Practice of Medicine

     Without risking any unsupported claim, or indulging in any flattery, it can be truthfully said that the history of the medical profession, and its personnel, will compare favorably with any other profession in Clark county. Law has produced many distinguished jurists and practitioners on the bench and at the bar; but medicine has had as brilliant and eminent men in its ranks as can be claimed for the legal profession. Many medical men have distinguished themselves as authors, lecturers and surgeons. Clark county furnished a number of surgeons in the Civil war, who rendered services both on the battle field and in the tented hospitals. The late Dr. W.W. Goodwin was in charge of a hospital in Jeffersonville during the Civil war, and the late Dr. William Morrow was in charge of the government refuges eruptive hospital during the same period. 

The present day physicians have no real conception of what hardships, exposure, and trials were the lot of the early physicians of Clark county. They were not blessed with macadamized roads, automobiles, coupes, depot wagons, taxicabs and closed carriages; but rode through thick and thin, hot and cold, at all hours of the day and night, on horseback, with the old time saddle bags strapped to their saddles. Some of the pioneer doctors would ride many miles over the county, in midwinter, leaving at daylight, and not returning till night, worn out from exposure, fatigue and nervous tension. It was characteristic of them to minister to the sick without reference to fee or reward, as the majority of the people were poor, and while honesty inclined, were unable to pay for medical attendance. I knew a physician, now gone to his reward, who practiced his profession from 1829 to 1888 and who estimated that he had done thirty thousand dollars’ worth of medical service, for which he received neither cash, and many times, no thanks. While there is a spirit of grasping for lucre in all professions nowadays; yet the earlier practitioners seemed to take the practice largely from motives of philanthropy. It is one of the grandest of human offices to relieve suffering; to cheer the depressed; to succor from the assaults of diseases; and failing in this, to smooth the way to the inevitable tomb. There is no loftier mission; none which more closely assimilates the human with the divine. While the earlier physicians had to depend on the sciences as a means of livelihood, still they rose above the purely mercenary motive in their practice. Many of the pioneer doctors not only ministered to the body, but to the soul as well. Several practiced medicine, and ‘preached the Gospel to the poor.’ Notable among Clark county’s physicians who combined preaching the Gospel with the practice of medicine, were the late Dr. Jacob Bruner, of Utica, and Dr. N. Field, of Jeffersonville. They, like the blessed ‘Master,’ preached the Gospel the poor, free. 

    It is amusing and interesting to look back sixty years, and see the character of service rendered, and fees charged in those days. The doctors worked hard, and were poorly paid for the ministrations. It was the period when cupping, leaching and bleeding were regarded as indispensable. The practice was carried to extremes by many, as the practice of vaccination was performed on those who had no blood to spare, and as a consequence is ceased. The disease of early times were bilious, remittent, intermittent, and rarely –typhoid, and the cases of the latter were always grave and lasted for weeks and weeks. The old fashioned ague, where the victim almost shook themselves to pieces, was very common in the spring and fall, and good big draughts of Peruvian bark and whisky were the sheet anchors. 

    While the practice of medicine was regarded as the most honorable, and is yet, it was farm from lucrative. In looking back we find some of the fees that doctors then dispensed their own medicines; the charge for visit in the town was one dollar, and for visits to the country, one dollar for the first mile, and fifty cents for each succeeding mile; bleeding fifty cents, two doses jalop fifty cents, box of pills twenty-five cents, extracting teeth, twenty-five cents, one dose of calomel and one ounce of paregoric sixty cents. Accouchments five dollars. Asepsis was unknown, and great stress was laid on ‘laudable pus.’ Diseases such as dysentery and fevers were attributed entirely to miasm, and visitation of sporadic and Asiatic cholera were common. 

    One doctor claimed great success in treating cholera, by the exhibition of: mustard, grains ten; calomel, grains ten; capsicum, grains ten; salt, grains ten, mixed. This palatable compound was forced down the patients throat with a cloth wrapped around a stick. It was wonderful what results followed, as many got well. 

    The physicians in early times were temperate, charitable, kind-hearted and self-sacrificing, and it ought to be said, long-suffering. No money could adequately compensate them for the sacrifice of comfort, pleasure, rest and even life itself. They were exposed to seen and unseen dangers. 

    The first medical society was organized in 1835, and to warn the present day physicians of the temptations and tendency to excesses in diet and spirituous beverages, which tends to cripple them professionally, as well as morally, not to speak of financial wreck; that the first society adopted and adhered to the following rules: 

    First: ‘Physicians should never neglect an opportunity to fortify and promote the good resolutions of patients suffering under the bad effects of intemperate and vicious lives; and in order to do so, their own lives should be such as to be blameless; as we regard a high moral character to be a prerequisite to an honorable stand in the profession.’

 Source: Baird’s History of Clark County, Indiana by Capt. Lewis C. Baird, 1909.