USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 1) > Part 63
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While these names will call to mind the history of medicine and surgery in the past in suggestive power, the names of the instructors of the present, numbering some 160, include many who have added luster to the profes- sion and done much for the advancement of medical science in the world. Among them are Drs. George Coates Ashmun, William Thompson Corlett, John Pascal Sawyer, Frank Emory Bunts, Carl August Hamann, Charles Francis Hoover, George Washington Crile, Torald Sollman, Frederick Clayton Waite, George Neil Stewart, Roger Griswold Perkins, Thomas Wingate Todd, Henry John Gerstenberger, Howard Thomas Karsner, William Evans Bruner, Carl John Wiggers, William Henry Humiston, and Arthur Holbrook Bill.
There are now 2,000 physicians and surgeons in the City of Cleveland and while as in the past there are many of outstanding prominence, yet the necessity of specializing has changed the manner of estimating so that we speak of individuals as leaders in certain lines. The great army of today, in the hospitals and in the homes, are dealing with the ills that flesh is heir to, as did Doctor Long, the solitary physician, who, with his saddle bags, traversed the forests in the beginning. Great advancement has been made. The period of human life has been extended, much unnecessary suffering has been eliminated.
The college Alumni Association includes all the graduates of the Cleve- land Medical College, the School of Medicine of Western Reserve Univer- sity; the Charity Hospital Medical College, the Medical Department of Wooster University, and the Medical Department of Ohio Wesleyan University (known also as the Cleveland College of Physicians and Sur- geons). Thus the past and the present of these schools are united. This great school, soon to have the facilities offered by the new buildings pro- vided by the bounty of Samuel Mather, has under its care Lakeside Hos- pital on Lakeside Avenue. This is a private undenominational corporation with its board of trustees. It is supported in part by fees of patients, but the bulk comes from private contributions and endowments. This was completed in 1898 and has 195 ward beds. In the last year 6,205 patients were cared for.
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St. Vincent (Charity) Hospital was opened in 1865. It has 300 beds, including 100 free beds. In the past year it cared for 6,475 patients. The City Hospital is entirely supported by the City of Cleveland. The West- ern Reserve Medical School by contract with the city "assumes entire responsibility for the professional work of the institution, and has full use of all of its facilities for teaching purposes." This hospital has 1,100 beds. There are for contagious diseases 200, tuberculosis 150, neurology and psychiatry 144, skin and venereal diseases 100, and general medicine and surgery 506. This hospital, a credit to the city, is modern. It has up-to-date laboratory facilities, a complete Xray equipment, an electro- cardiograph laboratory in the new building, with thirty-two stations, so that a cardiogram may be taken without transporting the patient to the instrument. The Western Reserve Medical School has the exclusive teach- ing privileges and nominates the staff of the Cleveland Maternity Hospital, which has sixty beds. In the past year there were 1,090 confinements in this hospital. Ground has been broken for a new maternity hospital and for a babies' hospital. These will be completed soon and are located on the campus of the university. In the hospitals mentioned, including St. Vin- cent, which like the rest, is under the care of the Western Reserve Medical College, there are more than 1,200 beds, with over 20,000 patients.
An important adjunct to the work of this school is the dispensary at Lakeside Hospital. This is supported in part by the Huntington Dis- pensary Fund and in part by the appropriations made from time to time by the board of trustees of the hospital. There is nothing that reflects so much credit on the City of Cleveland and its citizenry as the multitude of endowments established by their generosity. At the Lakeside Dis- pensary during the past year the total number of visits by patients in the day clinic were 109,000, and in the night clinic over 13,000. The Maternity Dispensary of Western Reserve University and Maternity Hospital is located in the Hospital Building. It has eight pre-natal dispensaries, located at 2509 East Thirty-fifth Street, 2749 Woodhill Road, 2317 Lorain Avenue, the Alta House, 3582 East Forty-ninth Street, the Goodrich House, 2573 East Fifty-fifth Street and 12718 St. Clair Avenue. Eighteen nurses assigned by the University and Maternity Hospital devote their entire time to the care of patients. The Babies' Dispensary and Hospital on East Thirty-fifth Street has a milk laboratory connected with it. Its staff consists of a medical director, one physician, fifteen assistant physi- cians, a superintendent of nurses, and seven nurses, who serve also as social workers. During the past year there were 5,388 patients.
Among the leading hospitals of the city are Mt. Sinai, St. Alexis, St. John's, St. Luke's, Lutheran Hospital, Glenville, Carnegie, and the United States Marine Hospital (United States Public Health Service) in addition to those we have named. The Huron Road Hospital, St. Clair, Grace, Winsor, Nottingham, Fairmount, Euclid Avenue, Fairview, Flower, Prov- ident, Rainbow, Rosemary, Emergency, Cosmopolitan, add to the list. There are the Hough Maternity Hospital, St. Anns, East Seventy-ninth Hospital, with a maternity annex, and others of a like nature. The Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, the Orthopedic Institute, the Oxley Home, the Euclid Creek Sanitarium, the Hydropathic Rest Clinic, play an impor- tant part in the treatment of the sick and ailing. There are a number of private institutions, the Joanna Private Hospital, the Prospect Private Hospital, are among them. The Evangelic Deaconess Hospital on Pearl Road, recently established, is doing excellent work. The Sanitarium of Doctor McNamara, and the Neal Institute are other institutions doing hospital work in special lines. The Welfare Association for Jewish Chil- dren may be classed with the others named. It will be of interest to note
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that in many if not all of the large industrial plants of the city there are "first aid" hospital departments for the benefit of employes who may be injured or taken ill while in the employ of their various companies.
Perhaps the most famous surgeon of the past in Cleveland was Dr. G. C. E. Weber, whom we have mentioned as connected with the Cleveland Medical College. He spent his last days in a beautiful home in Willoughby Township, Lake County, overlooking the Chagrin River val- ley. Like Doctor Scott he gave of his genius to the poor as well as to the rich, and did not refuse a call because of the inability of a family to pay. His practice took him often into remote townships and it was an event to have Doctor Weber drive into town with his handsome team of black horses to attend a critical case, extract a bullet, set a limb, or consult with the
ST. ALEXIS HOSPITAL , CLEVELAND, OHIO
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local physician. His coming was hailed with joy, believing that it meant a life was saved, and in many cases that was undoubtedly the result.
Drs. Augustus and William A. Knowlton, the latter still living at the age of eighty-five, were practicing physicians in the county for many years, the former until his death and the latter until his retirement a few years ago. Their father, Dr. William Knowlton, was a skilled physician and surgeon before them. These sons, like their father, became enured to the hardships of the country physician in what was designated by Mr. Kerruish as the mud era. Dr. William A. Knowlton came to Cleveland in 1890. He had practiced as a country physician for a quarter of a century, living in Brecksville, but practicing in the surrounding towns as well. He read medicine in his brother's office at Berea, attended and was graduated from the medical department of the University of Wooster and also received a diploma from the medical department of the Western Reserve University. After coming to Cleveland he held the chair of obstetrics in the medical department of the Wooster University and was chosen president of the Cleveland Medical Association. He is a member of the Ohio State Medical Association. It may be added that he was a soldier in the Civil war, enter- ing as a private and coming out as a captain. He was wounded in the service and still suffers from the wound. Probably few physicians in the
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county had so large an acquaintance as he in the days when he was in active practice.
About fifty years ago Dr. F. J. Weed, who received his training as a surgeon under Doctor Weber, began practice with an office on Church Street on the West Side. He became dean of the medical department of the University of Wooster, was visiting surgeon at Lakeside (the Old Marine) and Charity hospitals. His practice grew and he associated with him in the office Dr. J. G. Gehring, a fine physician and scholar. Dr. F. E. Bunts was next taken in as an assistant, then Doctor Merz, and the staff continued for some time as Weed, Gehring, Bunts, and Merz. They did much casualty surgery, that is in connection with accidents in the large manufacturing plants of the city, general surgery, medical practice and specializing to some extent in gynecology or diseases peculiar to women. When the Casualty Insurance companies began to insure manufacturing plants, this office became the official medical representative of the com- panies. To know something of the practice this brought to the staff aside from their general work, it should be related that, representing some 40,000 employes, there were often fifteen or twenty cases daily. Under the strain Doctor Gehring's health failed and he was compelled to drop out. It should be said of him that after dropping out of Cleveland medical history, he went to Maine and there established at Bethel a famous institution for the treatment of nervous and psychic disorders.
After Doctor Gehring left, Doctor Bunts was promoted from assistant to a full fledged member of the staff and as the large amount of work required another assistant in his place he was given authority to select a man. He chose Dr. George W. Crile. Doctor Crile says he was taken in as office dog at $50 per month. From Church Street the office was moved to 380 Pearl Street (now West Twenty-fifth Street). Here each member of the staff had his own horse and buggy.
A sad blow came to this historic staff in 1895 when Doctor Weed was taken with pneumonia and died. He was much loved and respected and the community suffered a distinct loss. After his death, Doctors Bunts and Crile practiced individually, but they kept the original office and shared the expenses equally. Then Dr. J. C. Lower was taken in. During its West Side history this office had a record of over 25,000 accident cases. In 1897 the office was removed to the East Side in the Osborn Building. In the Spanish-American war, all the office staff went to the front, Doctor Bunts with Troop A and became its commander, Doctor Crile was on Gen- eral Garrettson's staff, and Doctor Lower went to the Philippines. After the war others were added to the office staff, Dr. H. G. Sloan, Dr. T. P. Shupe, and Doctor Osmond.
When the World war came, the entire office went to the front as before. It is impossible in a short chapter to give even an outline of their services on the battle front.
The Clinic Building at Euclid and East Ninety-third Street is an out- growth of the original office founded by Doctor Weed. This attractive and convenient building, designed by the architect of the world-famous Clinic Building of the Mayos, at Rochester, Minnesota, was built by Drs. George W. Crile, F. E. Bunts, W. E. Lower and John Phillips. The cost was about $600,000. The main building is 76 by 120 feet. It is supplemented by smaller ones that have arisen since this was dedicated and its capacity ascertained. At the dedication, which occurred February 21, 1921, there were present 500 physicians of note, and among them Dr. William J. Mayo, who delivered an interesting address. Among the advantages of this clinic will be the giving of higher training to young physicians entering the profession. It is a place where the general practitioner "can send his
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patients for diagnostic survey." At the head is Dr. George W. Crile, "the master surgeon.
While this clinic is established as a private enterprise, Doctor Crile has taken steps to perpetuate it by establishing a foundation to the end that it eventually becomes a public institution and is never changed from its original purpose, after the present managers are gone. There is already something over $100,000 in this fund. Doctor Crile became known inter- nationally at the head of the Lakeside Hospital Unit in France during the World war, but his fame was a national one before that time. He grad- uated from the medical department of Wooster University, studied also in Europe, was professor of Clinical Surgery in the medical school of Western Reserve University, when he resigned to devote his time more fully as the head of the work in the new Clinic Building. Dr. Elliott Cut- ler, the successor of Doctor Crile in Lakeside Hospital, is a distinct acquisi- tion to the medical profession in Cleveland. He entered the World war at the head of the Harvard Unit in France, was commissioned captain when America entered, promoted to major and put in charge of a base hospital, and has been given a medal by Congress for his work while at the hospital at Boulogne.
In connection with the Clinic Building it is appropriate to mention another private enterprise that will be of great benefit to the profession in Cleveland. A new Medical Building has just been completed costing $1,250,000. It is located on Huron Road in the downtown section and to be rented only to physicians, surgeons, and dentists, except the ground floor, which will be devoted to an elaborate drug store establishment. This build- ing is finely appointed. The manager is L. A. Whitman. It is called the Medical Central Building. The advantages of such a building to the med- ical profession in Cleveland will be apparent to those familiar with the work.
Not a single hospital in Cleveland is self-sustaining, only 27 per cent of the patients pay full fare. They are a part of the charities that call for annual contributions. The response in the city has never been niggardly and a large fund is raised for the various charities. From the Clinic Hos- pital at Eighty-eighth Street and Euclid, with its fifty beds, ten regular nurses and three aids, fifteen visiting physicians, with Dr. Paul Beach at the head, we turn to the new twelve-story City Hospital Building, the largest in Ohio, capable of caring for 575 patients, and built at a cost of $4,500,000, with the equipment we have referred to, and there is a mantling pride that comes to us in the contemplation of both.
The hospital growth has kept pace with that of the city, and eyes are peering into the future to maintain this standard. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars has been expended in increasing the capacity of Charity Hospital. Mount Sinai, built at a cost of nearly $600,000, has been given $100,000 since, by a Cleveland citizen, for a dispensary, to be founded in memory of the donor's mother, and the Cleveland Homeopathic Hospital Society have bought four acres in the Forest Hill tract of John D. Rocke- feller, as a site for a $700,000 hospital. The society has already an endow- ment of $250,000 from Daniel Rhodes, and $115,000 from J. H. Wade. It was announced in the newspapers that the building would begin in 1894. It was also intimated that the site was purchased at so low a figure that the deal in reality carried with it a large contribution.
St. Luke's Hospital on Carnegie was founded by the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and its superintendent is Rev. Ward B. Pickands. It is supported in part by contributions from the various Methodist churches.
St. Alexis on Broadway has long been famous. It enlarged some years ago and at the dedication of the new building there were present besides
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Bishop Horstman, Senator M. A. Hanna and Mayor Tom L. Johnson, and a large company. Aside from Doctor Crile, the most notable person con- nected with the hospital in the past was Mother (Sister) Leonarda. She had both titles, and as a hospital manager had few equals. She was much beloved and at her death a society was formed to perpetuate her memory and bear her name. From this, others came into being and took the name, and it became a synonym for goodness.
We shall not attempt in this chapter to do more than speak of a few of the 2,000 present doctors and the many that have gone before. We may dodge here and there and that is all. Dr. Donald McIntosh came to Cleve- land in 1818 and his practice, while it lasted, was in competition with Doc- tor Long. He had a reputation for profanity that was known and discussed in the community. Squire Hudson, of Hudson, a very pious deacon, was taken sick and by some crossing of the lines Doctor McIntosh was called instead of Doctor Long. The doctor's medicine was so unpleasant to the taste that the deacon balked and refused to take it, whereupon in a fury the doctor said: "Die then and go to hell." This emphatic language so impressed the sick man that he took the medicine and got well. Doctor McIntosh soon opened a tavern where the Cleveland Hotel is now located, and probably gave up practice altogether. He was given to horse racing, and was killed from being thrown from a running horse.
Dr. H. F. Biggar, Jr., was for years on the staff of the Huron Road Hospital and was in 1896 in the British Marine Service as transport sur- geon. He gained much notoriety from his close personal friendship to John D. Rockefeller, being his personal physician for many years. Dr. P. J. Byrne was born in Cleveland, graduated from the medical depart- ment of Western Reserve University, was visiting physician at St. John's Hospital and served as county coroner for five years. Dr. D. B. Smith was for many years in the public eye. In his work as instructor in the medical college he taught 10,000 different students. He was for some time presi- dent of the board of education of the City of Cleveland.
We have referred to the present medical college in Cleveland as the lineal descendant of all. The Homeopathic College was organized in 1850 and its first building located on Prospect Street, near Ontario, on an upper floor. Some time after, the building was attacked by a mob and badly torn to pieces. The occasion of the riot was the finding of a body in the dis- secting room supposed to have been stolen from a city cemetery. The first professors of the new school were Drs. Edwin C. Wetherell, Lansing Briggs, Alfred H. Burritt, Lewis Dodge, Hamilton Smith, and Jehu Brainard. In 1851 twelve students composed the graduating class. Dr. H. F. Biggar, in a journal article, relates that when he came to Cleveland in 1864 the college was located in the Haymarket (old Ohio Street), the aris- tocratic precincts of "Commercial Hill," where every second house was either a saloon or a bawdy house, the rendezvous of toughs, pickpockets and murderers, the very worst slum of Cleveland. In the faculty were Profs. John Ellis, A. O. Blair, J. C. Sanders, R. F. Humiston, G. F. Turrill, T. P. Wilson, and S. R. Beckwith. Professor Humiston was of the Humiston Institute. This institute in 1868 was located on the Heights, south of the city, and was purchased by the faculty for a college and hospital. The name was then changed from the Western Homeopathic College to the Cleveland Homeopathic Hospital College. Added to the faculty were Drs. H. F. Biggar, N. Schneider, L. W. Sapp, and H. L. Ambler.
In 1871 the college was located in Plymouth Church at the corner of Prospect and Oak Place (East Eighth Street). The professors were Jehu Brainard, George W. Barnes, A. O. Blair, J. C. Sanders, N. Schneider, H. F. Biggar, H. H. Baxter, S. A. Boynton, G. J. Jones, C. H. Von Tagen,
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E. R. Taylor, W. E. Saunders, W. F. Hocking, G. O. Spence and G. M. Barber, lecturer on medical jurisprudence, and H. B. Van Norman, lecturer on hygiene.
In 1890 there was a rupture in the faculty. This was due to differences as to the administration, educationally and financially. As has been said : "Some were partly right-all were in the wrong." Two colleges grew out of this difference. The offshoot, the Cleveland Medical College, after a year, built a college on Bolivar Street, and about the same time the other division, styled the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College, opened its new building on Huron Street. The next year its name was changed to the Cleveland University of Medicine and Surgery. The building on Huron was built from funds donated, at a cost of $50,000. The building was under the direction of Dr. Stanley Hall.
These colleges were later affiliated, and this was high tide in the history of homeopathy in Cleveland. The faculty in 1896 was: Dr. W. A. Phil- lips, dean, and then Dr. G. J. Jones, Drs. John C. Sanders, T. P. Wilson, D. H. Beckwith, G. W. Spencer, J. Richey Horner, A. B. Schneider, E. O. Adams, G. W. Gurnee, R. J. Cummer, H. L. Frost, William T. Miller, Hudson D. Bishop, W. E. Trego, N. T. B. Nobles, J. A. Lytle, B. B. Kim- mel, James C. Wood, P. B. Roper, A. L. Waltz, F. W. Somers, E. H. Jewitt, William A. Phillips, B. B. Viets, H. W. Richmond, L. E. Siemon, G. H. Quay, W. H. Phillips, L. A. Noble, C. M. Thurston, G. W. Jones, D. J. Bryant, B. R. Burgner, Josephine M. Danforth, J. P. Sobey, G. R. Wilkins, E. O. Bonsteel, H. D. Fowler, H. F. Staples, Pauline H. Barton, H. R. Clark, R. F. Livermore, H. F. Ryder, Carl V. Schneider, H. Landon Taylor, Frieda E. Weiss, Denver H. Patterson, G. H. Benton, A. W. King, W. H. Loomis, Alice Butler, and A. G. Schnable. Judge Thomas S. Dunlap was lecturer on medical jurisprudence.
Several women members are noticed in the faculty list. Women stu- dents were excluded from the college classes until several years after the Civil war. In 1868 a woman's college was organized. Its location was the Flatiron Building at Prospect and Huron. Two years later, after some dis- cussion, the Cleveland Homeopathic College opened its doors to women by a majority of one vote. Each one voting later declared that it was his vote that did it. The women then transferred their property to the larger college. The first woman's hospital was located on Webster Street. It was moved to Cedar, to Fairmount, and then to East One Hundredth Street. Drs. C. A. Seamon, Myra K. Merrick, Martha Canfield, Martha Stone, Kate Parsons, and Eliza Johnson Merrick were early women prac- titioners of note. Of a later date and of the present time we may mention Drs. Minabel Snow, Alice Butler, Clara K. Clendon, Eva F. Collins, Jose- phine Danforth, Mary V. Davidson, Viola J. Erlanger, Mabelle S. Gilbert, Mary C. Goodwin, Julia Egbert Hoover, Fannie C. Hutchins, Sarah Mar- cus, Eliza H. Patton, Margaret Rupert, Mary H. White, and many others.
It was just about the beginning of the twentieth century when the standardizing of all medical colleges in the United States and Canada was brought about and all were discontinued in Cleveland except the School of Medicine of the Western Reserve University. Earlier than this, how- ever, as Doctor Biggar states in his "Fragments of History," the surgeon was also a physician. He was physician, surgeon and dentist, but as Doctor Biggar says, thes pecialist is a better specialist for having been a general practitioner. The specialist of this day is a natural result of more systematic and enlarged opportunities coming with the greater develop- ment of medical science, and the human race are benefited by his experi- ence and special devotion.
There are 1,100 dentists in Cleveland, and great changes have come
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about since the days when Doctor Long pulled teeth along with his general practice in pioneer days. The relation of the condition of the teeth to the general health is now carefully studied, and the X-ray discloses what was before hidden to the practitioner. There are twenty-eight dental labora- tories in the city. There are seven dermatologists and twenty-four chiropodists licensed and practicing in the city. There are seventy-three chiropractors and nearly the same number of osteopathic physicians in the city. The Roscoe Osteopathic Clinic is advertised as a group functioning as one physician. This is located on Euclid. There are 100 Christian Science practitioners. Closely allied with the medical practice in Cleveland are the opticians and optometrists, who number sixty-nine. These do not include many specialists who are regular graduates from the general med- ical colleges but confine their practice to special lines.
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