THE ROYAL MINERAL WATER

HOSPITAL AT BATH

 

Romans loved bathing, and shortly after 50 AD they founded a bathing city, “Aquae Solis” (waters of the sun), on the river Avon in west England. Sumptuous baths, fed by hot springs emitting warm mineral waters, cleansed their bodies. When the Roman empire crumbled, 

Roman bath, restored    (by author)

the structures decayed, but the Anglo-Saxons who followed the Romans saw something else in the water: curative properties. Over time, a large number of the poor with various medical problems and disabilities sought relief from the sulfurous waters. Begging became widespread in the city and the well-heeled avoided it.

 Its reputation rose rapidly after a visit by Charles II in 1662 to allow his wife, Queen Catherine, to try the waters as a cure for her sterility. From then on, especially in the 18^th century, Bath developed into a major attraction, bringing the fashionable as well as the lame seeking the curative properties of the water. The splendid buildings of the architect John Woods and his son and the social activities organized by the dandy Richard (“Beau”) Nash transformed Bath into an elegant and wealthy city, offering sophisticated entertainment as well as relief of ailments. Alongside the socially prominent clientele, though, the lame and indigent remained fixtures in the city.

Pump Room, adjacent to Hospital, where the lame drink spring water, 1798. Now a restaurant and tea room. (Wikipedia)

The new combination of illness and wealth in Bath naturally attracted physicians. One of the earliest to arrive was Dr. William Oliver, educated in medicine at Cambridge and Leyden. He, Richard Nash, and Ralph Allen, another early organizer, seeing the number of  ill and lame arriving with meager resources, sought public subscription to found the General Hospital, later called the Royal Mineral Water Hospital. The hospital, designed by John Woods in Georgean style, opened in 1742 with Oliver as chief physician. The banker, Henry Hoare II, handled finances. Hospital treatments included bathing in the warm waters, drinking the waters, and a number of other remedies. Patients paid a modest entrance fee to cover clean clothing and travel home at discharge, but otherwise they received free care.

Painting of Dr. William Oliver (rt), Mr. Pierce, surgeon (cntr) examining a boy with leprosy, man 
with wrist drop (palsy), and woman with arthritis, Royal Mineral Water Hospital. By William
Hoare. (Courtesy ArtUK and NHS Foundation Trust)

Before long, disputes broke out between members of the medical staff over policies, fees, treatments, etc. Pamphlets were written, accusations made. Eventually, a triumvirate of Drs. Oliver, Abel Moysey, and Rice Charleton held power over the appointment of physicians to the hospital staff and other medical matters. Physicians who were denied appointments often retaliated with bitter articles or pamphlets against the triumvirate, but to little effect. The physician turned writer, Tobias Smollett, in Peregrine Pickle, satirized the situation, saying that the Bath physicians are “a class of animals who live in this place, like so many ravens hovering about a carcase” (sic). 

Dr. Moysey, the second of the triumvirate, had received his BM (bachelor of medicine) and MD (doctor of medicine) at Oxford, practiced briefly in Sherbourne, then moved to Bath, was appointed to the General Hospital in 1747, and enjoyed a successful practice. 

Dr. Rice Charleton, the third leader of the medical staff, also received his medical degrees at Oxford and was an enthusiastic

Dr. Rice Charleton by Gainsborough
(Photo by author)

believer in the healing power of the waters. He analyzed the water chemically, utilizing techniques published by the famous Anglo-Irish experimenter, Robert Boyle, and the prominent continental physician and professor of medicine and chemistry at the University of Leiden, Herman Boerhaave. Boerhaave was one of the first to emphasize chemistry in medical education.  

A few results of Charleton’s work indicate the level of analysis. The waters are alkaline, reacting with acids. Fine particles are attracted to loadstone, suggesting iron, and other particles give a blue flame on a red-hot poker (as sulfur does). Adding powdered oak gall to the water yields a deep purple color, suggesting iron (tannic acid in gall reacts with iron to produce the coloring). This mixture was an old way of making ink. The temperature of the main bath varied between 100-103 degrees utilizing “Fahrenheit’s mercurial thermometer.” Charleton attributes the heat in the waters to the presence of fire, a substance he considered an element, dissolved in water.

Charleton also recorded the restorative powers of the baths. For people with “apoplexy” (strokes) there was little improvement and patients with injuries and other disabilities showed variable results. The patients that showed most improvement were heavy cider drinkers, painters, and plumbers with upper limb peripheral nerve palsies and abdominal pain. Charleton correctly diagnosed them as victims of lead poisoning, generally related to their occupations. They improved when away from lead. Apple juice leached lead from the cider presses, sickening the cider drinkers.

Thomas Gainsborough, self-portrait
(Wikipedia)

One of Dr. Charleton’s patients was the painter, Thomas Gainsborough. What Gainsborough suffered from is unclear, but one illness seems to have been a prolonged fever and another an extended anxiety attack provoked by a visit to London, during which he, according to a letter, committed “a foolish act.” Gainsborough and his family also sought the services of Abel Moseley, known for his high fees and probably the person mentioned in a satirical book, Bath Characters, as “Dr. Fleecem.” Gainsborough painted full-length portraits of both doctors.

Dr. Abel Moysey by Gainsborough
(Wikimedia)

At the Hospital, finances were a constant problem. Because of budget restraints in early years, the number of patients under its roof varied roughly between 40 and 112, and donations were constantly sought. With more subscriptions, a second story was built, in place by the time Jane Austin arrived in Bath in 1797. Gradually the hospital became a center for treatment of rheumatic diseases and rehabilitation. In 2019, the aging building was vacated and services moved to a new building on the outskirts of Bath, the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases. There are plans to install a hotel at the original site, but, as yet, the old building remains unchanged.

 

Royal Mineral Water Hospital, Bath, today (by author)

SOURCES:

Foster, F, “Bath: Physicians and Literature.” Bull Med Libr Assoc 1944; 32: 2-22.

Jenkins, J, “Thomas Gainsborough’s Doctors.” J Med Biog 2005; 13: 58-63.

Van Opstal, M T, et al, “Physicians as the Firat Analytical Chemists: Gall Nut Extract Determination of Iron Ion (Fe²⁺) Concentration.”  J Chem Educat 2018; 95: 456-62.

Heywood, A, “A Trial of the Waters: The Treatment of Lead Poisoning.” Med History, 1990; Suppl No. 10, 82-101.

Hamilton, James, Gainsborough: A Portrait. 2017; Orion Books, U. K.

Powers, John C, Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts. 2012, Univ of Chicago Press.

Charleton, R, Three Tracts on Bath Water. 1774; R. Cruttwell, Printer.

Christopher, “The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseasses: History and Bath Medical Museum.” Available at: https://thephysiologist.org/2016/10/31/the-royal-national-hospital-for-rheumatic-diseases-history-and-bath-medical-museum/

 

Falconer, R W and Brabazon, A B, History of the Royal Mineral Water Hospital Bath, 3^rd ed., 1888, Charles Hallett.

A full index of past essays is available at: 

https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md

 

 

 

 THE FAME OF PADUA 

         In the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, students from all over Europe seeking the best education, especially in medicine, headed for the University of Padua. For those studying medicine, a degree from Padua was a mark of distinction. The revered names of Vesalius, Fabricius da Aquapendente, Giovanni Battista da Monte, Fracastoro, Galileo, and many others are associated with Padua. Why was the school such a magnet? What created the “lure of Padua,” as the scholar C. D. O’Malley put it?

         In 1222 a group of disaffected law students and faculty left the University of Bologna and formed a new university in Padua. This was not too uncommon at that time. Since student fees provided virtually all the income, students and faculty could move whenever circumstances proved burdensome. The new Paduan university added medical teaching in 1250. Almost from inception, the university had a reputation for tolerance of different beliefs and philosophies, largely ignoring clerical charges of heresy. The state of Venice assumed control of the University when it absorbed the town of Padua in 1440 and reinforced the secular attitude.

Palazzo Bo, seat of University since 1493. Anatomy theater is located here (Wikipedia)

         Padua lay about twenty miles from Venice, connected by river. Venice at the time was immensely wealthy, prospering from industry and from maritime trade with both the east and west.After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Greek-speaking people fled to Venice, bringing valuable works with them, including works of Galen and Hippocrates in the original Greek. Printing flourished in Venice and in 1469 the first book on pediatrics (and possibly the first printed book on any medical subject), by the Paduan professor Paolo Bagellardi, appeared in 1472. By 1515 there were over 493 printers, publishers, and booksellers in Venice. Vesalius’ atlas and subsequent anatomy texts relied on this nearby source.

         The university was closed in the early 1500s due to war conditions, but after 1517 Venice was in peace. It was a semi-

Main entrance to University of Padua 
(from Castiglione, Ann Med Hist)

republic. About 5% of the population (male noblemen over twenty-five) elected the senators who controlled legislation and most of the agencies. At the top was the elected “Doge,” the state representative. Religious tolerance was assured and the Inquisition kept at bay.

         After 1517, the university was managed by four senators, the Rifformatori, who set rules, salaries (some of the highest in Europe), and student fees (kept low due to Venetian subsidies). Local citizens could not hold the senior faculty positions (called “ordinary” chairs), a rule that attracted talented foreign professors. Vesalius, a twenty-three-year-old Belgian, was offered the chair of anatomy and surgery the day after he passed his examinations in 1537.

Andreas Vesalius, by Jan de Calcar
(Wikipedia)

Faculty from the Venetian area took the “extraordinary” chairs and faculty that failed to attract many students found themselves out of work. Lifetime tenure was unusual. Students could nominate professors for various chairs and elected a student “rector” that was involved in administrative decisions and sat in on examinations. 

         For medical students, degrees were granted in medicine (three years of study), medicine and philosophy (eight years), and surgery (five to eight years). By the latter sixteenth century, with the influx of many Protestants, the pope required swearing an oath to the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a degree. The University circumvented the restriction by examining Protestants in the home of a Count Palatine. Count Palatine was a title handed out liberally by the Holy Roman Emperor for favors and conferred the authority to grant university degrees. William Harvey obtained his degree in this manner. In 1616, the University founded a separate college only for Protestants, able to grant degrees. 

William Harvey (Wikipedia)

         Jewish students were also welcome and received degrees through this and other routes. They could wear the usual black caps of the other students rather than the yellow ones required in other institutions. Vesalius gave Hebrew names to a number of structures (along with Latin and Greek names). 

As foreign students increased, the University created “Nations,” separate residential groups containing students from their respective countries of origin. The school year began on October 18 (St. Luke’s day) and ended on August 15. The student was also required to spend a year with an approved practitioner. In 1543 Giambattista Da Monte began clinical rounds at the nearby St. Francis Hospital, considered a first in teaching methods. At examination time, the student had to pass a formal examination and defend a thesis. A student representative was present who could silence an examiner who showed personal animosity. 

In 1533 the University established the first European chair in botany (materia medica) to teach the medicinal uses of plants. Species were hard to identify from ancient sources such as

Diagram of first botanical garden (from book by
Materia Medica Professor Giacomo Cartusi)

Dioscorides, so in 1543 the University established the first botanical garden in Europe. Plants were imported, some from the recently discovered Americas, planted, and standardized. The garden continues today and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 The anatomy department had perhaps the highest reputation, heightened with the professorship of Vesalius, and maintained by professors Realdus Columbus, Gabriel Falloppius, and Fabricius ab Aquapendente, the last being the teacher of William Harvey. In spite of such excellence in anatomy, a permanent anatomy theater was not constructed until 1594, named the Fabricius Theater. Students were especially fond of Fabricius and flocked to his lectures.

Padua's anatomical theater (Wikipedia)

The University of Padua blossomed as the western hemisphere was discovered, Greek learning entered Venice from the east, and printing flourished. Venice provided a secular environment, generous financial support, an openness to foreign students and faculty, and a focus on investigations to advance knowledge. No wonder the University was a tantalizing lure to young medical, and other, scholars throughout Europe. By the seventeenth century a new focus on physiology brought Bologna into the spotlight, but that’s another story.

 

SOURCES:

 

Martin, J, “The Vesalian School of Anatomy in Renaissance Padua.” 1982; Books at Iowa 18 (1): 3-17 (available at: https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/bai/article/id/29087/)

 

Castiglione, A, “The Medical School at Padua and the Renaissance of Medicine.” 1935; Ann Med Hist 7: 214-27.

 

O’Malley, C D, “The Lure of Padua.” 1970; Medical History 14: 1-9.

 

Zampieri, F, et al, “Origin and Development of Modern Medicine at the University of Padua and the Role of the “Serenissima” Republic of Venice.” Global Cardiol Sci Practice 2013: 21 (available at: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.5339/gcsp.2013.21)

 

Tinker, M, “The Importance of Padua/Venice in Sixteenth Century Medicine.” Thesis for Master’s Degree, UCSF, 1980.

 

Massry, S G, et al, “Jewish Medicine and the University of Padua: Contribution of the Padua Graduate Toviah Cohen to Nephrology.” 1999; Amer J Nephrology 19: 213-221.

 

Whitteridge, G, William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood 1971, American Elsevier, N.Y.

 

A full index of past essays is available at: 

https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md

 

 

         

 DISCOVERING THE LYMPHATICS

 

         The widespread lymphatic vessels in the body are difficult to see and escaped proper study for centuries. These delicate, thin-walled vessels bring intestinally absorbed fat and tissue fluid from all parts of the body back to the general circulation, providing immunologic and antibacterial functions as they pass through numerous lymph nodes. The first to describe lymphatic vessels in some detail was Galen, the famous second-century Greek-Roman physician. During animal dissections he saw lymph nodes, that he considered “cushions” to protect organs, and described slender vessels running between abdominal lymph nodes and the intestines. In Galen’s concept of circulation, the liver manufactured blood that flowed in veins out to the intestines and other peripheral sites, nourishing them, while “spiritous” blood also flowed peripherally through arteries. The blood was absorbed in the periphery; it did not circulate back. 

         Andreas Vesalius, the great sixteenth century Belgian anatomist, still anchored to Galenic physiology, had a similar conception. Like Galen, he saw the tiny abdominal vessels without blood (lymphatics) leading to the liver, believing they connected to a portal vein that flowed bidirectionally, in part carrying chyle to the liver to aid in making blood. 

         By the early decades of the next century, experimentation to

Gaspare Aselli (Wikipedia)

establish knowledge, as opposed to genuflecting to ancient teachings, had come into vogue. In this vein, Gaspare Aselli, professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Pavia, on July 23, 1622, dissected a dog for two colleagues who wanted to see the “recurrent nerves.” Pressing down on the intestines to view the diaphragm, he noticed in the mesentery “numberless fine white cords.” He thought they were nerves but on cutting one he saw a milky fluid emerge. When he opened another dog and could not find the vessels he remembered that the first

Woodblock print from Aselli's 1627
De lactibus, sive lacteis venis, quarto vasorum
mesaraicorum dissertatio (Wikipedia)
The slender white lines are lymph vessels passing
through the mesentery.

dog had eaten before the dissection. He soon proved that the tiny vessels indeed carried fat-laden fluid (chyle), absorbed after meals, through the mesentery toward the liver where he assumed they terminated, supplying nutrients for blood formation according to Galen’s scheme.

         Aselli died three years later, at age 44. Two of his colleagues, Alessandro Tadini and Senatore Settala, published his findings in 1627, one year before William Harvey’s publication on the circulation of the blood, a publication that shed doubt on Galen’s teaching of the liver as the source of blood.

Did these chylous vessels exist in humans? Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a wealthy senator in Provence and supporter of science, “caused a man which was condemned to be hanged to be fed lustily and securely before sentence was pronounced….and an hour and a half after he was turned off, he caused the Body to be brought into the Anatomical Theater.” (Gassendi). There de Peiresc found similar chylous vessels emerging from the intestines.

Jan de Wale (Wikipedia)

The picture of the lymphatic circulation was still incomplete. The Dutch anatomist, Jan de Wale (Johannes Walaeus) established, using ligatures of portal and lymphatic vessels, that the portal veins carrying blood from the intestines were distinct from the lymphatic vessels carrying chyle. He communicated these findings to Thomas Bartholin, who published them in 1641 and in enlarged form in 1645 in his anatomy text, Institutiones Anatomicae. Bartholin was one of Europe’s most

Thomas Bartholin (Wikipedia)

distinguished anatomists, based in Copenhagen. 

The liver remained the perceived endpoint of lymphatic flow, however, until animal dissections by the French physician Jean Pecquet found that chylous lymph from the intestines actually bypasses the liver, runs to a sac that gathers lymph (the cisterna chyli) and then rises through the thorax via the thoracic duct, a vessel that carries the lymph to the bloodstream. In short, the liver is not nourished by lymph.

Illustration from Picquet's Experimenta Nova Anatomica showing the chyli receptaculum
(cisterna chyli)  labeled "I" and thoracic ducts above. (Internet Archive) Click on image to enlarge.

Thomas Bartholin extended these observations and summarized the findings in 1653 under the title Vasa Lymphatica, Nuper Hafniae in Animantibus inventa, et Hepatis Exsequiae. The last two words translate as “obsequies of the liver,” a piece of humor by which he meant to convey the death of Galen’s teaching of the liver as the source of blood. 

Bartholin's Vasa Lymphatica
(Internet Archive)

Unbeknownst to Bartholin and Pecquet, a Swedish medical student, Olof Rudbeck, while dissecting a calf, had noticed “whey-like fluid” emanating from its upper thorax. He eventually traced out much of the lymphatic system, including, for the first time, the myriad vessels from the periphery, again showing that no lymph drained into the liver. In April 1652 he demonstrated his findings before Queen Christine and in May defended a thesis on the subject, published in 1653. He learned about Bartholin’s publications later that year and in 1654 a Leiden publisher produced a book containing publications of Pecquet, Bartholin, and Rudbeck. Rudbeck claimed that for this book Bartholin had backdated his work to 1652 (It is not certain this is true). 

Olof Rudbeck (Wikipedia)

A priority dispute arose between Rudbeck and Bartholin, fought out bitterly in various pamphlets and publications. Bartholin largely abstained from the quarrel as his supporters fanned the flames. One scholar who has studied the controversy, Charles Ambrose, credits Pecquet with discovering that abdominal lymph vessels bypass the liver to the thorax and the bloodstream, and Rudbeck with the discovery of the wider system of lymphatic drainage. In Rudbeck’s day, the public presentation of a scientific finding, such as before the Queen, was viewed as a date of communication. Rudbeck was a gifted scholar who taught several subjects and at age 31 was appointed rector of the University in Upsala. He used the name vasa glandularum serosa to describe the lymphatic system, but Bartholin’s vasa lymphatica is the name that survived in English as lymphatic vessels. 

The wonders of the lymphatic system are still unfolding, in particular its immunological functions.

 

SOURCES:

 

Suy, R, et al, “The Discovery of Lymphatic System in the Seventeenth Century: Part I: the Early History.” 2016; Acta Chirurgica Belgica 116 (4): 260-66 and "Part II," 116 (5): 325-331.

Park, J and Riva, M, “Gaspare Aselli (1581-1625) and Lacteis Venis: Four Centuries from the Discovery of Lymphatic System.” 2023; Amer Surgeon 89 (6): 2325-8.

Gassendus, Petrus, The Life of the Renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius Lord of Peiresk, Senator of the Parliament at Aix. 1657, London.

Natale, G, et al, “Scholars and Scientists in the History of the Lymphatic System.” 2017; J Anatomy 231: 417-29.

Leeds, S, “Three Centuries of History of the Lymphatic System.” 1977; Surg Gyn Obs 144: 927-34.

Guerrini, A, “Experiments, Causation, and the Uses of Vivisection in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century.” 2013; J Hist Biology 46: 227-54.

Tonetti, L, “The Discovery of Lymphatic System as a Turning Point in Medical Knowledge: Aselli, Pecquet and the End of Hepatocentrism.” 2017; J Theoret Applied Vascular Research 2(2): 67-76.

Ambrose, C, “Immunology’s First Priority Dispute – An Account of the 17^th Century Rudbeck-Bartholin Feud.” 2006; Cellular Immunology 242: 1-8.

A full index of past essays is available at: 

https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

COCAINE AND EYE SURGERY

         The time was early September, the year 1884, the place the famous Allgemeine Krankenhaus (General Hospital) in Vienna. Two house officers, Sigmund Freud and Carl Koller, who occupied rooms on the same floor, were discussing cocaine. Freud, interested in neurology and psychiatry, had found it to be a remedy for depression and had used it liberally on himself to lift his mood. Both were

Carl Koller (Wikipedia)

aware that, placed on the tongue, it had a numbing effect, an old discovery. Freud had suggested recently to a friend, Leopold Königstein, a young ophthalmologist, that he try it locally in cases of trachoma. Königstein tried it but used a dilute solution mixed with alcohol, failing to relieve any symptoms.

       Freud had just published an extensive review of cocaine and its uses (he mentioned the anesthetic effect on skin and mucous membranes but did not suggest any medical use in that regard), entitled “Über Coca.” He was also involved, with the help of Joseph Breuer, in the treatment of Dr. Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, a physician addicted to morphine after suffering intense pain from neuromas complicating a thumb amputation. Based on reports from America of curing morphine addiction with cocaine, Freud and Breur attempted this therapy on Fleischl, though eventually with disastrous results. 

         Freud left Vienna in early September 1884, to visit his fiancée. Koller, intent on a career in ophthalmology, pondered the conversations on cocaine and suddenly decided to try its anesthetic

Sigmund Freud (Wikipedia)

effect on the eye. He went to the pathology laboratory, tried it on frog eyes, then on other animals, and finally on his own eyes and those of friends, finding in all cases complete anesthesia. Aware that the German Ophthalmologic Society was meeting soon in Heidelberg, and too poor to travel there on his own, Koller persuaded a friend, Josef Brettauer, to present his discovery. On September 15, 1884, Brettauer stunned the assembly as he exhibited a dog that remained indifferent while its cornea was pricked and rubbed by various instruments. 

Reports of this miracle flew around the globe. Henry D. Noyes, president of the American Ophthalmological Society, witnessed the event and reported it briefly in the Medical Record the following

Henry D. Noyes (Wikipedia)

month. Another attendee of the meeting was the rising American surgeon, William Halsted, who began investigating cocaine as a local anesthetic on himself, eventually succumbing to an addiction he could not shake. His colleague, Richard J. Hall, who had performed one of the first appendectomies, joined him in self-investigations. He also developed an addiction, giving up his position at the College of Physicians and Surgeons to practice surgery in Santa Barbara. He died there, ironically, of appendicitis. Halsted and Hall obtained their cocaine from Parke-Davis, the first pharmaceutical company to have a laboratory staffed by scientists. 

Herman Knapp, a German-born ophthalmologist in New York and founder of the Archives of Ophthalmology, not only praised cocaine’s use in eye surgery, he tried it in various other ways. He

William Halsted (Wikipedia)

injectied it into his urethra, after which he introduced silver nitrate (a treatment for gonorrhea) without pain. Ear, nose, throat specialists tried it successfully as a local anesthetic for their procedures. Ophthalmologists had used ether, of course, in surgery, but the after-effects, such as vomiting or restlessness, could endanger a recent eye operation. Globally, the price of cocaine shot up exponentially as patent medicine companies and tattoo parlors (to prevent pain) also made use of the drug.

Freud, on his return to Vienna, was chagrined that he had not thought one step further and tried it as a local anesthetic, either on the eye or elsewhere. Though Koller had made the breakthrough in Freud’s absence, Freud and Koller remained friends. Leopold Königstein, who had tried an inadequate cocaine preparation for trachoma, made a feeble attempt to claim credit, but Freud and the neuropathologist and psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg (who later received a Nobel Prize for treating neurosyphilis with malaria), persuaded him to retract his claim and credit Koller. Still later, Freud’s enthusiasm for cocaine turned to regret as its addictive qualities became more evident.

In spite of his instant fame, Koller’s future was insecure, for two reasons. He was Jewish and he had, in his daughter’s words, a difficult, tempestuous, personality. On top of that, a few months after his discovery, Carl had a fight with a colleague over the treatment of a hospital patient being admitted, for which he was challenged to a duel. Koller, though having no experience with foils, severely wounded his challenger. But he lost his chance at a university

Franz Donders (Wikipedia)

appointment since dueling was illegal. He managed to find a position in Utrecht, Holland, working with Franz C. Donders, creator of the tonometer and expert in the mechanism of accommodation, and Herman Snellen, creator of the Snellen eye charts used today (see essay of Aug 14, 2024). There he also befriended Willem Einthoven, father of the EKG. Two years later he was persuaded by Arthur Ewing, an American ophthalmologist whom he met in England, to move to America.

In New York, Koller established a thriving ophthalmology practice, married, and raised a family. According to his daughter, he regretted not having time for more research. His busy practice, an appointment to the Mount Sinai Hospital staff, and his duty as the first chief of ophthalmology at Montefiore Hospital occupied his time. Rewards came over the years, however, as he received numerous prizes for his discovery, including gold medals from the American Ophthalmological Society and the New York Academy of Medicine and the Kussmaul medal from the University of Heidelberg.

 

SOURCES:

 

Becker, H K (Koller’s daughter), “Carl Koller and Cocaine.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 1963; 32 (3): 309-373.

 

Goldberg, M F, “Cocaine: The First Local Anesthetic and the ‘Third Scourge of Humanity.’” AMA Arch Ophthalmology 1984; 102: 1443-47.

 

Markel, H, An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine. 2011, Pantheon Books.

 

Spillane, J F, “Discovering Cocaine: An Historical Perspective on Drug Development and Regulation.” Drug Informat J 1995; 29: 1519S-1528S.

 

Hall, R J, “Hydrochlorate of Cocaine.” N Y Medical J 1884; 40: 643-4.

 

Lopez-Valverde et al, “The Surgeons Halsted and Hall, Cocaine and the discovery of Dental Anesthesia by Nerve Blocking.” Brit Dental J 2011; 211 (10): 487-87.

 

A full index of past essays is available at: 

https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md

 

 

 

 

         

 

         

 

 

 

 

 

   THE GUNFIGHTER’S SURGEON:

  GEORGE E. GOODFELLOW

 

“On the night of January 14, 1889, I was called to see Mr. R. A. Clark of… who had been shot in a fight a few minutes before. I reached him about half an hour after the reception of the injury and found him with a gunshot wound of the abdomen, evidently bleeding to death…

It was midnight in a little mountain mining town. I was alone entirely, having no skilled assistance of any sort, therefore was compelled to depend for aid upon the willing friends who were present — these consisting mostly of hard-handed miners just from their work on account of the fight.

Without delay he was put upon a table in the large dining room of a restaurant; the anaesthetic administered by a barber; lamps held, hot water brought, and other assistance rendered by others. There being no time to lose, the abdomen was opened in the mesial line, from the sternum to the umbilicus, by a single sweeping cut. An immense quantity of blood poured out through the incision.”

So begins a report in the Southern California Practitioner by Dr. George E. Goodfellow, a surgeon in Tombstone, Arizona. The report includes five cases of gunshot wounds to the abdomen, four of whom survived, a remarkable record at the time.

George Goodfellow (Wikipedia)

Goodfellow was one of several doctors providing medical service to a gun-toting population in the silver-mining town of Tombstone. 

Goodfellow, son of a mining engineer, was born in Downieville, California, in 1855. After a year at the University of California he enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy but was expelled after a hazing incident. He read medicine briefly with a Pennsylvania doctor and received a medical diploma from the University of Wooster in Cleveland (now Wooster College) in 1877. After a brief stint practicing in Oakland, CA, and Prescott, Arizona, and possibly seeking more “action,” he moved to Tombstone, where he opened an office above the Crystal Palace Saloon in 1880. 

A silver strike three years earlier in vacant land had created a stampede for silver and by the time Goodfellow arrived about 2,000 people, primarily miners, supplemented by twelve “doctors” (only four had diplomas), populated the newly created town of Tombstone. Sharing space with the multiple saloons were three theaters, five churches, and a local scientific society. 

Tombstone in 1882 (Arizona Historical Society)

Men in Tombstone carried weapons, outlaws drifted in, and gunfights were especially frequent during 1881-3, a period Goodfellow called “our reign of terror.” Gunmen intending to kill generally aimed for the abdomen, where surgeons seldom dared to operate. Guns in the west were usually 44 to 45 caliber, larger than most guns in the east and more deadly. Goodfellow’s skills and reputation grew both from operating on multiple cases and from his own innovations. 

For abdominal wounds, Goodfellow sewed up tears in the intestinal wall, irrigated the abdomen generously with sterilized water, and followed the new “Lister method” of surgery, using sterilized instruments and carbolic acid spray in the operating area, a method to prevent infection that many surgeons resisted. Indeed, President Garfield, shot in 1881 while Goodfellow was in Tombstone, eventually died of infection after several “prominent” surgeons probed his wound with unwashed hands after dismounting from their horse. Goodfellow strongly advocated operating for abdominal gunshot wounds, advising that death was certain without surgery but might be avoided with it. He could not repair torn blood vessels and availability of transfusions and intravenous fluids was still in the future.

Goodfellow made another important observation. During a quarrel between two men, one shot the other in the chest with a 45 caliber Colt revolver at close range. The victim died quickly of a pierced heart and Goodfellow, who was also the town coroner, performed an autopsy. He wrote that from the wound “a silk handkerchief protruded, which I presumed had been stuffed in by some of his friends to prevent bleeding. I withdrew it and with it came the bullet. It was then seen that it had been carried in by the ball.” The bullet, he found, at six feet would pierce a four-inch plank of pine. He reported two further cases in which silk had not been pierced by a bullet. His discovery eventually led to the creation of bulletproof vests made from silk, worn by gangsters of the early 20^th century. Kevlar later replaced silk as a stronger material.

Reenactment of shootout at OK Corral (author's photograph)

Dr. Goodfellow had many adventures. As coroner, he autopsied the victims of the shoutout at the OK Corral, treated Wyatt Earp’s brother Virgil for multiple wounds and was present at the fatal shooting of Wyatt’s other brother, Morgan. He participated in the chase of Geronimo after his escape from a reservation and aided earthquake victims in nearby Mexico. Eventually, for a quieter life he moved to Tucson in 1891 as surgeon to a railroad.

Goodfellow performed a wide range of surgeries but perhaps most surprising is his interest in prostatic surgery. He was one of the first to develop a perineal approach to prostatectomy. He published on several cases and demonstrated his technique to Dr. Hugh Young at Johns Hopkins, one of the creators of the specialty of urology, who acknowledged its success.

During the Spanish-American War, Col. William Shafter brought him to Cuba as an aide, partly for his knowledge of Spanish. After the war he practiced in Los Angeles, then in San Francisco, and finally accepted a job as surgeon to the Southern Pacific Railroad in Mexico, where he died in 1910 of a progressive neuropathy.

         Donald Trunkey, a San Francisco trauma surgeon, has praised Dr. Goodfellow as the first civilian trauma surgeon. And urologists recognize him for popularizing a perineal approach to prostatectomy, though seldom practiced today.

 

 

SOURCES:

 

Goodfellow, G E, “Cases of Gunshot Wound of the Abdomen Treated by Operation” Southern Calif Practitioner 1889; 4 (5): 209-17.

 

Goodfellow, G E, “Note on the Impenetrability of Silk to Bullets” Southern Calif Practitioner 1887; 2: 95-8.

 

Goodfellow, G E “Perineal Prostatectomy” Occident Med Times 1901; 15 (11): 385-9.

 

Nation, E F, “George E. Goodfellow, M.D. (1855-1910): Gunfighter’s Surgeon and Urologist” Urology 1973; 11 (1): 85-92.

 

Trunkey, D D, “Doctor George Goodfellow, the First Civilian Trauma Surgeon” Surg Gyn Obst 1975; 141 (1): 97-104.

 

Quebbeman, F E, Medicine in Territorial Arizona. Thesis submitted 1966, Univ of Arizona.

 

Wesson, M B, “George E. Goodfellow, Frontier Surgeon and Soldier (1855-1910)” Ann Med Hist1933; 5(3): 236-245.

 

A full index of past essays is available at: 

https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md