History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 178

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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There seems to have been some misunderstanding between the managers of Bush Hill in 1793 and Dr. Physick, with other physicians, whose services were sometimes employed there. Dr. Deveze and Dr. Benjamin Duffield, as it now seems, were most prom- inent in the professional service which they rendered there. To the former the committee allowed fifteen hundred and to the latter five hundred dollars. As evidence of the exigency of affairs then prevailing, we mention the fact that the house physicians-Morrice, Guisard, and Muliner, and Lefer, the apothecary- only received four dollars a day each for their services.

In the season of 1797 the Bush Hill physicians were Drs. Samuel Duffield and Edward Stevens, as- sisted by Drs. Sayer, Dobel, John Redman Coxe, Samuel Pleasants, Michael Leib, and John Church. The services rendered by these men were such that the Board of Health voted to such as were alive after the epidemic, and the heirs of those who had fallen, each a share in the Bank of Pennsylvania, valued at five hundred dollars.

In the following year, 1798, the fever again ap- peared, and with yet more disastrous results. In this season, Dr. Physick, who had now become quite eminent, was physician in charge of the City Hos- pital, as Bush Hill was now called. His assistant was Dr. Samuel Cooper, who died at his post. From the history of this scourge of 1798, written by Thomas Condy and Richard Folwell, we learn the names of the physicians who remained iu the city during its continuance. The list shows from its meagreness that very many must have gone away, for the popu- lation was then near seventy thousand. The names given were Physick and Cooper, Rush, Wistar, Grif- fitts, Gallagher, Moore, Caldwell, Harris, Proudfit, Connover, Leib, Boys, Church, the two Duffields, Stewart, Parke, Strong, Bigelow, Pfeffer, Kincaid, Trixo, Yeatman, Mayer, La Roche, Pascalis, and Devirier. Drs. Dewees, Sayer, and Currie also re- mained, as appears from other testimony.

What had specially intensified the horror of the disease heretofore had been the idea that it was con- tagions. By this time, however, from careful study of its spread, both in Philadelphia and in other

places where it had appeared, this idea began to be rejected. Dr. Deveze had maintained, as early as 1794, that it was not contagious. To this opinion Dr. Physick now agreed. This knowledge was a great relief to the friends of those who were smitten, when they could tend them upon removal to places of security, without fear of the results of contact.

One of the resorts improvised for the service of the infected was at Master's Place, about two miles out of town, on the Germantown road. There was another at the wigwam, between Race and Vine Streets, near the bank of the Schuylkill. Large numbers were treated in these two receptacles. It is remark- able that in this season, while the mortality among the people should have been greater, that among the physicians was less. Death, however, had a smaller number from whom to select his victims, and the most of that number had already fallen a prey in the war in which they so heroically persisted in contending.

During the several visitations of the epidemics the physicians, especially the ablest among them, studied with unceasing pains in the midst of their ministra- tions; notably Dr. Physick, particularly by post- mortem examinations. He, in conjunction with Dr. Cathrall, agreed in announcing that the black yomit proceeded from inflammation in the vessels of the stomach and intestines, and they gauged their treat- ment according to this rationale. The marked suc- cess of Dr. Physick in the treatment enhanced yet higher his already fine reputation, and he received at the abatement of the fever a present of silver plate of great value from the managers of the hospital.

We have seen that surgery heretofore had been united with anatomy and obstetrics. The reputation acquired by Dr. Physick as a surgeon was such as to make him feel justified in starting a class upon his favorite study. This he did in the year 1800. Of course he could expect few, if indeed any, students except among those young men who were already en- gaged in the study of other branches, with the view to become practicing physicians. The intercourse between him and Dr. Rush had become specially friendly during their services side by side in so many disastrous campaigns. Dr. Rush was one of the pro- fessors in the University, and he lent his influence to the project of the young man, who was now only thirty-two years of age. Young men, students of the University, came to his lectures in such numbers that finally the trustees were driven to separate surgery from the branches with which it had heretofore been joined, and make it a separate chair, and invite Physick to occupy it. Before this students had not been specially required to study surgery before get- ting their degrees. On the election of Physick this was changed, and a resolution was passed by the board rendering attendance upon surgical lectures a neces- sary preliminary. This action occurred in June, 1805. It was thus that surgery rose to its legitimate position earlier in Philadelphia than in Edinburgh.

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MEDICAL PROFESSION.

Coincident with this event was the election of Dr. Ship- pen to the presidency of the College of Physicians. He survived this appointment three years, having died in 1808. Two years after this anatomy underwent another subtraction, that of obstetrics. It is probably less curious that the importance of the latter branch should have been so long overlooked than that of surgery. A natural event of such constant recurrence among all classes, with infrequent attendance of death, it was generally believed for a long time, might be left to professional persons in that sex to which such events were confined. Added to this is the sensitive deli- cacy with which women, no matter of how humble condition, shrink from the approach of men at such times. The professional midwives of those times doubt- less knew how to avait themselves of this infirmity, if it can justly be so styled, and none more than physicians know the confidence with which such ex- perts are wont to vaunt their success in this the prin- cipal field of their professional endeavors. We have seen somewhere an advertisement of a noted mid- wife who claimed, in a practice of some thirty years, to have brought twelve hundred children into the world, every one of whom lived and prospered.

From 1765 uutil 1810 obstetrics had its corner, gradually growing in space, in the house of anatomy, the various physicians getting fees, when possible, in cases where the midwives were suspected to be not wholly adequate for the responsibilities of most try- ing occasions. Dr. Shippen had done faithful ser- vice, courageous and cool, persistent, but prudent in exterminating a prejudice that had so long obtained not only in this country, but abroad. He was famil- iar with the history of this prejudice in Great Britain, so great as to disqualify those who practiced obstetrics from becoming licentiates in the College of Physi- cians, and when the few who did were.regarded, even by physicians, as condescending from the deportment of gentlemen. If he was the father of medical science in Pennsylvania, he was yet more emphati- cally the originator of that change in public senti- ment everywhere which led, though after a long time, to the conviction that women in the times of greatest peril needed the service of science.1 It was several

years after the beginning of his career in Philadel- phia before the practitioners of midwifery were ad- mitted as Fellows in the College at Edinburgh, and it was not until the year 1810, forty-five years after, that the science of obstetrics was assigned a separate chair in the University of Pennsylvania. This chair was occupied for the first time by Dr. Thomas Chalk- ley James.

It is very interesting to study the history of the medical profession in Philadelphia, for several rea- sons ; among them prominent are the difficulties that were ever in the way of such enlargement, and dis- tribution of professorships as, from time to time, were seen to be necessary by the eminent men who consti- tuted the medical faculty of the University in the early years of its existence. The trustees, for the most part not men of science, were reluctant to make changes when existing things appeared to them quite sufficient for existing needs. It was ever the force of character and the reputation of extraordinary cul- ture and ability in individuals among thie profession that wrung consent to such changes. It was the genius of Physick, indorsed by Rush, and constantly increasing attendance upon the former's lectures by students of the University, that led to the separation of surgery and its elevation to independence. So it was when Wistar, at the death of Shippen, was placed in his vacant chair. A man of his strength could not be spared. This, it is to be supposed, he knew well enough. At all events, not long after his installation he made an appeal to the authorities of the University to separate these two branches, and leave to him only anatomy. Such an appeal from such a man was equal, if not to a demand, at least a most serious remonstrance against being expected to discharge a double set of duties, each of which was arduous and important enough to demand the full service of any one man. The request was granted, though not until nearly two years afterward, and then not without a reservation that evinced the re- luctance with which they hind come even thus far. The resolution was in these words: "That the pres- ent establishment of a professor of Anatomy and Midwifery be divided, and that hereafter there shall be a professor of Anatomy and a professor of Mid- wifery, but that it shall not be necessary, in order to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine, that the student shall attend the professor of Midwifery." It is somewhat amusing to speculate upon the debatings in that honorable body during the time in which this resolution was delayed in its birth. Doubtless a large majority, probably every one among them, had come into the world without other aid from science than such as the professional crones had gathered from experience and the traditions of their predeces- sors in the interesting art, and therefore they be- lieved that future generations might be satisfied to come along in the same safe, old-fashioned way. It is evident that they could not yet be brought to think

1 It required a man of courage to put in the newspaper an advertise- ment such as the following, that appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette of Jan. 1, 1765: " Dr. Shippen, Jr., having been lately called to the assist- ance of a number of women in the country, in difficult labors, most of which were made so by the unskillful old women about them, the poor women having suffered extremely, and their innocent little ones being entirely destroyed, whose lives might have been easily saved by proper management, and being informed of several desperate cases in the dif- ferent neighborhoods which bad proved fatal to the mothers ae to their infants, and were attended with the most painful circumstances too dls- mal to be related, he thought it his duty immediately to begin hia intended courses in midwifery, and has prepared a proper apparatus for that purpose, in order to instruct those women who have virtue enough to own their ignorance and apply for Instruction, as well as those young gentlemen now engaged in the study of thal useful and necessary branch of surgery, who are taking pains to qualify themselves to practice In different parte of the country with safety and advantage to their fellow- citizena."

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

of man-midwifery, even if becoming to gentlemen, as important enough to be put upon a level with other branches. It was important, however, to re- lieve so necessary a man as Dr. Wistar, and this relief doubtless formed the controlling element of the reso- lution. They made the new chair, and they invited to it a young man, giving him leave to get as many students as he could from among those who were attending the University for other purposes besides, mainly, that of obtaining the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

It was doubtless a surprise to the board when the deportment of Dr. James was such as to elevate in a short time the science to the rank it was entitled to hold in the curriculum of studies. Thomas Chalkley James was a descendant on one side of Thomas Chalkley, the celebrated Quaker preacher, and on the other of Samuel Hasell, one of the councilors in the proprietary government of the Penns, and master in Chancery of the High Court established by Gov- ernor Keith in 1720. His father was Abel James, one of the leading merchants of Philadelphia and a personal friend of Benjamin Franklin. Quaker though he was, he was at the same time a Whig, and inteusely devoted to Whig principles. There was an anecdote of au interview between him and Robert Morris at a time when the new government was suffering sorely for money. "Robert Morris, who was at the head of the Committee on Finance, meet- ing Mr. James on the street, was asked by him, ' What news?' To which he replied, 'The news is that I am in immediate want of a sum of hard money, and that you are the man who must procure it for me, your security to be my note of hand and my honor.' Though a Friend and non-combatant, Mr. James did at once what scarcely any other could have doue,- advanced the money and relieved the embarrassment of the country."1

Mr. James was a member of the Philosophical Society. He had been elected as a member of the Assembly, and had served upon committees appointed by that body for investigations conceruing all matters appertaining to the welfare of the city. After getting all that could be had at the school of the Friends, then presided over by Robert Proud, he studied mędi- cine under Dr. Adam Kuhn. The intention of his family had been that he should get his degree abroad, like many others of the leading physicians of Philadelphia; but the failure of his father's com- mercial ventures prevented this. He took his degree in 1787 in the University. Determining not to be wholly disappointed in his hopes of obtaining some of the benefits of foreign education, the youth ven- tured upon a speculation in the trading that Phila- delphia had with China. He took the post of sur- geon on a ship bound for one of the Chinese ports, and realized enough from his ventures to permit him

1 Dr. Caspar Morris' sketch of Dr. James in Gross' Medical Biography.

to go to London, where he became the pupil of the famous Dr. IIunter. His devotion was mainly given to obstetrics, which he studied in a hospital for lying- in women. Here he spent one year. The next he was at Edinburgh, for it seemed as if a Philadelphian must necessarily finish off at that institution. It was not until 1793 that he returned to Philadelphia. This year, as we have seen, was that of the great visitation of the yellow fever. The services he ren- dered during that fearful time made his fortune. At the public hospitals he was enabled to do good ser- vice to sufferers who were natives of Wales, and for this the Welsh Society afterward, in token of his kindness, presented him with a service of plate, which, it is said, is yet among the descendants of this heroic physician.

We have seen in what repute a male practitioner of midwifery had been held heretofore, and we have seen how Dr. William Shippen, Jr., had had the courage to practice this along with anatomy. The leading physician in this branch, however, had been Dr. Dunlap. He had fought his way as well as pos- sible during many years, having been often called in at the last hour, sometimes just in time, often too late, to save women from ruin at the hands of their own sex, to whom, in mistaken modesty, they had in- trusted their lives. By this time Philadelphia had advanced so high in culture that the ignorant women who had held so long sway in this important branch of science were made to gradually retire, at least from more genteel circles, and the strange false modesty that had existed so long was fain to be convinced that it was false, and that this feeling had led to the sacrifice of many lives. It was fortunate for Dr. James, and still more fortunate for the women of his native city, that he was a gentleman. Soft in his manners, tender and delicate in his ministrations, the most modest woman, after the agony of her travail, could turn to Dr. James not only without a blush, but with a face beaming with gratitude, as well for the relief he had given as the manful delicacy with which it had been administered. Added to all this was a demeanor that showed that, instead of being ashamed of his art, he regarded it well worthy of all the study he had given to it, and that knowledge of it was competent to put him on a level with those who had made themselves foremost in any other branch of science.

The science of midwifery owed a great deal to Dr. Shippen, who, in the midst of his more special and engrossing duties, had done what he could in the line we have seen. Dr. Dunlap also had come along, gath- ering what was possible to be gathered from the first bold teachings of Shippeu. Then there was Dr. W. P. Dewces, who had made an attempt to lecture upon the principles of midwifery. But the small classes that he could command showed that the community, even the medical part of it, was not yet fully ready for the realization of this branch of science, thereby

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MEDICAL PROFESSION.

taking it from the crones who, with their incantations and rum-punches, had held it so long.

Even the University was not yet ready for the change. Dr. James therefore set out upon a course of independence. He made application at the city almshouse for the privilege of lecturing therein, and therein he received what pupils he could get. In this laborious work he associated with him Dr. Church, and these two men during three years worked assiduously at the special department, Dr. James meanwhile delivering courses of lectures annually. In the midst of this work his friend and coadjutor, Dr. Church, yielded to the malady that had carried so many thousands away. After his death Dr. James took into partnership another young man who was destined to make a great impression upon the history of medicine at home and abroad. This was Dr. Na- thaniel Chapman. These two carried on the work hitherto conducted by Drs. James and Church in the almshouse until the death of Dr. Shippen. It was then, as we have seen, that obstetrics was separated from anatomy at the instance of Dr. Wistar, who had been raised to the chair vacated by the death of Ship- pen. The new chair of midwifery, then created, was given to Dr. James, with Dr. Chapman as adjunct. This was all done in deference to Dr. Wistar, whose wishes in that regard the trustees well knew that they could not disregard. But the reluctance with which they yielded was plainly evinced by their resolution to make attendance upon the lectures of the new pro- fessors voluntary upon the part of students, and ac- quaintance with that branch of science not necessary to the attainment of degrees. Yet the history of the University shows what may be done by men of real ability in exacting among a prejudiced people what- ever is important when they devote themselves ar- dently to its behests. For two years these young men stood in their places, getting what they could from the voluntary attendance of the numerous stu- dents who were in the University. The ability of the lecturers attracted more and more of these. At last, in 1813, the great Dr. Rush, who had held the chair of Practice, died, Dr. Barton was elected to his posi- tion, and Materia Medica, thus left vacant by the latter, was filled by Dr. Chapman. Midwifery then was devolved solely upon Dr. James. By this time at least enough of prejudice was removed to have it put upon a level with the rest.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dewees had continued his practice in that line, and had become eminent. The assiduity with which Dr. James had devoted himself to his art eventually impaired his health to the degree that he asked for the services of an assistant. This request was granted, and Dr. Dewees was put into the place.

In all this time, that is, from the date of his becom- ing well known in the profession, he was one of the attending physicians at the Pennsylvania Hospital, a place that has been the recipient of the voluntary unpaid service of the best talent of the profession

since the time of its foundation. A man of his prom- inence could not fail to belong to the College of Phy- sicians. Eventually he rose to be its president, and so remained until his death.

It is singular, when we consider what extraordinary talents and culture have been possessed by the lead- ing physicians of Philadelphia at every perind of its history, how few, especially in the earlier periods, ex- erted themselves to any considerable extent in origi- nal contributions to the branches they severally pro- fessed in medicine. The text-books they employed for the most part were foreign, sometimes with, but more often without, American annotations. The fav- orite text-book of James was "The Principles of Midwifery," by Dr. John Barns, regius professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow. He worked, however, on a more modest scale for the literature of his profession, being, along with Drs. Otto, Hewson, and Parrish, editor of the Eclectic Repertory, which in its day took high rank. In the midst of his pro- fessional labors he yet found time for the study of literature. He was a frequent contributor to the Port- folio, the leading literary journal of the time. The work he did in that line that has been most highly commended is his translation in verse of the pastorals of Gessner. He died in 1835.

Dr. James has been regarded as the father of mid- wifery in this country. The way had been pointed out by Dr. Shippen, justly famed as the originator of the teaching of medical science in general, but for whose engrossments in other things doubtless so im- portant a branch would sooner have been elevated to its proper position. We have seen what ignorance and prejudice in both sexes, at home and abroad, it had to fight in order to make its way. It is one of those wonders, not however confined to science, but some of the plainest conditions of ordinary life, that a matter that now seems, even to the rudest society, of essential importance should have been so long kept back by causes apparently so inadequate. Reluctant as it was, the following resolution was wrung from the trustees on the 11th of October, 1843:

" Resolved, That hereafter the Professor of Midwifery shall be a mens- ber of tho medical faculty, and that no person shall be admitted as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Medicine In this University unless he shall have regularly attended the lectures of said professor for two years."

Commenting upon this event, the biographer of Dr. James, Dr. Hodge, says,-

"This triumph of truth and humanity over ignorance and prejudice may be considered as complete. Obstetrics was confessedly equal to the other branches of medical science, and ita practitioners and teachers were authoritatively pronounced on a par with surgery and the prac- tice of medicine. The battle had been fairly fought and won, anl Dr. James, who contributed so much to the happy issue, received now tha reward no eminently due to modest worth, superior talents nud attain- mente, united with persevering industry."

Dr. Robert Montgomery Bird, born at New Castle, Del., in 1803, and equally famous as a physician and author, spent the major portion of his life in l'hila- delphia. Of his work done as a playwright, his

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

tragedy "The Gladiator" and the dramatization of his novel "Nick of the Woods" alone survive. He wrote a number of novels which were popular forty or fifty years ago, and are now nearly forgotten. He died at his residence in Philadelphia Jan. 22, 1854.

Dr. Henry Bond, who died May 4, 1859, though entitled to and receiving high consideration and re- spect as a physician of more than forty years' prac- tice in Philadelphia, attained his widest reputation as the author of the "Family Memorials," comprising a genealogical history of the settlers of the Bond places in Massachusetts, in oue of which, Watertown, he was born. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and removed to Philadelphia from Concord, N. H., in 1819.

Dr. René La Roche was a native of Santo Domingo, where he was born in 1755, and was educated at the medical school of Montpellier, France. He was one of the Dominican refugees who fled to Philadelphia in 1793, and his successful treatment of the yellow fever gained for him a very extended practice. He was noted for his benevolence, much of his twenty- seven years of professional career in Philadelphia having been given to the uncompensated care of the poor. His death occurred on June 6, 1819.

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 178

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992