History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

CHAPTER XIXHISTORY OF THEANATOMY LAWS IN ILLINOISDURING THE 19TH CENTURY*By OTTO F. KAMPMEIER, Ph.D., M.D.fFORa proper perspective of the subject here considered itseems necessaryto project it on the background of the early political history of thestate. This can be sketched briefly with lines that fit best our purpose. Thevoyages of Father Marquette and Joliet in the country of the IllinoisIndiansin 1673; the explorations of La Salle in 1680; the destruction of thegreat Illini village of "Cascashias" 1 in the same year and the almost totalannihilation of its inhabitants and their French allies under Tonti by theIroquois; the founding of the second Kaskaskia 2 soon after in the 'AmericanBottom'; the attempts of Louis XIV and his agents to exploit the territoryto which the French laid claim; the "Mississippi Bubble" in 1719,this greatest of swindles in financial history; the revival of colonial expansionuntil the French and English Wars and the signing of the treaty in1763; the eight years of British occupation before George Rogers Clarkduring the American Revolution won a stubborn hold on the NorthwestTerritory for the United States;the final renunciation of this territory byGreat Britain in 1794— all these events pass in review before the personfamiliar with the history of Illinois.Many documents and records have been preserved which throw lightupon the practice of medicine in the lawless period between the Revolutionand the beginning of the 19th century. During this period the for-* Submitted for publication, March, 1954. This chapter is an excerpt of a partly completedwork On the History of Anatomy in Illinois in the 19th Century.f For nearly thirty years, Dr. Kampmeier was Professor and Head of the Department ofAnatomy at the University of Illinois. Since 1953, he has had the same positions at theSchool of Medicine, CME, Loma Linda, California. He early acquired the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy at Princeton University and later took an M.D. at the Universityof Munich, Germany. Some years ago he spent a year or more in Egypt and the adjacentOrient. His anatomical museum at the University of Illinois is replete with historicalillustrations and reminders of medical art.—Editor*Near Starved Rock and the site of the present town of Ottawa on the Illinois River.2Where the Okaw (now Kaskaskia) River flows into the Mississippi about 55 milessouth of St. Louis.361