Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-07-18
A LETTER FROM Dr.. W. h.
SEARl.tS.

Mr.. EDITOR:
After an absence of twenty years
from your city, the writer has come
back for short time with his wife to
breathe the pine odors and hear the
rushing waters and live again the scenes
that seem but yesterday.
Said gentleman to me recently who
had just come from Wausau ut is
the most beautiful spot of city ever
saw" Yes, so it seemed to me forty
years ago. How often | have come out
of the darkness and the dense forest at
night to suddenly look upon the town
cleaning with light like sunburst.
How the roar of the falls greeted me
and the wild scream of thousand
saws Who of the older inhabitants
will ever forget those by gone days that
now creep with singing cadences upon
the heart strings Most of the old land
marks are gone and in their places |
see beautiful, modern city. The
many strange names and faces make
me wonder who are left amongst the
people when we and Wausau were
young.
In 1862 came here to teach the vii
lage school in the new white building
away out among the logs and stumps.
1t was then a place of 500 people. /
shall never forget that school year
among young people scarcely younger
than myself. The Singles and Ringles,
the Mansions and Alexanders and Mitch
ellis and Blairs, the Thayers, Bradfords
and Babcocks, the Slossons and Stod-
dards and Staffords and Poors, and
Paffs and Kickbusc and Gowens, Will
sons and Mil'ards, Coreys, Chubbucks
and many others l would like to men,
| ton.
Time has dealt well with most of
them. Chas. Poor gained immortal
1 life at Kennesaw mountain.
How your schools have broadened
under the masterful hands of your own
John and Karl, and the educational
public spirit unsurpassed in this
state. | discovered the latter when
he was a kid, and pounded away
at his father to educate him. Rev.
| Wharton discovered him later.
For thirteen years | worked in
another field in your city, face to face
and heart to heart with the people,
varied by long horseback rides OF
twenty-five to fifty miles through dense
woods and windfalls, and swamps and
snow drifts, heat and cold. Then
there was the fearful accidents in mill
and camp to face, and outbreaks of
smallpox aud diseases in every form
| met with many failures and some
victories. The climax of my work
came in the spring of 1878, when GER
ebro spinal meningitis was epidemic in
Marathon county. 1t was prevalent
further south and the mortality was
fearful. Foreseeing its coming to Wau
sau, / slipped away to Chicago for a
few days to get ready for it. | had
barely reached home when au urgent
call in the night came from a settler
several miles beyond Marathon City.
1t was a horseback ride in those days.
Many will remember that fierce going
horse and rider. They were insepara-
BILE. 1t proved to be case of this dis
ease. The young man died, but right
there ! planned my treatment for the
future and neynr changed it. In the
heighth OF the epidemic, Miss Anna
Stafford was taken and the people held
their breath. DR.. Thayer, then of
Brandon, happened in town and togeth-
er we pulled and won out. The people
breathed easy again. / saw strong
men bent as rigid as iron stretched on
beds of agony before the storm passed
by. At the finish my record showed
that | had treated seventy cases and
lost thirteen. The same disease is now
prevalent with loss of fifty per cent
My wife says only spent two nights in
bed in six weeks and she had to stand
off the calls while l slept. This is the
first time | have ever brought this to
public notice.
He was my ideal. He neves stopped to
count the cost. Other mems failures
was his opportunity. The sick rested
| wnen he came. There was something
in his presence that made them live
again. He was strong, clear, deliber-
ate and inflexible as death itself, and
how often he won in its presence Here
is where he gained his greatest victor
| les. He lies buried in Colorado, but in
this city is where he ought to sleep. He
belongs to the heroic period of Wausau.
But what wonders my profession has
wrought for you in these years. We
deal with microbes and antiseptics
now, while the health officer is held to
strict account if he does not promptly
suppress contagion and infection.
was your first health officer, but iC had
little meaning then. The Jap mas
demonstrated on the grandest scale the
world ever saw, that it is not necessary
to have typhoid fever, and still more
wonderful that vodka and a canteen
4
ed by nature. AS goes the doctors so
goes the world, as regards the health of
the individual and the mass. The
demonstration is complete. The bow
of promise is in the sky glorified by
radiance out of heaven itself. The days
of Uhe reign of alcohol are numbered,
both as medicine and a beverage.
DR.. Harper is recovered of internal
cancer, which the knife did not dare to
touch. Tubercular diseases are being
run to earth, and now the long and
painful cry of the race for more life and
better is about to be answered. A hun
dred years is in sight for every well or
dered life.
/ | bring you r-4se lad tidings, but
which you already know, Though your