, permitting flexion, extension, and rotation in fracture of the leg; forceps-dilator for removal of

foreign bodies from the air-passages without trache- otomy, cradle-splint for treatment of compound frac- ture of the thigh, wire suspension-splint for injury of the arm, double action syringe and stomach-pump, hair-pin dilator for separating lips of the opening in the trachea, and as a guide to the trachea tube.

His chief contributions to medical literature were, Wiring the Clavicle and Acromion for Dislocation of the Scapular End of the Clavicle ; Modification of Op- eration for Lacerated Perineum ; Dislocation of both Hips; Two Deaths from Chloroform ; Use of Atropia in Collapse of Cholera ; Three Cases of Extra-Uterine Fœtation ; Skin-Grafting; Nerve Section for Neuralgia and Induration of Penis; Report on Antiseptic Surgery ; Shock, and Effects of Compressed Air, as observed in the building of the St. Louis and Illinois Bridge.

His literary, mechanical, and operative contribu- tions made him known in Europe and America, and afford the guarantee that his name and memory will endure as long as medicine and surgery are taught.

He dicd in his fifty-seventh year, April 28, 1882, of acute peritonitis, caused by ulceration of the gall- bladder, and after a short and painful illness.

Remarkable for erudition and knowledge of the art he professed, untiring in study, an extensive and thor- ough reader, clearly digesting and appropriating ideas, he was noted for his solidity and sobriety of under- standing, the legitimate fruit of industry and appli- cation. He loved his profession, and knelt at its shrine with the devotion of a priest. He was quick to cheer and help the meritorious and struggling young student and practitioner, and of a free and open nature. He was easy and familiar with the younger members of the profession, rejoiced in their emolu- ments, success, and honors, gave them their full meed of praise when merited, and never sought to monopo- lize the honors of his calling. Broad and liberal in his views, and original and independent in thought and action, he was the standard-bearer of progress in the medical profession. Possessed of a bold heart and a clear head, he yet had the keencst sympathy for suffering humanity. The poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind received his ministrations without price, and he made no distinction in his treatment between the rich and the poor.

In professional counsel and friendly intercourse he was the comfort and help of the young practitioner. No time was too inconvenient, no call too sudden, no patient too humble to claim immediate attention. Like the soldier on the evc of battle, he was ever ready to respond to the bugle-call, no matter when or where it sounded.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

He knew every medical man in the city, and a large proportion of those in its vicinity and the adjoining States, not merely by name and reputation, but by the estimate he had formed of their personal and profes- sional qualifications, and, remarkable for his knowledge of human nature, he was rarely deceived, save when sympathy swayed his judgment. His broad acquaint- ance, great personal influence, and unselfish alacrity to serve others made him, directly and indirectly, the almoner of many valuable® professional places in the governmental and municipal service and in civil life. He always had a place for a deserving man, and a deserving man for a place. Numbers of medical men now prosperous and honored owe their first successes to his disinterested kindness. Under his apparently brusque manner and calm exterior his heart pulsated in sympathetic unison with the trials of all who came in contact with him. A man in the fullest and highest sense of the word, ever true to his convictions of right, loyal to his friends, tender in sickness and sor- row, wise and cultured from extensive and thoughtful reading, but much more so from direct and constant insight into the human frame in health and disease, the memory of John T. Hodgen will long be cherished as an enduring honor to St. Louis, the city of his adoption, and to the profession which he honored and ornamented, and to which he was a benefactor.

Dr. R. S. Holmes was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., Feb. 25, 1814. At the early age of thirteen he lost his father, but although deprived of parental guar- dianship at this important period, his education was not neglected. Having qualified himself he entered Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg, Pa., in which in- stitution he was admitted to the degree of A.B. Sept. 30, 1835, just as he reached his majority. His preliminary education having been completed, he lost no time in commencing the study of his profession ; and in October of the same year he went to Cincin- nati and became the private pupil of Professor Gross, then connected with the Ohio Medical College, in which institution he attended his first course of medi- cal lectures in the winter of 1835. After the close of the session, in the spring of 1836, he went to Philadelphia, and the following fall matriculated in the Jefferson Medical College, which was then just commencing its rivalry with the University of Penn- sylvania. After remaining two winters in connection with this institution, he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the spring of 1838, his in- augural thesis being on the subject of chlorosis.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 118

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358