History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

CHAPTER IINTRODUCTIONBy DAVID J.DAVIS, M.D.OVERa century ago Drakexpublishedhis monumental work on diseasesof the Mississippi Valley. This was issued after years of traveland research, including extensive correspondence with physicians andother well-informed persons living in this region. His observations covereda wide variety of subjects related to health and disease:climate, weather,rainfall, temperature, fauna, flora, geology, soil, lakes, rivers, hills, valleys,swamps, forests, topography, winds, etc. He also included a discussion of theraces living in the region and the relations of the above factors to them.These extensive data concerned chiefly the infectious diseases as theywere known in the years 1840 to 1850. Much of the country was then primitive.Also identification of many diseases was definitely limited from lackof medical knowledge, especially of methods of diagnosis. Drake's observations,however, have been of great value historically and from the standpointof medical geography. His early data, especially on fevers, intestinaldisease, pulmonary afflictions, cholera and milk sickness, deserve commendation.In Illinois he traversed wide areas at the very time when manysuch afflictions reached their highest prevalence and when the IllinoisCountry was known widely as a "land of pestilence." He commented in detailon regions adjacent to the Kaskaskia, Illinois, Kankakee and RockRivers and the Lake Michigan Basin. He described the regional forests,especially along the river valleys, and their relation to the "Grand Prairie"which he said was the most extensive open prairie land east of the MississippiRiver. Comment was also made on the incidence of the autumnalfevers (malaria) in the various localities as reported to him by the manypioneer physicians he consulted along the way. His remarks about theChicago region and the topographical data given by him at that early dateare most intriguing.Drake's writings,the most comprehensive and authoritative contributionsto the practical medicine of the Central West, were made just at thebeginning of the period covered by this Volume, 1850 to 1900. In addition,his interesting and informative data and opinions on such subjects as lodgxDrake, Daniel: A Systematic Treatise Historical, Etiological and Practical on thePrincipal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America. Book I, 1850, Cincinnati,W. B. Smith & Co.; Book II, 1854, Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo & Co.3