Many other British surgeons, living and dead, deserve most honorable mention, but time and space will not permit. I cannot, however, pass by without mentioning Curling, Annandale, Chiene, Cheyne, Macewen, Ogston, Jonathan Hutchinson, Sir James Paget, Christopher Heath, Thomas Langmore, Savory, Holden, Holmes, Adams, Sir Joseph Lister, and Sir Prescott Hewitt, of the value of whose labors I have already tried to speak; Sir William Ferguson, of whom it is said that he had the eagle's eye, a lion's heart, and a lady's hand; John Bowman, best known for his work in ophthalmic surgery; Sir Henry Thompson, the eminent lithotomist and lithotritist; and Sir Spencer Wells, Keith, Lawson Tait, and Bantock, whose names are inseparable from the history of abdominal surgery. And what can be said of the young men who are being trained in the methods and practice of their predecessors—trained not only in the direction of manual dexterity, but in experimental science, to which they make the former subservient'? All honor to these scions of Great Britain's surgical art, who have astonished the world with their consummate ability! I would that time permitted recapitulation of the work accomplished in late years by the present generation of men in London, Edinburgh, and other medical centres; but the scope of these chapters does not cover this ground.
CHAPTER XI.
HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN AMERICA.
The Colonial Physicians. Medical Study under Preceptors. Inoculation against Small-pox. Military Surgery during the Revolutionary War. Earliest Medical Teaching and Teachers in this Country. The First Medical Schools. Benjamin Rush. 1745-1813. The First Medical Journals. Brief List of the Best-Known American Physicians and Surgeons.
The history of medicine in America commences with the early struggles of the physicians in the American colonies. One Dr. Wootton came to Virginia in 1607 as Surgeon-General of the London Company. The following year Dr. Russell was with Captain Smith in his exploration of Chesapeake Bay. Neither of these men stayed long in the country, since, in 1609, Captain Smith, after being wounded, was compelled to return to England for treatment, for lack of medical aid.
When, in 1626. Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan for the sum of twenty-four dollars, there was probably no physician there at the time. Undoubtedly the first physician, in what is now New York, was Lamontagne,—a Huguenot, who arrived in 1637, and who seems to have been a man of great capability for his time. It would appear that men of no little eminence left the Old World for the New during the early days of the American colonies, and that the medical services which the early colonists received were on a par with those received by those whom they left behind in their old homes. During the seventeenth century a number of reputable physicians emigrated to this country, among them Dr. John Clark, of Boston, in 1638, whose son and grandson followed him in his profession and became prominent in their chosen calling. In 1644 came Dr. Child, a graduate of Padua, who seems to have been a man of great learning.
A number of younger Americans also went abroad to study,—Leyden, Paris, Padua, and the British universities being those most eagerly sought. In Virginia, so early as 1619, the Colonial Assembly discussed the erection of a university or college. In 1637 a public college was established in Cambridge, and in 1638 the Rev. John Harvard left to it his library and half his fortune, after which it was called Harvard College. William and Mary College was chartered in Virginia in 1693. Probably the first lectures in anatomy given in this countrv were those of Giles Firman, which were given previous to 1647 at Harvard College.
It was in this early day that arose the custom, continued until very recently, of studying medicine with a preceptor. This was necessary at that time, and until comparatively recently, because of the scarcity of institutions of learning and the expense connected with an education. The form of apprenticeship was often gone through with for a term of years varying from three to seven, during which time the young student performed the most menial duties, had very meagre opportunity for anatomical study, and acquired his knowledge rather by contact with and absorption from his preceptor than in any other way. In this method of teaching the personal element was so pronounced that everything, in fact, depended upon the preceptor, save what natural talent and industry might accomplish, With such meagre opportunities the means for doing were equally scant. Nevertheless, emergency made many of these early American practitioners self-reliant and competent to treat, according to the knowledge of that day, the various accidents then so common. In 1636 the Assembly of Virginia passed a fee-bill for surgeons and apothecaries, fees, however, being often paid in tobacco, powder, lead, wampum, etc. Not a few combined ministry of the body and the soul, and a number of eminent physicians were also preachers of more or less renown,—among them John Rogers, John Fisk, and others.