USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 45
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The few physicians mentioned in the preceding notices as having
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their pacing nags, or a little wheeled vehicle, are intended as rarities among the profession. It was only an indulgence awarded to the aged and infirm to submit to motive assistance. Any young man resorting to it would have endangered his reputation and practice Dr. Rush has told his friends how often he visited Kensington on foot to serve poor sick persons, from whom he expected nothing directly, but by the fame of which, in his successful practice in their behalf, he indirectly was rewarded with his future choice of practice there .* It was not only to walk far, for smaller reward, but the time was before the fashion of umbrellas and boots, that they had to wade through unpaved lanes and alleys without defence against storms of rain, hail, or snow! As if it were inferred that men who professed to heal all maladies, should themselves be invulnerable to the assaults of disease.
In extreme olden time, occasional indulgence was enjoyed by the faculty, under an oiled linen hat cover, and a large shoulder cape of like material, called a roquelaure-it was intended as a kind of storm shed, to shield the upper works only.t Wet feet or drenched lower limbs, with the then hardy sons of Esculapius, were nothing !- or if regarded, it was only as the Indians feel for feeble children-by con- cluding that those who could not encounter the necessary exposures of the hunter's life, were not worth the keeping.
In tracing some of the leading features of our domestic history of medicine, there is one modern and modish change of practice which has almost subverted all former scruples of sex, and given a large accession of business to the faculty. We mean the transfer of mid- wifery from the hands of the grandames to professional men. This very thing shows the powerful ascendency of custom. The same ladies are still living who once, in all cases short of the extremities of death, would have resisted the approach of the man-midwife, yet came at length to submit themselves to that assistance. Its intro- duction as a practice (prevalent as it now is) came into use only since the year 1790. This new measure was deemed in necessary accordance with our new notions of foreign luxuries-in furniture, equipage and dress, and from the same causes, to wit: the greatly increased ability to pay for whatever was deemed modish and novel. The innovation being once adopted in high life, soon "infected downward all the graduated scale," till, finally, the whole service is engrossed by obstetric professors. Mrs. Lydia Robinson, at the age of 70 years, in 1769, had, in her services of thirty-five years, at and near New London, Connecticut, " delivered 1200 children, and never lost one." Can any skill in science surpass that !
* The very residence of such a man as Dr. Rush, shows by its locality how little they regarded horses or stabling then-it being a bank house on the east side of Front street, above Walnut. It was long a fashionable location for a physician or gentleman, although it had not one foot of yard.
t Old Mrs. Shoemaker, who saw them in use, said ministers also used them. It booked round the neck and descended to the loins loose as a cloak all round.
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Before this era, the crisis of all our mothers, and the hopes of all our forefathers, was committed to "female women" who, if they had not the science of their successors, had a potent and ready assistant .it. Dame Nature, (for reason as we will, facts are stubborn things,) and it must be conceded, that the issue, in such hands, was equally satis factory to all concerned.
Now, the gentlemen of the profession, always men of influence and character, are known in every street and public hall ; but then there was a kind of mysterious concealment of the good grandame, that made her, when rarely seen or spoken of among the younger members of the family, a being of some nondescript relation-some- thing sui-generis, and as mysterious in her visits or goings abroad as her occupation itself. Some of their names and persons pass in re- view while we write, but we are aware that they are things not to be expatiated upon with the present generation. But as the office and the service were worthy they had their esteem in days of "Lang Syne"-even to publish elegiac praise. On the 6th of January, 1729-30, was published in the Gazette, the decease of such a useful matron, to wit: " Yesterday died Mary Broadway, aged 100 years- a noted midwife-her constitution wore well to the last, and she could read without spectacles." On this worthy woman was after- wards published an elegy, which in a short time went through tw editions. Who now can show it! Perchance from. the muse of Aquilla Rose, or from the poet Keimer! With that loss we have also to deplore the extinction of the first published medical. tract in our annals-an essay of the year 1740, by Dr. Thomas Cadwallader, on the iliac passion ! But a more modern grandame, drawn to my hand, may close this notice, to wit : " At Second and Dock streets I would remember the house once occupied by Mrs. Lydia Darrach, a whig of the Revolution,* who assisted in increasing the census of the city more than any other lady of her profession. Finally, if they thus differed in their services afforded to our mothers, our mothers also in turn as much differed in their former mode of assist- ing the little strangers, by means called killing, by the moderns, maugre all which, we stouted it out and lived! "The babe then must be straitly rolled round the waist with a linen swathe and loaded with clothes until it could scarcely breathe, and when unwell or fretful was dosed with spirits and water stewed with spicery. The mother in the mean time was refreshed with rum, either buttered or made into hot tiff!"+ In all this the initiated sufficiently know the inarked dissimilar views and practice now !
With the increase of luxuries have come in the indolent habits of tepose and table indulgences, creating a new disease quite unknowr to our robust ancestors. They had never heard of the present
* Her generous whiggism may be found told under the chapter on the War of Inde pendence.
+ Memoirs Historical Society, vol. i., p. 290.
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modish name of " dyspepsia." Indigestion, if it troubled them after occasional excess in banqueting, was quickly cast off by the stout efforts of Dame Nature. Men and maidens then walked much more than they rode, and pursued active employments quite as much as they read. They had not then learned to cloy themselves with the varieties of the restorateur's art :- French stimulants were unknown Even the sedentary habits of study were then unafflicted, and the idea of a " disease of genius," now so called, had never been placed to the maladies of professional men.
The following presents a list of all the physicians and surgeons, as they existed in Philadelphia, soon after the peace of 1783, to which is affixed their residences ; which are here added for the sake of showing what were then deemed their best locations for business to wit :
James Batchelor, Water street, between Almond and Catharine sts Barnabas Binney, Arch street, between Fourth and Fifth streets Bond & Wilson, Second street, between Market and Arch streets John Baker, Dentist, Second street, between Walnut and Spruce » eets.
John Carson, Third street, between Chestnut and Walnut streets. W.m. Clarkson, Front street, between Union and Pine streets. Gerrardus Clarkson, Pine street, between Front and Second streets. Abraham Chovet, Race street, between Third and Fourth streets William Curry, corner Second and Pine streets.
Benjamin Duffield, Front street, between South and Almond sts James Dunlap, Market street, between Fifth and Sixth streets. Nathan Dorsey, Front street, between Walnut and Spruce streets. Samuel Duffield, Chestnut street, between Second and Third sts John Foulk, Front street, between Market and Arch streets.
George Glentworth, Arch street, between Front and Second streets. Peter Glentworth, Front street, between Market and Arch streets Joseph Goss, Front street, between Walnut and Spruce streets. Saml. K. Griffith, Union street, between Second and Third streets. James Gardette, Dentist, corner Third and Pear streets.
James Hutchinson, Second street, between Walnut and Spruce sts: Robert Harris, Spruce street, between Second and Third streets. John Jones, Market street, between Second and Third streets. Michael Jennings, Moravian alley, (Bread street.)
Jackson & Smith, Second street, between Market and Chestnut sts. John Kehlme, Race street, between Second and Third streets. Adam Kucher, Second street, between Chestnut and Walnut sts George Lyle, Front street, near Poole's bridge.
John Morgan, corner Second and Spruce streets.
John Morris, Chestnut street, between Front and Second streets. Peter Peres, a French gentleman, north Second street, corner of Brown street, Northern Liberties.
Joseph Phiffer, a German gentleman, Second street, between Vine and Callowhill streets.
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Thos. Park, Fourth street, between Chestnut and Market streets Benjamin Rush, Second street, between Chestnut and Walnut sts. Fredk. Rapp, Third street, between Race and Vine streets. John Redman, Second street, between Market and Arch streets. Joseph Redman, Market street, between Fifth and Sixth streets. Benj. Say, Second street, between Arch and Race streets. Wm. Smith, Arch street, between Front and Second streets. Saml. Shober, Front street, between South and Almond streets, Thos. Shaw, corner Front and Callowhill streets.
Wm. Shippen, Second street, between Walnut and Spruce streets. Benj. Vanleer, Water street, between Race and Vine streets.
Of the Calamities of the Profession.
A few words may be added, because exemption from error or in- justice is not the lot of humanity. An annalist, without ill-nature, may tell all.
The name of Dr. E. J., chemist, has not been previously intro- duced to the notice of the readers as among the preceding roll, his being an exempt case, and himself un enfant perdu. He had the misfortune greatly to overplay his part in a case of intended merri- ment, which set the whole town in commotion and indignation. 'The circumstances are strange :- In the year 1737 an apprentice lad living with the said Dr. J. had expressed a desire to be initiated into the mysteries of masonry. The doctor and some of his friends affected to become operators, with a design to make their sport of his simplicity and credulity. He was blindfolded, and was to say certain profane words to the devil. They then administered to him a cup, which some said was in imitation of a sacrament, in which was a strong dose of physic. Being led to kiss a book to swear upon, he was made to kiss a substitute, intended to much increase the rude sport of the company. Then spirits was set on fire, having a deposit of salt, intended to cause the appearance called " snap dragon," which gives to every face near it the pale hue of death .* The lad was here uncovered so as to see them, but not being terrified, as they ex- pected or wished, although one of the company was clothed in a cow's hide and horns, Dr. J., as if infatuated with his mischievous fancies, actually cast the pan of remaining burning spirits upon the poor lad's bosom ! This fatal reve. terminated in the death of the young man-for after languishing three days in delirium he died. The facts thus lengthened by the proofs in the case, have been told as they appeared in substance at the trial-for the act being a felony in its nature, caused the arrest of the doctor, and his distress in his turn. As he and his companions were withal Free Masons, it brought reproach upon the fraternity. They had therefore to repel
* Hanks in his late expose of masonry, says he saw this thing practised in his lodge in Virginia.
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it by holding a special meeting, and publicly expressing their abhor rence of the act. On this occasion an article appeared in the Mer- cury of 1737-8, against Benjamin Franklin, who was privy to some of the affair, and his vindication is given in his paper, No. 479, en- tirely exculpating himself.
At the era of the revolution, Dr. John Kearsley, although other- wise a citizen of good character and standing, became exposed to the scoffs and insults of the people, by his ardent loyalism : being natu- rally impetuous in his temper, he gave much umbrage to the whigs of the day, by his rash expressions. It was intended, therefore, to sober his feelings by the argument of " tar and feathers." He was seized at midday, at his own door, in Front a little below High street, by a party of the militia, and in his attempt to resist them he received a bayonet wound in his hand. Mr. Graydon, a bystander, has told the sequel. He was forced into a cart, and, amidst a multi- tude of boys and idlers, paraded though the streets to the tune of the Rogue's March. The concourse brought him before the Coffee-house, where they halted ; the doctor, foaming with rage and indignation, without a hat, his wig dishevelled, and himself bloody from his wounded hand, stood up in the cart and called for a bowl of punch ; when so vehement was his thirst, that he swallowed it all ere he took it from his lips. "I was shocked," says Graydon, " at the spectacle thus to see a lately respected citizen so vilified." It is grateful to add, however, that they proceeded to no further violence, thus proving that a Philadelphia mob has some sense of restraint. But although the doctor was allowed to escape the threatened tar and feathers, the actual indignity so inflamed and maddened his spirit, that his friends had to confine him for a time, as an insane. He died during the war-a resident at Carlisle. In contradistinguishing him from his once popular uncle of the same name and profession, he was usually called " tory doctor."
Of Quacks.
The forced display and quackery of medicine, as we now see it in staring capitals, saluting us with impudent front at every turn. is an affair of modern growth and patronage-all full of promise for renovating age !-
" Roses for the cheeks, And lilies for the brows of faded age, Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald !"
On topics like these, our simple forefathers were almost wholly silent. Yet we have on record some " fond dreams of hope," of good Mrs. Sibylla Masters, (wife of Thomas,) who went out to England, in 1711-12, to make her fortune abroad, by the patent and sale of her " Tuscarora rice," so called. It was her preparation from our Indian corn, made into something like our hominy, and which she
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then strongly recommended as a food peculiarly adapted for the re- lief and recovery of consumptive and sickly persons. After she had procured the patent, her husband set up a water-mill and suitable works near Philadelphia, to make it in quantities for sale. There was much lack of consumptive people in those robust days. Possibly some one may now take the hint, and revive it for the benefit of the sufferers and themselves !
About the year 1739, I saw much said in the gazettes of the newly- discovered virtues of the Seneka rattlesnake root; and while the ex- citement was high, Dr. John Tennant got £ 100 from the Virginia colony, for proving its use in curing the pleurisy.
In October, 1745, Francis Torres, a Frenchman, (probably the first, and for a long time lonely and neglected quack, in our annals) advertises the sale of the Chinese stone, with some powders, both to be applied outwardly, and to effect strange cures indeed-all ably proved by his certificates ! The stone was a chemical preparation ; when applied to the bite of a rattlesnake, or any such poison, it cured immediately. It could draw off humours, cancers, swellings, pains, rheumatisms, toothache ; greatly mitigated labour pains, and pangs of the gout, &c. Might it not be a good investment to again intro- duce some from China? Such a stone would prove the philoso- pher's stone-like Midas' finger, converting what it touched to gold- the usual desideratum in those who sell.
Location of first Hospitals, &c.
When city physicians made their calls on foot, it is obvious that It was a convenience to have their hospital and poorhouse much nearer than they now are. The hospital, therefore, a two-story house of double front, lately standing, was the hired house of Judge Kinsey, on the south side of High street, fourth house west of Fifth street, having then much open ground and fruit trees in the rear. The poorhouse, at the same time, was near the centre of an open meadow, extending from Spruce to Pine, and from Third to Fourth streets.
In the time of the war, as has been told under its appropriate head, they made use of several empty private houses for the reception of the sick soldiery by the camp fever. The house of the present Schuylkill Bank, at the south-east corner of Sixth and High streets, then deserted by the tory owner, Lawyer Galloway, was filled with those feeble men of war. At the same time, the large building in Chestnut street (late Judge Tilghman's) was also so used.
Yellow Fever of 1793.
No history of Philadelphia would be complete, which should over look the eventful period of 1793, when the fatal yellow fever mads its ravages there. It is an event which should never be forgotten . because, whether we regard it as a natural or a spiritual scourge, (ef .. 33*
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fected by the divine power,) it is a calamity which may revisit us and which, therefore, should be duly considered, or we suffer it to lose its proper moral influence.
The medical histories and official accounts of that disastrous period are in print before the public, and, in general terms, give the state- ment of the rise, progress, and termination of the disease, and the lists of the weekly, monthly, and total deaths: but the ideas of the reader are too generalized to be properly affected with the measure of indi- vidual sufferings ; therefore, the facts which I have preserved on that memorable occasion, are calculated to supply that defect, and to bring the whole home to people's interests and bosoms.
Let the reader think of a desolation which shut up nearly all the usual churches; their pastors generally fled, and their congregations scattered ; the few that still assembled in small circles for religious exercises, not without just fears that their assembling might commu- nicate the disease from one to the other. No light and careless hearers then appeared, and no flippant preaching to indulge itching ears : all, all was solemn and impressive. They then felt and thought they should not all meet again on a like occasion ; death, judgment, and eternity then possessed the minds of all who so assembled.
Look, then, in which way you would through the streets, and you saw the exposed coffins on chair-wheels, either in quick motion, or you saw the wheels drawn before houses to receive their pestilential charge. Then family, friends, or mourners scarcely ever accompa- nied them ; and no coffins were adorned to please the eye ; but coarse, stained wood, of hasty fabric, received them all. The graves were not dug singly, but pits, which might receive many before entire fill- ing up, were opened. In the streets you met no cheerful, heedless faces, but pensive downcast eyes and hurried steps, hastening to the necessary calls of the sick.
Then the haunts of vice were shut up; drunkenness and revelling found no companions ; tavern doors grew rusty on their hinges ; the lewd or merry song was hushed ; lewdness perished or was banished, and men generally called upon God. Men saluted each other as if doubting to be met again, and their conversation for the moment was about their several losses and sufferings.
The facts of " moving incidents," in individual cases, prepared for the present article, have been necessarily excluded from lack of room, but may hereafter be consulted on pages 210 to 213 in my MS. An nals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
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THE POST.
" He comes ! the herald of a noisy world ; News from all nations, lumb'ring at his back!" :
THERE is nothing in which the days of "Auld Lang Syne" more differ from the present, than in the astonishing facilities now afforded for rapid conveyances from place to place, and, of course, in the quick delivery of communications by the mail. Before the year 1755, five to six weeks were consumed in writing to and receiv- ing an answer from Boston. All the letters were conveyed on horse- back, at a snail-pace gait-slow, but sure. The first stage between Boston and New York commenced on the 24th of June, 1772, to run once a fortnight, as " a useful, new, and expensive undertaking;" "to start on the 13th, and to arrive either to or from either of those places on the 25th,"-thus making thirteen days of travel !# Now, it travels the same distance in fourteen hours! The first stage be- tween New York and Philadelphia, begun in 1756, occupied three days, and now it accomplishes it in six hours !
Nor are those former prolonged movements peculiar to us. It was even so with our British ancestors, not very long before us! We have a specimen of their sluggish doings in this matter, as late as the year 1712. "The New Castle Courant" of that year contains a stage advertisement, saying that " all who desire to pass from Edin- boro' to London, or from London to Edinboro', let them repair to Mr. John Baillie's, &c., every other Saturday and Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a stage coach, which per- forms the whole journey in thirteen days, without stoppage, (if God permit,) having eighty able horses to perform the whole stage." Now the same distance is performed in forty-six hours! On the whole, it is manifest the whole civilized world have learned to move every where with accelerated motion! The facts, as they were in the olden time, are to the following effect, to wit :-
In July, 1683, William Penn issued an order for the establishment of a post office, and granted to Henry Waldy, of Tekonay, authority to hold one, and " to supply passengers with horses from Philadelphia to New Castle, or to the Falls." The rates of postage were, to wit :- " Letters from the Falls to Philadelphia, 3d .- to Chester, 5d .- to New Castle, 7d .- to Maryland, 9d .- and from Philadelphia to Ches- ter, 2d .- to New Castle, 4d .- and to Maryland 6d." This post went once a week, and was to be carefully published " on the meeting-
* " Madam Knight's Journal," of the year 1704, shows that she was two weeks in riding with the postman, as her guide, from Boston to New York. In most of the towns she saw Indians. She often saw wampum passing as money among the people ; but 6d. a meal, at inns, &c. Tobacco was used and sold under the name of black junk. Mrs. Shippen, soon after her marriage in 1702, came from Boston to Philadelphia on horseback, bring- ing a baby on her lap.
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house door, and other public places." These facts I found in the MSS. of the Pemberton family. A regular act for a post-office at Philadelphia was first enacted in the year 1700.
Colonel John Hamilton, of New Jersey, and son of Governor An- drew Hamilton, first devised the post-office scheme for British Ame- rica, for which he obtained a patent, and the profits accruing. After- wards, he sold it to the crown, and a member of parliament was ap- pointed for the whole, with a right to have his substitute reside in New York.
In December, 1717, Jonathan Dickinson writes to his correspond ent, saying, " We have a settled post from Virginia and Maryland unto us, and goes through all our northern colonies, whereby advices from Boston unto Williamsburg, in Virginia, is completed in four weeks, from March to December, and in double that time in the other months of the year."
In 1722, the Gazette says,-" We have been these three days ex pecting the New York post, as usual, but he is not yet arrived," al- though three days over his time !
In 1727, the mail to Annapolis is opened this year to go once a fortnight in summer and once a month in winter, via New Castle, &c., to the Western Shore, and back to the Eastern Shore; ma- naged by William Bradford in Philadelphia, and by William Parks in Annapolis.
In December, 1729, the Gazette announces, that " while the New York post continues his fortnight stage, we shall publish but once a week as in former times." In the summer it went once a week.
In 1738, Henry Pratt is made riding postmaster for all the stages between Philadelphia and Newport, in Virginia ; to set out in the beginning of each month, and to return in twenty-four days. To him, all merchants, &c., may confide their letters and other business, he having given security to the postmaster general. In this day we can have but little conception of his lonely rides through imperfect roads ; of his laying out at times all night, and giving his horse a range of rope to browse, while he should make his letter-pack his pillow, on the ground !
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