USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 60
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Genial, popular, big in body and heart, he moves swiftly from case to case, or from problem to problem, with an easy, unhurried air that gives an impression of reserve force. He is a man one would pick in a crowd because of his fine physique.
He has a record that is already worthy to be placed by that of his ilhistrious grandfather, Dr. Charles O'Hagan. The mantle of the grandfather has truly fallen on the grandson. Doctor O'Hagan was once president of the Medical Society of North Carolina. For half a century he was identified with practically every enterprise in the town. It is easy to see where Doctor Laughinghouse got his ideal of a physician, for the grandfather was the living embodiment of that ideal.
Doctor Laughinghouse returned to his home town in 1893, with his diploma in medicine, after having spent three years at the University of Pennsylvania, and entered into partnership with his grandfather, in the meantime having stood the state examination and having received his license to practice medicine. There was no period of starvation, no waiting for the first patient, and no time had to be spent in gaining the confidence of the people. It was sufficient for the public
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to know that Doctor O'Hagan considered his young grandson worthy of sharing his work. Seven years of partnership with an experienced physician was excellent apprenticeship for the young physi- cian. Professionally he used the time to good advantage, not depending on the grandfather's rep- utation to carry him through. He realized that the time would come when he would have to carry on the practice alone. When the older mian passed out the work went on.
For a few years Doctor Laughinghouse was in partnership with Doctor Moye, but the failing health of Doctor Moye required him to give up ' his practice, so the partnership was dissolved. Since then Doctor Laughinghouse has practiced alone.
Doctor Laughinghouse has held many offices, and they have not been empty offices of honor, but those that have required work and special intel- lectual qualifications. In 1895, only two years after he was admitted to the profession in North Carolina, he was made essayist of the Medical Society. In 1896 he was made chairman of the section on surgery and anatomy in the same or- ganization. In 1902, less than ten years after he began practicing medicine, he was made a member of the State Board of Examiners. He served on this board for six years, and was president for the last two years of this time.
He has been a member of the State Board of Health since 1910. In 1902 he delivered an ad- dress before the Medical Society on "One of the State's Immediate Needs-Shown by Legislative History. " This was printed and circulated throughout the state. Reprints of this were made later and copies are still in circulation. This set forth the needs for increased appropriations for the Department of Health. It was one of the important factors that aroused the legislators to a realization of the importance of this department. The appropriations have been greatly increased from time to time until this department has grown to be one of the most extensive and efficient de- partments of the state. At the time Doctor Laugh- inghouse wrote this article he was chairman of the section on "Medical Jurisprudence and State Leg- islation. '"
He delivered the address at the laying of the cornerstone of Caswell Training School, the school for the feeble-minded, setting forth the purposes, the prospects, and the future of the institution. It was printed and scattered throughout the state; later reprints were sent out into other states, and dozens of invitations have come to him to ad- dress legislatures and various bodies which were interested or which zealous advocates wished to interest in the cause of the feeble-minded.
On the gravestone of one of the Laughinghouse forefathers at Bath is the inscription, "A revo- lutionary soldier who carried to his grave scars received while fighting for the independence of our country. He lived and died an honest man." This explains where Doctor Laughinghouse got his fighting qualities. He has been in many in- teresting fights. Perhaps he has achieved more fame because of his part in the campaign against tuberculosis than he has in any other cause. He wrote an article, "Diagnosis of Incipient Tu- berculosis from the General Practitioner's Stand- point," which has been widely circulated. This is considered one of the most valuable contribu- tions made to the cause by a general practitioner.
Some years ago smallpox was raging everywhere
in this section of the state. People were still doubting the efficiency of vaccination. One fam- ily in Pitt County had six cases of the disease, but this was the first outbreak of it in the county. Doctor Laughinghouse determined to keep ahead of the disease, started out on a vaccinating cam- paign; for six weeks he went day and night vac- cinating throughout the county as he went. The smallpox excitement in Pitt County ended where it began, with those first six cases, and the sur- rounding counties had appalling records.
He was instrumental in getting a bill passed by the State Legislature allowing towns and counties to build community hospitals. He made a survey of the poorhouses of the First Congres- sional District, which convinced him that there was a great waste in having a separate poorhouse for each county. He succeeded in convincing the Legislature of the same thing, and they passed a bill permitting the First District to have a com- munity poorhouse, to take care of all the paupers of all the counties in the district. This has not, however, been built.
Doctor Laughinghouse has been the official school physician of East Carolina Teachers Train- ing School ever since its opening. The health rec- ord of the school has been well nigh marvelous. In the seven years there has never been a single death among students or faculty. There has never been an epidemic of any kind. All sorts and kinds of diseases have crept in, one at the time, but they have a way of coming at the end of vacations or week-end trips, souvenirs the students bring back from other places. Among these have been all the simple contagious diseases that every- one seems destined to have-measles, mumps, scar- let fever, whooping cough, chicken pox, and, in addition, smallpox (just one very light case)-yet not a single one of these has gone any further than the case with which it began. The infirmary at the training school, with its excellent con- tagious ward, makes it possible to isolate com- pletely any suspected cases.
The preventive measures Doctor Laughinghouse has taken against disease, and the corrective treat- ment for chronic troubles, have been of untold value to the school. Many individual girls have been saved from future trouble.
Doctor Laughinghouse advocates the same pre- ventive measures in regard to health in the com- munity, both town and country, that he does in the school. He never loses an opportunity to in- form the people along the lines of health. One evi- dence of this is that the people of Pitt County look on the typhoid treatment as a necessity.
He dreamed of the time when Pitt County should have a whole-time health officer. He served for years as health officer and gave such service as conditions would permit. This made him real- ize that conditions should be bettered, that there should be health inspection in the schools, and that all of the many things that should be done could be done only by a man who had all of his time to give to the work. In the winter of 1915 a peculiar combination of circumstances made him feel that the psychological moment had arrived for the matter to be pressed home. The board of county commissioners were appealed to and the result was that the State Board of Health was anthorized to find a man qualified for the place. The interests of Doctor Laughinghouse reach out beyond his profession. As was said in the begin- ning, he is a citizen first of all. His fighting
Chances G. Hill
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powers have been used for the educational de- velopment of the town. He was one of the first to advocate bonds for the purpose of building a graded school. He canvassed the county from one end to the other when the question of the bond issue for the East Carolina Teachers Train- ing School was the paramount issue before the people.
He was also one of the first to agitate the bond issue for good roads. This was finally carried after an intensely interesting campaign. The in- dustrial and commercial life of the town he has not only watched with great concern, but has taken a hand and helped substantially many times. He was one of the original stockholders applying for a charter of the Greenville Knitting Mill, the Greenville Manufacturing Company, and the Greenville Building and Loan Association. He was one of the first to take stock in and help organize both the National Bank of Greenville and the Greenville Banking and Trust Company. He is now a director of the latter. Doctor Laugh- inghouse, with Higgs Brothers and D. W. Hardy, built the modern four-story office building in the heart of the town, known as the "National Bank Building. " The Public Library of Greenville has rooms in this building, which the owners are furnishing free of rent for one year.
The name of Doctor Laughinghouse is among the charter members of the Carolina Club. He is now one of the directors of this club, and has been active in its development, helping to make it a real factor in the progress of the town.
This man whom the doctors of North Carolina have chosen to honor is, on one side, descended from the pure old English stock that settled this eastern section of North Carolina. His forefa- thers over 200 years ago settled at Bath, the old- est town in North Carolina, and helped build the most famous church in North Carolina, which is still standing. Without a break his Laughinghouse grandfathers have been landowners and were slave- holders. A generation or two ago this immediate branch of the family moved into another part of Beaufort County, in the Chocowinity Township. The father of Doctor Laughinghouse, J. J. Laugh- inghouse, has been a prominent citizen of Green- ville for many years.
The mother of Doctor Laughinghouse was Miss Eliza O'Hagan, who was the daughter of Doctor Charles O'Hagan, for whom he was named. Doc- tor O'Hagan was born in Ireland, was educated in Belfast and lived there until after he was grown. He had a position in the Queen's sur- vey and went throughout Ireland, Scotland and England while in this work. He came to this country to teach, and because a college mate had told him that the South was a great place for school teachers he came South. He taught in Hookerton and Kinston before coming to Green- ville, where he finally settled. After teaching a while he read medicine and began practicing. He came to Greenville in 1850 and died in 1900.
Doctor Laughinghouse was born in 1871. He attended Trinity High School, at Chocowinity, for some years, where he was under one of the famous teachers of this section, Rev. Collin Hughes, D. D. He attended Horner School, at Oxford, for two years. He was a student in the University of North Carolina one year. The secondary schools then did not stop when a boy was prepared for college; therefore, when Doctor Laughinghouse en- tered the University he found his work scattered
from Freshman through the Junior class. One of the things for which the university has to thank him is his part in the organization of the first glee club ever organized there. He and Messrs. Hunter, Harris, George Butler, T. M. Lee and Stephen Bragaw were the first members. He left the University of North Carolina to at- tend the University of Pennsylvania. While there he was president of the John S. Ashurst Surgical Society. He received his medical degree in the year 1893. He took three months post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in 1896. Doc- tor Laughinghouse has been president and secre- tary of the Seaboard Medical Society, is a mem- ber of the Greenville Civic League, and is a Delta Kappa Epsilon.
June 10, 1896, he married Miss Carrie Dail, of Snow Hill. They are the parents of three chil- dren, Helen, Charles and Dail. Helen is now pur- suing advanced studies in St. Mary's School at Raleigh.
In politics Doctor Laughinghouse is a demo- crat. He sometimes says that when it comes to local politics he must be a mugwump, for he al- ways wants to see elected the man, regardless of the party to which he belongs, who will do most to better conditions in education and sanitation, the man who in every way will mean most to the community.
Thus one can readily see that the man who has achieved so much for his community in a lifetime of forty-five years has merited the confidence of his professional co-workers.
CHARLES GERALDUS HILL, M. D. While his work and interests have been centered at the City of Baltimore for half a century, the achievements of Dr. Charles Geraldus Hill, one of the most eminent alienists in America, have reflected great credit upon his native state and have contributed to the profession of medicine and surgery what many other members of this old family have given to the military, public affairs and business of this state.
Doctor Hill was born near Louisburg in Frank- lin County, North Carolina, October 31, 1849, a son of Daniel Shines and Susan Irwin (Toole) Hill. The family in both the maternal and pa- ternal lines has been distinguished in North Caro- lina for more than a century and a half. The Hill ancestors moved to North Carolina from Eastern Virginia, where on coming from England they settled in Matthews County and other counties of Eastern Virginia in the earliest Colonial period. There were a number of Hill families in Virginia in Colonial times, and it will serve to identify this particular branch by mentioning one of its mem- bers, Col. Edward Hill, who was a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia in 1654. Many others were prominent in some relation or other from that time forward.
This branch of the family traces its origin back to Earl Hill of Hillsboro, England. Its noble origin is indicated by the Hill coat of arms, the description of which in heraldie language is as follows: Sable on a fesse argent between three leopards passant-guardant, proper three escallops sable. Crest: In a wreath a reindeer head, couped and erect, gules, collared and attired, or. Sup- porters: On the Dexter side of a leopard proper ducally collared and chained, or. On the Sinister side: Reindeer, gules, ducally collared, chained and attired, or. Motto: "Ne tentes aut perfice."
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The Hill family were conspicuous in the history of Franklin County, North Carolina, from the time of its organization in 1779. Franklin and Warren counties were created in 1779 by the divi- sion of the old Butte County. A conspicuous member of the family at that time was Maj. Green Hill. He served as a delegate to the Provisional Congress which met at Newbern in August, 1774. Later he was commissioned a major in one of the military organizations of the state, and was again a member of the Provisional Congress in 1776. A prominent figure in his day, he later moved to Tennessee, where his last years were spent. Some other members of the family should also be noted. Beginning in 1780 Henry Hill was for twelve years a member of the State Senate. In the meantime Jordan Hill was a member of the Lower House and later succeeded Henry Hill in the State Sen- ate, where he served five years. James J. Hill, a great-grandfather of Doctor Hill, appeared several times in the lower house between 1805 and 1810 and was in the State Senate in 1817-18. Charles Applewhite Hill, grandfather of Doctor Hill, was in the State Senate from 1817 to 1827. If the public services of different members of the family are combined, there is a total of about forty years of service in the North Carolina General Assembly.
Charles Applewhite Hill, just mentioned, was a learned man, a scholar, a graduate of the Uni- versity of North Carolina with the degree Master of Arts, and in his time one of the most noted educators of the state. He established an academy at Midway, North Carolina, which later he trans- ferred to Louisburg, and there educated many young men who afterwards became prominent. In 1825 he published an English grammar which was one of the first condensed or simplified grammars ever used in this country. Charles Applewhite Hill married in 1806 Rebecca W. Long. Her father, Col. Nicholas Long, was a soldier of the Revolution, serving with the rank of colonel and also did duty during the War of 1812.
Daniel Shines Hill, father of Doctor Hill, was born near Louisburg in 1812. He married Susan Irwin Toole, daughter of Geraldus and Elizabeth (King) Toole, and granddaughter of Lawrence Toole, who married a sister of Col. Henry Irwin, a North Carolina officer in the Revolutionary war who was killed at the battle of Germantown, Penn- sylvania. The Tooles and the Irwins, the former of Irish and the latter of Scotch ancestry, came to Edgecombe County, North Carolina, from Hamp- ton, Virginia, about 1750. The Toole name was originally O'Toole, and the family descends from the same stock in Ireland that produced St. Law- rence O'Toole, one of the great scholar-priests of early Ireland.
To have proved worthy of such eminent an- cestry would have in itself constituted a tremen- dous responsibility had Doctor Hill deliberately set out to achieve such a result. How far he has done so the following record will probably con- stitute a sufficient proof. All his early life was spent in North Carolina. He acquired some of his literary education in the Louisburg Academy, which had been founded by his grandfather. There he received preparation entitling him to enter the sophomore class of the State University. He was ready for college about the time the war closed. The deplorable condition of the State University at that time has been set forth on other pages. That taken in connection with the depleted re- sources of the family following upon the heels of
the devastating four years war, prevented Doctor Hill from taking regular collegiate course. He began the study of medicine under a preceptor at Louisburg, and in 1868 entered Washington Uni- versity Medical College at Baltimore, where he was graduated with the highest honors of his class in June, 1870. His scholarship record and his un- doubted talents procured for him attractive oppor- tunities in Baltimore, and in that city he has ever since remained and from there his fame as a physician has gone forth.
Immediately upon his graduation he was elected resident physician of the Washington University Hospital, now known as Mercy Hospital, at the corner of Calvert and Saratoga streets. While serving in that capacity he performed a successful treatment of sunstroke through the inhalation of oxygen gas. He also discovered the peculiar toxic properties in oil of sassafras. Both these achieve- ments were noted in the medical journals of that period. In a short time the confining nature of the work at the hospital threatened the health of Doc- tor Hill, so that he had to sever his active connec- tions with the institution.
Doctor Hill has always been accustomed to horse- back riding and his long and useful life is un- doubtedly the result of his outdoor activities. One of the chief pleasures he has enjoyed has been fox hunting. On retiring from the hospital he established a private practice at what was then known as the Village of Hookston on the Reister- town Road. Through his influence the name of the village was changed to Arlington, which in later years has developed as one of the most de- lightful residential sections of Baltimore. A num- ber of years ago Doctor Hill built up his present home at Arlington, a beautiful and commodious residence set in large grounds occupying a liberal frontage on both the Reistertown Road and Wylie Avenue.
The relationship which he has longest sustained in professional affairs was begun in 1879 with his appointment as assistant physician at the cele- brated Mount Hope Retreat for the Insane, an institution under the care of the Catholic Church. Of this Dr. W. H. Stokes had been physician in chief since it was founded in 1840. Upon the death of Doctor Stokes Doctor Hill was appointed chief physician, and he has continued to fill that responsible place ever since. During all the seventy-seven years of its existence the institution has had but two physicians in chief.
In addition to his duties as assistant physician he for some years carried on a general private prac- tice. However, for the past thirty years he has given his time and talents exclusively to the treat- ment of nervous and mental diseases, and it is as an alienist that his reputation is most widely estab- lished in the medical profession of the country. As long ago as 1881 he became associated with the Baltimore Medical College as lecturer on mental and nervous diseases. In 1882 he was elected pro- fessor of anatomy and diseases of the mind, and in 1883 was made president of the college, still hold- ing the chair of mental and nervous diseases. Later he retired as president, but continues to fill the chair of nervous and mental diseases and his lec- ture room is as crowded today with the students as it was twenty years ago. The Baltimore Medi- cal College is now merged with the University of Maryland, as its medical department.
For twenty-five years Doctor Hill has been an active member of the board of governors of Rose-
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wood Training School for the Feeble Minded, a state institution. For many years he was vice president of the board, and in 1916 was elected its president, one of the most highly appreciated honors he has ever received.
But professional honors have not been infre- quent with Doctor Hill. In 1895-1896 he was elected president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland Society. In 1897 he was made president of the Baltimore Medical and Surgical Society; in 1899, president of the Balti- more County Medical Society, and in 1905 he was again elected president of the Baltimore Medical and Surgical Society. In 1906, at its meeting in Boston, the American Medico-Psychological Society elected him its president. He had had the dis- tinction of being elected president of each medical society to which he has belonged, except the Amer- ican Medical Association, of which he is a very distinguished member. He also served as the first secretary, with the duties of executive, of the Baltimore County Board of Health.
With all the demands made upon him in his pro- fessional capacity he has found time to do con- siderable writing, and is author of many articles that have appeared in medical and scientific jour- nals. He is a man of very catholic tastes and in- terests and has crowded into his years more ac- tivities and useful service than fall to the lot of any but the very exceptional men. His name is not unknown to the science of astronomy. He was discoverer of the comet of June 23, 1881, and as some evidence of appreciation of that discovery the A. S. Abell Company, proprietors of the Balti- more Sun, presented him with a handsome gold medal. Loyola College has honored him with the degree Master of Arts. While nearing the age of three score and ten Doctor Hill is still tall, erect, and his bodily and mental vigor are in happy contrast to his snow white hair. His Ches- terfieldean manners betray him as one of the gentleman of the old South.
Doctor Hill is a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner, and is member of many clubs and social and civic organizations. For twenty years he was a member of the old Athenaeum Club, belongs to the University Club and the Baltimore Coun- try Club, the New Maryland Country Club, the Green Springs Valley Hunt Club, the Churchman's Club, and in several of these organizations has been one of the board of governors. When Troop A of the Maryland National Guard was organized at the time of the Spanish-American war Doctor Hill was a charter member, enrolling as a private, but afterward was made surgeon of the troop with rank of captain.
Doctor Hill has been twice married. November 6, 1877, Isabel Sloan Painter became his wife. She died in 1882 and in 1883 he married her sis- ter, Mabel H. Painter. Of the first marriage there are two living children: Dudley Sloan Hill and Geraldus Toole Hill of New York. There are two children of the second wife, Dr. Milton Paint- er Hill and Miss Gladys Hill.
ADDISON G. BRENIZER, M. D. There are few of his profession in the state, and perhaps none of his age, who stand higher than Dr. Addison G. Brenizer, formerly of Charlotte, where Mrs. Bren- izer still makes her home, while the doctor is abroad in the service of his country in France.
Those who believe in preparedness both in pri- vate and national affairs have a good subject to sustain their position in the training and advanced
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