USA > New York > Steuben County > A history of Steuben County, New York, and its people, Vol. I > Part 26
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Dr. Abijah B. Case, of the town of Howard, Steuben county, was noted for the great number of students who sought instrue- tion from him. They came not only from Steuben county, but from adjoining counties, in both the states of New York and Penn- sylvania. His students were at times so numerous that they formed a separate community, and his office and residence were commonly ealled the "medical college." The industrious and intelligent students of Dr. Case became distinguished in their calling, and their services and counsel were sought not only by the inhabitants of their vicinity but of the country for many miles about.
CAME PREVIOUS TO 1830.
Among the physicians resident in the county previous to 1820 were John D. Higgins, Willis F. Clark, Warren Patchin, Samuel Gorton, James Faulkner, Enos Barnes, John Warner, James Warden, Andrew Kingsbury, John P. Kennedy, Daniel Gilbert, Jaeob Chatterton, Lyman N. Cook, Philo Andrews, Walter Wolcott, Thomas M. Brown, Noah Niles, Samuel Southworth, Simeon H. Goss and Joel Luther.
In addition to the foregoing and previous to 1830 were these practitioners of the healing art: Robert F. Hoyt, Jonathan Loek- wood, Samuel Scofield, Silas B. Hibbard, James Cutler, George W. Turner, Gustavus A. Rogers, Samuel B. Chidsey, Isaac L. Kidder, Milo Hurd, Levi S. Goodrich, David L. Wieks, Daniel H. Orcutt, M. C. Kellogg, E. R. Pulling, F. E. Bateman, William Hunter, Samuel Olin, Levi Fay, David Hotehkiss, Nathaniel Sheldon, Man- ning Kelly, Zenas S. Jackson, Sampson Stoddard, Winthrop E. Booth and David Ward.
COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETIES.
Prior to 1818 a medical society was organized in the county. Its first president was Dr. Warren Patchin; the society held its
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annual and semi-annual meetings at Bath, Dansville, Corning, Hor- nellsville and Reading. Corning was then Painted Post and Read- ing and Dansville were then both in Steuben county. Its mem- bers were so widely separated in residence, the means of travel were so embarrassing and the time required so great that but few of its members were able to attend all of its meetings. It was vested with seemingly extraordinary powers in the matter of re- ceiving members, licensing practitioners and dismissing recalcit- rants, and those whose systems, methods of practice, diagnosis and remedies were not in accord with the objects of its organization, or views of the majority of its members. It assumed power to establish fees and to regulate and preserve the professional con- duct and method of practice of its members, and compel obedience to its rules and mandates. With the diffusion of modern and more intelligent professional knowledge and research, and the ideas and determination of new members possessed with broader and more liberal knowledge, the adherence to the fossilized meth- ods of blood-letting, leeches, sweating and blistering, gradually be- came less potent, the more humane ideas and practices were more generally adopted by people requiring medical aid and treatment. The old treatment and remedies of the everlasting conservative, notwithstanding the whining maledictions and obstinacy of the old schools of medicine, have been forced to recognize. the merits, in some degree of each of the different ways of ministering to the unfortunate brother suffering from some neglect to obey the de- mands for existence and preservation.
There are now several medical societies and associations, not all devoted to a single school or method, treating of the origin and cause of disease and the proper treatment therefor. There are now in the county a number of women who are regularly ad- mitted and qualified physicians, who have always met with success equal to that enjoyed by the male members of the profession. The industrious, intelligent and devoted trained nurse is now recog- nized as a necessary and valuable aid to the doctor, and frequently as much entitled to credit for the recovery of the patient as the attending physician. In the county are now several hospitals and sanatoriums of good repute and in their proper sphere are doing much to aid the physician and nurse to restore to health and alleviate the ills of the people. An impression prevails quite uni- versally that a spirit and desire of commercialism are the incen- tives for the existence of these institutions, and the inducements offered to medical men for patronage.
REFORMS DEMANDED.
Lest I may be charged that the foregoing is inspired by preju- dice, or acidulous influences, there are reproduced the following expressions of eminent and leading medical gentlemen elicited by the recent appearance of Dr. Norman Barnesby's appeal for a reform of the medical profession, made in a volume lately issued, and which has occasioned commotion and both favorable and ad- verse criticism. Dr. E. P. Lothrop, late president of the Academy of Medicine of Buffalo, and a distinguished surgeon, said: "Although I believe Dr. Barnesby has employed vig- orous methods in bringing this matter before the public, the
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members of the medical profession who take pride in maintaining high standards cannot do otherwise than concede the necessity for reforms. The continued activity of what I will describe as 'com- mercial' medical schools is a menace both to the profession and to the public.
"One of the evils of the profession which must be stamped out is rebating. Local practitioners who are affiliated in practice with visiting surgeons of prominence exact a percentage of fees obtained from operations. It cannot be denied that this practice tends to lead to operations which otherwise would not be per- formed. One of the weakest points in hospital management is that private practitioners can take patients to the hospitals for operations and use the knife without hindrance from the manage- ment. Even if the private surgeon is seen to be incompetent, the hospital staff will not interfere because they have not the hardihood to affront what is known as 'professional ethics.'
"The commercial schools graduate men who are notoriously incompetent, but such is not the case with such schools as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Buffalo and other admirable institutions. State examinations would remedy the evil which exists. I believe, how- ever, that the tendency is upward instead of downward in meet- ing conditions as they exist in the medical profession."
Dr. J. Wallace Beveridge, of No. 47 Fifth avenue, head sur- geon of the Out Patients' department of Bellevue Hospital, char- acterized Dr. Barnesby's statements as sensational and almost wholly untrue. "There may be some physicians and surgeons who are not honest with their patients and who do what Dr. Barnesby says," he writes, "but I am mighty glad to say that I have never met one. Those I have met are men who are devoting their lives to developing their profession to a high plane, and are receiving less for it than any other profession in which efficiency is so diffi- cult of attainment.
"The average income of the physicians of the United States is only $72.50 a month, while the cost of an education is large and the time spent in obtaining it from four to eight years. Does it look reasonable that the mercenary men described by Dr. Barnesby would flock to such a profession? No; I believe that the great majority have the idea to become useful to their fellow men.
"There are some of the noblest heroes in the world in the pro- fession, men who have inoculated themselves with the most viru- lent diseases simply to find a remedy. to benefit mankind. It is only because of the courage of such men and the earnestness of the great body in the profession that cures have been found now for almost every disease.
"I believe that Dr. Barnesby has slandered the illustrious pro- fession of which he was once an active member."
Dr. Graham Lusk, of New York, one of the leading surgeons in this country, indorsed much that Dr. Barnesby said concerning the necessity for hospital reforms in an article published last April in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Lusk wrote: "Regarding appointment to the service of a great city hos- pital there is room for much improvement. There should be a complete revolution in the present method. And yet the years roll by and the old traditions stand protective of the old rotten system,
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blinding the eyes even of the honest and sincere and placing a deadening inertia over medical progress."
One of the recognized captain-surgeons from whom Dr. Barnes- by received inspiration for his crusade is Dr. James A. Rigby. Hc recently made this statement: "Nothing whatever is done by the state in the interest of the patient in operations. Everything is left to the bona fides and professional integrity of the operator. It is notorious that many operations are performed as the result of mis- taken diagnosis."
Dr. C. W. Lillie, of St. Louis, a famous surgeon, wrote recently in the Illinois Medical Journal: "It is true that many doctors are so engrossed in money-making schemes, with fads and special- ties in medicine, with fast horses, with automobiles, with women, wine and other dissipations, that patients have but slight consid- eration; that efforts directed toward the general betterment of mankind have but a small share of their attention."
Dr. L. Emmett Holt, of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in an address two years ago: "There is an- other phase of commercialism scen in our day, which may be char- acterized as medical graft. This man (the grafter) does not con- ceal the fact that he is in medicine for what he can get out of it. With respect to every transaction he adopts the politicians' anxious query : 'Where do I come in ?' His methods are well known. He visits the specialist, the surgeon or consultant, ostensibly in behalf of the patient, and lets it be known that he expects 'the usual per- centage' of the fee. Medical grafters of this type, I am glad to say, are not numerous, but they are, I must believe from informa- tion, increasing rather rapidly."
HEROES IN WAR.
It is confidently asserted that members of the medical pro- fession of Steuben county, without a notable exception, have in every situation in their line of duty been faithful, brave and self- sacrificing, whether at home, on the field of carnage, or in malignant fever hospitals and camps. It was a Steuben county surgeon, who, at night, in the lull of the bloody carnage on the field of , Gettysburg, while on the outposts of the federal lines attending to the wounded and soothing the agonies of the dying, heard an ago- nized call for help, and, though some distance away, hastened to afford relief. He found the sufferer to be a mortally wounded Confederate soldier, lying on a pile of stones. The good doctor upon examination found him disemboweled by the fragments of a shell. He made his position easier upon his stony bed, placed his blanket under the head of the unfortunate, gave him the last drop of water from his own canteen, and while engaged in this noble ministration was captured by the picket guard of the enemy. Re- ceiving the dying thanks of his patient he was hurried away to headquarters, where the. Confederate commander sharply asked of the doctor, "What called you into our lines?" "The call of humanity, sir," replied the captive, and detailed the occurrence. At daylight a squad of soldiers escorted him to the headquarters of his own division. In after years this Confederate general re- ferred to this affair as the most striking demonstration of the broth- erhood of man, an act that obliterated the lines of hostile armies.
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In the trenches in front of Petersburg a northern colonel was mortally wounded; left where he fell, attended only by his faith- ful surgeon, a Steuben county doctor, who stubbornly refused to leave the wounded officer, then in extremis. Upon being interro- gated by the officer in command as to his unusual conduct, he said : "My colonel was the early associate of my boyhood. He was the friend of my manhood. I promised never to leave him in dis- tress if I could do otherwise. I have kept my word, and I am here."
"You are a true friend and comrade," replied the officer in command. After the burial of the dead colonel the doctor was safely returned to his regiment. Later in life and after the south- ern officer had been "reconstructed" and sheathed his stainless sword he became a member of the American congress, and detailed with truthful emotion to the representative in congress from the Steuben county district the above incident, earnestly inquiring after the youthful doctor.
. During the Spanish-American war a doctor from Steuben county, supposing himself immune from yellow fever, volunteered for service in the hospital at Guantanimo, then filled with yellow fever victims. When fatally stricken with the disease he said to the faithful ministering priest : "I did my duty in coming here. I am satisfied."
REFORM LEGISLATION SUGGESTED.
During the first decades of the existence of this county the great majority of the medical profession were devoted to the heal- ing art and they regarded with indignation the advent of the self- styled advocates of another and different practice, healing and treatment; a reform in the methods arrived at and pursued by the careful, laborious and studious country doctor, the true and earnest friend and counselor of his patients. The irregular practitioner, the makers and venders of drugs, nostrums and patent medicines, involving large commercial interests and offering a remedy for every disease or affliction, appealed to the credulous and succeeded in inducing hundreds to adopt their methods, in the hope of speedy relief. There is nothing to which the average person will more readily surrender his common sense than to the adoption of some mysterious treatment or unheard of remedy for the cure or allevia- tion of some disease with which he is induced to believe he is afflicted. Too late he finds his health impaired and his purse de- pleted, not by merit, but by commercial interests.
It is hoped that the bill now pending before the national con- gress for the preservation of the public health, and in aid of the effort to establish a department of health, will pass. It has the support of most of the respectable physicians of the United States. Those who are opposed to this bill-not only the irregular prac- titioners, fake healers and curists, but the immense commercial in- terests that now prey upon ill health; a cursory examination of the advertising matter of every newspaper, from the metropolitan daily to the most unpretentious journal of the rural hamlet, will convince the existence and extent of this opposing interest. The movement against consumption-the great white plague-which originated in the American Association for the Advancement of
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Science, with the co-operation of the country doctors working faithfully for success, meets with the same opposition, and from the same source and interests as the bill for the preservation of the public health. The dishonest and commercial interests realize that the fight against consumption is only the first skirmish in the greater conflict against all disease. The movement has the sup- port of the labor organizations, the farmers' associations (includ- ing the National and State Granges of the Patrons of Husbandry ) ; the Farmers' Educational and Co-operative Unions wherever es- tablished; and the conference of the state boards of health, and of the life insurance companies-perhaps not so much to preserve the public health as to preserve their dollars.
Properly equipped and conducted with wisdom and fidelity, if such a department is establihsed the merits, benefits and ad- vantages of every school, class and method of dealing with disease would be adopted and encouraged; the errors, faults and wrongful means suppressed and stamped out, so that the future chronicler is this line, possessed of the temerity, can note the progress of im- provement and reform in the noblest occupation in which man can engage.
CHAPTER XI. PIONEER RELIGIOUS FORCES.
PRESBYTERIAN, METHODIST AND BAPTIST CHURCHES-CATHOLIC IN- STITUTIONS-DEBT TO EARLY MISSIONARIES.
The itinerant preachers and missionaries were the videttes who heralded the approach of civilization in Steuben county, as in all other unsettled parts of the new world. They were a bold, hardy and determined class of men, enduring hardship and privation for the purpose of spreading the blessings of the Gospel, telling the story of the Christian's faith in the sublime precepts of the great Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, and inducing all they met to accept of the truth and direct their lives and manner of living in harmony with the teachings and lessons proclaimed by them. To this end they devoted their lives and bodily comforts, expecting no reward or return but the success of their unselfish labors.
The earliest account or tradition of these devoted men is that of the good Father Fenelon, afterwards Bishop of Cambray, who accompanied a force of French soldiers and friendly Indians sent out in 1690 by Count Frontenac, governor of Canada, to drive away all trespassers upon the country drained by the affluents of the rivers St. Lawrence and Allegheny, called La Belle river. This expedition coasted the south shore of Lake Ontario and up the streams flowing into that lake; by portages the voyagers came to the headwaters of the Canisteo river, arriving at an Indian village which stood upon the site of the present village of Canisteo. Here the expedition halted, the cross was erected, and mass said by the father. This force of observation then marched up a stream flow- ing from the south to the streams running into the Allegheny. This is the first recorded mass celebrated in the county; but, without doubt, other like services at an earlier period were said by the Jesuit priests, who traversed the country bordering on the Che- mung and its principal branches.
PRESBYTERIAN, METHODIST AND BAPTIST CHURCHES.
In September, 1793, a Presbyterian minister presided at the funeral of a daughter of Captain Williamson, in the town of Bath. The Baptist church in the town of Wayne was organized in 1794, and is one of the oldest religious bodies west of Seneca lake. The Rev. Ephraim Todd was the founder and first pastor, and served in that capacity for over thirty years, or until 1824. In 1799 re- ligious services were held in the then town of Canisteo at the home
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of George Hornell by Rev. Robert Logan, an itinerant Presby- terian clergyman.
In 1800 Rev. John Durbin of Wyoming, Pennsylvania, a trav- eling Methodist minister, held the first services of his denomination at several places in the Canisteo valley. He is spoken of as the founder of the Methodist denomination in that valley.
The first religious services in the town of Prattsburg were held at the house of Jared Pratt, in the autumn of 1803, by Rev. John Niles, a Presbyterian clergyman. In 1807 the same clergy- man became the first settled minister in the town of Bath. The first preaching services held in the town of Bath, of which any account now remains, were conducted by Rev. Seth Williston, a traveling missionary, in the summer of 1802, in the schoolhouse facing Pulteney square on the northwest corner. Here was or- ganized on January 6, 1806, by the above named John Niles, "The Bath Religious Society." In 1795 a Baptist clergyman held serv- ices at his house in Canisteo and formed a society of that denomi- nation. Elder Jedediah Stephens was a faithful and respected preacher of that denomination. For many years his house was the resort of missionaries of every Christian faith and of all re- ligions. Travelers who passed through or visited the valley of the Canisteo and pilgrims of a devout disposition, not inclined to join the boisterous company of the locality, with Elder Stephens could find lodgings and entertainment to their satisfaction and desire. He was an earnest co-worker for good and the improvement of all with Rev. Andrew Gray, of the more northerly part of the Painted Post country.
In 1805 Rev. Ephraim Eggleston founded the Methodist church in the town of Pulteney. This field had been a partial theater for the efforts of Jemima Wilkinson, the "Universal Friend," and her followers years before.
In 1802 a Presbyterian church was organized in the town of Cohocton by Reverends Aaron C. Collins and Abijah Warren. A Methodist Episcopal church was organized in the town of Way- land in 1809; in Cameron, 1812; and in the town of Dansville, now in Steuben county, 1817. In 1798 Rev. Andrew Gray held re- ligious services in the town of Dansville, then in Steuben county, and in 1800 organized a Presbyterian church in the same town.
Methodist Episcopal churches were founded in the town of Troupsburg in 1819; in the towns of Greenwood and Hartsville by Rev. Asa Orcutt in 1825; in the same year in the towns of Thurs- ton and Tuscarora; in the towns of Addison and Campbell, 1827; in the town of Fremont, 1828; in the town of Hornellsville, now city of Hornell, 1830; in West Union, 1831; in the town of Caton, 1833, and in Bradford, 1834.
A Christian church was planted at the town of Avoca in Buchannan's barn by Elder Calvin French in 1811.
A Baptist church was founded in the town of Canisteo in 1794 by Rev. Jedediah Stephens. This is the oldest church in the Painted Post country, if not in the Genesee country.
The Baptist church in the town of Wayne, afterwards in Steu- ben county, was founded by Rev. Ephraim Sanford, a Baptist minister. A Baptist church was organized in the town of Jasper Vol. I-13
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in 1817; in the town of Hornby, 1820; in the town of Howard, 1820, and in the town of Lindley, 1841.
The Presbyterians established a church in the town, now city, of Corning in 1810; in the town of Wheeler, the same year; in the town of Urbana, 1831; in the town of Hornellsville, 1832, and town of Erwin, 1835.
CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
Roman Catholic churches were established in Steuben county as follows: Town of Urbana, 1840, and town (now city) of Corn- ing, 1842. In the year 1873 a convent was founded in the old state arsenal, purchased from the state by the bishop of the diocese for that purpose. A flourishing parochial school of excellent repu- tation was also founded in connection with St. Mary's parish in 1860. In 1843, at the town of Hornellsville, now city of Hornell, a convent was founded in connection with the church. St. Ann's academy was founded about 1870. It is a most excellent school, under the instruction of the Sisters of Mercy, the course prescribed by the regents of the University of the State of New York being followed. It has ever been a most prosperous institution, emi- nently high-class in instruction and deportment, not surpassed by any in the state. St. James' Mercy Hospital was founded by the munificence of a former rector of this parish, Rev. James M. Early, of blessed memory. This worthy benefaction, in charge of the Sis- ters of Mercy and supported jointly by a fund set apart by the donor and by the city, is one of the best appointed and equipped institutions of its kind in the country for the investigation, pre- vention and cure of diseases, especially those of an epidemic, en- demic or tubercular character. Particular attention is given by a competent corps of surgeon and nurses to the treatment, allevia- tion and restoration of travelers and employes injured upon rail- ways or in other employment. Patients are received and treated not only from Steuben county but from adjoining. counties. De- serving impecunious residents of the city of Hornell are treated at the expense of the city.
A Catholic church was organized in the town of West Union in 1845, and in the town of Bath in 1846. At Perkinsville, town of Wayland, a parochial school was founded in 1850, under the instruction of the Sisters of Mercy. It is well attended and has a good reputation. A Catholic church was organized in the town of Addison in 1854; town of Cohocton, 1861; town of Caton, 1883; town of Prattsburg, 1887; town of Pulteney, 1888; town of Cam- eron, 1891; and in the town of Campbell the following year.
DEBT TO EARLY MISSIONARIES.
The earliest religious societies and churches in Steuben and adjoining counties were the fruits of the faithful labors of the early missionaries and revivalists, among whom were Reverends John Durbin, Jedediah Stephens, Seth Williston, James H. Hotch- kiss, Nehemiah Lamb, Thomas Shcardown, John Niles, Andrew Gray, Patrick Bradley, Daniel Littlejohn, Ira Bronson, Robert Logan, Benedict Bayer and A. G. Clark. Their appeals in sup- port of their efforts and ministrations were after the customs and beliefs of those early days, and were based on the hopes and fears,
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blessings and torments for the righteous and for the unregenerate. By some these zealous crusades became offensive and obnoxious to their listeners. Among these was Elder Littlejohn, who scourged western Steuben, eastern Allegany and southern Livingston coun- ties with his theological lashings.
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