Dr. Mutter's Marvels
Page 34
“Acknowledging the rare merits which belong to the work . . . to merit condemnation”: Transactions of the American Medical Association, Vol. IV (Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1851)
“an affected obscure style and a fondness for speculations . . . in any accredited authority”: Ibid.
“his fondness for what is speculative leads him often to prefer . . . by common acceptation”: Ibid.
“notice[d] also a disposition to exclusiveness, exhibited by taking . . . he would cherish”: Ibid.
“[h]owever valuable, suggestive, and instructive these chapters . . . to their seductions”: Ibid.
“Meigs was all his life a non-believer in the infectious nature . . . him in the face”: Autobiography of Samuel D. Gross
“fierce and consuming”: “Oliver Wendell Holmes” in Stanford University School of Medicine and the Predecessor Schools: An Historical Perspective, Chapter 5.2, http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap5/chap5-sect2.html
the destroyer of families: Ibid.
dreaded pestilence: Ibid.
published a controversial paper titled “The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever”: Ibid.
argued that the deadly infection was most often transmitted . . . by her own attendants: Ibid.
He ended the article by advocating the best techniques for preventing the disease’s spread: Ibid.
“the clarity and forcefulness” with which he addressed “both the . . . this devastating disease”: Ibid.
apparently because of a wound he received while performing the autopsy: Ibid.
the interval between being wounded and dying: Ibid.
Every single one of those women went on to develop puerperal fever: Ibid.
“The disease, known as Puerperal Fever, is so far contagious as . . . by physicians and nurses”: Ibid.
Holmes cited literature that supported his theory, though . . . published in British journals: Ibid.
did not stop the eminent obstetrician Charles D. Meigs . . . publicly decrying Holmes’s conclusion: Ibid.
particularly horrifying to Holmes, for during the course . . . right in the heart of Philadelphia: Ibid.
seventy-seven women whose births were attended by Dr. Rutter . . . women died from it: Ibid.
“a far greater number of such cases than any other practitioner in Philadelphia”: Ibid.
Meigs waved off any notion that Rutter could be responsible . . . such a large practice: Ibid.
Meigs had edited a publication on puerperal fever . . . communicable nature of the disease: Ibid.
in the face of a “raging epidemic of puerperal fever”: Ibid.
“grossly epidemic” proportion of victims in Dr. Rutter’s private practice . . . a “coincidence”: Ibid.
Meigs refused to accept the contagious nature of puerperal fever . . . on the matter: Ibid.
“I take no offense and attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel . . . in such a controversy”: Ibid.
“[I prefer] to attribute these cases [of puerperal fever] to accident . . . form any clear idea”: Ibid.
“as physicians, [they] could never be the minister of evil . . . virus to their parturient patients”: Ibid.
“an unknown contagion existed in the lying-in premises . . . an attendant of the mother”: Ibid.
the presence of an “unseen, transmissible agent” caused the disease: Ibid.
“I took my ground on the existing evidence before a little army . . . to support my position”: Ibid.
early proponents of the infectious nature of disease: Frederick B. Wagner Jr., M.D., ed., Thomas Jefferson University: Tradition and Heritage, 1989, http://jdc.jefferson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=wagner2
diseases—scarlet fever, consumption, measles, pneumonia . . . through human contact: Ibid.
these diseases were related to specific organisms: Ibid.
“minute spores and fungi”: Ibid.
gonorrhea and syphilis were caused by the same pathogen: Ibid.
“When gonorrhea and syphilis are produced in a patient . . . cannot produce the other disease”: Ibid.
professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard University . . . hold for thirty-five years: “Oliver Wendell Holmes”, http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap5/chap5-sect2.html
reprint the essay as a stand-alone publication titled Puerperal Fever, as a Private Pestilence: Ibid.
reprinted the work without the change of a word or syllable: Ibid.
a truth that Holmes felt “the commonest exercise of reason” should have illuminated: Ibid.
He detailed and deflated Meigs’s arguments against his theory . . . of believing any professor: Ibid.
“If I am wrong, let me be put down by such rebuke as no rash declaimer . . . Pennsylvania . . . : Ibid.
“Let the men who mould opinions look to it; if there is any . . . never forgive him”: Ibid.
——CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE——
startle them: Levis, “Memoir of Thomas Dent Mütter”
“As zealous as he was efficient”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia: Session of 1856–1857,” (1856): 31–32 (From the Jefferson Medical Archive)
he oversaw the treatment of more than 800 surgical cases . . . plastic surgeries, among others: Ibid.
hardly sufficient consolation to him for the sacrifice: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
Among the 215 graduates that year were the sons of two . . . colleague, Joseph Pancoast: “Part I: Jefferson Medical College 1855 to 1865 (pages 89–124)” in Frederick B. Wagner Jr., MD, and J. Woodrow Savacool, MD, eds., Thomas Jefferson University—A Chronological History and Alumni Directory, 1824–1990, 1992, Paper 17, http://jdc.jefferson.edu/wagner1/17
Squibb would spend over a year developing, creating, and testing . . . for distilling ether: Ibid.
were now filled with charts detailing temperatures, amounts, costs, and . . . of solutions: Ibid.
to wash away most of the impurities that plagued the current market’s . . . and redistillation: Ibid.
“ether of uniform strength by using steam”: Ibid.
“nothing short of the grossest carelessness or inattention . . . uniformity of the product”: Ibid.
he gave them to the world for free, publishing an article . . . American Journal of Pharmacy: Ibid.
first truly effective “ether mask” for use in surgery . . . ether surgery that vexed surgeons: Ibid.
“the amputation the way he thought his old professors . . . with improvements by Squibb”: Ibid.
he insisted on self-administering his own brand of ether . . . as long as he remained conscious: Ibid.
“marked friendship”: Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, ser. 3, vol. 25 (1903), ed. William Zentmayer (Philadelphia: College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 1903)
Lewis was invited by Mütter to join him during one of his summer trips to Paris and London: Ibid.
Mütter showed the young doctor the innovations and institutions . . . Lewis’s lifelong friends: Ibid.
In London, he saw the busy Hospital for Sick Children . . . Great Ormond Street: Ibid.
Lewis’s passion for this idea grew when he returned to the United States: Ibid.
Pennsylvania Hospital, where he saw the appallingly high mortality rate . . . treated there: Ibid.
cross infection, hospital-contracted diarrhea, and even neglect: History of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (From the official CHOP website): http://giving.chop.edu/site/PageNavigator/Gift_of_Childhood/About/childrens_hospital_history.html
in November 1855, Lewis helped open the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1903)
owing much to “the indefatigable watchfulness and care” of Dr. Lewis:
Ibid.
“Scarcely a day passed, regardless of the weather . . . welcomed him with shouts of joy”: Ibid.
altered his name slightly after receiving his medical degree: “10 Notable Jefferson Alumni,” Exhibition of Thomas Jefferson University Archives online: http://jeffline.tju.edu/SML/archives/exhibits/notable_alumni/index.html
Between 1865 and 1881, Finlay would write and publish ten papers on this devastating disease: Ibid.
His breakthrough would finally come in 1881, when he was able . . . transmitting yellow fever: Ibid.
countless lives throughout South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States: Ibid.
In the words of General Leonard Wood . . . “The confirmation . . . discovery of vaccination”: Ibid.
exodus of more than two hundred Southern medical students . . . the North if war broke out: “Part I: Jefferson Medical College 1855 to 1865” http://jdc.jefferson.edu/wagner1/17
“father of battlefield medicine”: L’éinelle C. Frederick, “Jonathan Letterman,” Pennsylvania Center for the Book: Biography Project, Spring 2010; http://www.pabook.li braries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Letterman__Jonathan.html
medical director of the Army of the Potomac: Ibid.
The Union Army had entered the war with only ninety-eight medical officers . . . of the war: Ibid.
supplies that were either almost exhausted or necessarily abandoned . . . by fatigue: Ibid.
Ambulance Corps—army-issued wagons and trains . . . for transporting medical supplies: Ibid.
more than three thousand injured soldiers . . . were left on the battlefield for three days: Ibid.
picked their pockets, stolen alcohol from the medical supplies, and left the injured to die: Ibid.
surgeons in the Union Army would be tested on their knowledge . . . reflected their skill level: Ibid.
he established field-dressing stations, where . . . according to the severity of their wounds: Ibid.
Letterman’s system of organizing patients into groups of those . . . would surely die: Ibid.
appointed surgeon in chief of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson’s . . . Stonewall Brigade: Kelly and Burrage, American Medical Biographies
highest-ranking officer in the medical corps of the Confederacy: Ibid.
became the U.S. assistant surgeon general, a position he held . . . Bragg’s army: “Part I: Jefferson Medical College 1846 to 1855,” http://jdc.jefferson.edu/wagner1/16
named the assistant surgeon to the 1st Infantry, United States Colored Troops . . . U.S. history: Granville P. Conn, M. M. D., History of the New Hampshire Surgeons in the War of Rebellion (Concord, NH: Ira C. Evans, Printers,1906)
President Lincoln’s call for seventy-five thousand volunteers . . . to form a regiment: Joseph Leasure (a lateral descendant of Col. Daniel Leasure), “Exploits of Dr. Leasure and Roundheads,” 100th Pennsylvania, Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment, aka “The Roundheads” website; www.100thpenn.com/drleasure.htm
Scotch-Irish regiment nicknamed the Roundheads who were celebrated . . . had won the war: Ibid.
“instruct[ing] his unit in the art of war while keeping . . . keen eye on sanitation and hygiene”: Ibid.
his methods were adopted by other commanders: Ibid.
Leasure could be found in the hospital tents, assisting the surgeons: Ibid.
“While there is life, there is hope”: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, L.L.D., Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, Vol. V (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1915)
“held on to his patients with a grip that seemed to challenge death . . . almost phenomenal”: Ibid.
continued to make frequent visits to the sick well into his eighty-ninth year: Ibid.
“look upon the coming of his carriage, as he flew along . . . in their scattered homes”: Samuel Atkins Eliot, A.M., D.D., ed., Biographical History of Massachusetts, Vol. 1 (Boston: Massachusetts Biographical Society, 1911)
such skill that within three months, Gage was not only walking and talking . . . back to work: Ibid.
When Gage died years later, the family gave the skull and . . . Harvard Medical School: Ibid.
“extraordinary vitality and the unconquerable will”: Ibid.
worked as a surgeon beside the trailblazing nurse Florence Nightingale: “10 Notable Jefferson Alumni”, http://jeffline.tju.edu/SML/archives/exhibits/notable_alumni/index.html
surgeon under Grant during the Siege of Vicksburg . . . medical director of the 13th Army Corps: Ibid.
surgeon for the Summit House Hospital in Philadelphia: Ibid.
presented the Pennsylvania state legislature with his version . . . fair and legal manner: Ibid.
Ghastly Act: Ibid.
a board was created to regulate the distribution of bodies to Pennsylvania schools: Ibid.
the demonstrator of anatomy at Jefferson, serving in that role . . . professor of anatomy: Ibid.
elected to be the first physician in charge of the newly established . . . (“married women”): “Part I: Jefferson Medical College 1846 to 1855” http://jdc.jefferson.edu/wagner1/16
Mütter’s principles of asepsis and antisepsis: Ibid.
Of the 2,444 deliveries recorded during Goodell’s time there, only six ended in death: Ibid.
“Philadelphia May 19th, 1856. I am compelled by the condition . . . Yours, Thomas D. Mütter”: Jefferson Medical College Minutes
Jefferson Medical College board of trustees received the letter . . . “long career of eminent usefulness”: Ibid.
board unanimously voted that “as a mark of the high estimation . . . Institution” . . . College: Ibid.
——CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX——
donated his piano to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane: Pennsylvania Hospital, Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases, Physician in Chief and Administrator’s Report . . . , Vols. 16–20 (1856)
“the usual osseous, nervous, vascular, muscular, ligamentotaxis . . . demonstration”: “Annual Announcement of Jefferson” (1847), http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jmc_catalogs/62
a large number of wet preparations (specimens in jars); diseased . . . wood, plaster, and wax: Ibid.
demonstrations in class, for it was so well curated for “illustrating . . . taught in the school”: Ibid.
which now consisted of about two thousand specimens: Ella N. Wade, “A Curator’s Story of the Mütter Museum and College Collections,” Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Ser. 4, vol. 42, no. 2 (October 1974)
“to advance the science of medicine and to thereby lessen human misery”: This mission statement is on the “College History” page of the “About Us” section at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia website; http://www.collegeofphysicians.org/about-us/college-history/
which always wanted to be seen as a place for medical professionals . . . science and an art: Ibid.
“for the services of a curator, for an honorarium for a yearly lecturer and . . . museum”: Wade, “A Curator’s Story”
Mütter had only one condition: that the college provide a fireproof building for his collection . . . four years: Ibid.
started a building fund in 1849—but despite their efforts . . . let alone the fireproof one: Ibid.
“rapidly failing health”: McCaw and Otis, Virginia Medical Journal (1859)
bequeath all his property of every description—“everything which I possess” . . . exception: Robert E. Wright, State Reporter, Pennsylvania State Reports, Vol. XXXVIII (Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, Law Booksellers, Publishers, and Importers, 1861)
“the arrangements entered into, but not completed, at the time of [his] departure for Europe”: Ibid.
“It was better to relinquish quickly one’s own terms”: Slatten, “Thomas Dent Mütter”
“On our arrival we were not obliged to go to a hotel . . . even
dinner was awaiting us”: Ibid.
where he could spend the winter in Nice: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
the winter of 1856 was one of “unusual severity” in Europe: Ibid.
“His old malady renewed its attacks . . . with its customary frequency”: Ibid.
publish in the popular journal Medical News: Transcribed from the files of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
“the basis of a future contract between the College”: Transcribed from the files of the Mütter Museum
“advantageous to both parties”: Ibid.
“It will be seen from the foregoing that I have in every way attempted . . . professional life”: Ibid.
“Linen for Mary, Laudanum for me!”: Alsop Family Papers, Yale University Library
“weary with the endless torture of disease”: McCaw and Otis, Virginia Medical Journal (1859)
protracted residence abroad brought “no relief to the malad[ies]”: Ibid.
“only remedy [to his condition] was to be its own last and fatal attack”: Ibid.
those close to him sensed a growing impatience: Slatten, “Thomas Dent Mütter”
“feeble and dejected, with the graven lines of pain furrowed deeply on his brow”: Levis, “Memoir of Thomas Dent Mütter”
“Conspicuous from his bright and manly bearing, which . . . former associations”: Pancoast, A Discourse Commemorative
had recently lost a child: Carter Papers
“My dear old friend . . . “Ever since my arrival in this country I have . . . to you at once”: Ibid.
“It appears our heavenly father in his wisdom does by loss and . . . I love best in the world”: Ibid.
“Now that I feel the approach of night . . . I know that soon I must lie down . . . sorrows”: Ibid.
An Article of Agreement finalizing the organization’s relationship . . . the Mütter Museum: Article of Agreement between T. D. Mutter and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia with Extracts from Exemplification of Deed of Trust (Philadelphia: Collins, Printer)
—— CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN——
“This kind and Christian heart, this generous . . . there will be many to regret his loss”: McCaw and Otis, Virginia Medical Journal (1859)