Dr. Arthur Spohn: Surgeon, Inventor, and Texas Medical Pioneer by Jane Clements Monday, Francs Brannen Vick and Charles W. Monday Jr. (review)

With access to archives of the South Texas Kenedy ranching family, Jane Clements Monday and Francs Brannen Vick have written a biography of Arthur Spohn, an extraordinary physician who became a member of the family when he married one of Mifflin Kenedy’s daughters, Sarah.

Quaker ship captain Mifflin Kenedy partnered with Richard King to make a fortune shipping and selling cotton to the Confederacy, then expanded into cattle ranching by buying up land from Mexican American families. His future son-in-law, Arthur Spohn, was born into a prominent Canadian family in 1845. He attended medical school at the University of Michigan, worked and studied medicine in New York City, then joined the Union Army as a surgeon near the end of the Civil War. The army sent him to join the troops in South Texas, where his brother Henry was also stationed, and over the next decade Spohn practiced medicine. He left military service in 1870. After a brief time in Mier, he settled in Corpus Christi, where he served as a member of the United States Marine Hospital Service for the port. There Spohn met Sarah Kenedy; they married in 1876, and he joined the social elite of South Texas.

Spohn’s medical practice carried him hundreds of miles across South Texas on horseback and by carriage, wagon, train, and later by automobile. He was joined in his practice at various times by his brother, his nephew Alexander Hamilton, and other family members. One of the more extraordinary events in his practice concerned his treatment of Henrietta King’s favorite stepbrother, William Chamberlain, who had been attacked by a rabid coyote. Spohn met the wagon carrying the young man to town and, having recently read about the success of Louis Pasteur’s rabies vaccine, he suggested that Chamberlain be taken to France for treatment. Henrietta agreed, and Spohn and the boy began an odyssey that carried them by ship from Galveston to New York, across the Atlantic to France, and by train to Paris. There they interviewed Pasteur, who recommended treatment. Spohn stayed with Chamberlain while he received a series of injections. The patient recovered and survived for many years.

Another unusual case involved a woman who suffered from a three hundred-pound ovarian tumor. Spohn describes finding her buried in its mass. He had the good sense to drain it slowly over several weeks, and then he removed it easily by surgery. The patient lived many more years without a recurrence. As he aged, Spohn developed a specialty in the diseases of women and in gynecological surgery, but he recognized a need for a hospital to care for all of the patients in Corpus Christi. He persuaded the Sisters of Charity and the Bishop of South Texas to sponsor a hospital that has since become the center for a series of clinics and hospitals known as the Christus Spohn Health System.

Dr. Arthur Spohn: Surgeon, Inventor, and Texas Medical Pioneer is a welcome addition to the Texas medical history bookshelf. The authors have given us a compelling portrait of an extraordinary person.