USA > New Jersey > Camden County > The history of medicine and medical men of Camden County, New Jersey > Part 3
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In the year 1874 Atlantic City had become a favorite seaside resort, with several hotels each large enough to accommodate the whole State Society. There being no medical soci- ety in Atlantic County, it was determined by the Camden County Society to invite the first-named society to hold their next annual meeting there. A committee, consisting of Drs. J. W. Snowden, J. V. Schenek, J. Or-
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lando White, I. B. Heulings, J. R. Stevenson and T. F. Cullen, was appointed to make preparations. The meeting was held May 25, 1875. It was memorable for several rea- sons. It was the first time a county society had ever selected a place outside of its own jurisdiction to entertain its parent society. The Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company provided, free of expense, a special train to convey delegates and invited guests both ways, issuing tickets good for three days, on any train.
As far as is known, this was the first instance in the United States where a railroad had offered such a courtesy to any body of medical men. For several years a few of the members had been accompanied by their wives and daughters to these meetings of the State Society, which hold for two days. As the families of physicians enjoy but few op-
portunities to join them in a holiday excur- sion, it was determined by the committee to offer the greatest inducements for the ladies to accompany the delegates to Atlantic City. Invitations were issued for them to attend and to partake of a banquet, which the Cam- den County Society had ordered for the eve- ning, and the minutest details of the shortest route to Camden and thence to the seaside were furnished them. The attendance, es- pecially of ladies, was larger than it had ever been at any previous meeting. The State Society, however, passed a resolution prohib- iting any county society from providing any banquet in the future, because of the burden it would entail on poorer societies. The cit- izens of Atlantic City did all in their power to give pleasure to their guests.
Members of the Camden County Medical Society since its organization,-
Date of admission.
Name.
Year of graduation.
College where graduated.
Remarks.
1846
Jacob P. Thornton
1828
University of Pennsylvania
Removed West.
1846
Richard M. Cooper.
1839
University of Pennsylvania
Died May 24, 1874.
1846
James C. Risley
1844
Jefferson Medical College.
Died Nov. 26, 1866.
1846
Charles D. Hendry
1832
University of Pennsylvania
Died April 29, 1869.
1846
Othniel H. Taylor
1825
University of Pennsylvania
Died Sept. 5, 1869.
1846
Isaac S. Mulford
1822
University of Pennsylvania
Died Feb. 17, 1873.
1847
A. D. Woodruff.
1844
Jefferson Medical College
Died Jan. 1881.
1847
Bowman Hendry
1846
Jefferson Medical College
Died June 8, 1868.
1847
Daniel M. Stont ..
1847
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1847
Benj. W. Blackwood
1828
University of Pennsylvania
Died Jan. 19, 1866.
1848
John V. Schenck.
1847
University of Pennsylvania
Died July 25, 1882.
1848
Edward J. Record
1848
Jefferson Medical College
Expelled.
1849
John W. Snowden.
1844
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1849
John J. Jessup.
1848
Jefferson Medical College
Died 1852.
1849
Robt. M. Smallwood.
1849
University of Pennsylvania
Died Feb. 8, 1856.
1850
Jacob Grigg
1843
University of Pennsylvania
Removed to Burl'n Co.
1850
Thos. F. Cullen
1844
University of Pennsylvania
Died Nov. 21, 1878.
1851
Ezekial C. Chew.
1843
Jefferson Medical College
Removed West.
1852
B. Fullerton Miles
1852
Jefferson Medical College
Removed.
1854
G. W. Bartholomew.
1853
University of Pennsylvania
Expelled.
1854
Richard C. Dean.
1854
Jefferson Medical College
Honorary member.
1857
N. B. Jennings.
1856
Jefferson Medical College
Died April 17, 1885.
1859
Henry Ackley
1858
Jefferson Medical College
Died Dec. 1, 1865.
1860
H. Genet Taylor.
1860
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1860
Henry E. Branin
1858
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1863
J. Gilbert Young
1862
University of Pennsylvania
Honorary member.
1863
John R. Stevenson
1863
University of Pennsylvania
Present member. ...
1864
Alex. Marcy.
1861
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1866
Joseph F. Garrison
1845
University of Pennsylvania
Honorary member.
1866
James M. Ridge.
1852
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1866
Jonathan J. Comfort.
1859
Jefferson Medical College
Removed.
1850
Sylvester Birdsell.
1848
Jefferson Medical College
...
Died May 29, 1883.
1857
W. G. Thomas.
1854
Pennsylvania Medical College
Died Ang. 17, 1858.
8 h
Date of admission.
Name.
Year of graduation.
College where graduated.
Remarks.
1867
Peter V. Schenck.
1860
University of Pennsylvania
Died March 12, 1885.
1867
H. A. M. Smith
1864
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1867
Alex. M. Mecray
1863
University of Pennsylvania
Present member. Died.
1867
J. Newton Achuff.
1867
Jefferson Medical College
1867
T. J. Smith
1866
University of Pennsylvania
Removed in 1868.
1867
John M. Sullivan
1858
Jefferson Medical College
Removed.
1868
J. Orlando White.
1868
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1870
I. W. Hewlings
1869
Jefferson Medical College
Honorary member.
1870
Randall W. Morgan
1870
University of Pennsylvania
Died Oct. 20, 1884.
1871
J. W. Mccullough
1860
Jefferson Medical College
Died March 5, 1881.
1871
John R. Haney
1861
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1871
D. Parrish Pancoast.
1859
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1871
R. B. Okie.
1870
University of Pennsylvania
Removed to Penna.
1871
Isaac B. Mulford.
1871
University of Pennsylvania
Resigned.
1871
W. H. Ireland.
1867
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1871
Geo. W. Boughman
1863
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
Edwin Tomlinson
1872
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
C. H. Shivers
1873
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
Maximillian West
1875
University of Pennsylvania
Rem. to Atlantic City.
E. B. Woolston.
1854
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
E. L. B. Godfrey
1875
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1876
W. P. Melcher
1876
University of Pennsylvania
Rem. to Burlington Co.
1876
James A. Armstrong
1861
University of Pennsylvania
Died Oct. 30, 1885.
1876 1876 1876
E. J. Snitcher
1874
Chicago Medical College
Present member.
D. W. Blake.
1876
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
W. A. Davis.
1876
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
Dowling Benjamin
1877
University of Pennsylvania
Present member. Removed.
1877 1878 1878 1879 1879
W. H. Iszard.
1870
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
Onan B. Gross.
1878
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1879
James H. Wroth
1878
University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
C. M. Schellinger
1879
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
H. H. Davis.
1879
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1881
C. G. Garrison.
1872
University of Pennsylvania University of Maryland
Present member.
H. F. Palm.
1881
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
E. P. Townsend
1863
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
Conrad G. Hoell.
1882
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
A. T. Dobson, Jr
1882
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1876
Jefferson Medical College Jefferson Medical College
Present member. Present member.
1885
Wm. Warnock
1880
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
1886
Jesse J. Wills
1884
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1886
James A. Wamsley
1878
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
PRESIDENTS OF CAMDEN COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
James C. Risley, 1846-47. Isaac S. Milford, 1848-51. Charles D. Hendry, 1852-53. A. Dickinson Woodruff, 1854. John W. Snowden, 1855-75. Othniel H. Taylor, 1856. Thomas F. Cullen, 1857. Sylvester Birdsell, 1858. John V. Schenck, 1859-73. Bowman Hendry, 1860. Napoleon B. Jennings, 1861. Henry E. Branin, 1862.
James M. Ridge, 1867.
Jonathan J. Comfort, 1868. Alexander M. Mecray, 1869. J. Orlando White, 1870. Richard M. Cooper, 1871-74. Isaac W. Heulings, 1872. Edwin Tomlinson, 1877. HI. A. M. Smith, 1878. D. Parish Pancoast, 1879. C. HI. Shivers, 1880. Isaac B. Mulford, 1881. E. L. B. Godfrey, 1882.
J. Gilbert Young, 1863. John R. Stevenson, 1864.
John R. Haney, 1883.
Dowling Benjamin, 1884.
II. Genet Taylor, 1865. Alexander Marcy, 1866-76.
E. B. Woolston, 1885. W. H. Ireland, 1886.
DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES .- There is but little information concerning the diseases that prevailed in Camden County prior to the formation of its Medical Society. The limited number of physicians who practiced in it between 1730 and 1846 had but little
1877 1877
John S. Miller
J. F. Walsh
1876
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
S. B. Irwin
1844
Jefferson Medical College
Present member.
1880 1881 1881
J. W. Donges.
1866
Honorary member.
W. A. Hamilton.
1870
1882 1883 1883
1884 1884 1884 P. W. Beale. 1885 Daniel Strock 1885 Joseph H. Wills
1877
1880
University of Pennsylvania
Present member.
Thomas G. Rowand.
1850
Philadelphia College.
Present member.
1871
Thomas Westcott.
Died Nov. 21, 1882.
1872 1873 1875 1875 1876
Rem. to New Mexico.
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time to write any account of their observa- tions and experience, and still less opportunity to publish them. It is, therefore, from traditions that have been well preserved in this section, compared with the accounts of diseases and epidemics in other parts of this and adjacent colonies, that a knowledge of them can be best obtained.
There is a widespread belief that the climate of this section has changed, and that diseases now are very different from what they were in early times. A hundred years ago the old were wont to lament the change and deterioration of the seasons, since the days of their youth, in the same strain as their descendants do now. A careful examination of weather notes shows that there has been no climatic variation since the early settle- ment of the county. There were then, as now, cycles of hot and dry summers, alter- nating with cool and moist ones ; cold, bleak winters with warm and wet ones. There was the chilly spring and the mild autumn. With the exception of a few maladies, like cholera, that have been imported from countries with which, in former times, there was only in- frequent and slow communication, there is no evidence that there are any diseases now that did not occur in early days. Their symptoms and courses have been greatly modified by a change in the habits and cus- toms of the people, and by improved medi- cation and sanitation.
In colonial times the houses were nearly all built of wood, a few were log, but most of them were constructed of rough sawed boards, with board partitions, and 'without plaster. There were no carpets on the floor. The only mode of heating them was by a wood fire in an open fire-place, by which the family sat in the Arctic cold of winter, one side of the body alternately chilled and warmed as it was turned to or from the blazing logs. Their clothing was of home- spun wool ; only on ceremonial displays did the well-to-do wear linen or silk shirts or 2
stockings. Underclothing was not worn until the present century, even after cotton cloth had been substituted for woolen stuffs. Overcoats were a rare luxury, but a few of the wealthier men possessed them. Bangups they were called, made of good imported cloth; they were reserved for state occasions ; they were expected to last a life-time, and sometimes descended as an heirloom to the son. Rubber over-shoes and clothing were never dreamed of until within the present generation. The only mode of traveling was in the open boat or on horseback exposed to the weather.
Their diet did not compare any more favorably with that of modern times than did their clothing. Vegetables were plentiful in the summer, but there was no method of preserving the perishable ones through the other nine months of the year. Their bread was made from rye, wheat having come into general use only within the last fifty years. The staple meats were salt pork and ham. In the earlier period of the settlement this was relieved by game, but as the country filled up, it became scarce and had a mercan- tile price ; then it was sold. Mutton was but little eaten. Prior to the Revolution sheep were so valuable that in old wills bequests are left to daughters of a ewe-lamb and feather-bed in lieu of any real estate. After the embargo laid upon wool during the war it became unpatriotic and disreputable to eat mutton, and this sentiment continued to pro- hibit its use long after the reason for it had been forgotten. It was only in the winter that they had fresh meat. When they wanted beef they fatted the oldest and most worthless cow on the farm, and when cold weather set in they killed it, and after the meat had been cooked to the indigestibility of leather, they ate it three times a day until putrefaction commenced. It is not surprising that beef was not considered a wholesome food. One superlative article of food they possessed in abundance, whose value as a substitute for
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any deficiency in a diet is unsurpassed, but which has not been appreciated by either the medical profession or the laity, until recently. That was milk. This was not a salable commodity, and that is, perhaps, the reason why it was considered to be a plebeian drink. The dividing line between gentility and common people was milk. To have offered an invited guest at the table a glass of it would have been an un- pardonable offence. The family, including the children, at the first table had their tea and coffee ; the bound boy at the second table had an unstinted supply of milk. The result was that a quarter of a century afterwards the bound boy owned the farm.
Alcoholic drinks were freely used. Apple- whiskey was in every one's house. Imported wines and brandies purchased by the wealthier people were reserved for special occasions. It was customary to take a drink of spirits be- fore breakfast to counteract the deleterious effects of fog and dampness. If a neighbor was visited, or the visit returned, the de- canter was set out as a mark of hospitality. It was not believed that any excessive labor, like haying and harvesting, could be done without it. The jug was taken to the mea- dow or field along with the water-bucket, and when the men had cut a number of swaths across the grass or grain, a halt was made to take a draught of the liquor. At social gatherings, at weddings, at funerals, and even at child-births the flowing bowl was passed around.
The contrast between these early habits and customs and those of to-day is most marked. Without enumerating them, it will suffice to state that a temperanee man in the eighteenth century was one who never got intoxicated ; now he is a total abstainer from alcoholic beverages. Now the well-filled de- canter is not only kept out of sight, but it is banished from the house. One township in this county has for fifteen years prohibited the sale of liquor within its limits.
As might be expected, inflammatory dis- eases were formerly very frequent, and their symptoms violent. Pleurisy, bronchitis, pneumonia and rheumatism prevailed exten- sively, especially in years in which the thermometrie changes favored their develop- ment. They were much oftener fatal than they are now. Cholera-morbus, dysentery and diarrhea, which are rarely fatal now, then caused the death of many. Scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough, which are the bane of childhood, exhibited the same infantile violence as the diseases of adult life. Sickness, especially epidemics, as far back as 1726, are noted as having been sthenic or asthenie, but there is no record of that popular word typhoid, as applied to depressed forms of illness, having been used in this county until 1855, when Dr. T. F. Cullen reported that malarious diseases had that year assumed a typhoid form. These facts would indicate that the changes in the mode of liv- ing of the people, which had been gradually improving up to the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and very rapidly since then, had produced a moiety of people of weak constitution, who, under the surround- ings of earlier days, invariably died young.
Intermittent and remittent fevers were common on the Delaware slope of the county. In 1798 there is a record that they were prevalent on the high ground, while yellow bilious fever attacked those along the river- shore. In 1823 Dr. Charles F. Clarke, of Woodbury, in his notes, says that bilious fevers were epidemic, and so numerous were the case's, that as he rode along at night, farmers would keep a light burning as a signal for him that there was sickness in the house. The reports made to the Camden County Medical Society state that malarial fevers prevailed along the streams in 1848. After this little is said about them until 1856, when they again became frequent, and con- tinued to increase until 1862, when they were declared to be epidemic. Then they began
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to decline, until in 1867, and for five years afterwards, they had so diminished that the physicians congratulated themselves that these diseases were finally disappearing. In 1873 they reappeared, steadily increasing in num- ber and severity until 1877, when they were again pronounced to be epidemic ; since then they have been declining, and at present (1886) are quite infrequent. Professor Kalm, reporting to the Swedish government in 1748, concerning Gloucester (Camden included) County, says fevers and agues were more common than any other disease. In some years they ravaged the whole county, in others " scarcely a single person was taken ill.">
At the time that Kalm wrote, the Atlantic slope of the county, called the " Pines," was not inhabited, except by a few wood-chop- pers. From the earliest times this section has been popularly credited with great ex- emption from pulmonary and miasmatic dis- eases. More recently Dr. John W. Snowden, who has practiced medicine in that section for forty years, and who is the able chairman of the Standing Committee and reporter of the Camden County Medical Society, states that he never saw a case of intermittent or remittent fever originate there. He also confirms its reputation for freedom from pul- monary affections.
Typhoid fever was not known as a distinct disease until it was investigated and de- scribed by Louis, a French physician, in the early part of the present century. There is no doubt but that cases of it occurred here so soon as the concretions from filth were suffi- cient to form a nidus for its growth. The milder forms of it were classed with obsti- nate remittent fever, and helped to swell its mortality list. In the tradition that has come down to us of the dreaded and fatal nervous fever, as it was called, may be found a description of a severe case of typhoid fever where the cerebral symptoms were promi- nent. In the reports of the medical society
this disease is noted as occurring more or less throughout the county every year, although in some seasons it is more frequent than in others, especially in Camden. Haddonfield seems to have had great immunity from it, as there is no record of any case happening there that was not contracted elsewhere.
Typhus fever has been an infrequent dis- case during the history of the county. There was an epidemic of it in Camden in 1812, in which a number lost their lives, but otherwise that city has been remarkably free from it. Dr. Bowman Hendry had some cases of it adjacent to the almshouse at Blackwood. At this institution it is occa- sionally introduced by vagrants, and in 1881 it became epidemic, there having been one hundred and three cases and thirty-three deaths from it. Dr. Mccullough, one of the attending physicians, fell a victim to the disease.
The proximity of Camden County to the port of Philadelphia has made it liable to be invaded by yellow fever. There is no record of its having become located within the county limits, although the lower end of Gloucester County, from which it was set off, has been charged with having reproduced it along the river-shore in 1747 and 1798. There were epidemics of yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1762; between the years 1793 and 1798 ; between 1802 and 1805 ; and in the years 1819 and 1820. At these peri- ods there were isolated cases contracted by visits to infected districts of that city. Dur- ing the epidemic of 1853 there does not ap- pear to have been any deaths from it in Camden County. In 1854 there was one case of yellow fever in Camden in the person of a sailor who, two days previous to his attack, had landed from a steamer sixty hours from Savannah, Ga.
The insidious and obscure diseases of the kidneys observed and described by Dr. Bright, of England, in 1828, and after whom they are named, were not diagnosed by phy-
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sicians until chemistry and microscopy had advanced to such a state of progress as to offer the only means of detecting them. The first application of these sciences in Camden County for this purpose was made by a mem- ber of its Medical Society in 1865. Since that date Bright's disease is known to be the cause of a limited number of deaths here an- nually. Fatal results from some formerly obscure cases of dropsy are now known to be caused by this disease. There are some fam- ilies who have noticed that for two or three generations a number of their members have died of dropsy. Some of these deaths within the last twenty years have been the sequelæ of Bright's disease. The inference is, there- fore, that the dropsy of former generations was produced by the same cause, and that, to a limited extent, Bright's disease is heredi- tary.
In 1735-36 a terrible epidemic swept over the colonies, called the " throat distemper." In the accounts of it that have come down to us, and in the traditions of a not infrequent disease called, in this county, " putrid sore throat," may be discerned the modern diph- theria. Under the latter name the malady is but little mentioned in the records of the Medical Society until 1862, when Dr. Cullen reported that it had been seen occasionally during the year, but that he did not believe that it had ever been epidemic in Camden City. Since that date it has appeared more or less every year throughout the county, but not to any great extent.
Small pox was a much dreaded disease in colonial times. The introduction of inocula- tion here, about 1750, robbed it of some of its terrors, and the discovery of vaccination, by Jenner, at the close of the last century, made it still more harmless. Yet it still lingers, and at times becomes epidemic. The Camden County Medical Society reported it to be so in Camden City in 1856, 1864, 1871 and 1880. In the latter year there were six hundred and eighty-eight cases and one
hundred and thirty-four deaths from it. The number of gratuitous vaccinations made to check the disease was about eight thousand.
Asiatic cholera is an imported disease in- digenous to Southern Asia. Its first appear- ance in Camden County was in 1832. The accounts of its ravages then are very meagre. Dr. Isaac S. Mulford, writing in 1855, says that it was not so violent as were the subse- qnent epidemics of 1849 and 1854, all of which he witnessed. He also says that in the first-named year it possessed a sthenic char- acter. Among the papers of the late Dr. Charles F. Clarke, of Woodbury, is one stating that the people were greatly afraid of it, believing it to be contagious, and that he had helped to bury the bodies of the dead, which the people in their terror had thrown upon the river-shore.
Its second appearance was in 1849, the first case occurring in Camden in the middle of June. At that time the city had a popu- lation of nine thousand people, many of whom fled ; yet between its advent and the commencement of cold weather, when it ceased, there were one hundred and nineteen cases and fifty deaths. In Winslow there were a number of deaths from cholera, but no account of them has been preserved. There were also a few isolated cases in the other townships. Camden was next visited by this disease in 1854, when the first person attacked died from it on June 25th. It did not assume an epidemic form until October, and ceased on November 23d. In this year there were ninety-four cases and fifty-seven deaths. During its continuance the Camden City Medical Society held several special meetings to consult about it, and the mem- bers exerted themselves to the utmost to check its ravages. In Haddonfield there was a single case that had been contracted in Camden. The susceptibility of the latter city to become a cholera centre, the virulence and the fatality of the scourge there, gave it a reputation for unhealthfulness that seriously
13
checked its growth, so that between 1849 and 1866 its population only increased from nine thousand to eighteen thousand.
When it was reported, in 1865, that cholera was approaching the United States, the Camden City Medical Society, alert to the dangers to be apprehended from another visitation, at their stated meeting held Sep- tember 7th of that year, appointed Drs. John R. Stevenson, Isaac S. Mulford, Alexander Marcy and Thomas F. Cullen a committee to adopt measures to prevent an anticipated invasion of cholera. Their final report states that upon inspection they found Camden to be as filthy as any city of its size in the Union. The drainage was superficial and imperfect; garbage and coal ashes were thrown into the streets, but few of which were paved ; the cesspools, shallow in depth, were in many places overflowing upon the ground, and pig sties had been allowed to be erected in the yards of the poorer classes. The committee consulted with the City Council, who courteously received their sug- gestions, and through their sanitary commit- tee, of which John S. Lee was chairman and Colonel Joseph C. Nichols the efficient execu- tive officer, put in force the ordinances which were plenary. Before the summer of 1866 they had cleansed the city and abated all nuisances. In this year the first case of cholera occurred on June 25th, when the city authorities, having previously provided a stock of disinfectants, as recommended by the medical committee, virtually transferred the direction of sanitary measures to the latter, who investigated each case of the dis- ease, and had the premises and clothing of the sick promptly disinfected. There were in this year thirty-nine cases of cholera and thirty deaths. It did not become epidemic, as it only became located in two places, in both of which it was stamped out within thirty-six hours. Just beyond the city limits, in Newton township, there were twenty-seven cases, and twenty-five deaths in a negro
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