Our County and Its People: A Descriptive Work on Erie County, New York (Volume 1), Part 90

Author: Truman C. White
Publication date: 1898
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017

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In 1864 Dr. Augustus C. Hoxsie began practice as an associate of his former preceptor, Dr. A. R. Wright, and a few years later, having become firmly established in the esteem of the community, opened an office for himself. He was markedly successful from the first. In a dozen years his practice had reached very large proportions, and before his death it was exceeded in extent and character by that of no other practitioner in Buffalo. Dr. Hoxsie was not a large man, but he had a remarkable personality. Quick and keen mentally, active in his motions, self-possessed and self-controlled, he gained the confidence and esteem of his patients to an unusual degree.

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In 1865 Dr. J. W. Wallace, was president of the county society, and Drs. H. N. Martin, G. C. Hibbard and Lyman Bedford were among the new members. At a meeting of this organization in October, 1867, the names of Drs. Hubbard Foster, E. G. Cook and Alexander T. Bull were proposed and accepted for membership. They had come to Buffalo only a short time previous, but they soon acquired large practices and became influential in the school, as in the community, to which they belonged.

The name of Dr. Henry Baethig was also added to the society records about this time, and subsequently that of Dr. George F. Foote. But from 1869 on the additions to the ranks were too numerous to allow even a bare mention of the names of those who served the cause, and we are obliged to limit ourselves so far as individual mention is concerned strictly to those who, having finished their work among us, are entitled to the distinction of having made the "history " of the Homoeopathic School in Buffalo.

Those of us who are still making history, and cannot date our work back farther than a quarter of a century, will have to look to future volumes, and future chroniclers for a recognition of individual service.

Among those whose claim to our space is sadly undisputed is Dr. S. N. Brayton, whose genial face and bluff hearty manner will long be remembered by those who counted themselves fortunate as his friends or patients.

Another joyous spirit whose sudden departure from among us left deep sorrow in the hearts of his brothers in the profession, was Dr. Louis A. Bull. Dr. Bull was one of the brightest and most energetic of the younger men in the school. He had chosen laryngology as his special work, and had already secured broad recognition in this depart- ment. His personal characteristics of strength, genuineness and good fellowship, no less than his professional skill, won for him a multitude of friends outside of the profession, who still mourn his early death, which occurred in November, 1894.

In October, 1895, Dr. Abby J. Seymour was accidentally killed. Dr. Seymour was one of the women whose work had given character to Homoeopathy in Buffalo, and her sad death was a shock to the entire community, and an occasion of deep regret.

The Buffalo Homoeopathic Hospital was organized June 14, 1872, and is located at 74 Cottage street, corner Maryland. We are unable to give the names of the first medical staff, but the board of trustees

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for the first year was made up as follows: Jerome Pierce, Charles C. MeDonald, Benjamin H. Austin, sr., Loran L. Lewis, James Brayley, Francis H. Root, Jerome F. Fargo, John B. Griffin, Samuel V. Par- sons, Mrs. C. C. Warner, Mrs. M. A. Kenyon, Mrs. Hannah Fargo, Mrs. Anna Poole Hoxsie, Mrs. Hattie E. Gregg, Mrs. Charlotte E. Lewis. The capacity of the hospital is about sixty patients.

For a few years a rented building on Washington street was used, and then the site of the present hospital property was purchased and the building upon it remodeled for hospital purposes. Later an annex was added, and an entire staff appointed, surgeons and other special- ists having by this time found their way into the newer practice.

The present officers of the hospital are as follows :

Board of Trustees-President, George V. Forman; vice-president, W. H. Grat- wick; secretary, William Y. Warren; treasurer, Henry W. Burt; F. C. M. Lautz, Charles F. Dunbar, Henry W. Burt, John H. Meech, W. H. Gratwick, Jewett M. Richmond, George V. Forman, Philo D. Beard, A. D). Gail, W. B. Miller. Training school for nurses-President, Dr. George R. Stearns; secretary, Mrs. Seth W. Warren; chairman, Mrs. David Sherrill. President board of associate managers- Mrs. C. J. North. Superintendent of hospital-Mrs. Elizabeth Brainard. Super- intendent of nurses-Miss Josephine Snetsinger.

The present staff is constituted as follows :

Medical and Surgical Staff-President, Joseph T. Cook, M. D. ; first vice-presi- dent, Truman J. Martin, M. D. ; secretary, George T. Moseley, M. D. Consulting physicians-A. R. Wright. M. D., A. T. Bull, M. D., H. A. Foster, M. D., H. Baethig, M. D., A. M. Curtiss, M. D., John Miller, M. D., D. B. Stumpf, M. D. Attending physicians-E. P. Hussey, M. D., B. J. Maycock, M. D .. E. A. Fisher, M. D., J. T. Cook, M. 1)., T. G. Martin, M. D., C. S. Albertson, M. D. Attending surgeons-H. C. Frost, M. D., D. G. Wilcox, M. D., G. T. Moseley, M. D., general; F. Park Lewis, M. D., ophthalmic; obstetricians, J. S. Halbert, M. D., G. R. Stearns, M. D. ; pathologist, A. W. Dods, M. D .; pharmacist, P. A. McCrea, M. D. Assisting physicians-A. B. Eadie, M. D., C. L. Mosher, M. D., W. D. Young, M. 1). Assisting surgeons-M. F. Linquist, M. D., M. Manges, M. D., W. H. Marcy, M. D., H. L. Towner, M. D; ophthalmologists, W. A. M. Hadley, M. D., F. D. Lewis, M. D .; obstetricians, Jessie Shepard, M. D., Rose Wilder, M. D .; laryn- gologist, F. L. Barnum, M. D. House staff-House physician, Dr. John G. Chad- wick ; house surgeon, Dr. C. E. Seaman.

A most important public work was undertaken in Erie county when the Collins Farm Hospital for the treatment of the insane was estab- lished by legislative enactment during the session of 1894. This is the second institution of this character under homoeopathic management in this State. Extensive plans have been prepared for the buildings to be erected and $100,000 was appropriated during the last session of the

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Legislature for this purpose. The first board of trustees consisted of William Tod Helmuth, M. D., New York city; Asa S. Couch, M. D .. Ferdonia; F. J. Blackman, esq., Gowanda; Dr. Helmuth being elected president of the board.

In 1890 Dr. Dewitt G. Wilcox established a private hospital on the corner of Lexington and Elmwood avenues, which was known as the Wilcox Private Hospital. Subsequently a number of other physicians became interested in it, and it was incorporated as the Lexington Heights Hospital. It is largely devoted to surgical work and is ad- mirably equipped for this purpose.

The selection of a site for this institution, in a district which but a few years previous had been stubble fields and open country, is not barren of suggestiveness. The growth of the young city in its phys- ical geography was typical of a growth in other directions. There had gradually come into its mental atmosphere a new spirit. Men were not less earnest, less honest in their individual beliefs, or less tenacious of what they held to be truth, than heretofore. But a tolerance quite un- known to the previous generation began to be felt, a new respect for the opinions of others, obtained among the best men of the two schools of practice.

This was the outgrowth, the natural consequence, of a wave of scientific thought that swept over the country, relieving the tension of puritanism in religion, modifying the conservatism of art-which had as yet no initiative life in America-loosening the bonds of tra- dition in literature, opening all that vast field of varied and beautiful writing which we now own proudly as distinctly American, and broad- ening and vivifying thought in every direction. It would be hard to say who laid the first spark to the brush-heap of conventionalism. Many brave souls had tried to kindle it, but an enormous flaming torch was flashed from the Old World to this, when Charles Darwin sent across the water his doctrine of Evolution. The effect of that first illuminating thought has not yet ceased, will never cease.

People began to realize that beliefs were never too old or too firmly set to be assailed. To some the whole fabric of life seemed menaced and covered with confusion. There may still be those who feel that the introduction of this revolutionary, investigative, scientific period into our history was an unmitigated evil. But its results were by no means merely iconoclastic. It opened men's mind clearly to the fact, too often forgotten, that Truth cannot be carried in one small box.

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That no one man or set of men ever had, or ever will have, all of truth, to the exclusion of all other men equally earnest in their search for the same truth, seems too axiomatic to need propounding. As a general statement it is accepted. Yet it has been the failure to realize this, in special instances, that has made possible the intolerant, aggress- ive spirit which, in one form or another, has been at the foundation of more than half of the wars and rebellions, insurrections and revolutions, that this world has tragically witnessed.

It has been worth the price, then, of the mental suffering, doubt and even agnosticism which a great upheaval like that following the intro- duction of such theories as that of evolution necessarily leaves, at least temporarily, in its train, to secure for the entire country a mental at- mosphere less personal, more liberal, less dogmatic, more temperate, less concerned with individual feeling, more considerate of the aims and views of others, than that which formerly existed.

It may not be that Darwin's theory was itself responsible for these results, but it, and the scientific thought of the time, following the lines laid down by Darwin, Huxley and others, called in question many long- established beliefs, clung to as fundamental by a large proportion of thinking people, and devotedly held, even to the point of martyrdom in days not so long in the past. This compelled people to think, and to think deeply; to think beneath and beyond preconceived opinion, to think in opposition to desire, in the face of despair; until, as in all such deep experience, out of this wrestling after truth came a sympathy and a consideration for others never before felt.

This, indeed, was recognized in all departments of life. Into art and literature, as well as into religious thought, it brought a spirit free, a temper reverent and a method scientific. It was not to be wondered at, then, that the new school of medicine, which, in its beginning had been hot-headed and radical, and the old school, which had been con- servative and intolerant, should have renounced to a very large degree their bitterness and ill-feeling, and should be able to work together upon any occasion calling for their co-operation in the common duties of citizenship.

Such an occasion came in the spring of 1893 when the integrity of the city charter was threatened by political intrigues. This charter which had been granted to the city by the State Legislature provided, among other things, a measure of local self-government, against which a political combination was directing its efforts. The citizens rose in

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revolt. The members of both county societies were called together in joint session to protest against the proposed legislation. Dr. Van Peyma was called to the chair, Dr. A. R. Wright was made vice-pres- ident, Drs. Irving Snow and B. J. Maycock were chosen secretaries. Speeches were made by members of both societies and a committee of five consisting of members from both county organizations drew up resolutions upholding the city charter, and condemning any legislative action that would nullify it. Another joint committee was appointed by the chair to take any further action that might be deemed necessary in connection with other societies or clubs, the whole city being moved by the instinct of self-protection to protest against interference with its vested rights. The meeting then adjourned, this being the first meeting where physicians assembled upon a common platform without regard to school, since the separation which had occurred more than forty years before.

In the fall of 1893 another noteworthy event occurred. The in- firmary department of the county almshouse had grown to very great proportions. A movement was successfully carried to take it out of the hands of a paid physician, and to place it under the charge of a large staff chosen from the leading physicians of the city. Upon this staff representatives of both methods of practice found place, and at the annual election, in evidence of the larger liberality and more generous feeling existing in the profession, the staff officers were chosen from both schools.

And thus, at the end of the century, the two schools of medicine, each of which has gone on increasing in strength and in power, al- though differing in some fundamental points of practice, toil side by side, working for a common cause. It may possibly happen that the future may so add to the science of the present, may so increase our knowledge of fundamental truth, that each may with full conviction and conscious dignity join fully with the other, in method as in hand, in the beneficent mission of the healing of the people. To-day we have at least reached the point of wishing each other "God speed."

CONCLUSION.

In the foregoing pages it has been the aim to give a statement of facts with reference to the history of medicine in Buffalo and Erie county during the past one hundred years. It has also been the aim to deal principally with first things giving in detail the organization of

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medical societies, hospitals, institutions and everything connected in a public manner with medicine. At the outset it was also found neces. sary to write somewhat elaborately of individual members of the med- ical profession since they alone in the early days constituted its guild.

As a conclusion, however, it seems proper to deal with medicine in a broader aggregate showing what has been accomplished during the century now drawing to its close and in which the physicians of Erie county played an important part. Jenner had but just discovered vaccination when the history of medicine in Erie county began, and the physicians of that early day, at first slow to adopt it as a prevent- ive or amelioration of smallpox, were among the earliest champions of this discovery and some of them lived to see it put into general practi- cal application as well as to witness the realization of this great tri- umph of preventive medicine.

Singularly enough after Jenner's discovery it was almost fifty years, i. e., not until 1846, that the next great advance was made in the field of prevention. The discovery and application of anesthesia to the prevention of pain in surgical injuries and operations produced a more profound impression upon the medical world, if possible, than did vac- cination. The first successful employment of anesthesia in surgery occurred in the Massachusetts General Hospital at Boston, October 16, 1846, a few months before the Buffalo Medical College opened its doors for instruction. The teacher of surgery, Prof. Frank Hastings Hamil- ton, began early to make use of anesthetics in his surgical work, and he played an important part in early establishing their use upon a prac- tical basis. It was not long before Prof. James P. White, Dr. George N. Burwell and others, acting on the suggestions of Sir James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, demonstrated the practical employment of anesthesia in the practice of obstetrics which has led to an amelioration of the pangs of maternity. In Buffalo, too, demonstrative midwifery was first practised in America, a system that provoked criticism at first but that since has been adopted everywhere as the only proper method of teaching that art. The courage displayed by Dr. White on the historical occasion referred to has served to give his name distinguished prominence in connection with the teaching of midwifery, and to make Buffalo famous as the place of its origin.

The exact methods adopted by Prof. Frank Hastings Hamilton in the treatment of fractures and the perfection of measurements which he insisted upon, served to reduce resulting shortening and deformities

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to a minimum. During the fifteen years of his residence in Buffalo and while he was teacher of surgery at Buffalo University Medical College he laid the foundation for perfected methods in the manage- ment of bone injuries. He also wrote a treatise on fractures and dislo- cations that became a text book in nearly all the medical colleges in this country and Europe and which has been translated into several foreign tongues. He was a disciple of Sir Astley Cooper and of Masoneuve, a forceful and accomplished teacher, a scholarly man, and a distinguished surgeon. He left the imprint of his teaching on the medical profession of Buffalo in a lasting manner.

The clinical study of diseases of the chest was first reduced to pre- cision by Dr. Austin Flint while he was a resident of Buffalo and a teacher in the medical college. He had a musical ear, capable of de- tecting abnormal chest sounds in the minutest degree, and he. was the originator of methods in the teaching and practice of internal medi- cine that attracted the attention of the professional world. Dr. Flint also discovered the fact that typhoid fever was a water borne disease and startled the world by his announcement to that effect. He became one of the most distinguished physicians of his time and left a lasting impression on the annals of medicine.

It was in Buffalo that the teaching of physiology was first in this country reduced to an exact science through vivisections and labora- tory experiments under the masterly hand of Prof. John C. Dalton. He came to Buffalo fresh from the pupilage of M. Claude Bernard, of Paris, whose methods he adopted. He attracted the attention of students of physiology everywhere and was soon invited to New York where he continued his great work in an enlarged field. Physiology at once took rank as a foremost science which will always bear the impress of the name of Dalton.

The establishment of a medical college in Buffalo in 1846 has con- tributed largely to the professional development of Western New York, and especially of Buffalo and Erie county. By far the larger number of physicians of this region are its graduates, and it still flour- ishes in its new home and enlarged facilities for teaching, as one of the most respected medical colleges in the land. Its younger sister, Ni- agara University Medical College, established in 1883, took from the start a high ground with reference to medical education and increased length of college terms. It has succeeded in making its principles recognized and patterned after. These two schools are a credit to the medical profession and the age.

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The medical societies in Buffalo and Erie county have also exerted a beneficial influence in training physicians to thought and action and in making them abler and better exponents of established medicine. We have in these pages devoted considerable space to the several medical societies, because, after all, these are the important avenues through which medicine marches to its appointed place in history. When a man becomes a frequent contributor of papers to his local medical society and is ready to take part in the debates that arise from such contri- butions, he establishes himself in the minds and hearts of his fellow citizens as a progressive physician entitled to confidence. Such papers and debates should be printed in the home medical journal, when they at once become part of the history of the medical profession of that region.

During the century just closing medicine has advanced so remarka- bly that it has hardly been possible to keep pace with its strides. But it is a gratifying fact to be able to record in these pages that the guild in Buffalo and Erie county has kept the faith and stands abreast in in- telligence and science with its professional brethren in any quarter of the globe.

An enumeration of some of the more prominent inventions and dis- coveries made during the closing century relating to the medical pro- fession and which have contributed to the cure of disease and the lengthening of human life, will, in this connection, not be uninterest- ing. Without attempt at chronological accuracy the first to be men- tioned is vaccination; then chloroform, next the stethoscope which has so developed and perfected the study of the most obscure maladies of the chest; the endoscope, the laryngoscope, the ophthalmoscope and the speculum, all instruments used in lighting up portions of the in- terior of the body; the clinical thermometer which guides almost un- erringly in discerning the nature and severity of many diseases; the sphygmograph that makes the pulse write out the story of the heart- throbs; the marvelous revelations of the microscope; the hypodermic syringe which enables us to treat many diseases inaccessible to therapeusis through the ordinary channels; the aspirator which aids in the diagnosis and treatment of many surgical diseases; the Esmarch bandage that permits the most important operations without the loss of blood; the development and perfection of operations in the various cavities of the body-cranial, throracic, abdominal and pelvic-for di- seased conditions, new growths or injuries; the discovery and applica-

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tion of the principles of asepsis and antisepsis as related to surgical and obstetrical procedures; and the study of the germ theory of disease in connection with the science of bacteriology; increased knowledge and improved methods in public health administration and general sanita- tion, relating to the prevention of disease; the application of the prin- ciples of higher medical education as related to methods of teaching and lengthened terms of study; the separate examination by the State, apart from and independent of the colleges, for license to practice medicine; and finally the Röntgen rays and other electrical devices that are useful in the study and treatment of surgical diseases. These to- gether with a refined chemistry and perfected pharmacy are among the contributions of the nineteenth century to the glories of medicine.

It is gratifying to have lived in such a period and to be able to record the fact the medical profession of Buffalo and Erie county has not only witnessed these advances, but has taken an active part in either dis- covering, developing or perfecting many of them.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE PRESS OF ERIE COUNTY.

The fact is generally recognized throughout the State that during many past years, as well as at the present time, the newspapers of Erie county, and especially those of the city of Buffalo, as a whole, wielded a commanding influence in Western and Central New York, and rep- resented what is considered best in modern high class journalism. There have been, and now are, prominently identified with these jour- nals, both editorially and in business relations, men possessed of pecul- iar qualifications for their responsible positions, which have enabled them to exalt their profession above mere material ambition and de- sire. This fact has been demonstrated in a somewhat remarkable de- gree by the general fairness in the editorial treatment of each other by rival journals. One need not travel many hundred miles from Buffalo to find cities in which are published two, three, or more daily papers, the columns of any one of which seldem or never recognize merit and success in those of their rivals. Such recognition is a common charac-

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teristic of nearly all the leading journals of Buffalo. While these news- papers hold and express diverse opinions on all important local topics; while they engage at times in severe criticism of the wisdom and mo- tives of their editorial brethren, it still remains a fact that direct com- mendation frequently follows closely upon such criticism in instances where good intent and influence beneficial to the community are ap- parent.

There is another noticeable fact that deserves mention in connection with this subject. The list of newspapers started in Buffalo that have been forced to succumb to the fate that awaits so large a part of such undertakings, is a short one in comparison with similar records in other cities. It is probably susceptible of proof that there are eastern cities not much older in respect to date of settlement, and which have not passed the 100,000 mark in population, in which the number of news- papers destined to an early death exceeds that of Buffalo. It is as- sumed, from this, that the journals of Erie county have been founded with more prudence and wisdom and conducted with greater ability than those of many other localities, or else have been more liberally supported by the community. Either of these assumptions is cred- itable.

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Our County and Its People: A Descriptive Work on Erie County, New York (Volume 1), Part 90

Author: Truman C. White Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1017

Author: Truman C. White
Publication date: 1898
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017