The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-02-07
American Medical
Men Now Rank Among
Best in World

The American hospitals and anbu-
lance organizations, manned by
American surgeons and nurses, have
made an enviabIe record in the pres
ent war, and have brought from Eu-
ropean authorities the admission that
the practitioners of the healing art
in the United States and Canada now
rank among the best in the world. In
view of the achievements of Ameri-
can medical men-and women-in
France, Belgium and Serbia, and of
such striking triumphs as that of
DR.. GOrgas in Panama, it is interest
ing to review the dim beginnings of
medicine on this side of the Atlantic.
This day commemorate one of the
most important of the landmarks in
American medical history. for it was
on Feb. z, 1851, that the first general
hospital was chartered in the col
on1es-the Pennsylvania hospital in
Philadelphia. Joshua Crosby was the
first president Of the institution, and
Benjamin Franklin, who had been
prominent in urging the establishment
of such a place for the care of the
sick, was the first clerk It was in
this hospital, in 1859, that Thomas
Bond gave the first clinical instruction
in. America. It was in this year, too,
that the term doctor was first ap-
piled to physicians" in the New
ed in New York.
The French in Canada and the
English in Virginia had the pioneer
medical practitioners in North Amer
lea. The May1ower brought to Mas
sachusetts Samuel Fuller, the first
physician in New England. Johannes
Ia Montague arrived in New Amster-
dam in 1887 and became the first
medical man in what is now New
York. Several of the Jesuit mission
aries Of New France were educated
in the healing art, and carried a
knowledge of medicine, as well as Of
religion, into the wilds of Canada.
These pioneers gradually supplanted
the medicine mem of the, aborigines,
although among the early white set
tiers there were many yho had more
faith in the Indian doctors than in
the hea1ers of their own race.
The first medical work published
in America was published at Boston
in 1877 by Thomas TEACHER. It was a,
treatise on smallpox and measles,
printed on a. single sheet. Most of the
physicians in America up to the be-
ginning Of the nineteenth century had
received their medical education by
serving as apprentices to doctors,
often doing all sorts of mental work
in order to gain a knowledge of the
profession. In 1853 the University of
pennsylvania established a m6d1caI
department,< and two years later the
College of Physicians and Surgeons
was founded in New York as the med
icaI department of Kings College,
now Columbia University. The Har-
yard medical department was estab-
Ished in 1873.
Philadelphia not only had the first
important hospital in North America,
but also the first free dispensary for
the treatment of the sick poor, which
was opened in 1856. In 1877 the first
original American medical journal,
called the Medical Repository, was
published.
Perhaps the greatest triumph of
American medical science was the
discovery Of anaesthesia, which made
modern surgery possible. A number
of physicians claimed the priority in
this great development, but in latter
years the credit has usually been
given to DR.. Crawford w. Long,
Georgia country physician, who re-
ceived his medical education at the
University of Pennsylvania.