History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

468 History of Medical Practice in IllinoisLevi A. Mease read medicine with his uncle, a physician of prominence.He later studied at Rush Medical College in Chicago, from which he receiveda diploma in1851, and practiced medicine in Freeport. Early inhis life, Dr. Mease began to collect medical books, and following the deathof his wife in the epidemic of cholera, he endeavored to collect all attainablepublications on that disease. He became an enthusiast also of the worksof the old masters, including those of Hippocrates and Galen, and gatheredabout 200 early printed works in medicine, many of them pertaining to itshistory. This "Mease Collection," later donated to Rush Medical Collegeand preserved in its library, illustrates the scholarship and learning of apioneer physician who collected these volumes and who took an intenseinterest in the traditions and development of his profession. 25A. E. Goodwin settled in Rockford, Illinois, in 1854. He was widelytraveled and had visited hospitals in many lands. "He was a close student,an incessant reader, and possessed one of the largest medical libraries inRockford." 5John Bartlett came to Chicago in 1862, specialized in obstetrics, andbecame professor of this subject at the Chicago Policlinic. The volumes onobstetrics—about 250 of them— in his extensive collection of books werelater presented to the John Crerar Library.Thomas Wesley Shastid, during the course of his education, acquired alove of philology and a knowledge of Latin and Greek which enabled himto read easily the most difficult of the classics in the original. He receivedhis M.D. from the University of Missouri in 1856 and practiced in Pittsfield,Illinois, to the end of his life. His son, Thomas Hall Shastid, an eminentophthalmologist, speaks of his father's collection of medical books. Theywere "housed in several bookcases that stood mostly in his office,"whilehis general library was in "two large bookcases in the sitting room, a crossoverflow from thesebetween a reception hall and a scholar's study. . . . Thewas packed in the lowest drawer of my mother's bureau." 26Robert W. Crothers graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1855,began practice at Canton in Fulton County, Illinois, and subsequentlymoved to Delavan in Tazewell County. He was described as a fearlessphysician, and a great reader who put forth every effort to keep up withhis profession. In his library were found "many valuable works." 5Isaac Newton Da?iforth "was the collector of books bearing on the Puritansand the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, of which he had probablythe best collection in Chicago. He also had a large number of old books25Bay, J.Christian: Dr. Levi A. Mease and the Mease Collection at Rush MedicalCollege, Chicago. Bull. Soc. Med. Hist., Chicago, vol. 3, 1923.28 Shastid, Thomas Hall: My Second Life. George Wahr, publisher, Ann Arbor, Michigan,1944.