Читать книгу St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 2 - Walter Barlow Stevens - Страница 4

Doctor Saugrain gives notice of the first vaccine matter brought to St. Louis. Indigent persons vaccinated gratuitously. Missouri Gazette, March 26, 1809.

Science and humanity have gone hand-in-hand with the medical profession of St. Louis. When the first doctor died, it was found that 232 people owed him for services. The doctor was Andre Auguste Conde. He came to St. Louis from Fort Chartres the year after Laclede founded the settlement. He established a high standard of ethics and the doctors of St. Louis have lived up to it 146 years. Frederic L. Billon, the authority on St. Louis antiquities, concluded, after some investigation, that Conde's list of debtors was almost a directory of the families of St. Louis and Cahokia for the ten years the good doctor lived here.

The second doctor that came to St. Louis was Jean Baptiste Valleau. He was French but was in the Spanish service, being surgeon of the force which Ulloa sent to build forts at the mouth of the Missouri in 1768. Dr. Valleau, evidently, intended to stay; he applied to St. Ange to assign him a lot and entered into a contract for the building of a house. The site given him was on Second and Pine streets where the Gay building was erected long afterwards. Dr. Valleau furnished the iron and nails. Tousignau, the carpenter, agreed to supply the posts and do all of the work on a house eighteen feet long by fourteen feet wide for $60. In the performance of his professional duties Valleau made frequent trips to Bellefontaine on the Missouri where the Spaniards were building the forts. Exposure to the hot sun brought on sickness. Within a year after his coming, Dr. Valleau made his will and died. One of the principal assets of his estate was a box of playing cards, a gross of packs. Martin Duralde, the executor, had considerable trouble in disposing of the cards. The number of packs depressed the market. He waited two or three years and held an auction. In the history of St. Louis Dr. Valleau's will is the first recorded. The village was four and a half years old when he died.

After Valleau came Doctors Antoine Reynal, Bernard Gibkins, Claudio Mercier and Joachim Gingembre. These were residents for varying periods under the Spanish governors. When Doctor Mercier died, he freed his slave and gave $100 to the poor.

In 1801, responding to several successive appeals, the Spanish authority at New Orleans, concluded that St. Louis had attained the importance justifying a hospital and a government physician. Morales wrote to Delassus:

In accordance with what the Marquis of Casa Calvo agreed with my predecessor regarding a hospital and physician for the town of San Luis de Illinois, it is determined that a physician shall be appointed and that he shall have a salary of $30 a month. The appointment shall be given to Don Antonio Saugrain. A comfortable room shall be arranged in the quarters designed for a hospital. This accountant's office is to supply everything necessary for twelve beds and from this capital (New Orleans) all of the medicines that will be required will be sent. Don Antonio Saugrain will not get his salary until you have appointed him. He must keep account of all of the medicines used annually and the statement must be sent to this office written in Spanish. The medicines will be used only by the troop and marine of the king who may enter the hospital. If other people should be admitted to the hospital they must pay for the medicines at the existing prices in the market.

To St. Louis, in 1800, came a physician and scientist who was to leave his impression on the community. Dr. Antoine Francois Saugrain may be called the father of the medical profession of St. Louis and the profession may feel honored thereby. He came to the United States on the advice of Benjamin Franklin when the latter was minister to France. The young Frenchman, born in Versailles, highly educated and with developed taste for scientific investigation impressed Mr. Franklin as the kind of a man to make a valuable American. His first experience in this country was rather disheartening. After living nine years with the unfortunate French colony of Gallipolis on the Ohio river, Dr. Saugrain floated down the Ohio and made his way to St. Louis four years before the American occupation. With the Saugrains came the Michauds of Gallipolis. Dr. Saugrain had married Genevieve Rosalie Michaud, eldest of the daughters of John Michaud. Two little girls, Rosalie and Eliza Saugrain, made the journey. They became the wives of Henry Von Phul and James Kennerly, the merchants. Other daughters of Dr. Saugrain married Major Thomas O'Neil, of the United States army, and John W. Reel, the St. Louis merchant. Descendants of the Saugrains and Michauds are numerous in this generation of St. Louisans.

Possibly the reason that the medical profession had attracted so little attention up to the coming of the Saugrains was because of the good health which the community enjoyed. The eldest daughter of the doctor remembered that when the family first came to St. Louis there were few cases of sickness. When Dr. Saugrain came, he discovered that the habitants were accustomed to go to Father Didier, the priest, when they felt bad. Father Didier would fix up teas from herbs and give simple remedies, without professing to be educated in medicine. Dr. Saugrain was a botanist. He depended largely upon vegetable compounds and upon brews from herbs which he grew in a wonderful garden that surrounded his house, or gathered in the wild state.

The first case of smallpox appeared in St. Louis the year after Dr. Saugrain came. With it came a problem that appealed to the scientific mind. The virtue of vaccination was accepted by Dr. Saugrain. As soon as he could supply himself with the material, Dr. Saugrain began a campaign of education. He published cards in the Gazette explaining the preventive. He informed "such physicians and other intelligent persons as reside beyond the limits of his accustomed practice that he will with much pleasure upon application furnish them with vaccine infection." But especially noteworthy, and characteristic of the medical profession in St. Louis in all its history, was the philanthropic position taken by Dr. Saugrain toward those so unfortunate as to be unable to protect themselves. "Persons in indigent circumstances," he wrote to the Gazette, "paupers and Indians will be vaccinated and attended gratis."

From the days when St. Louis chose a doctor for the first mayor of the new city, the medical profession has done for St. Louis far more than to prescribe for physical ails. That first mayor, Dr. William Carr Lane, in his inaugural message, 1823, said: "Health is a primary object, and there is much more danger of disease originating at home than of its seeds coming from abroad. I recommend the appointment of a board of health to be selected from the body of citizens, with ample powers to search out and remove nuisances, and to do whatever else may conduce to general health. This place has of late acquired a character for unhealthfulness which it did not formerly bear and does not deserve. I am credibly informed that it is not many. years since a fever of high grade was rarely, if ever seen. To what is the distressing change attributable? May we not say principally to the insufficiency of our police regulations? What is the present condition of yards, drains, etc.? May we not dread the festering heat of next summer? If this early warning had been heeded, St. Louis might have escaped or minimized the series of terrible cholera epidemics which began in the next decade.

Progress in sanitary conveniences was shown by the newspaper announcement in 1829 that "the new bathing establishment of Mr. J. Sparks & Co. has about thirty-five visitors, and of that number not one has experienced an hour's sickness since the bathing commenced; we should, for the benefit of the city, be glad there were more encouragement, and, as the season is partly over, tickets have been reduced to one dollar the season."

The distinction of being the first American physician and surgeon to establish himself permanently west of the Mississippi belongs to Bernard Gaines Farrar. Born in Virginia and reared in Kentucky, young Dr. Farrar, on the advice of his brother-in-law, Judge Coburn, came to St. Louis to live two years after the American occupation. He was just of age. Dr. Charles Alexander Pope described Farrar as a man of most tender sensibilities, so tender-hearted that he seemed to suffer with his patients. And yet, before he had been in St. Louis three years, Dr. Farrar performed a surgical operation which for a generation was a subject of marvel in the settlements and along the trails of the Mississippi valley. The patient was young Shannon, who had made the journey to the mouth of the Columbia with Lewis and Clark. Going with a second government expedition to find the sources of the Missouri, Shannon was shot by Blackfoot Indians. He was brought down the river to St. Louis, arriving in very bad condition. Dr. Farrar amputated the leg at the thigh. Shannon recovered, went to school, became a highly educated man and served on the bench in Kentucky. He never failed to give Dr. Farrar the credit of saving his life. The St. Louis surgeon went on performing what in those days were surgical miracles. Older members of the St. Louis profession always believed that Farrar antedated Sansom in the performance of a very delicate operation on the bladder, although Sansom, by reason of making publication first, is given the credit in medical history. Dr. Farrar died of the cholera in the epidemic of 1849. He was the man universally regarded as the dean of the medical profession of St. Louis in that day. It was said of Dr. Farrar that he was the physician and surgeon most devoted to the duties of his profession; that he took' very little recreation; that he did not indulge in the sports of fishing and hunting which were common. Dr. Charles A. Pope pronounced before the medical association a eulogy in which he declared that the acts of benevolence and the charity performed by Dr. Farrar at the time when there was no hospital or asylum in the city were "unparalleled."

"Patent medicines" followed the American flag into St. Louis. They were here when Colonel Charless began to publish the Gazette. Within a month after the inaugural number, the Gazette was advertising cough drops, balsam of honey, British oil, bilious pills, essence of peppermint. Four years later, Dr. Robert Simpson, a young Marylander who had come to St. Louis as assistant surgeon in the army, opened the first drug store in St. Louis, associating with himself Dr. Quarles. Dr. Simpson became postmaster and in the fifty years of his life in St. Louis had a varied experience. He went into local politics and held the offices of collector and of sheriff. In his more active years it was said of him that he knew personally everybody living in St. Louis and most of the people in the county. He engaged in mercantile life, was cashier of the first savings bank, the Boatmen's, was chosen comptroller of the city several times and went to the Legislature.

The first medical student west of the Mississippi was Meredith Martin. He was a young Kentuckian who came to St. Louis and read medical books in the office of Dr. Farrar in 1828. There was no medical school here. After he had read the books, Martin went to Philadelphia and took a degree. He came back to St. Louis to practice and had a strenuous beginning. Almost immediately he was given a commission to go to the Indian Territory and vaccinate the Indians. This was a work of months. Dr. Martin returned to St. Louis to find the city passing through its first terrible visitation of cholera. He lived to be one of the oldest physicians in St. Louis and was three times elected president of the St. Louis Medical society.

A highly educated son of Maryland who joined the medical profession in St. Louis, a representative of one of the families of Revolutionary patriots, was Dr. Stephen W. Adreon. He came in 1832. After some years of practice he, like many other members of his profession, took an interest in civic matters and served as a member of the city council under three mayors, Kennett, King and Filley. As president of the board of health, Dr. Adreon had much to do with the development of that department of the municipal government. He was also, toward the close of his active career, health officer and one of the managers of the House of Refuge.

Connection with the army brought to St. Louis notable members of the medical profession. The most distinguished of these, probably, was a surgeon of Connecticut birth. Dr. William Beaumont had been a surgeon in the regular army about twenty years when, after being stationed for some time at Jefferson Barracks and the arsenal, he resigned and made his home in St. Louis. That was about 1832. While he was living here Dr. Beaumont brought out a book which gave him worldwide fame. He called it "Physiology of Digestion and Experiments on the Gastric Juice." That wasn't a title to arouse much curiosity among laymen, but when the story got into circulation, interest was not confined to the profession. During the time that Dr. Beaumont was at an army post on the Canadian frontier he was called upon to attend Alexis St. Martin, a boatman. Martin had been shot in such a manner as to leave a hole in his stomach. The wound healed, but the hole did not close. Dr. Beaumont carried on a long series of experiments. He observed the operation of digestion under many conditions. St. Martin ate solids and drank liquids under the doctor's directions. The doctor looked into the stomach, watched and timed the progress. He was able to give from actual observation the effects produced by various kinds of foods and drinks upon the stomach.

Some of these young physicians who settled in St. Louis combined sound business qualifications with professional standing. Dr. Alexander Marshall, who was born eight miles from Edinburgh, Scotland, made a careful tour of observation of American cities before he decided upon St. Louis in 1840 as his permanent location. He had $600 when he came here and gave himself six months to live on that while making acquaintances. But before the half year of probation was up, Dr. Marshall had not only become self-supporting on his practice, but had added $600 to his nest-egg. He continued to practice in St. Louis and accumulated an estate of $300,000.

Henry Van Studdiford was intended for the ministry by his New Jersey relatives, but his natural bent and education took him into the profession of medicine. He came to St. Louis in 1839, invested the surplus earnings from his practice in real estate. He did this so judiciously that he became one of the wealthiest members of his profession in this city. He married a daughter of Colonel Martin Thomas, the army officer who established and commanded the St. Louis arsenal.

The first medical lecture delivered west of the Mississippi was by Dr. John S. Moore, from North Carolina. On the basis of a fine classical education he started for Philadelphia, at that early day the center of medical education in the United States, to complete his studies and "get a diploma." Meeting Dr. McDowell, he was induced to stop in Cincinnati, and became a member of the first class of the Cincinnati Medical college, graduating in 1832. As the youngest member of the faculty of the medical department of Kemper college, with which medical education began in St. Louis, Dr. Moore delivered that first lecture.

Charles W. Stevens was a member of the Kemper college medical faculty. He was one of the first graduates of that institution. Coming west from his New York home to be a civil engineer and surveyor, when he was about of age, Stevens found that profession unpromising and took up the study of medicine. Diseases of the nervous system became his specialty and he was superintendent and physician of the St. Louis Insane Asylum. Kemper college was located where the asylum was afterwards built. Dr. Stevens went to his charge of the city's wards on the same hilltop in southwest St. Louis where he had studied medicine and had lectured a quarter of a century before. The first class of young doctors graduated at Kemper included Dr. E. S. Frazier, a young Kentuckian, who married a sister of Dr. John S. Moore and joined the profession in St. Louis.

Dr. Edwin Bathurst Smith, a Virginian, member of an old family of that state, before he came to St. Louis had been one of the founders of the Louisiana Medical college. He had been the first physician to give yellow fever patients cold drinks to allay the fever. He went through the first cholera epidemic of this country, that of 1832, and won high reputation as an authority. After settling in St. Louis he devoted the most of his attention to the sciences and was one of a coterie which half a century ago gave St. Louis worldwide fame in scientific matters.

The cholera epidemics developed heroic qualities in the medical profession of St. Louis. Dr. Hardage Lane, a cousin of the first mayor of St. Louis, Dr. William Carr Lane, devoted himself day and night to cholera patients in 1849, until he was overcome with physical exhaustion, dying after a brief illness.

In the fall of 1838 Dr. Joseph N. McDowell began to lecture to the students of Kemper college. His subject was the history of man. He illustrated his talks with skulls of the different races. The lectures were fascinating. Students wanted more. Dr. McDowell built a medical college, not the great pile of masonry which looked like a massive fort; that came later. The first McDowell college was a small brick building. There the young men of St. Louis flocked to him for medical education. Architecturally, McDowell's college was as original as the founder. A large stove in the amphitheater of his first college building gave Dr. McDowell the suggestion of an octagon building. This plan was carried out as far as means would permit. The octagon building was to be eight stories in height. It was started with foundations eight feet thick but never reached the height designed. In the center was a column of masonry which was to form the peak of the roof. In this massive column Dr. McDowell intended to have niches in which to place the copper cases containing the bodies of members of his family.

From the Christian Brothers' academy, northward toward the city was open space. It extended toward Mill Creek and the famous mill. The creek ran under a culvert where Seventh street crossed. This open space Dr. McDowell appropriated for his patriotic celebrations. He encouraged his devoted medical students to make much of Washington's Birthday and of the Fourth of July. Several cannon were included in the equipment of McDowell's Medical college. They had been obtained originally for moral effect at a time when popular prejudice was easily inflamed against dissecting rooms. And when a national holiday came around, the head of the institution took evident satisfaction in showing the community that he and his constituency knew how to shoot them.

The cannon were not mounted upon wheeled carriages but that did not deter Dr. McDowell. Wearing a three-cornered hat of the continentals, with feathers bristling from it, having a large cavalry sabre strapped to his waist, McDowell would lead his students carrying the cannon to the vacant space. The guns were placed on sawbucks for support. Dr. McDowell superintended the loading and firing. In loud and emphatic language he gave his orders, encouraging much cheering and telling his followers to "make Rome howl." That was one of the doctor's favorite forms of appeal.

Those days of patriotic outburst by Dr. McDowell and the medical students were observed in very different spirit by the Christian Brothers and their pupils. Brother Jasper was in charge of the playground. The coming of the medical body was the signal for Brother Jasper to assemble the students of the academy and to marshal them to a place of safety. The Brothers, viewing the reckless manner in which Dr. McDowell conducted the salutes in honor of the day, had no doubt there would sometime be an explosion, with loss of life or limb. There was strong suspicion that the evident apprehension of the Brothers stimulated Dr. McDowell to louder and more violent language and to greater demonstrations on his holidays. The more marked the disturbance of the Brothers became, the greater seemed the satisfaction of the doctor. And yet it was not malevolence, for Dr. McDowell would speak well of his neighbors. One day returning from the celebration on the vacant space, the doctor thrust his head in at an open window of the academy and loudly declared with unquotable emphasis that if he had a boy young enough to go to school he would send him to the Brothers.

Dr. Warren B. Outten, the surgeon, was a boy student at the Christian Brothers' academy, as it was called in the decade of 1850-60. His recollection of the militant head of McDowell's Medical college remained vivid through all of the years that followed:

He was a tall, slim man, with clean cut features and cleanly shaven face. His hair was gray and combed straight back from his forehead after the manner of Calhoun. Dr. McDowell was to each and every student of the academy a marked and wonderful character. His intensity and tendency toward profanity, his high pitched voice, his swaggering and independent bearing made him always interesting, awesome and peculiar. I can well remember how the brothers viewed him. To them he was a vice regnant deputy of His Satanic Majesty. Brother Valgen, who was master of dormitory for fifty years, a man of mild, timid character, if he could see Dr. McDowell a square off, would cross himself and hunt for cover.

Great reputation locally as an orator, had Dr. McDowell. His language was always picturesque and often lurid. His commencement addresses drew to his college large audiences. The late Dr. Montrose A. Fallen could describe graphically one of these commencement days at McDowell's college, for he was present although a student of another institution. The manner and words of McDowell made a lasting impression on Fallen's memory. On that commencement day, Dr. McDowell came down the center aisle of the amphitheater, carrying his violin and bow. When he reached the amphitheater table he turned and facing the expectant throng began to play. After several tunes, he laid down the violin and spoke in his high pitched voice:

Now, gentlemen, we have been together five long months. Doubtless, some of these months have been very happy months, and doubtless some have been very perplexing ones. Such is the eternal fate of workers and students. But now, gentlemen, the saddest of all sad words must be uttered, namely, farewell! Here retrospection takes her sway, either gladdened or saddened, as idiosyncrasies hold the mind. We have wandered in the labyrinthian way of anatomy. We have floated in the ethereal atmosphere of physiology. We have waded knee deep, nay, neck deep, into a sea of theory and practice; ground, filtered, pounded and inspected elements of materia medica, and slowly pounded in the endless crucible of chemistry. As we say farewell! it is needless for me to say that I hope God may, in His infinite mercy, bless you as you deserve. But remember that labor omnia vincit. No man under God's blue sky need hope that success can, or will come without labor, for God has ordained that all of us must earn our living by the sweat of our brow. Nature only recognizes the laborer, and eternally damns the rich man, by satiety and disease.

Doubtless one of your number, in this class, will come back to the great city of St. Louis with the snow of many winters upon his hair and walking upon three legs instead of two, as Sphinx has it. As he wanders here and there upon its streets amidst the crowded and eager throng, noting the wondrous improvement here and the change there, suddenly, gentlemen, it will occur to him to ask of one of the eager passers-by, "Where is Dr. McDowell?" "Dr. McDowell? Dr. McDowell?" he will say, "what Dr. McDowell?" "Why," he will tell him, "Dr. McDowell, the surgeon?" "Oh, yes, Dr. McDowell, the surgeon. Why! He lies buried close to Bellefontaine. "

Slowly, gentlemen, he will wend his way thither, and there amidst the rank weeds, he will find a plain marble slab inscribed, "J. McDowell, Surgeon." While he stands there contemplating the rare virtues and eccentricities of this old man, suddenly, gentlemen, the spirit of Dr. McDowell will arise on ethereal wings and bless him, aye! thrice bless him. Then, suddenly, gentlemen, this spirit will take a swoop and as he passes McDowell's college he will drop a parting tear. But, gentlemen, when he gets to Pope's college, he will spit upon it. Yes, I say, he will spit upon it.

Into his peroration Dr. McDowell would throw almost frenzied emphasis. When he concluded there would be a hurricane of cheers and yells. Dr. Fallen was a student at Pope's college, but, as did many of the students of the rival institution, he went to hear Dr. McDowell's address to his graduates.

Very strange were the ideas Dr. McDowell had about the disposition of the dead. When Dr. McDowell thought he was going to die, he called to his bedside Dr. Charles W. Stevens and Dr. Drake McDowell, his son. He exacted from them a solemn promise that they would place his body in a copper receptacle and fill the space with alcohol. The receptacle, they were to suspend in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. Permission to do this, the doctor claimed he had already obtained. This eccentric demand was not a great surprise to Dr. Stevens. Coming to McDowell's college to study medicine, Stevens had learned quickly something of his preceptor's strange fancies. A child of Dr. McDowell died a few days after Stevens entered the college. The coffin was lined with metal. The body was placed in the coffin. All space remaining was filled with alcohol and the coffin was sealed tightly. A year or so later, the body of the child was removed from the coffin, and placed in a large copper case. This was Dr. McDowell's method of treating the bodies of his children. No religious service of any kind was performed. The copper cases were carried at night attended by a procession formed by the medical students and friends of the family. Each person carried a torch. The place of disposition was a vault in the rear of the residence. The thought of a natural cave as a final resting place was a favorite one. Dr. McDowell bought a cave near Hannibal. He had a wall built across the opening and placed in it an iron door. The vase or case containing one of the children in alcohol was taken from St. Louis to this cave and suspended from the roof. Vandals broke open the iron door and the vault became accessible to the curious public. Dr. McDowell gave up the notion and made no further use of the cave. He purchased a knoll or mound across the river, not far from Cahokia, in view with a glass from the cupola of the college. There he constructed a vault in which he placed the body of his wife. Years afterward Dr. McDowell and his wife were buried in Bellefontaine.

McDowell wore his hair in an iron gray mane thrown back and falling almost to the shoulder. He had great natural power as an orator, but he cultivated rather familiarity than dignity. Standing at the front of the courthouse to address a public gathering he was greeted by someone in the crowd as "old sawbones." "Yes," he answered back, in his high pitched voice, "I am 'old sawbones' and look out that I don't saw your bones."

Dr. McDowell was a fascinating lecturer. He had stories to illustrate every assertion. His students were in the habit of saying that Dr. McDowell could tell a story to go with every bone, muscle, nerve and vessel of the human body. Dr. McDowell was not a successful business man. The college passed through financial straits. The doctor held St. Louis University responsible for his money troubles because the faculty permitted another medical college to be organized under the auspices of the University. He lectured against the Jesuits. And then he professed to feel that he and his college were in danger of attack. Wearing a brass breastplate made according to his own design and carrying arms, Dr. McDowell turned his medical college into a fortress. He bought 1,400 condemned muskets from the United States government, paying $2.50 apiece for them. These he stored in the basement of the college. From old brass, which he bought, and from the college bell Dr. McDowell had cast for him six cannon. He talked of recruiting from his students a force to march across the plains and capture some Mexican territory. When the Civil war came Dr. McDowell went south and gave his cannon to the Confederacy. He died in 1868.

Altogether unlike McDowell was that other dominant figure of early medical education in St. Louis, Charles Alexander Pope. In leisure hours, Dr. Warren B. Outten attained marked facility with the brush. He painted a portrait of Dr. Pope, under whom he had been a student when Pope's college was known throughout the country. Dr. Outten has given a pen picture of Dr. Pope. He describes him as "a very handsome man, about five feet, nine inches tall, having a well-shaped head with dark blue eyes, well-turned eyebrows, an expression of thoughtful gentleness about the eyes. It was a face such as to win anyone on first sight. Dr. Pope had a general appearance of elegance and culture. His voice was quick, incisive and agreeable in tone. His movements were quick and graceful. Dr. Pope was unconsciously polite and courteous. He was in my estimation, in every respect, a most perfect gentleman. He never descended to anything little, petty or mean. No one ever heard a vulgar or profane word come from his lips, nor did he ever utter abuse or gossip about a professional confrere. Always eager to commend and always full of good advice and encouragement, he made the world around him better for his having been in it."

From such a picture of Dr. Pope it is not difficult to understand the strong and lasting impression he made upon his profession in St. Louis. Dr. Pope was from Alabama. He had studied under Drake at Cincinnati, had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, had spent several years in medical schools in France, in England and in Ireland, coming to St. Louis in 1842. Within a year he entered the faculty of the St. Louis Medical college as professor of anatomy. In 1846, Dr. Pope married Caroline O'Fallon, the daughter of John O'Fallon. Proud of his brilliant son-in-law, John O'Fallon built on Seventh and Spruce streets the medical college which in its architecture and appointments was without equal in the United States, outside of New York and Philadelphia. Around him Dr. Pope drew a faculty of great strength. In 1854 he was elected president of the American Medical association.

Coming back to St. Louis from Europe in 1870, Dr. Pope received a reception such as has been given to few citizens after an absence. To the faculty, newly organized, of the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, at a banquet, Dr. Pope made an address in March, 1870. Four months later, this man of splendid faculties, with a record of inestimable usefulness to his profession in St. Louis, was dead by his own hand. It was one of St. Louis' mysteries.

Pope's College survives, with its strenuous traditions and its honorable record in the history of medical education of St. Louis. It has been, in its lifetime, the medical department of two universities. It has stood alone as the St. Louis Medical college. Uniting with the Missouri Medical college, it was merged in the Washington University medical department.

The decade 1840-50 gave to the medical profession of St. Louis notable characters. These men were not only strong personalities but they brought to their practice and to the educational work in which they engaged the advantages of study and observation far beyond the ordinary. And this inheritance of knowledge and thought they passed down to the thousands of young men who came to the medical schools of St. Louis. To these physicians and surgeons, coming from other countries and from various states, St. Louis owes much for her foremost position among cities in the philanthropy which has to do with physical ails.

S. Gratz Moses, born in Philadelphia, had enjoyed classical education and medical training before he went to Europe as physician to Joseph Bonaparte, the eldest brother of Napoleon. His connection with the Bonaparte family brought him into friendly relations with the great men of his profession in Paris. Returning to this country, Dr. Moses came to St. Louis in 1841. The next year he, with half a dozen young men in his profession, started something that was new in this city and one of the first of its class in the United States. That institution was a dispensary for treatment of those unable to employ physicians. Mrs. Vital M. Garesche suggested this dispensary and worked zealously for its establishment. The support came from churches and private subscriptions. The Mullanphy family gave generously toward this as they did toward other movements to relieve the unfortunate. At that time the Unitarian church was on Fourth and Pine streets. With his spirit of cooperation in all public spirited enterprise, Rev. Dr. William G. Eliot gave rooms to the dispensary office in the basement of his church. Associated with Dr. Moses in this work were Dr. William M. McPheeters, Dr. J. B. Johnson, Dr. Charles A. Pope, Dr. J. L. Clark, Dr. George Johnson and others. These men carried on the dispensary for seven years until the city assumed this as a municipal function and opened a public dispensary.

Those were primitive times. It is said that the only one of these practitioners in the early forties who rode in a buggy to visit his patients was Dr. Clark. The others rode horseback. Dr. John B. Johnson was of Massachusetts birth and of Harvard education. He came from the position of house surgeon of the Massachusetts General hospital to enter practice at St. Louis. A man of splendid appearance and fine manners, Dr. Johnson obtained almost immediately a professional standing among the leading families. One of his earliest friends was Theron Barnum, who kept the City hotel in the days when the leading hotelkeeper of St. Louis ranked close to the mayor in public estimation. It was said of Dr. Johnson that for many years he did not send a bill for services, relying upon his patients to come around and settle when they felt so disposed.

Dr. Moses M. Fallen, the head of the Fallen family in St. Louis, was a Virginian by birth, educated at the University of Virginia. He practiced in Vicksburg several years before coming to St. Louis in 1842. He was a student of the sciences as well as a physician and was one of the coterie which gave high character to the St. Louis Academy of Science in its early days.

From Prague, in Bohemia, came to St. Louis, in 1845, a highly educated specialist in the person of Dr. Simon Pollak. He had already given study to the branch of medicine which was to place him among the leaders in ophthalmology. Joining the coterie of physicians and surgeons who had established the dispensary, Dr. Pollak pioneered the way for what has become one of the city's most beneficial institutions. In 1852, Dr. Pollak started the movement which by private subscriptions founded the Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind. This was supported five years by the contributions of citizens and was then made a State institution.

In 1845, according to the Medical and Surgical Journal published here, St. Louis had 146 "persons who are endeavoring to obtain a livelihood by the practice of the healing art in this city, which includes the homeopathists, botanies, Thompsonians, etc." The population was 40,000. There was a doctor of some kind for 274 people. The Journal stated that about one-third of these doctors enjoyed lucrative practice and that many of the others were leaving and settling in surrounding towns.

Distinguished among the writers on medical subjects in this country was Dr. R. S. Holmes, a native of Pittsburg, who left the position of army surgeon to make his home in St. Louis about 1849. Dr. Holmes not only contributed a great deal that attracted attention in medical literature but he became widely known as a magazine and newspaper contributor. He popularized subjects more or less connected with his profession. He wrote on "Beauty," "Use of the Hair Among the Ancients," and like topics. He contributed "Sketches of American Character." His great work in his profession was his study and treatment of malignant, climatic fevers. He led in the use of large doses of quinine to overcome malaria. Visiting Europe he brought home to St. Louis the finest microscope that had been seen here and entered upon minute researches with the powerful lens.

The medical profession of St. Louis early became composite as to nationality and as to education. One of the German patriots of 1848 who became prominent in the medical profession of St. Louis was Dr. G. Fischer. Edward Montgomery from near Belfast, Ireland, settled in St. Louis in 1849 to practice medicine. He became widely known as a writer on medical subjects. About the same time, three other young men established themselves as physicians in St. Louis, coming from widely separated parts of the world. Louis Ch. Boisliniere was from the Island of Guadeloupe, descended from one of the oldest families of that West Indian paradise. He had been educated in France, had traveled extensively in South America and had been for some time a guest of Henry Clay and other eminent Kentuckians before he chose St. Louis as his permanent home. Under the auspices of the Sisters of Charity Dr. Boisliniere took prominent part in giving St. Louis the honor of establishing the first lying-in hospital and foundling asylum in the United States. He was the first physician to hold the office of coroner in St. Louis. That was in 1858. Dr. Boisliniere's recreation was singing. He delighted in classical music and those who heard him in the rendition of church masses never forgot the fervor with which he sang. Dr. F. Ernst. Baumgarten began to practice in St. Louis contemporaneously with Dr. Boisliniere. He was from the kingdom of Hanover and had edited a surgical journal in German before he came to St. Louis. He became one of the founders of the German Medical society of St. Louis, a very strong professional organization. The third of these young doctors was Thomas O'Reilly, who came from County Cavan, Ireland, with the best medical education that Dublin could give him. All of his life in St. Louis he was devoted to the political advancement of his native island.

The Hotel for Invalids was the name chosen for a private hospital started in the Paul house at Second and Walnut streets in the summer of 1848. The institution was short lived.

Strikingly unlike his preceptor, McDowell, was John Thompson Hodgen. who was born in a rugged part of Kentucky near the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. After he graduated under McDowell, Dr. Hodgen became first demonstrator and then professor in the institution. When the war came and McDowell's college was turned into a military prison, Hodgen was chosen surgeon-general for the Western Sanitary commission. Later he was surgeon-general for the state of Missouri. He tried to keep alive the old medical school but finally joined the faculty of the St. Louis Medical college. The American Medical association drew upon the St. Louis profession repeatedly to fill the office of president. One of those drafted was Dr. Hodgen.

The beloved surgeon of St. Louis in 1870-80 was John T. Hodgen. He used but few words. He accepted no familiarity. Addressed as "Doc," he would respond, "If you want me to answer you politely, don't call me 'Doc.' There is no such word. Call me 'Doctor' and there will be no trouble, but I will not answer to the call of 'Doc.' " And no man once receiving this rebuke required another warning. Dr. Hodgen could put an astonishing effect into his few words. His assertions uttered before his students were remembered and quoted for years afterwards. One who studied under him, said: "He could say 'I don't know,' in such a manner as to convey the idea that there was a profundity of knowledge back of it."

Men of strong sympathy, fine sensibilities and great charity have ennobled the medical profession of St. Louis. It is told of Dr. Hodgen that in driving up to the residence of a patient, where the case was desperate, he would sometimes say to the one with him: "Look out and see if crape is on the door. I am afraid to look." If crape was on the door the doctor drove on quickly; if not, Dr. Hodgen was out of the buggy in a hurry and with a bright face, his lips forming for a pleasant little whistle showing the pleasure he felt, he went into the house.

Students of Dr. Moses M. Fallen, a member of an old Virginia family, who came to St. Louis in 1842, were given an impression of professional obligation which was far more than scientific. Dr. Fallen held the professorship of obstetrics for more than twenty years. He taught thousands of students "that the doctor when at the bedside of the woman in labor almost meets his God, and that duty, the stern daughter of God, must be evoked every moment and hour in her travail. Give your strength to the laboring mother. Fill her with hope; it may be light diet but it will be very stimulating; it awakens courage. If the doctor ever is at the service of any one he must be at the absolute service of the lying-in woman. Be thoughtful of her in her agony of pain. Encouragement is everything. It well becomes God's most exalted creature. To relieve distress is not only human but it is Godlike; and thrice blessed is that man who relieves a single maternal pain." That was the character of Dr. Fallen's teaching as one of his pupils, Dr. Warren B. Outten, described it long years after his own graduation.

The medical profession of St. Louis before the Civil war drew upon Kentucky born men for some of its strongest characters. Besides Joseph Nash McDowell and M. L. Linton, John T. Hodgen, E. H. Gregory and E. S. Frazier were from Kentucky stock. Dr. Moses L. Linton came from Kentucky in k 1842. A graduate of Transylvania University, perfected in his profession by study abroad, he had a short time before moving to St. Louis announced his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. Then had ensued a sharp controversy between Rev. Robert Grundy, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, and Dr. Linton, running through a series of pamphlets and attracting a great deal of attention. Dr. Linton wrote with much spirit and in an attractive style. The high standard of medical education in St. Louis owes a great deal to that farmer's son in Kentucky. Dr. Linton took a course in Europe at a time when few American doctors did that. He was associated in his studies abroad part of the time with Dr. Charles A. Pope. That association had much to do with Dr. Linton's decision to settle in St. Louis, where he was invited to take a chair in the faculty of the medical department of St. Louis University. The St. Louis Medical Journal, established in 1843, owed its beginning to Dr. Linton more than to anyone else. Dr. McPheeters was associated with Dr. Linton in the editorial management of the Journal. "Outlines of Pathology" was the title of one of the first medical books published by an author west of the Mississippi. In that book Dr. Linton gave to the profession what served for students in the way of general instruction many years.

Between 1850 and 1860 St. Louis began to produce her own professors. One of the first of these was Dr. T. L. Papin, a descendant of the founder of the settlement. In 1852 he became a member of the faculty in the Missouri Medical college. The greater part of his career he was a teacher of medicine. St. John's Hospital owed its origin to Dr. Papin and the connection of the medical college with the hospital was largely brought about by him. The Nidelets, James C. and Sylvester, were descended from the Pratte family. They completed their education in St. Louis and entered the medical profession here. The father of the Nidelets was of San Domingo birth, but of French descent. He was Stephen F. Nidelet. He came to this country while a boy and became a merchant of Philadelphia. While on a visit to St. Louis he made the acquaintance of Celeste E. Pratte, a daughter of General Bernard Pratte and a belle of the decade of 1820-1830. Marriage followed. Some years afterwards the Nidelets removed from Philadelphia to St. Louis and made this their home.

Dr. E. H. Gregory, born, bred and educated in Kentucky, joined the profession at St. Louis in 1852. He became the surgeon-in-chief of the Sisters' Hospital. That was the first hospital west of the Mississippi. Sister Francis Xavier, with three other members of the order of Sisters of Charity, which had been founded at Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809, came to St. Louis in 1828 and started the hospital in a modest way on a strip of ground 100 feet wide running from Fourth to Third street along the south side of Spruce. The lot was a donation for the purpose by John Mullanphy, who set a fine pace for philanthropy in St. Louis soon after the American flag was hoisted. The first building was small. It left room for an orchard and a garden. The institution grew until crowding commerce prompted removal, July, 1874, to a large block of ground on Montgomery street east of Grand avenue. Around him Dr. Gregory gathered a staff composed of such specialists as N. B. Carson, Paul Y. Tupper, S. Pollak, W. C. Glasgow, L. L. McCabe.

The German patriots, who added elements of great influence to the population of St. Louis, included some characters born to make war on the existing order whether in politics or in the professions. One of these was Dr. Adam Hammer. He was a man of medium height, slender, sallow. Below a high round forehead were a long sharp thin nose and a pointed chin, emphasized by chin whiskers. Dr. Hammer had keen black eyes. Members of the profession said Dr. Hammer looked like the pictures of Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood. Hammer had been well educated in German universities. He came here with considerable reputation as a surgeon. He had performed some wonderful operations. So long as he resided in St. Louis he was the chief figure in frequent professional disputes. At the meetings of the Medical society, Dr. Hammer could be depended upon to start something before the evening was over. These scenes at last became so disagreeable to the other members that the presence of the reporters was dispensed with. Dr. Hammer was for a time the dean of the Humboldt Medical college, which was located opposite the city hospital. Afterwards he was offered a chair in the faculty of the Missouri Medical college. It was something of a relief to the profession in St. Louis when Dr. Hammer, after dividing his time between this country and Germany, decided to take up his permanent residence in the fatherland.

To the third generation of a family of medical practitioners in St. Louis belonged Dr. John Charles Lebrecht. His father was Dr. John Lebrecht. The grandfather on the maternal side was Dr. Valentine Ludwig. John M. Youngblood was of Tennessee birth. He was southern in type but like many other St. Louisans who came from Southern states, especially Tennessee and Kentucky, he took the Union side. When he went back to his native state during the war, he was the surgeon of a Missouri regiment of United States volunteers. After the war Dr. Youngblood's practice included free service to a great many poor people. When he died in 1879 there was presented the touching scene of his office thronged with men, women and children who had been befriended by him.

The grandfather of Dr. Mordecai Yarnall, although of old Quaker stock, fought under Commodore Perry and helped to gain the victory on Lake Erie. For his gallantry New York and Pennsylvania gave Lieutenant Yarnell medals and Virginia bestowed upon him a sword. After service in the Confederate army with Stonewall Jackson, Mordecai Yarnall came to St. Louis and joined the medical profession. Dr. Adolphus Schlossstein came to St. Louis in 1867, with not only the classical education of the gymnasium, but after having taken courses at several universities; he was fresh from study in the hospitals and practice as a surgeon in the German army. He practiced his profession and at the same time became interested with his brother, George Schlossstein, in the manufacture of window glass. The Schlossstein family was of Bavarian descent.

In the decade of 1880-1890 a new generation took up the traditions and carried forward the prestige of the medical profession of St. Louis. Medical education for which St. Louis had won widespread fame was still farther advanced. The St. Louis Post-Graduate School of Medicine, the first institution of the kind in the country, was established. Its purpose was to encourage the graduate to go on with his study and researches. A moving spirit in this development was Herman Tuholske, who had come from his home in Berlin, with a classical education in the gymnasium to enter upon professional life in St. Louis not long after the Civil war. Graduating from the Missouri Medical college, Dr. Tuholske perfected himself by study in the schools of London and the European capitals. He attracted much attention by the reforms he instituted as the physician in charge of the St. Louis dispensary. He went through epidemics with credit for his personal courage and professional skill. When he began to agitate the movement for advance in the standard of medical education in St. Louis he was joined by such men as Robinson, Michel, Steele, Hardaway, Glasgow, Spencer, Fischell and Engelmann. In response to this St. Louis movement the State of Missouri required three years' attendance upon lectures for license to practice.

St. Louis had at one time eleven medical colleges. Going east in 1893 to address the alumni of a medical college, the then chancellor of Washington University, Dr. W. S. Chaplin, gave this testimony to the progressiveness of medical education in St. Louis:

Some thirty years ago the faculty of one of these medical schools formed an organization which was a hard and fast agreement that they would turn over every dollar of profit to a fund, put it out of their control entirely and devote that fund to furthering medical education. As a result of this they built one of the very best educational buildings I know of. It has large laboratories; it has splendid lecture rooms. It has every feature of the most modern methods of teaching. And that has been built and equipped out of the self-sacrifice of members of the medical profession. I believe it is a lone example of such self-sacrifice. I know of no other profession that can boast of such an example; nor do I know of any other school in the medical profession that can show it.

Upon Dr. John Green, the chancellor bestowed, in large measure, the credit or the movement.

The St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons came into existence in 1879. The movement was of considerable strength and resulted in the erection of a modern college building. The Beaumont Medical college cultivated close relations with hospitals, the Alexian, St. Mary's and the Missouri Pacific. It had its origin with a group of younger members of the profession, desiring to spread the benefits of hospital experience. Marion-Sims Medical college was Upstarted in 1890 and the Rebecca hospital was established in connection with it. The Barnes Medical college was inaugurated with a board of trustees including some of the most prominent citizens of St. Louis. For this institution was erected a handsome five-story building on Garrison avenue and Chestnut street, very complete in appointments. The medical colleges of St. Louis have for several years graduated from 600 to 750 students annually.

Alfred Heacock, who came from Pennsylvania, after a few years' practice in Ohio and Indiana, lived to be the oldest practitioner in St. Louis. When he was eighty years of age, the St. Louis Medical society made him a member for life without payment of dues. In earlier years before the days of railroads, Dr. Heacock crossed the Mississippi by the upper ferry and attended patients in the American bottom and as far east as Collinsville, making the travel on horseback.

At a meeting of the Alumni Association of the Missouri Medical college, Professor C. O. Curtman, in 1895, introduced the X-ray discovery to the medical profession of St. Louis.

The surgeon-general who developed the Marine Hospital Service into its latter day importance was born in St. Louis. General Walter Wyman, son of Professor Edward Wyman, graduated at Amherst and at the St. Louis Medical college. He entered the Marine Hospital service as an assistant surgeon in charge of the St. Louis Marine hospital in 1876 and almost immediately began to attract more than local attention by his efforts to improve the conditions of the deck hands of western rivers. Congress was prompted by the movement which General Wyman fostered to pass a law for the better treatment of deckhands. Then came the enlargement of the Marine Hospital service to meet the problems of epidemics with government authority – first cholera, then yellow fever and plague. To General Wyman's fearlessness and intelligence the country has owed its escape from threatened visitations of contagious diseases. The surgeon-general's successful conduct of the service encouraged Congress to transfer, step by step, to this department the various government functions relating to the public health. The quarantine system grew into its effective status under General Wyman's investigations and recommendations. With the Spanish-American war, the service came into greatly increased responsibilities. It was extended over Cuba and Porto Rico. General Wyman aimed at control of the yellow fever situation in the West Indies and he achieved it. He promoted the establishment of a great sanitarium for the treatment of consumptives on the plains of New Mexico. The extension of American influence in the Pacific brought the study of leprosy, and of the bubonic plague within his jurisdiction. The greatest public health officer in the world today is a St. Louisan, born and bred.

The first successful operation of the Caesarean section performed in St. Louis or Missouri is credited to Dr. A. C. Bernays. This was in 1889. Dr. Bernays was a young man, in the thirties. He was the first American to receive at Heidelberg the degree of Doctor of Medicine "Summa cum laude." He became famous internationally for the originality of his surgical operations, many of which were classed as daring by the profession. His surgical experiences he published in a series of pamphlets bearing the title, "Chips from a Surgeon's Workshop."

"The students' friend," Dr. Robert Luedeking was called. He was a native St. Louisan. When he died in 1908, at the age of fifty-five, he had honored his profession and his city. The title bestowed upon him had been earned by his devotion to the cause of medical education. Dr. Luedeking received the very best of advantages at Heidelberg. He endeavored to advance the standards in his teaching which began with a professorship in the St. Louis Medical college and was concluded with several years of invaluable service as dean of the medical department of Washington University. Dr. Luedeking was more than an instructor, he was the adviser and helper of the young men who came to St. Louis to prepare themselves for the profession. Through Dr. Luedeking's efforts and influence, Adolphus Busch was inspired to lend his aid to the material increase of facilities for instruction in St. Louis –facilities which placed this city with the best of centers of medical education.

The most notable forward stride in medical education was taken by St. Louis in 1910. Washington University, through the president, Robert S. Brookings, and the chancellor, David F. Houston, announced the reorganization of the Medical Department in connection with a group of new hospitals. The plans contemplated expenditure of $5,000,000 for grounds, buildings and endowments. The initial impetus to this movement was given by contributions amounting to more than $2,000,000 by W. K. Bixby, Adolphus Busch, Edward Mallinckrodt and Robert S. Brookings. The inspiration of the plans was succinctly stated in this paragraph from the formal announcement by the Corporation of Washington University:

The greatest natural resource that any community has consists of its men and women, and there is no resource which so much needs conservation or whose conservation has been so much neglected in its larger aspects. It is difficult to see how any other educational department can so directly and profoundly influence the welfare of a great community as an effective medical department; and while other departments, such as agriculture, college and educational divisions have been fairly well developed, medical departments everywhere, not only in the West, but throughout the nation, have been comparatively neglected.

In May, 1911, the sites had been secured; the architects' plans for the buildings were ready. Chancellor Houston made this definite announcement:

St. Louis is to have a new, thoroughly efficient, modern general hospital, a new children 's hospital and a great, modern medical school. This is no dream; it is a reality. The school is in operation, with its reorganized staff and largely increased facilities. All obstacles to the prosecution of the hospital plans have been removed, and the erection of buildings will be begun as soon as the details have been perfected. The three institutions will work in the closest affiliation and, as far as service goes, will be one.

The three institutions will occupy adjoining tracts of land beautifully located at the east end of Forest Park, east and west of Euclid avenue, south of the Wabash railroad. The tract has a double front on Forest Park, and it would be difficult to find a more convenient or beautiful location in St. Louis. The site is sufficiently removed from the smoke of the city, yet sufficiently near the mass of population to make access easy.

On the tract will be erected the Robert A. Barnes Memorial General Hospital, with a building for a training school for nurses, the new building for the St. Louis Children's Hospital and an entirely equipped home for Washington University Medical School, consisting of a clinical building in close proximity to the hospitals, a pathological laboratory building, a laboratory building for biological chemistry, physiology, pharmacology and preventive medicine, a building for the anatomical department and a power plant for common service.

The Robert A. Barnes Memorial Hospital, facing south, will at the outset contain approximately 300 beds, with all the most modern arrangements not only for administrative service, but for scientific efficiency. The building and equipment will cost about a million dollars, and the hospital will begin work with at least a million dollars of endowment. It will be of modern, fireproof construction and will be as perfect for its purpose as the best architect and the best hospital expert in America can make it.

The St. Louis Children's Hospital, of adequate size and of equally modern construction, will be located on the southwestern corner of the tract, fronting on Forest Park, with a southwestern exposure. When completed it will be filled with patients at the time remaining in the present Children's Hospital, which is now working in affiliation with the Washington University Medical School.

The clinical and laboratory buildings of Washington University Medical School, with' their equipment, will cost in the neighborhood of $1,000,000, and to them, when they are completed, will be transferred the laboratories and the recently greatly extended equipment contained in the present university medical buildings.

The buildings of the three affiliated institutions, with their equipment, will therefore represent an investment of more than two and a quarter millions of dollars, and the operating expenses of the three will represent the income of a capital in excess of three million dollars.

The Academy of Medical and Surgical Sciences was one of the forms that the motive to raise the standard of the profession of medicine took. This association was formed in 1895 by Drs. James M. Hall, Wellington Adams, Emory Lamphear and others.

The coming of the Alexian Brotherhood to St. Louis was just fifty years ago. Five members of this order arrived here in 1869 to establish a monastery and a hospital. The institution has grown to possess buildings which cost $250,000, in which 1,500 patients are cared for yearly.

Dr. John T. Temple, a Virginian by birth, a graduate in medicine of the University of Maryland, introduced the practice of Homeopathy in St. Louis in 1844. He participated in the founding of the Homeopathic Medical college of Missouri in 1857. Dr. J. T. Vastine came from Pennsylvania in 1849. His son, Dr. Charles Vastine, succeeded him. A homeopathic physician who early achieved general acquaintance in St. Louis was Dr. Thomas Griswold Comstock. He was descended from one of the Mayflower families which settled in Connecticut. Dr. Comstock studied and graduated in 1849 at the St. Louis Medical college. In 1851 he went to Philadelphia and studied Homeopathy. He practiced a short time in St. Louis and then went to Europe, where he spent several years in the medical schools of the continent. Returning to St. Louis in 1857. Dr. Comstock, while classed as a homeopathic physician, was an independent practitioner. He was early recognized as one of the most learned and best read men in the medical profession of the city. He was perhaps the most proficient linguist here for years. The Comstock residence, on Fourteenth and Washington avenue, contained some of the choicest works of art as well as one of the finest private libraries in St. Louis. Riding behind one of the best carriage teams of the city was Dr. Comstock's recreation.

Dr. Augustus H. Schott was an infant in arms when his parents left Hanover, Germany, in 1851, to come to America. He was educated at Shurtleff college and at the Homeopathic Medical College of Missouri. After several years' practice at Alton he came to St. Louis and soon after took a professorship in the Homeopathic Medical college. Dr. E. C. Franklin came from Dubuque, Iowa, in 1857, and soon after joined the coterie engaged in carrying on the Homeopathic college. About the same time Dr. William Tod Helmuth came from Philadelphia. Helmuth, a dozen years later, went from St. Louis to become famous as a surgeon in New York. Franklin joined the faculty of the Homeopathic medical department of the University of Michigan. Dr. George S. Walker was of Pennsylvania birth. He did not become a homeopathic practitioner until eight years after he made his residence in St. Louis in 1852.

The Eclectic school of medicine in 1873 founded the American Medical college. The leaders in the movement were George C. Pitzer, John W. Thrailkill, Jacob S. Merrell, Albert Merrell and W. V. Rutledge. The college graduated about 1,000 students.

Dentists began to announce their presence in St. Louis within two years after the first newspaper was published. One of them advertised in 1809 that he was prepared to do "extracting, cleaning, plugging and strengthening the teeth." With the coming of Dr. Isaiah Forbes in 1837 the dental profession took on a new character. The year after he came Dr. Forbes constructed upon plans of his own a dental chair which was a great improvement on those in use. A dental society was formed. A dental journal was published. St. Louis dentists advanced new ideas and invented new methods. Dr. John S. Clark of St. Louis was one of the first, if not the first, in the country to use rolled cylinders of gold foil for filling teeth.

One of the most noted fathers of the dental profession in St. Louis was Henry J. McKellops, a New Yorker, who came here in 1840. He was a page in the Missouri Legislature and with the money thus earned attended the State University at Columbia. He became famous in his profession all over the world as the introducer of that instrument of torture – the mallet – to pound into solidity the fillings. That was over fifty years ago. At the time, the profession was not organized. Dr. McKellops led in a movement which established national, state and local associations of dentists throughout the country. In his years of travel and investigation he assembled what was regarded as the most complete dental library in the world.

The Morrisons, brothers, became noted among dentists in 1870-80. Dr. James Morrison invented a dental chair of iron with a wonderful range of motions, which came into quite general use. He devoted a great deal of attention to a dental engine. William N. Morrison contributed to the science of dentistry some valuable ideas in crown work.

The Missouri Dental college was organized in 1866. It required the students to take certain regular courses of study in a medical college in addition to the dental course. Other dental colleges adopted this St. Louis idea. Dr. Forbes was the first president of the dental college. Down to the present day the dental profession of St. Louis has maintained the progressive spirit and the high standards which characterized these pioneers. In 1909 the American Dental association, the organization representing the profession throughout the country, looked to St. Louis for a president – electing to that high position Dr. Burton Lee Thorpe, not only a practitioner of repute but a contributor of national reputation to the literature of the profession.

Cancer is an ailment people do not like to talk about. In the winter of 1905 a St. Louis physician who was shut in with the grippe received a visit from two fellow practitioners. Conversation rather curiously drifted to the depressing topic of cancer. All three doctors were men with wide experience. They knew that cancer was one of the diseases which the usual hospital management does not welcome and for which facilities of treatment are not possessed by many institutions. They told experiences with cases where cancer patients were poor and where neglect in the earlier stages had meant a lingering death. The three doctors agreed that there was nothing St. Louis needed more, with its variety of eleemosynary institutions, than a free cancer hospital. When the case of grippe reached the convalescent stage, these doctors got together a small group of public spirited men and women in the parlors of Mrs. J. M. Franciscus. They went over the ground. They offered all of the medical service free, providing the laity would do the rest.

The next step, in February, 1905, was a little gathering in the offices of the Third National Bank. Those present were Charles H. Huttig, who became president of the organization formed, W. J. Kinsella, J. M. Franciscus, John Schroers, Doctors W. E. Fischel, H. G. Mudd, M. F. Engman, and George Gellhorn.

Then followed a canvass to see if five years of experiment would be justified. Some people gave cash contributions and others pledged themselves to annual payments for five years. It was agreed that "if a five years' test of our plans proves them impracticable, or at least not productive of the results desired, we should then be willing to close the establishment."

In 1910 the patients in the rented building were moved into a building owned by the association and equipped with facilities not only for treatment, but for research work upon skin and cancer diseases.

There is no other skin and cancer hospital in the United States which in laboratory, in wards, in operating rooms, in provision for clinics can compare with the St. Louis institution. Grounds and building and equipment represent $175,000. The management has undertaken to provide an endowment of $500,000 for maintenance and, in 1911, had raised more than one-third of the amount.

The temporary quarters for the five years' experiment provided beds for only a limited number of patients. Such was the pressure that some had to be accommodated with cots. The permanent hospital takes care of more than twice the number who could be accommodated in the temporary hospital. During the five years of trial no patient was permitted to pay anything. The doctors redeemed at par their promises to give service absolutely free. They agreed to continue to serve in the new hospital at the same rate, and the management proclaims that the rule of no pay from patients will be adhered to. Grounds and building were the gift of one man – George D. Barnard. The new hospital is known as "the George D. Barnard Free Skin and Cancer Hospital."

No institution in the world is better prepared than the new Barnard hospital to do pathological work. Even during the experimental or temporary period of five years the hospital accomplished results which attracted attention not only in this country but abroad. Notably has this been the case in the acetone treatment, which originated with a member of the staff of the St. Louis institution. This treatment is now generally accepted by the medical profession in the United States and in other countries as the best method of treating a certain class of cases.

When representatives of the Barnard Hospital went abroad they were welcomed and shown great consideration by such men as Dr. Basham of the London Cancer Hospital, which is the largest institution of the kind, and by Professor Czerny, who has given up a professorship of surgery at Heidelberg to devote himself to cancer research, endowing the hospital for cancer treatment at Heidelberg with $100,000. At Berlin the representatives of the Barnard Hospital were shown special courtesies and their work commented upon. One of the new ideas which has been tried with remarkable results in the St. Louis institution is the "fulguration" treatment. This consists in the application of a direct spark of electricity upon the surface of the cancer. The apparatus for the application was obtained in Europe by Doctor Frank J. Lutz, and was presented by him to the x-ray department of the Barnard Hospital.