USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and Its Centennial Celebration, Volume II > Part 42
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
Edward B. Daugherty also persecuted his study of the Law = the office and under the supervision of S. B. Wilson, Esq .. and was admitted to the bar in 186c. Of somewhat rough exterior. positive in his opinions. and, when necessary, fearless and emphatic in their expression, yet of a most kind and sympathetic disposition, he made many warm friends, and these characteristics, with a fairness and honesty recognized by all who came in contact with him, and his extensive knowledge of the law, and ability as an advocate, give him a prominent place in the estimation of the members of his profession and his fellow-citizens. His sudden death whilst yet in full and active practice terminated a useful and honorable life .
But time and a proper regard for your comfort forbid trespassing too far on your patience by even the briefest reference to many others who as attorneys have been connected with the courts of the county in the past, but who have been removed by death. All have borne their part and as intelligent, enterprising citizens, as well as attorneys, acting in conjunction with their fellows in other callings, have contributed by their labors and influence, in establishing, building up, maintaining, and perpetuating to us the various institutions, industrial, educational, and social, whose benefits we enjoy.
Our courts have been the arena of many a hard fought legal battle, by men masters in their profession, and before judges of eminence, some of whom have left their impress upon the jurisprudence of the State and the Nation. In these courts have been determined questions of the highest importance to individuals and to society. Among these may be men- tioned questions relating to the original land titles of the county. Owing to the various Acts of Assembly under which these titles in this county had their inception, perhaps more important and difficult questions as to original land titles arose, were considered, and settled in the courts of this county in the early years of the century than in those of any other county in the State. It would be saying too much to assert that the decisions of this court on all the various questions presented for con- sideration were always right, but this much can be truthfully said, that there was brought to their consideration by both judges and attorneys the careful study of men trained and equipped by learning and experience, and actuated by an earnest purpose to reach just and righteous judg- ments. Imperfect and fallible men can do no more.
It might be interesting to recall and present some of the features of
1061
History of Beaver County
some of the more important causes that have been tried in our courts, whether on the civil or the criminal side, but we desist, and only mention, as showing the perversity and wickedness of men in the past, and illus- trating the necessity of courts to protect the innocent when accused, to enforce the laws, and to punish the guilty, and thus preserve the peace and good order of society, the fact that during the century just closed there have been in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of our county thirty- two trials for murder, the highest crime known to the law, in eighteen of which the accused were acquitted of the charge of murder. in four were con- victed of manslaughter, in thirteen were convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary from three to twenty years; and in only one case was the accused convicted of murder in the first degree, and a sentence of capital punishment executed.
We have spoken of the past, and how its wants have been met; and now, lest some might think the number engaged in the legal profession has not kept pace with the rapid increase in population and prosperity, and that there is danger of the people suffering from a dearth of lawyers, we hasten to relieve their apprehensions, and state that there are now enrolled as practising attorneys at the bar fifty-three men, or almost one for every one thousand men, women, and children in the county; amply sufficient, with proper diligence, and for a consideration, to meet all requirements so far at least as numbers are concerned.
But what of the future? Will there be another Centennial of Beaver County? What will be its report of the coming century? Will it show that the rate of progress has kept pace with that of the century just closed? That it may far exceed it in all that makes for the good of the race, is the prayer of every good citizen.
Following Mr. Hice's address, Duss's Band played Concert Caprice, by Kiesler, and responded to an encore with a medley of popular airs.
P. Maxwell Foshay, M.D., of Cleveland, Ohio, editor of The Cleveland Medical Journal, was then introduced and spoke on "A Century's Progress in Medicine."
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of Beaver County:
It is with especial pleasure that I find myself with you to-day sharing in the festivities of this Centennial celebration. All my childhood's memories are associated with Beaver County, and here still live my oldest friends. When your committee extended to me a very flattering invita- tion to deliver upon this occasion an address from the medical profession, it was with the suggestion that there was open to me as a topic the history of medicine for the past century. As your committee well said, it is an inspiring theme, and I have several times wished that there had been found some other more capable of doing it justice. Perhaps some of you may be disappointed at the lack of local color in what I have to say, but it has seemed to me that to prepare for you a history of the medical VOL. 11 .- 39.
1062
History of Beaver County
profession of Beaver County. while in itself a worthy undertaking. would be to cumber this occasion with a mass of dry material of history which were best collected by some one on the ground and placed upon the written archives of the county. while it would prevent attention being drawn to the dramatic incidents of the wonderful progress of medical science in the century now closing. whose limits are conterminous in time with those of the history of Beaver Commis. Therefore I have decided to present to you to day an imperfect review of " A Century's Progress in Medicine."
Amid the tremendous progress that has marked the nineteenth century no branch of human knowledge and effort has shown more unequivocal signs of advancement than has the science and art of medicine. Indeed. the improvement in medical knowledge has been so rapid that it has brought about a state of affairs such as is not infrequently quoted as one of the defects of the medical profession. This is the fact that the older men in the profession, being by necessity kept fully occupied with their daily work and as a rule tmable to keep up with the insistent and con- tinuous pressure of new facts, are prematurely displaced by the young men fresh from greatly improved methods of medical training, a fact that is in marked contrast with what occurs, for instance, in the sister profes- sion-the law. This rapid progress has also been accompanied, as might be expected, by many other deficiencies that are only slowly being remedied. The constant acquisition of new facts in medicine has allowed the free riot of quacks and charlatans, by placing the public mind in a re- ceptive state which permits the ready acceptance of the most extravagant claims. Therefore it is that no profession to-day is so hampered by dishonesty within and without itself as is that of medicine. When from the present intense seeking after new facts there crystalize out well- defined and thoroughly established broad principles that will not soon change, then it will be difficult for the quack to persuade the public that the impossible can be accomplished.
So long, however, as new discoveries of a character calculated to up- set the most cherished conclusions, follow one another with bewildering rapidity, surprise need not be felt but only pity that the world finds itself unable to discriminate between the true and the false, or that it as frequently accepts as sincere the glittering and deceitful words of the sordid seeker after glory and riches as it does the careful conclusions of the honest investigator that have been deduced from painstaking and often dangerous research and experiment. On the other hand the general public must not regard the medical profession as intolerant because it, by reason of its special and laborious training, is enabled more clearly to see the mercenary motive of the charlatan, and the falsity and danger of his promises. True, the profession of medicine at times in the past has erred, as have all other educated crafts, in condemning to ridicule und abuse one who came presenting a truth; but how is it to-day? A respectful hearing is instantly, and indeed all too readily, granted to every claimant to the origination of a new fact or of an improved agency provided his work, his method, and his attitude show that he seeks the
1063
History of Beaver County
truth rather than self-glorification. In the present tolerant times, the world should consider carefully, before it grants recognition to the exaggerated claims of medical achievement from evident self-advertisers, upon whom is bent the scorn of the men of medicine, whose modern education has placed them in an expectant attitude and whose daily work forcibly inculcates the lesson of extending the mantle of charity to cover human frailty, even while it does not mitigate, but rather intensifies, the condemnation that is justly accorded to knavery. After all, what offense is more heinous than that of trading for monetary gain upon the eager hope of the credulous sufferers from grave disease, and may not the medi- cal profession be forgiven if its hand falls heavily upon those men whom its training enables it clearly to see are thus infamously cheating the pitiful seekers after health? My friends, we doctors are by you some- times regarded as bigoted and narrow-minded when we turn our backs upon certain ones who claim infallibly and at once to cure all diseases by some method that cannot openly be explained; but, in simple justice for our honest effort, and in gratitude for the unending amount of labor that our profession readily and freely gives to the cause of charity, I ask that you set it firmly in your hearts at the opening of a new century that those principles of medical ethics, which govern our relations with you and with one another, are not so ridiculous as you at times deem them, but are on the contrary the outgrowth of the inherited experience and the com- bined altruism of some of the most pure-minded and single-hearted men that have ever graced the steps of advancing culture.
Probably only a small minority of the general public realizes how great has been the progress of medicine during the past century. It is therefore desirable to note a few of the more important achievements of that period.
Looking over the salient features of medical advancement during the closing century the impartial mind must chiefly be impressed by the astonishing improvements which date their beginning in this period. Truly it may be said that medicine advanced more during the last cen- tury than in all previous time. Nearly all the great discoveries in physiology and pathology, whose application to the relief of disease has infinitely lessened the sum of human suffering and whose employment seems to us of to-day to be the most natural thing in the world, have been made in the past one hundred years. Only during this time have the microscope, the clinical thermometer, the stethoscope, the ophthalmo- scope, and the many other instruments of precision been applied to the study of disease.
The century opened with the establishment in Paris and London of the first stations for the inoculation of the virus of cowpox as a protection against the disease which up to that time had been the chief scourge of all civilized communities-smallpox. Even then it was not until the seventh decade of the century that the full benefit of vaccination was secured, for it was then that vaccination was made compulsory in the German Empire and in England, and the results of its practice were so startling as to thoroughly establish its beneficence. Up to this time
History of Beaver County
esses teaches imm malone Lix de medica at com-
mallux n the same way il n'en han ms I a pas During the Far from Was he Frach any Gat ; see nes ium smalou sule the Germans but only 1,' Rough ing mder the same conditions
sety ! if the pronation del af malces. Ticonacon was made
were recorded m all Massachusetts. Li :sa che 'aw was modified and during the year this and its: there seemmed In Boston sys deaths form the finesse
The study of nicescript matory was first really introduced only an ises in itin by Rodrigo Virchow the great-a: Berim. From its employment in the study of the animal harves in health and disease acome the cell istme a cracept that revolutionized physicicgv and path- etapy and 'and the foundation for the scientific medicine of today. Cp to this time all tomnoes were known simply as wellings of issue about which there clustered a maze of speculation and theory: but when the microscope showed that tomors were made up of cells, analogous to those of various normal body structures, our ideas of tumors were ciarined and serfaced is a rational basis; and future study along this time promises that medical science may at an early day learn the true causes of cancer. sarcoma, and other malignant tumors following which it is reasonable to hope that appropriate means for their prevention and cure will be devised.
But it is in the production of the germ theory of disease that the microscope has enabled the science of medicine during the nineteenth century to make its greatest advance. Consumption diphtheria, typhoid fever, pneumonia, bubonic plague. Asiatic cholera, malaria, yellow fever. tetanus, and other specific and contagious diseases are now known to be caneed by the lodgment and proliferation in the body of microscopic organiama, chiefly vegetal. The discovery in 1839 by Schoenlein of the fungus which is the cause of favus a parasitic skin disease and es- pecially the discovery in iAgo by Davaine of the anthrax bacillus-the cause of malignant pustule, affecting chiefly sheep but often transmitted w, man-marked the first steps in this great discovery of the nature of the causes of infectious disease. In 1857 Pasteur demonstrated that fermentation and putrefaction were not chemical changes per se. but were di: to the multiplication in suitable media of various micro-organisms. It was won found, that for instance in the fermentation of a sugar solu- tion, a time arrived when, the percentage of resultant alcohol having rear hed a certain amount, it overwhelmed and killed the micro-organisms that produced it. An endeavor was made to apply this principle to the byly in the case of disease caused by the proliferation therein of known bacteria -- that is in the production of artificial immunity. This attempt has been eminently successful in the case of diphtheria, in which the rarly administration of the antitoxin inhibits the growth of germs and has produced a most signal reduction in the mortality-rate of this rightly
1065
History of Beaver County
dreaded affection. In the case of tuberculosis success has not yet crowned the tremendous efforts that are constantly being made to combat the spread of this frightful disease, which causes one fourth of all the deaths in temperate climates. However, some of the keenest intellects of our time are concentrated upon the problem, and the new century promises tangible results. The closing years of the century have witnessed our close approach to the conquest of that dreaded disease of the tropics- yellow fever. Sanarelli at Montevideo discovered the bacillus that is its cause, and the elaboration of his protective serum promises im- mediate beneficent results. No discovery of these fin-de-siecle times is more marvelous and complete than that of the specific cause of the malarial fevers. Can anything more extraordinary be imagined than the now well-outlined life-history of the micro-organism of malaria, which must first have a period of residence and incubation in the body of one species of mosquito and then be inoculated into man by the bite of the insect? Variations in the life-history of this organism within the human body have been clearly shown to be directly related to the various forms of malarial fever, while we have discovered the reason for the efficacy of quinine in this disease, in that it causes the death of the organ- isms that produce the disease.
But the greatest of all the benefits consequent upon the evolution of the germ theory of disease has come to pass in the domain of that eminently practical branch of medical science-surgery. The practice of asepsis, surgical cleanliness, which means so near as can be attained the total elimination from the field of operation or of injury of all the germs that cause suppuration, erysipelas, gangrene, etc., has relieved surgery of its former terrible death-rate. No longer must the surgeon stay his hand in opening the skull or abdominal cavity because of the certainty, as it existed prior to Lister's great discovery in 1870, that death would ensue in practically every case from the infection of the wound and the consequent blood poisoning. Concerning this point, a distinguished American surgeon has thus written of his experience as a young physician in a new hospital in one of our great cities only so short a time ago as 1876; "With but one or two exceptions, every patient operated on in that hospital, and that by men who were esteemed the peers of any one in their day, died of blood poisoning, while I myself nearly perished of the same disease." In two short years after that, by reason of the introduction of the antiseptic method, this frightful mortality after operation was reduced to that of the average death-rate of the com- munity. Under the influence of this improved method hospital gangrene, which caused the death of many thousands during our Civil War, has dis- appeared from among the diseases seen by modern surgeons, even in military practice Indeed military surgery has been revolutionized by reason of the discovery that to the entrance and growth of micro-organ- isms are due the diseases that formerly caused the death of so large a proportion of those wounded on the battle-field. Formerly almost every penetrating wound of the thorax and abdomen was fatal, and all were followed by prolonged suppuration. To-day soldiers in the field each
1066
History of Beaver Cemety
Query a "for nit podeage" which is designed for namedade app .. noxious bacteria. Ta mat. as caengilif ( hr monnet in my
E So sconcalle was this fact touse ppe mig de sigson, who se ... our troops to Cite and to Proto Moon. xemaded fic There was ahust
nothing for nix to de except to apply demings.
The cody cour decovary f womans primer in pool ingan-
the moortad agung of the poor moers nudes that were comyy dled so come
can afugudaly picture the kieming wrongin by this di covery. To-day w aux sincei've số the minecable victim of a maining accident comegallod cormacicandy to watch the surgeon as be trimmed up the mangled paris, and to endure the consequent additional saubering. What wonder that đối the methods of surgery remained crade tuadl pain was abofthed s4 the surgeon permitted to do his work quietly in the knowledge thet he coused no pain! This wonderful discovery was made almost simultaneously in the years step to 's6 by four Americans of whom two we physiciens sod two were dentists. To this product of American guess wern surgery owes its birth, while to the Englishman's ap fce- tion of antisepsis it owes its vigorous manhood.
The stethoscope by means of which, its deductions corrected by lens fruitied methods of exploration and especially by postmortem examina- tion, so much can now be learned before death concerning the intricate processes of disease occurring in the thoracic and abdominal cavities, owes its invention to a French physician-Laennec-in the year 1815- Curiously enough it was accident that directly led to this invention. This distinguished physician, who was for many years attached in high aspousty w, the: armies of Napoleon, while one day examining the heart of & patient tried the effect of placing a cylindrical roll of paper between his war and the chest-wall. He succeeded unexpectedly and at once invented the straight stethoscope. The double instrument. which is now in almost universal use, was the invention of an American-Cammann of New York,-while the newest and most delicate instrument for this purpose the phonendoscope-was invented but a few years ago in Italy.
The ophthalmoscope, that beautiful instrument to whose employment we owe the opening up of the whole fruitful field of internal diseases of the eye and especially our knowledge of the causes and means for re- lief of the disastrous errors of refraction, is another product of the nine- tranth century, having been invented by the great German physicist, Helinholtz.
"The clinical thermometer, now the constant companion of every phy- wician, through whose une we have arrived at a clear and rational con-
1067
History of Beaver County
ception of the nature and treatment of diseases characterized by an elevation in the temperature of the body, is barely fifty years old.
The chain saw was invented in 1806, and the elastic bandage, which first permitted operations upon the extremities to be made without loss of blood, was devised as late as 1873 by the great German surgeon whose name it bears-von Esmarch.
Nor must we forget that an American, Ephraim McDowell, of Danville, Kentucky, in 1809, performed the operation which was the pioneer in the wonderful development of abdominal surgery, and here may be quoted a sentence true, as terse, written by a well-known American medical writer: "In practical medicine, then, as in practical living, America leads the world."
Latest among the discoveries of the century was that which razed to its foundations one of our most firmly established concepts, that namely of the opacity of matter. Röntgen has made it possible for us to illuminate the tissues of the body and to differentiate bone from flesh, and tumor from normal tissue. Also he has enabled us to record upon sensitized paper an outline of the various structures made visible by his unexpected X-ray. Already this discovery has rendered inestimable service in the field of bone surgery and in military surgery, and we are now applying it successfully in certain cases to aid in the explora- tion of the thoracic and abdominal cavities. We are learning its benefits, as well as its limitations, and further study will undoubtedly increase its usefulness as well as correct its fallacies.
As the nineteenth century passes into history it witnesses the estab- lishment of medicine as a common-sense art closely interwoven with the natural sciences, and the decadence of the so-called "sects" of medicine. Homeopathy, arising from a false conception that the natural sciences could be made to conform to an arbitrary hypothesis, arose, accomplished some good, and is now rapidly passing from view. Every- where is witnessed the steady abandonment by those educated in its tenets of the dogma of similia similibus curantur. This is for the reason that it is irrational and not in accord with the scientific spirit of the times, and the catholic toleration of these later days is nowhere better shown than by the ready admission into medical societies of those who have recently abandoned homeopathy. Significant of the recognition of the fact that medicine is one indivisible science and art, is the record of events at the chief center of homeopathy in this country. Where previously-only five to ten years ago-two homeopathic colleges had each over 100 students in attendance, now one consolidated college can muster but 80 pupils! In England and in Germany,-the mother of homeopathy-the sect is without representatives. Eclecticism, which is indigenous to America, arose as a reaction to some of the earlier follies of medicine before it recognized itself as a natural science, but this sect is now steadily dying out. Thomsonianism and many other "isms" are now matters of history, and the energy of the medical profession is directed to the investigation of the causes of disease and to the dis- covery of rational means for its prevention and relief, rather than to
E
3
solltest was to the happiness of the world and to the policecia of human ita 'han im mestring Jan. is the sen physicians have been
war !!! hunch. china baid as bay. The plague contend to Suited death rate livan typhoid fever reduced on ; 1. the mortality of diphtheria greatly screwed trapical gangrene relegated is history. the average kargericy materially increased, and many other blessings that now appear to all of us an established facts of life. What other department of knowledge can print ts one half as much accomplished ?
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.