History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

Medical Bacteriology 353"Dr. Fenger had never seen a microbe growing in nutrient material whenI showed him my "discoveries" in the County Hospital in 1884. I haveseen botanists run upon a long-sought plant and astronomers discover anew double star, but never one of them showed more childlike delightthan Doctor Fenger did when he saw my tubes of agar and of gelatin inwhich only a few hours before I had planted with a platinum needleinvisible infection from the infected wound or abscess of one of his patients."Doctor Fenger was always an enthusiastic investigator and displayed achildlike curiosity. He was incredulous and difficult to convince by thevery interest he felt and by the conviction he held and often expressedthat great phenomena were passing before us and through our hands,which we were too stupid and self-blinded to observe."In 1888 Holmes published a notable article on secondary mixed infectionin typhoid fever, in which he showed that apparent relapses may bedue to secondary infection. This paper, he wrote, was praised by HenryGradle. This article was followed by others on mixed infection in someacute infectious diseases of children and in scarlet fever. He urged greatercare in the isolation of typhoid fever patients and rightly, because at thattime patients in the Cook County Hospital with tuberculosis, pneumonia,typhoid fever and other grave diseases were treated side by side without anyspecial precautions. Holmes commented disappointedly on the negativisticattitude of conscientious and intelligent contemporary physicians towardbacteriologic teachings in those days. There was much talk, he said, aboutsewer gas as the cause of diphtheria and typhoid fever but only contemptuousreferences to the tubercle bacillus and other bacteria as causesof specific diseases. In 1890 he became "the first teacher of bacteriology inany medical school in Chicago" and organized a laboratory in the ChicagoMedical College, in which he trained special students in bacteriologicmethods. Adolph Gehrmann, the first bacteriologist in the Chicago healthdepartment, was one of his pupils. A report was published "from theBacteriological Laboratory of Chicago Medical College" on cultures ofStaphylococcus from an acute abscess in a tuberculous testicle. In practiceHolmes was a surgeon. A successful, stimulating teacher, he became an importantfactor in the introduction of improved methods of medical teaching,especially by laboratory work, as shown in his reorganization of thecurriculum in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, in thecreation and use of medical libraries and in the promotion of psychiatricresearch. He was a good writer and published many articles. He edited(inconjunction with Louis J. Mitchell) the first three volumes of the NorthAmerican Practitioner (1889-1891), which reflects well the new medicalspirit then stirring in Chicago.During these years bacteriology in Chicago dealt almost exclusively with