“Modern medicine enters the jungle and by proper sanitary rules and regulations makes a deadly, miasmatic swamp a model of cleanliness and healthfulness, as was done in the Panama canal zone, and without which the building of the canal would have been impossible.
“Modern medicine seeks to help and to save mankind, not only from physical ills, but from moral ills as well. By the careful study of the influence of inheritance and environment on the development and the conduct of the child, it tries to make his physical inheritance as favorable as possible, and his economic and social environment as helpful as may be, realizing that much of our moral delinquency is due to unjust civic and economic conditions.”
It would require a volume to tell the story of the lives of all the early-day physicians of this county. Investigation discloses the fact that they were numerous, and that in addition to Dr. Stringfellow, who gave more of his time to political matters than to his profession, there was a Dr. D. McVay here prior to 1860. He was a southern gentleman, but apparently had more discretion than valor, for he fled from Atchison at the beginning of the Civil war. Dr. William Grimes, concerning whose life brief mention has been heretofore made in this history, was a physician at Atchison in 1858. Dr. W. W. Cochrane was another physician of the old school, a courtly, amiable gentleman, and a good physician. He was for a number of years treasurer of the Kansas Medical Society, and was a pioneer among physicians in administering chloroform in childbirth cases. Dr. Arnold was here in 1859, and later, on a trip to Denver, he was scalped by the Indians. Dr. Joseph Malin, of Weston, Mo., who married one of the McAdows, was a physician in Atchison in 1861, and Dr. J. V. Brining practiced in Atchison in 1862, and remained a practitioner here until 1914.
Dr. William Gough, who had been a Confederate army surgeon, located in Atchison shortly after the war. He practiced in St. Joseph before coming to Atchison, and also at DeKalb, where he married Mrs. Annie Dunning. From DeKalb he moved to Rushville, and then came to Atchison, where he formed a partnership with the late Dr. J. M. Linley. Together they enjoyed an extensive medical and surgical practice, until 1887, when Dr. Gough moved to Los Angeles, Cal., for the benefit of his health. He died there in 1908. Dr. Gough is described by his friends as being a man of large physique, the soul of honor, and displayed the utmost care and gentleness in the care of his patients.
Dr. W. L. Challiss came to Atchison in 1857, and while standing high in his profession, gave most of his time to business affairs, and practiced only spasmodically. There was also a Dr. Buddington in Atchison in 1864, who ran a drug store at Fourth and Commercial streets.
One of the most interesting members of the medical profession in an early day was Dr. Charles F. Kob, a German physician, who lived here about 1858. Dr. Kob had been a surgeon in the army and a member of the Massachusetts and Connecticut Medical Society. He founded the town of Bunker Hill, on Independence creek, ten miles north of Atchison, to which reference has already been made in this history. He lived and practiced in Boston before coming to Atchison. Dr. Amaziah Moore was another very early day physician, who located on a farm three or four miles west of Lancaster, in 1857. He came from Ohio. In 1861 he helped organize a company for the Civil war, which became Company D of the Second Kansas cavalry, of which he was captain.
DR. W. W. COCHRANE
WILLIAM L. CHALLIS