History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 183

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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In June, 1868, on the resignation of the late P'ro- fessor Robley Dunglison, he was elected professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Medienl Jurisprudence in the Jefferson College, his application for the chair having been indorsed by the medical profession of Philadelphia and some of the most distinguishe l physicians and scientists of America and Europe In 1871 he was elected president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society. He was a member of the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences,

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of Pennsylvania, the American Medical Association, the Wisconsin Historical Society, the biological de- partment of the Academy of Natural Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sci- ence, the Medico-Legal Society of New York, the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, the New York Lyceum of Natural History, the Lin- næan Society of Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, the Ethnolog- ical Society of London, the Anthropological Society of London, the Societas Medicorum Svecanæ of Stock- holm, and the International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology. He also was a delegate to the Interna- tional Medical Congress held in Philadelphia during the Centennial Exposition. In 1877 he was elected a member of the board of trustees of the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania.

While a student of medicine, and for some time after his graduation, he contributed to the Medical Examiner reports of cases treated at Jefferson Col- lege and the Pennsylvania Hospital, discussions of the Medical Society, and papers on the mortuary statistics of Philadelphia. In 1855 he published, in the Jour- nal of the Franklin Institute, an article on the " Phys- iology of Stammering, and its Treatment by Mechan- ical Means." In the same year he read before the Academy of Natural Sciences a paper on "The Re- lation of Atomic Heat to Crystalline Form," which was published in the Journal of the academy. In 1856 he prepared an appendix to the first American edition of Carpenter's work on the microscope. The follow- ing year, being chairman of the standing committee on anthropology, he arranged and classified the ex- tensive collection of human crania in the Academy of Natural Sciences, and prepared a systematic cata- logue of the collection, which was published by the academy. He also contributed during this year to Nott and Gliddon's "Indigenous Races of the Earth," an essay on the "Cranial Characteristics of the Races of Men, presenting a General Survey of Human Skulls in their Ethnical Relation," and edited an Amer- ican edition of Kirke's " Manual of Physiology." To the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, to the Reports of the Smithsonian Institution, and other like publications, he contributed at various times many original articles on craniography. He also contributed numerous articles on a great variety of physiological, medical, and scientific subjects to current publications. In 1868, as introductory to his Jefferson College discourses, he delivered an inaugural address on the " Correlation of the Physical and Vital Forces," of which two editions were printed. IIe lec- tured annually in Jefferson College on diseases of the nervous system, on physiology, and also on clinical medicine; having charge, as attending physician, fur- thermore, of the medical wards of Pennsylvania Hos- pital from May to August, throughout which period, in addition to his daily visits, he delivered twice a week a' series of clinical lectures, which make a part of the

course of instruction given for eight months of the year by the faculty, hospital staff, and corps of special lecturers of Jefferson Medical College. He died in 1882.

Before terminating the chapter of this history setting forth the rise and progress of scientific medi- cine in Philadelphia and the names of its many illustrious teachers and practitioners, it would be injustice to omit a statement of the universally- acknowledged truth that the medical men of this city are steadily increasing its reputation as a great luminous centre of study, experiment, and demon- stration, from whence proceed rays of light to all parts of the earth. In the hospitals, schools, and offices they are constantly adding to the sum of med- ical knowledge by their intelligent and laborions de- votion to professional duty. The investigator could scarcely take at random any one of the current med- ical journals published in our own or foreign lan- gnages without happening upon some contribution from a Philadelphia physician from which he must derive profitable information. As some of those most prominent now in solving the vast problems of sanitation, as well as the prevention and cure of dis- ease, there may be mentioned,-

Drs. Harrison Allen, John Ashhurst, Jr., Samuel Ashhurst, Roberts Bartholow, John H. Brinton, Charles U. Burnett, William B. Atkinson, Oscar H. Allis, Thomas M. Drysdale, Heury C. Chapman, J. Solis Cohen, Charles T. Hunter, James H. Hutchinson, William V. Keating, Wil- liam W. Keen, Peter D. Keyser, Richard J. Levis, Benjamin Lee, Squier Littell, John L. Ludlow, Charles K. Mills, Thomas George Mortou, William F. Norris, John H. Packard, William H. Pancoast, William H. Parish, James Paul, Richard A. F. Penrose, William Pepper, William G. Porter, Joseph G. Richardson, S. D. Risley, John B. Roberts, Robert E. Rogers, Lewis Rodman, J. T. Rothrock, W. S. W. Ruschen- berger, Edward O. Shakespeare, Edward Shippen, John V. Shoemaker, Alfred Stille, Henry H. Smith, George Strawbridge, William Thomson, James Tyson, Ellerslie Wallace, James B. Walker, William M. Welch, J. William White, De Forest Willard, Ellwood Wilson, J. C. Wilson, Caspar Wistar, Horatio C. Wood, Theodore G. Wormley, Frank Wood- bury, Louis A. Dubring, Richard J. Duuglison, William S. Forbes, H. F. Formad, James E. Garretson, William Goodell, H. E. Goodman, George Hamilton, George C. Harlan, Lewis D. Harlow, Robert P. Harris, Ed- ward Hartshorne, Henry Hartshorne, Nathan L. Hatfield, Frederick P. Henry, Addinell Hewson, Sr., George H. Horne, Samuel B. Howell, J. Gibbons Hnut, William Hunt.

In thus sketching briefly the history of medicine in Philadelphia, from early provincial times to the middle of this century, we cannot well forbear to ex- press the gratification we have felt in the studies that have enabled us to perform this task. We have seen how superior were the bench and bar to those of any other city during a period of many years in the last century. What we have said of those in this regard, we may say with great heartiness of the medical pro- fession. It was fortunate for Philadelphia that its very first physicians were men of genins and culture. The science of the law had to be born anew in a régime very different from that which the first settlers of Pennsylvania had left behind. So far from there being things to tempt a lawyer well bred in the inns of London courts, there was everything to discourage to immigrate to a new, thinly-settled province, whose

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judges were not only not learned in legal lore, but were prejudiced against those who were. The splen- did, though strange, almost unique, career of Audrew Hamilton was but another evidence of what a man of great genius may accomplish, even among a rude peo- ple, and thus pave the way for the advent of such as Francis, Kinsey, and Tilghman. But the need of physicians like Zachary, Wynne, and Griffitts was contemporary with every other in the new commu- nity. Their examples led the young men of ambition to yearn eagerly, in the want of similar at home, for the advantages these accomplished men had enjoyed abroad. It is indeed surprising to contemplate the number of those who, as they reached maturity, re- paired to London, and especially to Edinburgh. And indeed, there is something romantic, we repeat, in the long-nurtured ambitions of such youths as Shippen, Morgan, Rush, and Kuhn, aspirations that were so abundantly realized, to found, upon the model of their Alma Mater, a university in their native city. For a while Shippen alone conducted the enterprise, not waiting for his compeer, Morgan, to finish his course and return to join in that benign work. The Medical School of Philadelphia thus began under one young man; but he was a young man who well comprehended the greatness of the work he had begun, and was in all points competent for its be- hests. When his colleague came, the impulse thus begun was enhanced, as it must have been, by the co-operation of one of such splendid gifts. When Rush came to join the resources of his splendid in- tellect, another step upward was attained, and on Kuhn's arrival the medical college was a great accomplished fact.

The history of no scientific or literary institution is more remarkable than that of the medical depart- ment of the University of Pennsylvania. From its very inception genius, long, patient study, resulting in full acquaintance with and facility to teach the various branches of medical science, have been pre- requisites to professorships. It opened with one man of eminent gifts. Men of similar gifts one after an- other came and performed the parts they were to enact. As needs, and especially as pecuniary means, were increased, there followed that distribution of labor which was delayed until others came who were well known to be competent for the just exaltation of those branches which had theretofore been auxiliary to those more prominent.

It has been interesting to contemplate how many of these formerly considered subordinate branches were elevated into just recognition through the com- manding genius of individuals whom the trustees, often against their will and their prejudices, were compelled to take into the University, and so make the distributions which, in their want of scientific culture, they had not considered necessary, and in their mistaken parsimony, had thitherto opposed. Notably difficult, as well as amusing, was the struggle

against midwifery. None other than such as Shippen, young, gifted, ambitious, the scion of a strong old family, with the confidence that courageous, gifted youth has in the future, could have had the audacity to place in the Pennsylvania Gazette that advertise- ment against the "ignorant old women" who were wont to hover around the beds of the younger of their sex in the times of their sorest trials. But we have seen what this great science became under James and Dewees, and so of other branches.

In this sketch, which is necessarily brief, we have had to notice specially those who were connected with the medical schools. These, of course, were leaders. But Philadelphia has ever had physicians, not among the college and university faculty, who were men of decided ability. It must have been so from the exalted tone of the profession from the very earliest times. There was, as it were, an atmosphere of science in this city of which all must necessarily absorb. Men could not live in the same city with such men as Shippen and Morgan and Rush and Wistar and Chapman and James and Dewees and others like them and pursue the same vocation without in some degree being like them.

It was remarkable how late the physicians of Philadelphia were comparatively in the production of original works upon science. The pioneers were for the most part content to use the books of their eminent preceptors in the universities abroad. In time, however, quite a change has been induced in the medical literature of this country, in which Philadelphia has certainly had the most distin- guished part. We have made few allusions to their works, having already enumerated them in a former chapter.

The history of epidemics that have visited Phila- delphia is exceedingly interesting. We have already spoken of those to which Noah Webster alluded in terms so indistinct, and somewhat of those subsequent. The smallpox was bereft of most of its terrors, first through iucoulation, and afterward by vaccination, the latter of which may be regarded as the very greatest achievement iu medical science. The most dreaded scourge of this community at an early day was the yel- low fever. Most interesting accounts of this epidemic have been published from time to time by Thomp- son Westcott, whose investigations concerning the early history of Philadelphia entitle him to the praise due for the very many important things he has rescued from oblivion.

The disease had prevailed to a considerable extent before 1741. In this year it reappeared under the name, as we have seen, of the Palatinate distemper. Criminations and recriminations passed between the Governor (Thomas) and the Assembly regarding the carelessness in admitting into port without proper quarantine "sickly vessels." The dispute between them had originated about the appointment of Dr. Graenie as physician of the port by the Governor,

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

and of Dr. Zachary by the Assembly. The season was a very sickly one. By an account published at the close of the year 1741 it appeared that there had been seven hundred and eighty -five burials in Philadel- phia during that year. Upon five hundred and eighty of these the increase over the deaths among persons of the same denominations in the previous year was three hundred and ninety-five. The increase of deaths among the Episcopalians is not given ; but at the average of other sects it would have shown an addition of one hundred and ten, making an aggre- gate increase of five hundred and five deaths beyond the bills of mortality of the previous year. The dis- ease, although in effect the yellow fever, was called the " Palatinate distemper," because it was supposed to have been introduced from ships in which Palatinates, or German emigrants, were passengers. The mortal- ity among these people was great. Two hundred and six Palatinates died of the pestilence during the summer, an increase of one hundred and sixty-six over the previous year ; and ninety-four "strangers" were also victims, an increase of fifty-four deaths over the ratio of the preceding twelve months. The man- ner in which this disease was introduced is not now known. According to an expression of Thomas Penn, in a letter written in 1748, the deduction may be drawn that it was supposed to have been imported from the West Indies. We have already spoken of the plague in the years 1793 and 1794, and the heroic exertions made by the physicians who remained in the city, and many of the citizens1 in the lead of Stephen Girard and Peter Helm. In this trying time | the clergy of the city worked and suffered along with the rest. The number of deaths among them eqnaled that among the physicians. Those were Revs. Alex- ander Murray, of the Episcopal Church; F. A. Fleming and Lawrence Graess, of the Roman Cath- olic; John Winkhouse, of the German Reformed; James Sproat, of the Presbyterian ; William Dough- erty, of the Methodist; Daniel Offley, Huson Lang- streth, Michael Wimer, and Charles Williams, min- isters of the Society of Friends.

I The following is the list of citizens of the committee of forty-five appointed in 1793 :

For the District of the Northern Liberties .- William Peter Spragues, William Gregory, Jacob Witman, James Swaine, Joseph Burns, George Forepaugh, Casper Suyder, Peter Smith.

Vine to Arch Street .- Richard Whitehead, Joseph Kerr, John Ettries. Race to Arch .- Thomas Willis, Daniel Dawson, Peter Thomson, Thomas Allibone, Lambert Wilmer.

Arch to Market .- William Samson, Justinian Fox, Amos Wickersham. Market to Chestnut. Arthur lowell, Alexander Cochran, Thomas Dobson.

Chestuut to Walnut -Jeremiah Paul, James Cummios, Casper W. Morris, Thomas Castieres,

H'alnut to Spruce .- George Rotter, Benjamin W. Morris.

Spruce to Pine .- Samuel Pancoast, Jr., John Woodside, Levi Hollings- worth, William Watkins.

Pine to South .- John Wood, Adam Brittle, William Eckard, Thomas DickNey, Ferguson Meflvaine.

Southwark .- William Tunis, Richard Moseley, William Robinson, Sr., John Grantham, John Savage, John Pattison.

It is horrible to read the details of suffering in those times, when were wanting the sanitary arrange- ments and preventives and charitable carings for the destitute which have been provided since. In many instances the adult members of families were carried off by the pestilence, leaving young children without relatives or friends. Such was the general terror that these innocents wandered abroad with none to restrain them. The children of a respectable citizen, in easy circumstances, were found in a blacksmith-shop, squalid, dirty, and in a state of hunger and destitu- tion. Wherever these children went they were shunned, lest they should spread the infection; and their condition was therefore truly deplorable. The committee of citizens deemed it a duty to take meas- ures to shelter the orphans. A house was rented in Fifth Street on the 19th of September, in which thir- teen children were placed. This asylum was soon found to be too small, and on the 3d of October the committee procured a house belonging to the Loganian Library, in Little George, now Sansom Street, above Sixth, to which they built a temporary addition. In this shelter there were as many as sixty orphans at one time, forty others being at the same period placed out with wet-nurses. During the pestilence one hundred and ninety children were thus thrown upon the care of the committee.

When the scourge of 1793 was over the Legislature made liberal provision for the orphans who had been left destitute, and provided a general quarantine and health laws.

In spite of the precaution of a quarantine against New York, where the fever raged in 1795, there were about nine hundred deaths from it in Philadelphia during that year. In 1797 it made its appearance again in Philadelphia, the sooner and more virulently, as was supposed, from neglect of the proclamation of Gov- ernor Mifflin regarding quarantine. This year it was thought to have been introduced by the ship " Hinde" from Cape Nichola, Mole, and the " Arethusa" from Havana. The Health Office, No. 32 Water Street, among other arrangements made that of removing the sick, when newly stricken, outside of the city. Especially was the disease malignant in Penn and Pine Streets. An additional hospital was opened at the wigwam at Race Street, when abont one-third of the inhabitants fled from the city, and one-sixth of the houses were shut. The mortality this year was one thousand two hundred and ninety-two.

In 1798, the health law having been found inade- quate for all purposes for which it was intended to provide, the Board of Health was reconstructed. The Marine Hospital of the port of Philadelphia was established on State Island. The City Hospital, on Race Street, was appropriated for the city, Northern Liberties, Southwark, and Moyamensing. The Laza- retto was established on Tinicum Island. The ap- proach of the epidemic was foreboded as heretofore by great mortality among the lesser domestic animals,

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as dogs and cats. It was supposed, however, to have The recurrence of the epidemic in 1802 was again generally ascribed to importation. This time by the St. Domingo packet from Cape Français, in spite of its long quarantine at the Lazaretto. The fever began at Vine Street wharf, where she had landed. It con- tinued for some time about Vine and Water Streets, gradually along Front to Callowhill. Though in- creasing afterward with greater rapidity and malig- nity than ever before, it had expended the worst of its fury by the middle of August. The Northern Lib- erties were the most sorely visited. The whole mor- tality was not above three hundred. been immediately introduced by the armed ship " De- borah," from Port au Prince. The terror of the in- habitants this year was beyond all precedent. Of fifty-five thousand, it is computed that only fifteen thousand remained. The health office was removed from Walnut Street to the City Hall, the Custom- House to Congress Hall, at Chestnut and Sixth Streets, the post-office on Market west of Eleventh. Never had the scourge been so malignant. Five out of six who were seized by it perished. Owing to the prejudices against the City Hospital, provision had to be made for great numbers who could not endure the In 1832, Philadelphia, with many other portions of the country, was visited by the Asiatic cholera. The mortality, however, was far less than it had been thought of being carried there. Tents were erected on the Schuylkill between Chestnut and Spruce Streets; another encampment was at Master's Place, . under the yellow fever, being only seven hundred on the Germantown road. During the time of the and eleven. It returned in 1849, and again in 1854, but with much less disastrous results. pestilence many awful occurrences took place. Sick persons were found in the streets suffering under the epidemic. Putrefying bodies were discovered in de- serted houses in such a state of corruption that it was beyond the power of any one to recognize the remains. Dead bodies were seen upon the commons and lots in the outskirts of the city. People delirious from the fever ran through the streets almost naked; and in some cases the screams of persons who were attacked with the malady were heard at a square's distance from the houses in which the sufferers lay. Imagination cannot picture the terrible reality of the scenes which then transpired.

The number of deaths were three thousand six hundred and forty-five, a far greater mortality than in previous years, considering the immense number of citizens who had fled. In 1793 the per cent. of deaths was twenty-two; in 1788, even with the few who remained, it was twenty-four. The ever-disputed question of the contagiousness of the disease was argued by the faculty with accustomed acrimony. "The controversy was waged with bitterness, but without the establishment of any reliable theory."

The following year (1799) the epidemic again visited the city. A dispute occurred between the College of Physicians and the Academy of Medicine as to the origin of the disease, the former contending that it was caused by importation, and the latter from domestic sources. The government offices were made ready for removal to Trenton; the State pris- oners were removed to Norristown. In the midst of the pestilence a bitter political contest was going on between Chief Justice Mckean, Republican, and James Ross, of Pittsburgh, Federalist, for Governor. Governor Mifflin, to prevent access to the city of large numbers from the country, partisans of either candidate, changed the places of voting in the city from the State-House to Centre-House Tavern on Market Street, west of Broad, and from the Commis- sioners' Hall to a place on Love Lane, between Moy- amensing and Passyunk roads. The mortality this year was somewhat over one thousand.

The American Medical Association was formed in Philadelphia in 1847. The reputation acquired by the first medical colleges in the country, notably that in Philadelphia, had led to the organization of a large number of others. In the period of fifteen years, from 1830 to 1845, the number had been doubled. Lead- ing men in the profession easily foresaw the evil that would result from such multiplication, in the derelic- tion of professional excellence on account of the re- duction in the standard heretofore required to be reached before the obtainment of degrees. As early as 1835 the Medical College of Georgia, founded mainly by Dr. Anthony, had advocated a convention of dele- gates from all the medical colleges, with a view of preventing as far as possible the effects of such con- tinued rivalry. After a long time such a convention was agreed to be held, Philadelphia and Boston being the latest to respond to the call. The first (the one called at New York) failed because of a want of rep- resentatives from as many as one-half of the United States, and adjourned sine die. This was in 1846. Another was called for Philadelphia for May of the following year. The first resolution adopted in the matter of the personal qualifications of young men before being received even as students in physicians' offices, after a long debate, was adopted. It is in the following words :

" Resolved, That this convention earnestly recommends to the mem- bers of the medical profession throughout the United States to satisfy themselves, either by personal inquiry or written certificate of compe- tent persone, before receiving young men into their offices as students, that they are of good moral character, and that they bave acquired a good English education, a knowledge of natural philosophy, and the elementary natural sciences, including geometry and algebra, and such an acquaintance, at least, with the Latin and Greek languages as will enable them to appreciate the technical language of medicine and read and write prescriptions."

The debate upon these resolutions showed how the standard had already been lowered, but they were adopted by a decided majority. After several days' sittings the association was finally established. The following is a list of the first officers, who were chosen unanimously : President, Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, of

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 183

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