History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

Internal Medicine 149With the discovery of bacteria, there was a shift in medical attentionfrom therapeutics to etiology, from cures to causes, which explained in partthe rapid growth of homeopathy and other sects in the latter part of thenineteenth century. The patient was more interested in cures.Goiter seems to have been recognized in our region in the middle of thenineteenth century. At the turn of the century this area was described as agoiter belt.* # *In the Bulletin of the Society of Medical History of Chicago, June 1946,Dr. Carl E. Black of Jacksonville, wrote on "Medical Practice in IllinoisBefore Hard Roads." Following are some interesting excerpts:"I am just a plain country surgeon, who has spent all his life in a small city ofcentral Illinois and who has been associated with all sorts of country doctors—not a few of them real pioneers. They have been most interesting objects of studyfor me for years."Often they surprise us by their acute observations. This is illustrated by thefollowing case. One of these early doctors, who was short on book learning butlong on observation, telephoned one morning that he was sending to me at thehospital a patient with 'double ruptured tubal pregnancy.' I asked him how hearrived at that diagnosis. He said that the 'left tube ruptured yesterday morningat 10 o'clock and die right tube this morning at 8 o'clock.' The patient came,and when I operated I found that the physician was exactly correct in his diagnosis.The patient made a good recovery. The early physicians were practical men,who knew how to adapt themselves to their surroundings and environment for thebenefit of their fellow men."Please do not look on me as a historian. I am just one of the persons who likesto know what our colleagues of old did and how they did it; one who likes togather together the little things, which the real historians later mold into thebigger things of history."My father (Dr. G. V. Black) was a pioneer doctor and dentist, and my preceptorwas a great pioneer surgeon who taught anatomy and surgery in the firstmedical school in Illinois (Medical Department of Illinois College, 1843) atJacksonville, Illinois. . . ."Dr. David Prince was one of a group of these early doctors in central Illinoiswho saw the necessity of a local medical school, where the doctors of thefuture, so much needed by the early settlers, could be taught and trained. EvenSt. Louis then was a long way off by river boat or on horseback. And Chicagowas, as yet, only a dot on the shore of a great lake. . . ."This era in medicine in Central Illinois may be roughly divided into days ofhorseback and bridle paths, horse and buggy, automobile, dirt road and hard road."I have often said that there is no town or village within 50 miles of my homeat Jacksonville to which I have not driven with horses. At times I went part wayon a train and, obtaining a team at a local livery stable, continued to the end ofmy journey. There are many of our young doctors of today who know nothingabout the livery stable, that indispensable aid to the early-day doctors.