Autobiography of Silas Thompson Trowbridge M.D.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION This book, of which only a handful of the original edition remains in circulation, came to the attention ofSouthem Illinois University Press by way ofthe Ulysses S. Grant Association.The book was printed on a small hand press that the author, Silas Thompson Trowbridge, M.D., had purchased for his children . The outcome ofthe family's efforts was the Autobiography of Silas Thompson Trowbridge M.D. which, aside from frequent grammatical mistakes and an erroneous publishing date of 1872 (instead of 1874), provides a fascinating window into America's past. Trowbridge's reminiscences ofhis early life, his marriage and medical practice, his experiences as a regimental surgeon in the Civil War, and later, as United States Consul, make interesting reading for both the casual as well as the serious reader. Silas Trowbridge was born in Indiana in 1826 of parents who had emigrated from New York. His father had served his country as an infantry captain along the Canadian frontier in 1814, and his mother's ancestors had settled originally in pre-revolutionary Vermont. When Silas's mother died, his father converted the family's holdings into land that he then distributed to the three sons. At sixteen, Silas began teaching school in Indiana , a career that he interspersed with farming, selling horses, and driving cattle. In 1845, he moved to Heyworth, Illinois, where he continued to teach but, in addition, commenced the study of medicine as a pleasant pastime. On returning to eastern Indiana the next year, he exchanged his eighty acres ofland in Blackford County for stock in the White Water Valley Canal Company, which unfortunately failed. Stung by his financial setback , Silas once again took up the study ofmedicine , this time in earnest, using his earnings from a two-month tour of driving cattle to pay for instruments and an apprenticeship in the home ofDr. Harrison Noble in Le Roy, Illinois. At the age of twenty-three, after fourteen months of reading medical texts and assisting in the practice of Dr. Noble, Silas went out on his own, opening a practice near New Castle, Illinois. Disappointed in his prospects, he moved to Decatur, a town of approximately seven hundred inhabitants and the county seat ofMacon County, where he proceeded to build a respected practice. As with other so-called regular physicians of his day, Trowbridge treated patients with the traditional remedies ofbleeding, antiphlogistics, emetics , and cathartics. Although accepted by the community, young Dr. Trowbridge lacked a medical degree and, recognizing its importance in an age of increasing competitiveness, especially from sectarian or irregular doctors, he left Decatur in 1850 to attend a four-month course of medical lectures at Rush Medical College in Chicago. The college, named in honor of Dr. Benjamin Rush, physician and statesman of Philadelphia and signer of the Declaration ofIndependence, was chartered in 1837, organized in 1842, and graduated its first class in 1843. The founder of the college was Dr. Daniel Brainard (1812- 66) of New York. Besides Brainard, the faculty included Dr. Nathan Smith Davis (1817- 1904), formerly of New York City, who accepted the chair ofphysiology and pathology and who lectured daily throughout the term and also met students each day in the hospital wards. Davis was largely responsible for founding the American Medical Association and its journal , the Chicago Medical College (Northwestern University Medical Department), and the Chicago Medical Journal. Other Rush faculty when Trowbridge arrived included doctors Joseph W. Freer, John Evans, Graham N. Fitch, Austin Flint, Ephraim Ingals, William B. Herrick, and Thomas Spencer. By 1850, Rush Medical College had given instruction to 532 students and awarded the doctor of medicine to 132 of them. The 1850 session had 104 students in attendance, ofwhom 42 gradu- ated. The cost of Dr. Trowbridge's schooling included $35 in course fees, a dissection ticket (optional but strongly recommended) for $5, and tickets for clinical work in the United States Marine Hospital and the Illinois General Hospital of the Lakes that were free. At the time ofTrowbridge's attendance, Chicago had a population of approximately twentyeight thousand inhabitants. Rush was the only medical college in Illinois until 1859, when Lind University (now Northwestern University Medical School) was established. Other schools that had formed in Illinois either closed or moved away. These included Illinois College Medical School of Jacksonville, which existed from 1843 to 1848; Franklin Medical College in St. Charles, which operated from 1842 to 1849; and...