Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 52

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452

USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations > Part 52

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Dr. Samuel Stringer, a native of Maryland, and educated in Virginia, where a medical school had just been started, was the most prominent physi- cian in Albany during the eighteenth century, and was connected with both of the wars. In 1755 he was appointed by Gov. Shirley an officer in the medical department of the British army in this country. He accompanied Abercrombie, in 1758, and was present when Lord Howe fell in advanc- ing to the siege of Ticonderoga. He served until the war ended, when he settled in Albany, married here, and remained here in practice until the out- break of the Revolution, when he was appointed by Congress Director-General of Hospitals in the Northern Department. In this capacity he accom- panied the troops on the invasion of Canada. He was a friend and probably the family physician of Gen. Schuyler, the ill-favor which befell whom, there seems reason to believe, he participated in. At any rate, he was removed from his position, an act which called forth a very angry remonstrance from the General to Congress. This was in 1777, and he then returned to Albany, where he spent the rest of a long life. It is said that he always ad- hered to the style of dress of the olden time-the cocked hat, tight breeches, and shoes with large buckles.

Dr. Nicholas Schuyler was another of the sur- geons of this locality who was connected with the Federal army of the Revolution. He was an ardent patriot and an intelligent surgeon. After perform- ing valuable service during the war he returned to Albany ; he died in Troy in 1824.

Dr. J. Cochoran, of Pennsylvania, served as sur- geon in the Revolutionary army and was high in position. He became Surgeon-General of the Middle Department, and in 1781 was made Direc- tor-General of the Hospitals of the United States. Alter the war was over he settled in Albany.

At one time the brothers Moses and Elias Wil- lard were physicians of Albany. They were na- tives of New England, and, with their father, had a hand in the bloody struggle at Lexington. Elias, before the war, had begun to study medicine, and after a brief service as a common soldier he entered a military hospital in Boston, which, under Dr. John Warren, brother of the hero of Bunker Hill, was made a training school for the much-needed medical men. Two years later he was appointed surgeon of a Maine regiment, and served till the close of the war. He came to Albany in 1801 and practiced here for twenty-five years. His brother

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was younger and entered the service later ; he re- sided here for several years.

Every one at all familiar with the medical men of Albany a hundred years ago knows the name of Hunloke Woodruff. He was a graduate of Prince- ton, and shortly before the commencement of hos- tilities between the colonies and the mother coun- try had begun the study of medicine, had taken up his residence in Albany, but soon was ap- pointed surgeon of one of the New York regi- ments, and served until peace was declared. He accompanied the northern army to Canada, and was with Col. Gansevoort during the siege of Fort Stanwix, and attended Gen. Sullivan in his expedition against the hostile Indians of West- ern New York. He settled here to practice after the war and spent the best of his life here, highly esteemed as a learned physician.

Several of these men, it is observed, were con- tributions of the army to Albany.

As an incident of the French War it is said, in the "Memoirs of an American Lady," that when the wounded troops poured into Albany from the Ticonderoga battle-field a hospital was established in a large barn belonging to Madame Schuyler, and was attended there by a band of ladies. Thacher, a considerable historian of medical events of that time and a surgeon of the Revolution attached to this northern division of the army, says that a hos- pital was erected here during the French War. He says of it, as he saw it in 1788 : " It is situated on an eminence overlooking the city. It is two stories high, having a wing at each end and a piazza in front, above and below. It contains forty wards, capable of accommodating 500 patients, besides the rooms appropriated to the use of the surgeons and other officers." After Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga, Albany was for several months filled with sick and wounded from the battle-field. There were not less than one thousand of these victims of war thrown into the city, filling the hos- pital, the Dutch Church and some private houses. Most of them remained till the following June, when the military hospital was removed to the Highlands of the Hudson. Dr. Thacher says : "We have thirty surgeons and mates, and all are constantly employed. The wounded of the British and Hessian troops are accommodated in the same hospital with our own and receive equal attention. The foreigners are under the care of their own surgeons. I have been present at sev- eral of their capital operations and remember that the English surgeons perform with skill and dex- terity, but the Germans, with few exceptions, do no

credit to their profession." He did not find the inhabitants of the city of a social disposition. They are chiefly Low Dutch, he says, and not in- clined to associate with strangers. Nevertheless, Mars and Venus have in all ages been mutually attractive, and "a charming Miss M. H." was cap- tivated by one of the surgeons. A surgeon's pay in our army was $33.33 a month, and of a mate or assistant surgeon $18, that of a colonel being $75. At a later date there was a military canton- ment and hospital in Greenbush, which was main- tained until 1822.

Medical history is not altogether biographical, and some notes may be made of other events of the earlier time before the present century began. Henry Hudson said, when he returned with the report of his discoveries : " It is as fair a land as can be trodden by the foot of man," and the graphic pen of Irving has been taxed to all its re- sources in delineating this lovely valley before it had been marred by the hand of civilization. It was not only fair, but by all testimony it was salubrious. As early as 1628 one writes in a letter home : "The climate is healthful, notwithstanding the sudden changes from heat to cold. Roots and herbs are found, good for eating and for medicinal uses, working wonderful cures too long to relate." The sudden and extreme variations in temperature ap- pear to have been the principal complaint, and were certainly very marked to those who had been accustomed to the equable climate of Holland and England. Gov. Hunter wrote in 1710: "Here is the finest air to live upon in the universe." Many instances are related of cures of consump- tion among those coming to the new country. They were mainly due, no doubt, to the less sedentary life of necessity led here, and absence of the insanitary influences that accumulate with the passage of years of habitation.

In this province there were fewer serious epidemics than in the New England and Virginia Colonies, where they early prevailed extensively. Fevers of acclimation or of an indigenous source were rare. The colonists did not, however, escape some most severe and fatal epidemics of imported disease. Of these, small-pox made the most grievous ravages. In 1613 it broke out and spread with fearful rapidity, among Europeans and savages. Twelve of the slender population of Beverwyck died in one week and a thousand perished among the Iroquois tribes. For two months Connecticut maintained a quaran- tine against the New Netherlands. Another

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equally severe epidemic broke out some years later. Prior. to 1730 this outdid all other pestilences with its ravages, ceasing at one time, it is said, only for lack of material to work upon, every susceptible person having had it. Inoculation began to be practical about 1730, and became quite general, the mortality from it being reported as compara- tively small. "In 1799," writes Dr. Thacher, "the glorious discovery of the vaccine disease, which renders the human system insusceptible to small-pox, was announced in our newspapers and in the Medical Repository, of New York," and the reign of what might well have been called the king of terrors came to an end.

In 1746 a malignant epidemic of what was called the Barbadoes distemper, and also various other names, reached Albany. It was imported from foreign ships, and, beginning in August, ended with frost. From the description it was clearly yellow fever. It carried off 45 victims, mostly robust men. Spotted fever is mentioned as occurring in 1752.

An interesting episode in connection with yellow fever, and a glimpse of affairs as they existed a century ago, is obtained from the following "Notes from the Newspapers," in Munsell's Annals of Albany :

"September 21, 1793 .- The citizens were alarmed by a letter from Judge Lansing, informing them that a vessel had passed New York having two persons on board infected with yellow fever, which was then raging at Philadelphia. Meetings of the citizens and of the Common Council were held, and measures adopted to prevent the passing of any vessel above the Overslaugh without an ex- amination, and the ferry-men were directed how to proceed on occasions when any suspicion attached to travelers presenting themselves to be ferried over. The Common Council recommended the observ- ance of the first day of October as a day of fasting and prayer for the aversion of the dreaded con- tagion.

"September 23 .- On Monday evening last ar- rived at Greenbush, opposite the city, from the seat of Government, Hon. Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and his lady. As Col. Hamilton and lady were sup- posed to have been afflicted with the yellow fever, then prevalent at Philadelphia, the physicians of the city, by request, immediately visited them, and on their return published the following certificate : ' This is to certify that we have visited Col. Hamil- ton and his lady at Greenbush this evening and that they are apparently in perfect health, and from every circumstance we do not conceive there can

be the least danger of their conveying the infection of the pestilential fever, at present prevalent in Philadelphia, to any of their fellow citizens.

" '(Signed) £ SAMUEL STRINGER, " ' W. MANCIUS, " ' H. WOODRUFF, " 'W. MCCLELLAN, "' 'CORNELIUS ROOSA.'

"In consequence of which on Tuesday morning an order was granted by the Mayor that Col. Hamilton and lady be allowed to cross the ferry, but only after quite a spicy correspondence be- tween the Mayor, physicians and Gen. Schuyler, whose daughter was Mrs. Hamilton."

Aside from these outbreaks, Albany maintained its repute for healthfulness throughout the eighteenth century. During the winter of 1785, it is said that but one burial took place for the space of three months, in the Dutch church-yard, and that was of a small child accidentally run over by a sleigh. This burial place has been recently brought to light again by excavations in State street, at the corner of Broadway, human bones being found, and bricks from the old church edifice. One writes of Albany in 1796 : " It enjoys a salubrious air, as is evidenced by the longevity of its inhabitants."

Concerning the now very fertile theme of the water supply of the city, a visitor to Albany, in 1785, wrote that " the well water in the city is very bad, being scarcely drinkable by those not accustomed to it, imbibing particles from the stiff clay through which it oozes ; indeed, all use the river water for cooking, and many families drink it. But water works are about to be constructed to bring good water to the city."

In the year 1800 Albany was already an old city. In some respects this was a turning point in its history. About this time it began to have additions to its population from New England and to become impressed with New England ideas. Previously it had been entirely Dutch ; its people, its habits, its physiognomy, its architecture were all Dutch ; it is said that even its horses and dogs were Dutch. It had many usages brought from the provincial towns of Holland. A graphic pic- ture of it at that time may be found in Random Rec- ollections of Albany from 1800 to 1808, by Gor- ham A. Worth. The placid Dutchman smoked his evening pipe on the settee of the stoop in front of his gable-ended house, undisturbed by a care for the outside world, perfectly content with him- self and his surroundings, with no welcome for strangers and their innovations. In a population

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HISTORY OF THE COUNTY. OF ALBANY.

of 5,000 there were not more than five New Eng- land families. The city had no pavements and no street lamps. It had little or no foreign commerce. It needed a new element to give it an impulse, without which the nineteenth century gave promise of leaving it in a Rip Van Winkle dream, or stranded where the eighteenth was hardly holding it afloat. A change, restless and iconoclastic, began to come over it about this time; the progressive spirit of this century began to disturb its quietude, and new blood was transfused into it. The Erie Canal began to be talked about ; it became the capital city, and very soon after Fulton ran the Clermont up the river.

The general character of the medical profession began to improve. The means of education here- tofore had been very limited, and the mass of prac- titioners throughout the country had been deplor- ably ignorant. In an address before the Regents, Dr. T. Romeyn Beck stated that, of the 700 physicians in the State at this time, not more than twenty held the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Indeed it was not sought for, save in the large cities. The education of physicians prior to 1750, unless obtained in Europe, was restricted to a sort of apprenticeship and personal instruction. In 1750 the first regular medical instruction was attempted, a course of lectures on anatomy being given in New York by a Dublin graduate, Samuel Clossy. During the remainder of the century four medical schools were established ; in Philadelphia, New York, and at Harvard and Dartmouth Colleges. The difficulty of reaching these precluded most from attending them. Their influence was, how- ever, being felt toward the close of the century.

Just what might have been considered a medical education at this time, even at its best, it would be hard to define. There was hardly any facility for acquiring a practical knowledge of anatomy by dissection, so that a student could have no ade- quate idea of the vital organs in health or as changed by the processes of disease. When Dr. March, twenty years latter, began to give instruction here in anatomy, by lectures and dissections, he for a long time encountered much opposition in his good work. Surgery was rude and simple, as viewed from the light of to-day. Diseases could not be distinguished by our present knowledge, as, for instance, that of auscultation and percus- sion of the chest, and all our instruments of re- search were unknown. Pharmacy was as rude as the means of diagnosis, but faith in it was vastly more profound than now. The physician became skillful and renowned, as many of them did, only

as he became shrewd in observation and expe- rienced by years ; gray hairs were the only passport to popular confidence. Oliver Wendell Holmes pictures him, from vivid recollections of his early life, as "he would look at the tongue, feel of the pulse, and shake from his vials a horrible mound of ipecac, or a revolting heap of rhubarb-good, stirring remedies that meant business, but left a flavor behind them that embitters the recollections of childhood." Little of our present knowlege of the control of epidemics was possessed ; small-pox, often devastating as a tornado, was just then about to be robbed of its terrors, and the preventable diseases generally, to which so much attention is now given, and which if completely held in check would in- finitely lessen the rate of mortality, were neither studied as a class nor controlled by organized boards of health. No better contrast can be shown between then and now than is seen in the state- ment that by data, gathered from all sources, it is found that the sum total of human life has been lengthened in civilized countries 25 per cent. since the beginning of the century. Dr. Holmes says : " It is but a fractional power that the physi- cian has over disease, and a comparatively small fraction over the issues of life and death." But what he lacks in his control of the individual is well complemented by the general work, as is proven by this general result.

Besides the men already mentioned, there are a few others then practicing here who should be spo- ken of. The oldest physician in Albany was Dr. Wilhelmus Mancius, the son of the Dutch dominie, who practiced medicine as well as theology in the early history of the colony. He was now past sixty years of age, over six feet in height, and a man of great popularity. He received his educa- tion from his father, and probably had more skill than learning. In his arguments with his younger and more liberally educated partner, Dr. Wood- ruff, he saved himself from being worsted by "Ah, de cure, Hunloke; de cure is de great ting. I cure." Dr. William McClelland was a Scotchman, an Edinburgh graduate, and for the times an edu- cated man. He was the first president both of the County and the State Medical Societies. His part- ner for a time was Dr. Wm. Bay, whose long life extended to the easy recollection of many of the present citizens of this vicinity. Dr. Knauff, then advanced in years, was more an apothecary than physician. Dr. Gauff, also an old man, had been for many years a practitioner of Bethlehem, and Dr. Oliver Lathrop was a physician of Watervliet, then in middle life. Younger than any of these was

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Dr. Jonathan Eights, a most exact and methodical man, who through the first half of this century was held in high esteem as a family physician, and made many contributions to medical literature. Dr. John Stearns, a Massachusetts man and a Yale graduate, then thirty years old, was for a number of years a practitioner here, and deserves especial honor from the profession, as to his efforts were due the existing law, enacted in 1806, under which our State and County medical societies have been incorporated.

The notable event in medicine at the beginning of this century was the establishment of the County Medical Society. This is undoubtedly the oldest medical society in the State, having been estab- lished in July, 1806, immediately after the passage of the incorporating law. The reason urged for the passage of this act was the abundance of char- latanry and the necessity for combining the legiti- mate members of the profession to control it. The universal testimony is that at this time the country was overrun with empyrics. Dr. R. M. Wyckoff, to whose paper on Early Medicine in New York I am indebted for much information, says that medical practice in early times was pure, but that about the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury the charlatanry of the Old World, which was quackish to the core, began to find a field in the New. For its own respectability and the people's good the time had come for the profession to assert itself; it did so by bringing the reputable physicians together and separating them from the disreputable. In this way the society has done more to suppress quackery (which the people should know is vastly more an evil to them than to the profession) than all the restrictive legislation that was en- acted year after year for the next forty years. Dr. Thomas Hun wrote in 1844, what is always per- tinent and true : "Quackery must be suppressed, not by legislation, but by enlightened public opin- ion of its dangers. The respectability of our pro- fession is to be promoted, not by asking for legal privileges, but by an increase of individual zeal and co-operation." In this State no one is entitled to professional consideration unless he is a member of his County Medical Society.

From the beginning the society has maintained regular meetings for mutual improvement. It has always been a means of co-operating against local epidemics and bad sanitary conditions. Its opin- ion and advice has often been asked by the Mayor and Common Council. It has kept up the social relations of its members, and perpetuated their

memory by printed biographies and portraits, of which it has a considerable collection. It has ex- plicit laws for disciplining unprofessional members, but has very seldom made use of them. It has been of a liberal spirit, and was one of the first so- cieties to admit women to membership. The entire number of its members from first to last has been about 425. The following list includes all of the members of the Society since the organization, and nearly all the physicians of this county during the present century.

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST

OF THE

MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF ALBANY FROM ITS ORGANIZATION, WITH YEAR OF ADMISSION AND PLACE OF GRADUATION. THE LIVING RESIDENT MEMBERS ARE INDICATED BY A *.

1806, HUNLOKE WOODRUFF, New York City; died 1811, aged 56. WILLIAM MCCLELLAND, Edinburgh; died 1812, aged 43. CHARLES D. TOWNSEND, Columbia College, Medical Department, 1802; died 1847, aged 70. JOHN G. KNAUFF, probably in Germany; died 1810. ELIAS WIL- LARD, Boston; died 1827, aged 71. WILHEMUS MANCIUS, studied medicine with his father, Rev. G. W. Mancius, 1758; died 1808, aged 70. WILLIAM ANDERSON, University of Pennsylvania; died 1811, aged 40. JOSEPH W. HEGEMAN, Princeton; died 1837, aged 65. CORNELIUS VROOMAN, Jr., University of Pennsylvania; died 1811, aged 30. ALEXAN- DER G. FONDA, licensed 1806; died 1869, aged 84. CALEB GAUFF; Bethlehem. AUGUSTUS HARRIS, licensed by Su- preme Court, 1800; died 1857, aged 81. AUGUSTUS F. R. TAYLOR, University of Pennsylvania, 1804; died 1841, aged 58.

1807, PETER WENDELL, University of Pennsylvania, 1807; died 1849, aged 64. JACOB L. VAN DEUSEN, Regent's de- gree, 1806; resigned 1825.

1808, ARCHIBALD H. ADAMS, University of Edinburgh; died 1811, aged 42. CHARLES D. COOPER, New York; died 1831, aged 63. ISAAC HYDE, probably licensed; died 1833, aged 61. JAMES Low, University of Edinburgh, 1807; died 1822, aged 40.

1809, SIMON VEEDER, licentiate of this society, 1807; died 1860, aged 72.

1810, WILLIAM BAV, Columbia College, Medical De- partment, 1797; died 1865, aged 93. JONATHAN EIGHTS, certificate of two physicians; died 1848, aged 75. JOHN STERNS, University of Pennsylvania; died 1848, aged 65.

18II, T. ROMEYN BECK, College of Physicians and Sur- geons, 1811; died 1855, aged 64.

1812, JONATHAN JOHNSON, licentiate of this society, 1812; died 1860, aged 75. ERASTUS WILLIAMS, licentiate Ver- mont State Society, 1800; died 1842, aged 69. PETER DE LAMATER, studied medicine 1794; died 1849, aged 77.

1813, ENOCH CHENEY. OLIVER LATHROP, studied with Dr. White, of Cherry Valley; died 1824, aged 57.

1816, MOSES BROWNELL; died March 12, 1879, aged 90. RICHMOND BROWNELL, filed diploma with County Clerk, 1816; removed to Rhode Island. SAMUEL FREEMAN, Dart- mouth; removed to Saratoga; died 1862. GEORGE UPFOLD, Jr., College Physicians and Surgeons, 1816; died 1872, aged 76 PLATT WILLIAMS, Columbia College, Medical Department, 1810; died 1870, aged 86. JOEL A. WING, licentiate Montgomery County Society, 1811; died 1852, aged 65.

1817, THOMAS J. GIBBONS, College Physicians and Sur- geons, 1817; died 1819, aged 22.

1819, WILLIAM HUMPFREYS, College Physicians and Sur- geons, 1819; died 1826, aged 31. CHARLES MARTIN, licen- tiate of this society, 1818. ASHBEL S. WEBSTER, College Physicians and Surgeons, 1819; died 1840, aged 44. CALEB WOODWARD; soon left the city.

1820, JOHN JAMES, College Physicians and Surgeons, 1819; died 1859, aged 70. ROGER VIETS, died 1853.

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HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF ALBANY.

1821, MOSES CLEMENT, licentiate of New Hampshire State Society, 1807; died 1831, aged 51. HENRY B. HAL- LENBECK, licentiate of this society; died 1825, aged 29. LY- MAN SPALDING, died 1841, aged 46. BARENT P. STAATS, licentiate New York State Medical Society, 1817; died 1871, aged 74. SAMUEL S. TREAT, College Physicians and Sur- geons, 1821; died 1832, aged 33. PETER VAN O'LINDA, licentiate New York State Medical Society, 1820; died 1872, aged 75. CHRISTOPHER C. YATES, licensed by Supreme Court, 1802; died 1848, aged 70.

1822, VALENTINE DENNICK, licentiate of this society, 1822; date of birth and death not known.

1823, JOHN W. BAY, College Physicians and Surgeons, 1823; died 1877, aged 76. LEWIS C. BECK, licentiate of this so- ciety, 1818; died 1853, aged 55. ALDEN MARCH, Brown University, 1820; died 1869, aged 73.

1824, MICHAEL FRELIGH, licensed by civil process; died 1853, aged 83.

1825, RENSSELAER GANSEVOORT, College Physicians and Surgeons, 1824; died 1838, aged 35. JOHN W. HINCKLEY, licentiate of this society, 1825; died 1860, aged 57.

1826, CHARLES E. BURROWS. DAVID W. HOUGHTAL- ING, licensed 1822; died 1829, aged 33.

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Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 52

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1452

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452