Marion County, Indiana - Chapter 12, 1884 (part 2 of 2)

Among the oldest of living practitioners, equally respected in social and professional life, are Dr. John M. Gaston, somewhat retired since an accident that crippled him for life some years ago, and cost the city some ten thousand dollars' damages ; Dr. Frisbie S. Newcomer, who has served the city in the Council frequently and well, and served also in the faculty of one of th^ medical colleges ; Dr. James H. Woodburn, also a professor in one of the medical colleges, superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane, and an active and valuable member of the City Council ; Dr. Thaddeus M. Stevens, a native of Indianapolis, nephew of the celebrated Pennsylvania statesman, actively connected with all hygienic movements and boards of health, and the author of more publications on the hygienic conditions of the city than any other member of the profession ; Dr. William C. Thompson, one of the leading moral reformers of the State, for one terra a senator in the Legislature from this county, and all the time the family physician of Governor Morton and his attendant in his last illness : Dr. John M. Dunlap, son of the pioneer Dr. Livingston Dunlap, for many years an assistant in the Insane Hospital ; Dr. Theophilus Parviu, now a professor in the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, but for many years among the most eminent physicians of Indiana, and especially distinguished as a medical writer ; Dr. John M. Kitchen, who has probably been longer in the practice than any one now living in the city, but not so long a resident here ; Dr. James W. Hervey, widely known as a writer on professional and social questions. Dr. James K. Bigelow. Dr. L. D. Waterman, Dr. Charles D. Pearson, Dr. Bryan, Dr. Fred Stein, Dr. D. H. Frank, and Dr. W. N. Wishard are of rather later date, coming during or since the war. Of very recent additions to the profession here, among natives of the city. Dr. Calvin I. Fletcher may be named, with Dr. Frank Morrison, of the Medical College of Indiana, for a creditable position in graduating and efficient prosecution of their profession since. The female physicians of the city during the past year were Annie B. Campbell, E. A. Daniels, Ella Deneen, Mary A. Ellis, Amanda M. George, Martha Grimes, Rachel Swain, Elizabetii Schmidt, and M. F. J. Pointer.

On the 7th of September, 1870, a stock company was formed with one hundred thousand dollars capital, - liable to enlargement at any time, - in twenty-five dollar shares, to establish an institution for the treatment of deformities, deficiencies, and injuries requiring surgical skill and mechanical appliances. Drs. Allen and Johnson, of the Surgical Institute, were to be the surgeons. One share of twenty-five dollars entitled the holder to nominate one patient for treatment ; one hundred dollars gave the right to an annual nomination of a patient ; one thousand dollars, to the nomination of a free bed annually ; and five thousand dollars, to a perpetual free bed, passing to heirs or assigns. The intention was to treat the classes of cases specified as cheaply as possible, or free if possible, and provide them at the same time comfortable homes as cheaply as possible. The Surgical Institute seems to have been adopted as the requisite provision, and sixty patients received in the first year, fourteen from the city, and the others from seventeen other counties in the State. The officers of the association were James M. Ray, President ; Barnabas C. Hobbs, Addison Daggy, W. P. Johnson, A. L. Roache, Vice-Presidents ; William H. Turner, Recording Secretary ; K. H. Boland, Corresponding Secretary ; John C. New, Treasurer.

The National Surgical Institute was incorporated on the 24th tif July, 1869, under the control of Dr. Horace R. Allen and Dr. W. P. Johnson, with a capital stock, as appears by a publication made authoritatively in 1876, of five hundred thousand dollars, with the object of " treating all cases of surgery and chronic diseases ; also of engaging in the manufacture of surgical and mechanical appliances, splints, bandages, machinery, and other articles needed for the treatment of the afflicted ; and also with authority to teach others the same art." There are four branches of the Institute, - the Central in Indianapolis, the Eastern in Philadelphia, the Southern in Atlanta, Ga., the Western in San Franci-sco. The Central, or Indianapolis division occupies a fourstory block of buildings, covering, with the shops and subordinate buildings, nearly an acre of ground on the northeast corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets. There are sleeping-rooms in the buildings for three hundred patients. In the machine-shop, run by a forty-horse engine, are all the machines and appliances required to make the numerous and varied forms of apparatus used in the Institute. From twenty to thirty bauds are always employed here, and the expense of it is set at seventy-five thousand dollars a year. The patterns of all the apparatus used in the myriad forms of deficiency, deformity, and disease treated are the invention of Dr. AUeu, who has developed " Mechanical Surgery" to a degree that enabled him when recently in Europe to give some valuable instruction to the Orthopedic and other hospitals of the class in England and ou the continent. No less than forty thousand patients have been treated in the Institute in the fifteen years of its existence. There is an average of one hundred and seventy-five patients always under treatment and living in the establishment. Previous to the location of the Institute in Indianapolis, it had been maintained by Drs. Allen and Johnson at Charleston, 111. It is estimated that it brings to the city every year ten thousand people as visitors, who pay the railroads one hundred thousand dollars a year, and leave in the city, for one expense or another, fully five hundred thousand dollars. Although organized as a private enterprise, the Institute is constantly sought by surgical cases as a public hospital, and there are treated the frightful injuries of railroad accidents, the stabs and shots of street rows, the broken limbs of builders falling from houses, the carelessly burned by gas or explosive lighting-oils, and all the many varieties of injury that occur continually in a large and busy city full of steam machinery and manufacturing apparatus. If the patient can pay he is expected to pay. If he cannot or will not, that is the end of it. Hundreds of dollars of unpaid fees and unexpected fees are bestowed in gratuitous surgical services here every week. Dr. Allen, besides his professional inventions, has invented some valuable agricultural machinery, and is a liberal contributor to the development of the enterprise and business of the city. Dr. J. A. Minich has been associated with Drs. Allen and Johnson from the establishment of the Institute here, and is one of the most skillful and estimable members of the profession in the city.

Dentists. - The earliest practitioner of dentistry as a specialty was Dr. Joshua Soule, son of Bishop Soule, of the Methodist Church, who came here as early as 1832 or 1833, if not earlier. He was town clork in 1835 and 1836, and in 1837 was a member of the Council for the Second Ward and president that term, preceding the late Judge Morrison. The next year he was clerk again. His office was on the east side of Illinois Street for a considerable time, half-way between Maryland and the alley next the Occidental Hotel. His wife was a sister of Joseph Lawson, for thirty years or more a sort of town butt for the boys to have fun with. The next dentist of whom any distinct memory or record remains was David Hunt, who came here about 1840, and had an office in the southwest quadrant of Circle Street till his death, about 1846 or 1847. His brothers, Andrew and George, followed in the same business after his death, and were the principal dentists for several years before and after 1850. Dr. G. A. Wells came then, and is now probably the oldest dentist in continuous practice in the city, with the exception of Dr. George Hunt. Dr. David Hunt was probably the first man in the city to make false teeth singly or in sets forty years or more ago.

The Indiana Dental College was established in 1879, and provided suitable quarters in the upper stories of the Etna building, on North Pennsylvania Street. The announcement of the fifth term contains the appended list of members of the faculty : John H. Oliver, M.D., Professor of Anatomy; Junius E. Cravens, D.D.S., Professor of Operative Dentistry ; Edward F. Hodges, M.D., Professor of Physiology; Milton H. Chappell, D.D.S., Professor of Dental Pathology and Therapeutics ; John N. Hurty, M.D., Professor of Chemistry ; Thomas S. Hacker, D.D.S., Professor of Mechanical Dentistry ; Clinical Professors, Junius E. Cravens, D.D.S., Thomas S. Hacker, D.D.S., John H. Oliver, M.D., Clinical Lecturer on Oral Surgery ; W. S. Wilson, D.D.S., of Brooklyn, N. Y., General Demonstrator of Practice. With an ample number of assistants.

The Board of Health is appointed by the Council and Board of Aldermen at the beginning of every term, and charged with the especial duty of attending to the hygienic condition of the city. They see to the cleaning of alleys, the removal of refuse, the scraping of gutters, and whatever they deem necessary to health or protection against epidemics. The " pest-house," a small collection of buildings on the west bank of Fall Creek, above Indiana Avenue, for the care of patients with infectious diseases isolated here, is under the control of the Health Board. The organization of the board was first made in 1850, but for some years there was so much ill-feeling between the members that they did no good till 1854, when Dr. Jameson became a member and managed to put the concern in working order. It has continued with more or less efficiency since, but with more power and more effective service in the last four or five years than before. The present members are Dr. Elder, president of the State Board of Health, Dr. SutcliflFe, and Dr. M. T. Runnells.

The City Dispensary was organized June 10, 1879, and placed first in the charge of Dr. William B. Fletcher, now superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane. The next physician in charge was Dr. C. A. Bitter; the present one is Dr. J. J. Garver. The report for the past year is not yet made up, but for the year before there was shown to have been 3799 patients treated at the office, - now on Ohio Street opposite the City Library, - 1221 at their homes, and 80 at the station-house, a total of 5100. Visits made, 3193; prescriptions furnished, 10,352. The average cost of each prescription was 12J cents. The city appropriates annually $1500 to the dispensary, and the County Board makes a like appropriation of the same amount. It is a separate institution, in no way connected with the Bobbs Dispensary, which is under the direction of the faculty of the Medical College.

The County Infirmary, or County Asylum, formerly the poor-house, with a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, is located in Wayne township, about three miles northwest of the city. The ground was purchased, in 1832, of Elijah Fox. The original "poor-house" was Mr. Fox's farm-house, a log cabin of two rooms. It was enlarged occasionally as required, chiefly by a large building in 1845. An addition for pauper insane was made in 1858, but in 1869, the accommodations proving inadequate, the present large and handsome edifice was begun. The corner-stone was laid on July 28, 1869, and in October, 1870, the building was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies by the Young Men's Christian Association. The front is two hundred and four feet, extreme depth one hundred and eighty-four feet, height four stories. In the rear is a smaller building two stories high and twenty-eight by seventy feet. The first superintendent was Peter Newland. From 1832 to 1839 a board of directors were in control, consisting at one time or another of William McCaw, Gary Smith, James Johnson, Isaac Pugh, Samuel McCray, George Lockerbie, Thomas F. Stout. The superintendents and physicians since 1840, when the oflBce was created, will be found in the list of county oflBcers appended to the history. The cost of the new buildings was about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and the value of the site about thirty-five thousand dollars.

There are the names of two hundred and forty-two physicians in the City Directory, of whom nine are women, besides a score, probably, of women who have out signs as midwives. There are fewer lawyers than doctors, - two hundred and two only, - and none of them are women.