Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

attention was directed to the effects of mercury as a remedy, yet he neither saw nor heard of any cases of salivation.

Drs. Judkins and Comegys, who had acted as Sanitary Inspectors for New York City and vicinity, saw no cases of salivation or gangrene.

Dr. Sexton, who had been over a year in the army of Western Virginia, had known of no abuses of the remedy.

Letters from Louisville, and other information, corroborated the above statements.

L. M. LAWSON, M. D.,

W. D. DAVIS, M. D.,

Secretary.

Chairman.

-[Cincinnati Times.

(What the New York Citizen said on the subject, July 1, 1865.),

DUTY OF THE HOUR.

SURGEON JOHN J. CRAVEN, DOCTOR TO JEFF. DAVIS. DR. JOHN J. CRAVEN'S ACTION IN THE MATTER.-If Mr. Davis thought, when rejecting the services of two surgeons from the New England States, and selecting Dr. Craven, of whom he is said to have known nothing, but as of a resident of New Jersey-that the doctor was a man of the peculiar "copperhead faith" recently so unhappily popular in the kingdom of Camden and Amboy-then indeed was his late Excellency of Richmond very egregiously mistaken; whereas, if he only wanted a very excellent, kind, skilful and conscientious medical attendant, he probably never made a better choice in his life. Dr. Craven belongs to the illuminati of the politically benighted region from which he hails; and has been ever since the war-and I suspect from some years before it--a very vigorous confessor of the anti-slavery creed. He is a gentleman about five feet eight inches high; from forty-five to fortyeight years of age; rather spare of habit, though a vigorous follower of field sports-who should, by the way, be made to contribute to that department of your paper; exceedingly good looking, though growing rather gray; with delicately chiselled, pure Roman features, set off to advantage by military side whiskers and mous

tache; a voice of excellent modulation; manners of great courtesy and polish; and altogether, perhaps, as favorable a specimen of the genus "Surgeon of Volunteers "-infinitely superior in many cases to the allopathic Molochs of the regular army-as you could scare up in a day's walk. He is a devotee of science in all its branches, and more fully fills my ideal of a savan than any other medical man it had been my luck to meet in the army. He was the associate of Professor Morse in the first experiments of electric telegraphing; and was also the partner of Col. Sam. Colt in a torpedo invention for blowing up ships. Every spare moment of his time was employed in making collections of rare insects, fishes, herbs and geological specimens for his own or the Smithsonian museum. When a very scoundrelly deserter, convicted of going over to the enemy and other crimes too abominable to be mentioned, was "shot to death with musketry" in pursuance of his sentence, Dr. Craven obtained the privilege of skinning him and tanning his hide-the skin itself, tattooed all over while the fellow was a sailor, with pictures too blasphemously and obscenely horrible for contemplation, being a dreadful commentary on the subsequent crimes of which the soul therein dwelling had been greedily guilty. On his breast was our Saviour, suspended on the cross, tattooed in various colors; and on each side of it men and women-and even worse than this-in every conceivable attitude of public shame and lust. It was so, also, I have heard-for I did not see the execution over all the rest of his body; and certainly such a hide, with the eighteen holes in it, which nine bullets entered and passed through, is no bad commentary on such a life as was led by this chief of villains.

TORCH LIGHT BURIAL

OF THE LATE SURGEON GENERAL HAMMOND.

When the order of Surgeon General Hammond was issued, directing that the use of calomel and mercury in the army should forever cease, Surgeon Craven hailed me one day as I was riding past his depot. "Come in," he cried, "and see the sainted dead in their coffins."

As he did not look melancholy, I dismounted with no un

pleasant anticipations, and entered the large wooden shanty in which the medicines of the department are stored for distribution.

On the long and roughly hewn pine table, which ran down the middle of the building, were two about half sized coffins painted in decorous black, and with card board plates on their faces bearing the following, or something like the following, inscriptions: "Sacred to the memory of Blue Pill Calomel, Esq., a useful though much abused member of the Pharmacopeian Society of Therapeutic Agents while living, who came to his sudden and lamented end on such a day, such a month, such a year"-the date of the Surgeon General's order "in consequence of a mortal blow received at the hands of Brigadier General Hammond, Surgeon General, U. S. Army. All right thinking sons of Esculapius lament his loss, and out of respect to his memory, the whole medical corps of the Department of the South have resolved to wear crape on their left arms and drink their claret without ice for the next thirty days."

There," said Craven, when I had perused this touching epitaph, "What do you think of it? I have placed within the coffin every grain of the prohibited drugs; and at midnight, if you choose to come, we shall have a grand torch light funeral and bury the sad remains of our murdered Blue Pill Calomel, Esq.,-also burying his murderer at the same time, and in a grave not distant."

Thus saying, he called my attention to the inscription on the other coffin, which ran about as follows: "Sacred to the memory of Brig. Gen. Hammond, Surgeon General, U. S. Army, who met a rapid and not lamented death in consequence of having over-exerted himself on such a day, such a month of such a year"-date of his General Order abolishing calomel-" in an effort which was unhappily only too successful to deprive of life Blue Pill Calomel, Esq., a respected therapeutic agent of much efficiency and virtue when properly used. It is expected that certain prominent members of the sanitary commission and the whole corps of female nurses in military hospitals, will wear mourning around their left eyes for the next thirty days, in honor of the dear departed."

[Dr. Hammond to be continued.]

At the time this was written, Governor Todd, of Ohio, had issued a call for more surgeons for the army. Surgeon General

Webber, of Ohio, wished to obtain the same without allowing Eclectic surgeons in, to which Dr. Newton wrote the following:

To G. E. C. WEBBER, M. D.,

Surgeon General of Ohio.

CINCINNATI, August 4, 1862.

DEAR SIR: After reading your address to the medical profession of Ohio, dated July 30, 1862, I am disposed to ask you a few questions, claiming, as I do, that I am as deeply interested in sustaining the Government, and as anxious to see our noble and patriotic army provided with good surgeons, as yourself.

Why would not a simple appeal to the profession, setting forth the real necessity of an immediate response from it, answer? Why was it that the surgeon general of the great State of Ohio, at this particular time, should so far forget the dignified and honorable position he occupies as to make such foolish threats to members of a profession who have already done so much in this war, as is contained in the following paragraph?

"Will the profession at home remain dormant, and permit this confidence to be shaken, and their reputation tarnished, by compelling the executive of our State to make appointments to the medical staff of our gallant army, of miserable quacks and mountebanks, under whatever form and name they may present themselves? These pretenders appreciate the reputation of Ohio surgeons, and the honor of a position in their midst, and spare no intrigue or subterfuge to worm themselves among them?"

I discover two distinct points in the above extract. First, if the old school men do not come and submit to what Governor Tod, in his proclamation of July 8, 1862, calls a "School boy Examination," by his Board of Medical Examiners, that Governor Tod will have to appoint surgeons and physicians outside of the old school ranks, all of whom you, Dr. Webber, call "miserable quacks and mountebanks."

The second point is, that "these pretenders" are trying to make themselves honorable by being associated with the old school men in the army. Now, doctor, allow me to quote a paragraph from one of the special correspondents of the Cincinnati Daily Times, of July 2, 1862, from Columbus, in reference to the board

for the examination of disabled and wounded soldiers, in session at Camp Chase. After speaking of the condition of many officers and soldiers presented, the correspondent adds: "Some present themselves who have been under the hands of miserable quacks, with their wounds in an almost mortifying state." How can doctors who have passed the board of medical examiners be considered "miserable quacks?" As your board has confined itself in its appointments exclusively to members of the old, or regular, school of physic, these, therefore, according to your own showing, must be "regular quacks."

I have yet to learn that a medical graduate of the Eclectic or any other regularly chartered medical college has to become associated with allopathic physicians to secure an "honorable position" in society, or to be considered a good loyal citizen, or a good physician and surgeon. I can inform you that while members of other schools of medicine in Ohio have labored to obtain positions in the army, it has been for the purpose of rendering their portion of medical aid to our brave men in the army, and not to increase their practice, or be made more respectable by the association, as they neither required nor desired an association with the army to attain either of these objects.

Society has made no distinction, either in a social or professional view, between members of different medical schools.

The whole State will agree upon one point, which is this, that while there is at this time an actual demand for over one hundred and fifty surgeons and physicians to serve the army already in the field, exclusive of the new regiments forming, you, holding the position you do, entirely unauthorized by any State or congressional law, refuse to admit to examination hundreds among the very best men of the State, because they know they can treat disease successfully without bleeding, blistering, mercurializing, and the use of other means peculiar to old physic, while you and those of your faith think otherwise.

The demand at this time for army physicians and surgeons is large; it was telegraphed from Washington on the 31st July that there were vacancies for forty surgeons and one hundred and twenty assistant surgeons. Why is this great demand at this time? and how much will it be augmented by the time the

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »