The History of Orange County New York

by Unknown

By John T. Howell, M.D.

The early history of Orange County is intimately connected with the physicians who practiced there, and had they undertaken the task, it is logical to assume that no citizens could have narrated the history of their day and locality better than they. Unfortunately the duties and hardships then attendant upon the practice of medicine so limited outside literary work as to have left even the annals of medicine bare of many important facts which it would seem ought to have been recorded. It is stated that at one time Dr. David R. Arnell expressed his intention to write a history of Orange County, but he failed to carry out this undertaking which he was so well qualified to perform.

In the earlier periods of the county's existence medical education began to feel the impulse of independence and the wider knowledge resulting therefrom, developed a higher standard of practice.

This advancement was undoubtedly favored by the self-dependence brought out in practice through widely separated settlements, and Orange County early established a reputation for skillful physicians. The renowned traits and ability of many of these physicians remain only in tradition, but the anecdotes told of some of them show that they were men of more than ordinary attainments. Among those physicians best known in the early history of the county are Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who, besides being a medical author of note, was honored with the title of Lieutenant-Colonial Governor; Dr. Moses Higby, who is remembered by his successful use of an emetic in the case of a British spy, and Dr. Benjamin Tusten for his heroism at the battle of Minisink. Other physicians have no doubt rendered equally meritorious services in less conspicuous ways, but being unrecorded remain uncredited in history.

Some interesting statistics have been collected by Dr. W. L. Cuddeback regarding the average length of stay of about ninety physicians who settled in Port Jervis and vicinity. Of these, sixty-five per cent, removed or died within five years; eighty per cent, before ten years; eighty-five per cent, before fifteen years, and ninety per cent, before the end of twenty years of practice there. The reasons for this well known lack of permanency and short longevity of physicians are best understood by those who really know the peculiar trials, dangers and discouragements of the daily life of a doctor. The character developed by the experiences of thirty or forty years of medical practice is logically one worthy of admiration and emulation and this is proven by the appreciative and unshaken position uniformly held by the old family physician "Our doctor."

A perusal of the older records reveal many interesting customs and practices of the physicians of those days. Travel was generally on horseback and the distances were often so great that meal hour or nightfall compelled the weary doctor to accept the proffered hospitality of his patients. Saddle bags were made to hold a veritable armamentum and the doctor must tarry long enough to put up his own prescriptions. Bloodletting, blistering and emetics were remedies often employed and were, perhaps, as potent for good as some other extreme measures which were later substituted with greater confidence and found after all to have but a limited field of usefulness. The average physician has but little time for public affairs, but a number of the Orange County doctors have held public offices both in the County and as representatives in the State and National legislatures. In times of war, too, our doctors names are found enrolled in the military lists and their records there have been most creditable. Other physicians seem to have found time for literary pursuits; but these efforts have been mostly along medical lines. The patriotic gift of the Minisink Monument by one of their number is a matter of great pride and satisfaction to the physicians of this county.

The records of the Orange County Medical Society, although abbreviated, present the local history of medicine more fully than it is to be found elsewhere. Even here we may search in vain for data which the busy physicians who have acted as secretaries have failed to record. However, extending as they do over nearly the whole of the last century we can find many facts of interest, especially in the earlier years of its existence. No county society was formed until after the passage of an act of the Legislature, April 4, 1806. This law, under which the Orange County and twelve other county societies were soon incorporated, permitted each licensed physician in the county to become a charter member and each society to elect a representative to the State society, which was to be composed of such delegates. The county society had the right to examine both physicians desiring to practice in the county and students of medicine who applied for licenses.

Upon the first pages of the minutes is found a concise report of the organization of the Medical Society of the County of Orange, with the names of the founders and officers elected. It reads in part as follows:

"Agreeable to a law of the State of New York, passed the fourth day of April, 1806, entitled 'An Act to incorporate Medical Societies for the purpose of regulating the practice of Physic and Surgery in this State,' the physicians and surgeons of Orange County met at the Court House in Goshen on Tuesday, the first day of July, 1806.