Ohio History Journal

NOTES

 

Contributors to This Issue.

Roy F. Nichols is Professor of History in the University of

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Raymond F. Fletcher is Business Manager of the Portsmouth

(Ohio) Times.

Howard H. Peckham is Director of the Indiana Historical

Bureau and Secretary of the Indiana Historical Society, Indian-

apolis.

William Alexander Mabry is Professor of History in Mount

Union College, Alliance, Ohio.

Cathaline Alford Archer (Mrs. John Clark Archer) of Ham-

den, Conn., interests herself in local and family history of the

Western Reserve of which she is a native.

Frederick C. Waite, Professor Emeritus, Western Reserve

University, now located in Dover, N. H., is the author of two

volumes of Western Reserve University history. (See reviews

in this issue.)

John William Scholl is Professor Emeritus, University of

Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Curtis W. Garrison is Director of Research, Hayes Memorial

Library, Fremont, Ohio.

Book reviewers, represented by initials, are Robert C.

Wheeler, James H. Rodabaugh, John O. Marsh, Bertha E.

Josephson, and Harlow Lindley of the Society's staff, and Mary

Jane Meyer of the Ohio War History Commission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

310

• 1
 



THE DECLINE OF EPIDEMIAICS IN OHIO

by ROBERT G. PATERSON

Executive Secretary, Ohio Public Health Association

Secretary, Ohio Committee on Medical History and Archives

Introduction

When one considers the intimate relationship between disease.

particularly epidemic disease, and the individual it is a source of

wonder as to the almost complete absence of reference to this

phase of daily life in the standard histories of Ohio. From

Salmon P. Chase's A Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio

published in 1833 and Caleb Atwater's History of the State of

Ohio, Natural and Civil, issued in 1838 down to our own time,

the impact of medicine and disease upon the people of the State

has been all but ignored.

Change in Historical Perspective

A careful examination of the latest and most complete history

of the State of Ohio published in 1941-44 by the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society reveals an awareness of the

social and scientific aspects of medicine never equalled in any of

the previous histories of the State. The nearest approach to this

latest history was the six-volume history of Ohio by Emilius O.

Randall and Daniel J. Ryan published in 1912. They secured

the collaboration of Dr. D. Tod Gilliam of Columbus, Ohio, to

contribute a chapter on "Medical Ohio." His discussion was

devoted largely to the institutional aspects of medicine.

"Historian's Note-Book"

The reason for the increased emphasis upon disease and

medicine in this latest history is, in my opinion, due to the per-

sistent effort exerted by Dr. Jonathan Forman.  In 1936, he

began the conduct of "The Historian's Note-Book" in the Ohio

State Medical Journal. Late in 1936, Dr. Forman became the

editor of the Journal and in 1937, he turned the "Note-Book"

311

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312   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

over to Dr. David A. Tucker, Jr., of Cincinnati. Practically no

issue of the Journal has been published since then without a con-

tribution to the "Note-Book." This publishing outlet has been

the means by which a score or more historical medical writers

have been stimulated to explore the medical history of Ohio.

Ohio Committee on Medical History and Archives

But perhaps more influential than the "Note-Book" have

been the contributions of the Ohio Committee on Medical His-

tory and Archives of the Ohio State Archaeological and Histori-

cal Society. This committee was organized in 1939 with Dr.

Forman as chairman and with the whole-hearted support of Dr.

Harlow Lindley, Secretary of the Society. Since 1939 the Octo-

ber-December issues of the Society's quarterly journal have con-

tained papers dealing with various phases of medicine and the

allied professions in Ohio.¹

These papers were drawn upon substantially in the writing

of the latest history of Ohio. While much of the same informa-

tion had been available for many years, it was hidden in the

primary sources exclusively medical in character. These sources

were the medical journals, proceedings, and transactions of medi-

cal societies which did not enjoy much, if any, circulation among

the professional historians. But with the advent of this material

in the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly the

attention of the Ohio historians to this hitherto overlooked

material was caught and held. For example: Professor William

T. Utter in Volume II of the recent History of the State of Ohio

covering "The Frontier State--¹⁸⁰3-1825" devotes an entire

chapter of twenty-three pages to the discussion of "Sickness and

Doctors." The other volumes of the series contain repeated ref-

erences to specific diseases and medical institutions together with

their social impact as they occurred throughout the State.

Modern Discussion Lacking

The validity of these remarks is born out by an examination

of Volume VI, a compilation of seventeen monographs dealing

 

1 Ohio State Archaeological and  Historical Quarterly, XLVIII-LIV.

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EPIDEMICS IN OHIO              313

 

with various phases of life in Ohio in the twentieth century, 1900

1938.  The raw  materials for dealing with the diseases and

health of the people of Ohio are available in the annual reports

and bulletins of the Ohio Department of Health, in the Ohio

State Medical Journal, and in other kindred professional sources.

No one, as yet, has taken the time to collate this material into a

monograph. There is no subject of greater social significance

or more dramatic value in the history of Ohio than the growth of

medicine and public health service since  1900.  The immense

increase in scientific knowledge of medicine and the successful

social application of that knowledge in the control of disease.

particularly epidemic disease, has almost been taken for granted

by our people.

 

Title of Discussion

The title of this discussion, "The Decline of Epidemics in

Ohio," is perforce a "tongue-in-cheek" one. In the present state

of our knowledge an epidemic of a communicable disease may

break out in any part of the state at any time. However, the

fact remains that we have not had a major state-wide epidemic

of any disease since the pandemic of influenza in 1918-1₉. This

is the longest epidemic-free period in the history of Ohio.

It seems worth while to examine the causes for this freedom

which society has enjoyed for so long a period of time, and to

consider such questions as: What has been the past history of

epidemics in Ohio? How can we account for the decline of epi-

demics? What are the factors which seem to be our safeguards

against devastating epidemics?

Division of Discussion

There are three broad and arbitrary periods of time since

the first settlement of the state in 1788 which appear as marking

the advance society has made in this field of social well-being.

The first period embraces the years 1788 to 1873 or 85 years; the

second period covers the years 1873 to 9000 or 27 years; and

the third period spans the years from 1900 to 1945. These broad

time periods follow those adopted in the.latest history of Ohio.

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314  OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

An over-all examination of the evidence will warrant the

conclusion that more effective advance in the control of epidemics

in Ohio has been made within the past forty-five years than was

made in the entire one hundred and twelve years prior to the

beginning of this century.  There are many and complicated

reasons why this is so. It is hoped that a brief review of these

three periods will throw some light upon the developments in

epidemic control that have occurred during the past one hundred

and fifty-seven years.

In order to keep this discussion within reasonable limits it

will be confined to a few selected epidemic diseases and a few

chosen episodes to point their destructive effects. These epidemic

diseases are influenza, yellow fever, cholera, small-pox, typhoid

fever, diphtheria, and two endemic diseases--malaria and tuber-

culosis. These have been the fear-provoking diseases among our

people. They are the diseases which have caused the greatest

mortality at varying periods of time. They are the ones which

have caused the greatest social disorganization.  Finally, they

are the ones which have challenged "the spirit of adventure" of

the human mind to unravel their mysteries.

Today, as we examine this list of diseases, we find yellow

fever and cholera completely gone as causes of either morbidity

or mortality in Ohio; malaria, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and

small-pox almost at the vanishing point; while tuberculosis is

being reduced rapidly in its relative destruction of life and health.

Influenza, alone, stands as an uncontrolled threat in the epidemic

field.

In the following Table I it will be noted that the Ohio figures

begin with 1910. Ohio did not pass a comprehensive vital sta-

tistics law until 1908.  The figures for the first full year of

collection cover the year 1909. While these figures were a vast

improvement on any previously reported the 1910  figures come

more nearly reflecting the true mortality situation than those of

1909. It will be seen that Tuberculosis and Infant Mortality are

the two disease situations confronting Ohio.

• 5
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                     315

 

Table 1

SPECIFIC DEATH RATES FOR SELECTED CAUSES

1910 - 1941

1. TUBERCULOSIS                        4. DIPHTHERIA

Year                               Deaths                            Rates       Year                                    Deaths                          Rates

1910                   7,179                   150.6   1910                      474                     122

1915                               6,668                               126.5       1915                                   673                                 12.8

1920                               5,932                               103.0       1920                                   6:39                               11.2

1925                               4,816                               74.9         1925                                   389                                 6.1

1930                               4,233                               64.1         1930                                   160                                 2.5

1935                               3,602                               52.8         1935                                   178                                 3.6

1940                               2,785                               40.8         1940                                      29                                 0.4

1944                               2,754                               39.2         1944                                      32                                 0.4

2. INFANT MORTALITY                                          5. SMALL POX                 (U.S. RATES)

Year                                Deaths                            Rates       Year          Deaths            Rates

1915                               11,463                            91.0         1910                                                                           0.4

1920                               10,160                            82.9         1915                                                                           0.1

1925                               8,841                               69.6         1920                                                                           0.6

1930                               7,209                               60.7         192                                                                              0.1

1935                               5,080                               50.4         1935                                                                           0.0

1940                               4,739                               41.4         190                                                                              0.0

1944                               5,136                               39.0         19                                                                                0.1

1944                                                                           0.1

3. TYPHOID      FEVER                     6. MALARIA

Year                                Deaths                            Rates       Year         Deaths             Rates

1910                               1,327                               27.5         1910                                                                           0.8

1915                                   718                              13.7         1915                                                                           0.5

1920                                   436                              7.5            1920                                                                           0.2

1925                                   325                              5.2            1925                                                                           0.2

1930                                   236                              3.4            1930                                                                           0.1

1935                                   97                                1.4            1935                                                                           0.1

1940                                   47                                0.7            1940                                                                           0.0

1944                                   10                                0.2            1944                                                                           0.7

I.  The Period from      1788 to 1₇83--Confused Speculation

The general characterization of this period may be said to be

"confused speculation."     A brief review of the available primary

sources of information about epidemic diseases in Ohio during

this period will convince any investigator of the aptness of this

phrase.   The entire period is full of prolonged and oft-times

heated discussions in the realms of causation, diagnosis, treat-

ment, and prognosis.

As in so many other areas of medical history, we perforce

begin with Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati.           His mind. spirit,

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310    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and indefatigable zeal led him to publish in 1810 a booklet setting

forth the results of his observations of life in Cincinnati under

the title of Notices of Cincinnati, Its Topography, Climate and

Diseases.   Five years later he published that remarkable book

about Cincinnati which established him as the foremost author

of the Ohio country. It was entitled Natural and Statistical View

or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country. Drake's Pic-

ture of Cincinnati, as it is called, contains seven chapters and an

appendix covering in all 250 pages. In chapter five he devotes

his attention to the consideration of medical questions, the pre-

vailing diseases and their courses, in the region around Cincinnati.

So far as can be ascertained, the best single source of in-

formation available on the incidence of early epidemic diseases

in Ohio is contained in the presidential address of Dr. Samuel

Prescott Hildreth of Marietta. This address was delivered be-

fore the third session of the Medical Convention of Ohio held in

Cleveland on May 14, 1839. In his discussion of "Diseases of

the Early Settlers of Ohio" he says in part:

They sometimes were attacked with malignant remittants in the

summer, and pneumonias and pleurisys in the winter, but no serious epi-

demics appeared until partial openings had been made in the primeval

forests, and the wet low grounds exposed to the action of a summer sun . .

From the year 1788, the period of the first improvements in Ohio, to the

year 1807, the date of the first great epidemic, a large proportion of the

diseases originated in exposures to wet, cold, hunger, and fatigue, and

were generally of an inflammatory type, such as Rheumatisms, Pleurisys,

Pneumonias, Scarlatina and Small-pox.2

The great epidemic of 1807 was influenza. Dr. Hildreth

continues:

The winter following the epidemic of 1807, was mild, and the summer

months were marked with no prevailing diseases. From the years 1807 to

1813, the country was very healthy. The few fevers which did appear were

generally typhoid, or synochal. Bilious cholics for several years after the

epidemic, was a very common disorder.

Phthisis pulmonalis, also became rather more frequent after the In-

fluenza, but was still a rare occurrence. During the heats of summer

 

2 Samuel Prescott Hildreth, "Address of the President," in Journal of the Pro-

ceedings of the Medical Convention of Ohio, May 14-15, 1839, 16-7.

• 7
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                     317

 

cholera infantum was greatly more frequent than it is at present, and often

proved fatal. It probably arose from the same malarious state of the

atmosphere which produces intermitting fevers, as we find it most prev-

alent in regions favorable to the latter disease ....

By the first of August [1822] the epidemic [yellow fever] was general

in this portion of the valley, and especially in Marietta. The largest number

of attacks was in September, and at one time there was not less than four

hundred cases within the area of one square mile. They were composed

of all, from the mild intermittent to the most malignant remittant, with the

usual symptoms which attend the yellow fever. During the season I had

about six hundred patients under my care. For four months in succession,

I ate but two meals a day, and spent from sixteen to eighteen hours out

of every twenty-four in attending the sick. Through a merciful Providence

my own health was good, and the only suffering was from exhaustion and

fatigue through the whole of this disastrous season. The proportion of

deaths was about six in every hundred cases, where proper medical atten-

tion was given the sick; but so general was the disease that many lives

were lost from a lack of nurses. All other disorders were swallowed up

by this.3

We come now to the epidemic of Asiatic cholera of 1832-34.

This epidemic was so devastating and created so much fear,

that with each recurring epidemic of the disease until the end of

the third quarter of the century this fear was the motivating force

which led to an anxious desire to do anything that promised relief

from its effects. Here again we quote from Hildreth:

Early in that year [1832] the people began to be alarmed with the

accounts from Europe of the ravages of Asiatic Cholera, . . . and it made

its appearance on the N. E. coast of America about the last of May, and

spread with fatal rapidity along the great water courses which border the

northern side of the United States. . . . With us no cases occurred this

year, but a few appeared late in the season at Cincinnati. . . . Either

from a nervous dread of the disease, or some morbific constitution of the

atmosphere, a large majority   of the inhabitants this summer were

troubled with bowel complaints, generally a moderate diarrhea. . . . No

disease which ever visited the civilized world held such control over the

nervous system and moral faculties of man; and during the period when the

great mass of our citizens believed it to be contagious, I have no doubt that

one-half of its victims took the disease, and actually died from the de-

pressing effects of dispair and fear. . . . In 1833 and 1834 this epidemic

scourge still continued to visit our most populous towns and cities in the

 

3 Ibid., 23-6.

• 8
 

318    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

west, while the sparse and thinly settled portions of the country scarcely

felt its effects; . . . I think it was found that the cleanly and well venti-

lated portions of our cities suffered the least, and the filthy and ill-aired

the most.⁴

We can recognize today, from this account, how keen were the

observations of the leading medical men of that era.

In March 1933, Dr. Jonathan Forman prepared a paper on

"The First Cholera Epidemic in Columbus, Ohio (1833)."  It was

later published in the Annals of Medical History in 1934. His

description of the disease is of such a vivid character that the

deep-seated fear created by an attack of cholera is readily under-

standable. He says:

The epidemic of Asiatic cholera which swept over our City one

hundred years ago this summer, for its mortality and terror, surpassed any

pestilence that ever afflicted Columbus before or since.

Cholera, because of its sudden appearance, its high mortality, and

the frightful appearance of its dead, has always been a dramatic character

in the history of the human race. Those who die of this disease are a

gruesome sight. It attacks the bowels and causes a stupendous loss of body

fluids in the typical "rice-water stools." The whole body becomes covered

and dank moisture. Cheeks become hollow, nose ipnched, eyes sunken,

voice husky. Death's rigor sets in quickly. Muscles literally become as

hard as a board. Sometimes a stiffening corpse jerks about; it may kick

out a foot, wave an arm, flap its jaws or roll its eyes. Of such things is

the natural terror of man for this loathsome disease.5

With such a graphic picture of the disease, and it was en-

countered daily by the physicians in the epidemic of 1832-34,

we meet Dr. Daniel Drake again. He persuaded the city council

of Cincinnati not to attempt to shut out the disease by erecting

barriers against it. Then he set to work to devise a substitute

plan of defense. The first step in this plan was public education.

He proceeded to write a book of 180 pages entitled A Practical

Treatise on the History, Prevention, and Treatment of Epidemic

Cholera, addressed both to the profession and to the people of

the Mississippi Valley in which he presented the existing know-

 

4 Ibid., 30-1.

5 Jonathan Forman. "The First Cholera Epidemic in Columbus, Ohio (1833),"

in Annals of Medical History, n. s. VI (1934), 410-26.

• 9
 



• 10
 

320   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ^HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

ledge and theories pertaining to cholera.⁶ It is in this book that

Drake cane very close to anticipating the later discoveries as to

the origin of infectious diseases. He did not accept the popular

miasmatic theory or its modifications, the malarial theory, as the

cause of the disease. He believed the animalcular theory the most

rational of all and by citations and his own experience established

the existence of animalculae everywhere, but especially in de-

caying organic matter.

Not content with his efforts in this direction, Drake wrote

a broadside of one page which was issued as an extra insert to

the Cincinnati Chronicle.  It was issued Saturday afternoon,

October 13, 1832. This broadside was probably the first such

attempt at popular health education in Ohio. The contents of

this broadside are typical of the period we have chosen to call

"confused speculation."

Drake later estimated that four per cent of the population

of Cincinnati was destroyed in three years, 1832-34. This meant

a total of 831 deaths.

In the second cholera epidemic in Ohio which struck between

1848 and 1850, there were two events that made a deep im-

pression upon the minds of the people throughout the State.

The State Board of Agriculture created by the General Assembly

in February 1846, planned a large state fair to be held in Cin-

cinnati in 1849. The outbreak of cholera caused its postpone-

ment until 1850 when the first Ohio State Fair was held in Cin-

cinnati.⁷ But in July 1850, another outbreak of cholera (result-

ing in the death of one of the Executive Committee of the State

Board) led to the holding of the second state fair at Franklinton

(Columbus) in September 1851.

The other event was curiously a reversal of the course fol-

lowed in the transfer of the State Fair from Cincinnati to Colum-

bus. The Ohio Constitutional Convention met in the State House

in Columbus, May 6, 1850, to draft a new state constitution for

 

6 Daniel Drake, A Practical Treatise on the History, Prevention, and Treatment

of Epidemic Cholera . . . (Cincinnati, 1832).

7 Francis P. Weisenburger, The Passing of the Frontier, 1825-1850, Carl Wittke,

ed., The History of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1941-44), III (1941), 71-3.

• 11
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                 321

 

Ohio. On July 9, 1850, the convention adjourned because of the

cholera epidemic in the city.    It reassembled in Cincinnati,

December 2, where it finished its work on March 10, 1851.8

Both of these episodes had a tremendous effect upon the

people throughout the State. Dr. Edwin W. Mitchell in his dis-

cussion of cholera in Cincinnati⁹ estimated that between May 1,

and August 30, 1850, there were 4,114 deaths from cholera out

of a total of 6,459 deaths from all causes for the same period. The

population of the city at this time was estimated at 100,000.

By 1850, many observers drew attention to water as a means

of conveying the disease. By 1873, the year of the last visita-

tion of cholera, contamination of the water supplies was generally

recognized as a source of infection and the belief in its bacterial

origin common among the advanced thinkers of the day.

These few selections of the periodic recurrent epidemics, it

is hoped, may convey an idea of the constant fear, nay even

terror, which possessed the people of Ohio from   1788 to 1873.

This fear was not allayed by the confused explanations as to cause

offered by the medical profession.  But it is clear now that the

leaders of the profession were not idle in their constant search for

a better understanding of these scourges. In addition to rugged

battles among themselves and fighting against quacks and charla-

tans, they were busy establishing medical journals, conventions,

colleges, and hospitals and constantly striving to raise the educa-

tional standards of the profession. Their etiological explanations

were those that were current elsewhere--that the diseases arose

from miasms in the atmosphere. Their therapeutic ideas were

heroic. When Prime Minister Churchill coined his striking

phrase, "Blood, Sweat and Tears," one who knew the history

of medicine in this period must have gained the impression that

the Prime Minister was familiar with the therapeutic practice of

that day--which was "bleed; purge; puke; and sweat."

Throughout this period the dependence of society in com-

 

8 Ibid., 207, 479; Eugene H. Ruseboom, The Civil War Era, 1850-1873, Carl

Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1941-44), IV (1944), 130.

9 Edwin  W. Mitchell, "Cholera in  Cincinnati," in Ohio State Medical Journal,

XXXIII (1937), 69-70.

• 12
 

322   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

batting epidemics was upon isolation of the patient, quarantine

of contacts, and the abatement of nuisances. The main idea was

to clean up the environment to reduce to a minimum the poisoning

of the air by miasms.   Boards of health    were more or less

ephemeral bodies hastily organized during a threat of an epidemic

and as hastily disbanded when the epidemic had passed on. There

was also discernable a gradual shift in emphasis from systems of

medicine to schools of therapeutics. The rise and struggle for

supremacy between the so-called allopathic (regular), homeo-

pathic, and eclectic schools of treatment had a retarding effect

upon medical development in Ohio.      Finally, during the latter

part of this period, there was a continual controversy between

those who believed in contagion as an explanation as to the cause

of the epidemic diseases and those who denied any such idea.

 

Table II

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO, 1788-1873

 

Year                                Population                                   Disease                                                  Period

1810                               230,760                                        Influenza                                                1807

1820                               581,295                                        Yellow Fever                                        1821-23

1830                              937,903                                        Influenza                                                1826

Cholera                                                  1832-34

184                                1,519,467                                     Typhoid                                                 1840-42

1850                               1,980,329                                     Cholera                                                  1849

Cholera                                                  1854

1860                              2,339,511         Diphtheria          1856-59

1870                              2,665,260         Cholera               1865-66

Small Pox                                              1868

Cholera                                                  1871-73

II. Period from 1873 to 1900 -- Scientific Demonstration

The establishment of the germ theory as an explanation of

the causation of a large number of epidemic diseases brought to

a close the long conflict between contagionists and anticontagion-

ists. It made possible what we have chosen to call the period of

"scientific demonstration."   Improvements in the microscope

made it possible for the French chemist, Louis Pasteur, the

German country physician, Dr. Robert Koch, and the English

surgeon, Dr. Joseph Lister, to lay the foundations for attacks

• 13
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO             323

 

upon communicable diseases and advances in surgery, which have

gone on from 1865 to the present day.

But the birth of new ideas and the death of old established

and cherished beliefs are ever fraught with painful struggles.

Ohio's physicians as well as the people at large were slow to

accept the new ideas. Throughout this entire period the annals

of medical thought in Ohio are replete with the continual con-

tention between acceptance or rejection of the idea that pathogenic

microorganisms were the explanation of many of the diseases

which afflicted the people.

Medicine moved away from being solely an art into the realm

of science. The rise of bacteriology created the laboratory where

scientific procedures could be established for the detection of the

organisms in specific diseases. There ensued a veritable furore of

investigations which discovered a long list of causative organisms

and gradually established the various avenues of infection--

personal contact, food and drink, and biting insects. The science

of immunology sprang up as a collateral branch of bacteriology.

The interval from 1873 to 1892 was the most fruitful in the gross

benefits of medical science to mankind of any like interval in

history.

While there was no cholera epidemic in Ohio recorded dur-

ing this period, yet it was cholera which led to a new approach

in control. Koch discovered the comma-bacillus in 1884 as the

causal organism in cholera. From  1884 to 1892 cholera was

prevalent throughout Europe. The epidemic culminated in the

great Hamburg outbreak of 1892 with 17,000 cases and a half

as many deaths. New York was threatened in 1892 and as a re-

sult a city laboratory was established by Drs. Biggs and Prudden

in the Health Department. The laboratory dictated the policies

of quarantine and sanitary matters; it was arbiter on questions

of diagnosis.

That the new science was effective is evident; eight badly in-

fected ships, which had lost 76 passengers came to the New York

quarantine and discharged their passengers both sick and well; yet

with proper care only forty-four deaths occurred at quarantine

• 14
 

324   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

and from the ten cases that were found in the city not a single

instance of secondary infection was discovered.

In the meantime (in April 1886) the Ohio General Assembly

had passed a bill to create a State Board of Health.¹⁰ Efforts to

achieve this objective had been exerted vainly at spasmodic in-

tervals for the preceding ten years. The obstacles were the dif-

ferences between the allopathic and homeopathic schools of medi-

cine, each fearful of losing supremacy, as well as the state of

public opinion as reflected by the legislators over the question

whether diseases were or were not caused by the "so-called

germs." This act placed Ohio thirty-second in the list of states

to establish a state board of health; Massachusetts had been the

first state to set up such an authority in 1869. The total appro-

priation for the new state activity in Ohio was the huge sum of

$5,000!

Dr. Charles O. Probst became the first real secretary of this

State Board of Health. He was its guiding mentor for twenty-

five years. To read the annual reports of the work of the State

Board of Health from 1886 to 1911 is to read the record of hope

deferred, unflagging courage, intelligent maneuvering, and a

splendid spirit of adventure. To the present generation of Ohio-

ans skimming blithely over the highways of the State and streets

of our cities there is no realization of the vast debt they owe to

this pioneer public health administrator of Ohio.

Let him tell us in his own words about the threat of the

1892 cholera situation:

From an epidemic of cholera in Hamburg and Altoona [Germany],

originated the legislation which has pushed Ohio to the front in the pro-

tection of her streams, lakes and public water supplies. It came about in

this way . . . a codification of the health laws was made which was em-

bodied in a Bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives. It

contained many new provisions, and made a document of fifty or more

pages. Cholera from Hamburg appeared at New York about this time,

and the whole country was alarmed. A patrol guard was organized on all

railway lines going west through Ohio, with inspection of all passengers,

night or day, with camp equipment for the care of cases that might be

 

10 Ohio  Laws, LXXXII, 77.

• 15
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                   325

 

found. . . . Ohio was naturally greatly concerned.      Our Health Bill

was before the House. It was so long I didn't believe any one would

read it, so, with the consent of the member who introduced it, the fol-

lowing addition was made . . . "and no city, village, corporation or

person shall introduce a public water supply or system of sewerage or

change or extend any public water supply or outlet of any system of sew-

erage now in use, unless the proposed source of such water supply or out-

let for such sewerage system shall have been submitted to and received

the approval of the state board of health."  The Bill, with this amend-

ment, was passed March 14, 1893.11

This act gave to the State Board of Health sufficient author-

ity to ensure that when an order was issued to a local sub-division

for such change or improvement of a water supply the tax limit

could be increased, within limitations, without a vote of the people

to carry out the Board's order. Thus was brought about the

effective control of cholera and typhoid fever in Ohio.

Typhoid fever epidemics were usually of a local character

and were constantly present in this period. Cincinnati and Co-

lumbus appear to have had the sternest battles with the disease.

Dr. Probst has left us a clear picture of the forces at work in

Columbus for and against the necessary steps to control typhoid.

He says:

 

Columbus had for years taken its water supply from the Olentangy

river a little above the city, and for years had had, at intervals, outbreaks

of typhoid fever. When Mr. Jacobs was Director of Public Works, he

conceived the idea of getting a ground water supply, already purified, he

used to say, by intercepting the ground water by laying a system of large

iron perforated pipes along the river shores. He installed very consider-

able lengths of this. As this was an "additional supply," under the Bense

act, it had to be approved by the State Board of Health. An unprecedented

epidemic of typhoid fever occurred about this time and gave a favorable op-

portunity to make a thorough investigation of the Columbus water supply

question with an eye to its satisfactory improvement. The Board author-

ized me to employ Mr. Allen Hazen of New York . . . and after a de-

tailed study of the situation he recommended an impounding dam in the

Scioto river with a softening and purification plant. I think Mr. [Julian]

Griggs had previously suggested this, but of this I am not certain . . . .

 

11 Charles O. Probst, Recollections and Reminiscences of Public Health Service

and Public Health Workers, Columbus, Ohio (mimeographed for private circulation,

Columbus, 1912), 5.

• 16
 

326    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Mr. Robert Jeffries, Mayor, and Mr. James [M.] Butler, City Solici-

tor, came to my office to urge approval of the dam alone as funds for puri-

fication were not available. Finally, we reached a "gentleman's agree-

ment" which was later accepted by the Board. They promised to have

prepared plans for purification works without delay and to submit the

question of sufficient funds to install the plant to a vote of the people. They

agreed further to use all of their influence in support of it. They fully

carried out their promise.

Some time before the vote was to be taken there appeared in the Ohio

State Journal a long article urging the people to vote against this un-

necessary expense, because no system of water purification could remove the

germs of typhoid fever or other disease germs. This article was signed by

Dr. Starling Loving, the foremost physician in Columbus and the Dean of

Starling Medical College, Dr. D. N. Kinsman . . . Dr. J. F. Baldwin, Dr.

[E. B.] Fullerton, Dr. N. R. Coleman, Dr. J. M. Dunham and Dr. Will

[D.] Hamilton; the latter with a reservation. These were the leading med-

ical men of the city, and they did not realize that (they were all honest

men) they were proposing to lead the people against the most important

life saving measure Columbus ever had before it. And this illustrates how

poorly informed about sanitary matters were the physicians of that day,

especially the older ones who had had no sanitary instruction.

There was but one course left -- to educate the people. Accordingly, a

lecture bureau, you might call it, was organized and several of us arranged

for and spoke before public gatherings urging the people to support the

bond issue, explaining the process of water filtration, and proving what it

had done in other places. The bond issue was carried, and typhoid fever

has almost disappeared from Columbus.¹²

Out of this controversy there grew not only the splendid

water purification plant but the sewage treatment works and the

garbage disposal plant, all of which have given Columbus a

sanitary control over its environment so effective that epidemics

of cholera, typhoid fever, and indirectly, other communicable

diseases have been reduced to a minimum or entirely eliminated.

What happened      in  Columbus    was also    occurring   elsewhere

throughout Ohio and the nation. It was a transition period from

the old to the new. The citation of the episode merely gives a

local flavor to a nation-wide phenomenon.

Dr. Probst had other problems crowding for attention. In

the first annual report of the State Board of Health he pointed

 

12 Ibid., 21-3.

• 17
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO          327

out, among other things, the absolute necessity for a compulsory

system of local organization of boards of health throughout the

State; the dire need for an adequate state system of vital statistics;

the obligation of the State to assist local communities in the con-

trol of epidemic diseases; and the indispensable requirement for

the preparation and distribution of educational literature dealing

with the most pressing of the epidemic diseases.

The slow development of a state system of vital statistics in

Ohio is presented here as an illustration of the character of the

struggles that confronted Dr. Probst in this period. It has been

an axiom of public health that the collection, tabulation, analysis,

and interpretation of vital statistics is the cornerstone of success-

ful control of health conditions. Yet, it almost passes present-

day belief that the State of Ohio took so long to provide an

adequate system of registration.13

The act creating the State Board of Health provided that the

Board should have supervision of the state system of registration

of births and deaths; that the secretary of the Board should be

superintendent of such registration; but that the clerical work and

safekeeping of the records should be provided by the Secretary of

State. Mr. James E. Bauman, Assistant Director of the Depart-

ment of Health of Ohio, put this early situation very well when

he wrote:

In commenting on the subject in his first annual report, Dr. Probst

called attention to the gross inefficiency and inaccuracy of the system in

use. In only one city (Cincinnati) did the law require reports by physicians

to the Board of Health. The information that came to the Secretary of

State was that collected by the assessors on their annual visit on taxation

matters. The returns for 1885 showed a death rate [for the State] of

about 10 to 1000, while the rate for Cincinnati that year was 18.37 per

thousand, which would indicate that not more than one-half the deaths

were recorded in the state, and accuracy as to the cause of death could not

have reached a high percentage.

. . . In each of his annual reports and in papers he prepared for

various meetings, the matter was discussed.14

 

13 State of Ohio, Department of Health, Thirty-First Report (43rd Year), Part I,

Report of July 1, 1915 to December 31, 1928 (Columbus, c1931), 135-7.

14 James E. Bauman, "Doctor Probst and Public Health in Ohio," in Robert

G. Paterson, ed., Charles Oliver Probst--A Pioneer Public Health Administrator in

Ohio (Columbus, 1934), 39-40.

• 18
 

328   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The epidemic diseases with which the State Board of Health

had to contend during this period were influenza, smallpox,

typhoid fever, and diphtheria. At first, investigations of out-

breaks of these diseases were conducted by Dr. Probst and

members of the Board. Gradually dependence was placed upon

various physicians throughout the State who were employed on a

day-by-day basis. Dr. H. M. Platter of Columbus was one of

these early diagnosticians. There was a growing recognition of

the need for a laboratory where chemical and bacteriological

examinations could be made. Again dependence was upon an

opportunistic basis. Curtis C. Howard, Professor of Chemistry

at Starling Medical College, was called in and for several years

did all of the chemical work, Dr. J. H. J. Upham was employed

to do the bacteriological work. He had just come to Columbus

from Johns Hopkins Medical School where he had studied under

Dr. William H. Welch who brought the bacteriological laboratory

to this country from Germany.

This work grew in volume and in value to such an extent that

the General Assembly passed an act on April 25, 1898, which

established the chemical and bacteriological laboratory in the State

Board of Health. The appropriation was just sufficient to employ

a bacteriologist and equip two office rooms as a laboratory. Dr.

Elmer G. Horton served as bacteriologist from 1898 to 1907.

The first line of work was the examination of water and sewage

in an effort to give the public more adequate protection against

water-borne diseases. However, it was only a short time until

physicians began to request examinations for the diagnosis of

such diseases as diphtheria, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever.

There were two other developments during this period to

which attention should be called as having a direct bearing upon

the control of epidemics in Ohio. The first deals with the laws

or lack of them regulating the practice of medicine in Ohio. Dr.

Platter has presented this situation quite clearly in "The Histor-

ian's Note-Book" in the April 1936 issue of the Ohio State

Medical Journal. He says:

From 1833 until 1868 there was no law regulating the practice of

medicine in Ohio.

• 19
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO        329

From  October 1, 1868, to February 27, 1896, one might practice

medicine legally upon submission of any one of the following credentials:

First--A certificate from a state or county medical society.

Second--A diploma from a school of medicine either in the United

States or a foreign country.

Third--From   1880 to 1885, a diploma from a medical school issued

after attendance at two full courses of at least 12 weeks each, and from

1885 to 1896 a diploma of graduation from a reputable school of medicine.

During the entire period from 1868 to 1896 the continuous practice

of medicine over a period of 10 years entitled a person to practice medicine

in Ohio.

Many times the State Medical Association endorsed the passage of

an act to regulate practice by the state and on February 27, 1896, the

present Medical Practice Act became effective.

By its provisions the Governor was authorized to appoint a board of

seven members, representative of the schools of medicine in Ohio at that

time. No school of medicine was permitted to hold a majority membership

on the board. As first created it was composed of three regulars, two

homeopaths, one eclectic and one physio-medical practitioner....

One hundred and forty medical schools were rated as in good stand-

ing by the original board. Approximately 7,000 physicians received certi-

ficates to practice upon presentation of their credentials and 700 more gained

a certificate by proof of 10 years continued practice in the state ....

At present the number of men engaged in the practice of medicine

in Ohio does not quite reach 9,000. Is it not possible that many of the

duties and obligations imposed upon physicians then are now being dis-

charged by other agencies? And is it not possible that we may suffer

further encroachment into the field of medical practice? Cultists we had

then as now; no period in medical history has been free from them.15

The act of 1896 was a great step forward in establishing minimum

qualifications for the practice of medicine in Ohio. It was and

is basic to any control of epidemics by the State.

The other development has to do with the hospitals of the

State.   Throughout this period hospitals were viewed          with

suspicion by the general public. They were a last resort in any

kind of illness. There was a widespread belief that if one went

in the front door of such an institution one was sure to go out the

 

15 Herbert M. Platter, "The Present Ohio Board of Medical Registration and

Licensure," in Ohio State Medical Journal, XXXII (1936), 347-9.

• 20
 

330   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

back door into the hands of the undertaker. Even with the in-

troduction of cellular pathology, ether anaesthesia, and anti-

septic surgery in the earlier period, this situation prevailed until

the end of the era under discussion. Between 1890 and 1900 the

addition of the laboratory to the more progressive institutions be-

gan to change their character. Suspicion and fear began to give

way to a feeling of trust and confidence. Epidemic diseases

which were segregated in the old "pest houses" now were provided

with isolation hospitals.

 

Table III

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO, 1873-1900

 

Year                                Population                                   Disease                                                  Period

1880                              3,198,062                                     Influenza                                                1879-80

Small-pox                                              1882-83

1890                              3,672,316                                     Influenza                                                1889-91

1900                              4,157,545                                     Diphtheria                                              1896

Small-pox                                              1898

III. Period from 1900 to 1945--Social Organization

The form of present-day organizations and institutions upon

which society depends for protection against epidemic diseases

began to be foreshadowed in the final decade of the previous

period. In this third period the tempo of social organization in-

creased rapidly with respect to existing organizations and institu-

tions and by adventures into new avenues of approach to old

problems.   The public generally, and the medical profession

particularly, gained increasing confidence in the validity of the

methods employed. The tests were a decrease in the mortality

rates as well as in the morbidity rates. There are presented here

a few of the influences which have developed in this period merely

to indicate the trends.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis had been, and still is, one of the outstanding

problems for the medical profession and for society as well. In

1900 it was far and away the leading cause of death. Koch dis-

covered the tubercle bacillus in 1882, but the application of that

• 21
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                 331

 

discovery did not take place on an effective basis until the period

under discussion. Again it was Dr. Probst who became the leader

in Ohio against this menace. He followed the pattern set in

Pennsylvania by Dr. Lawrence F. Flick in 1892. In 1901 Dr.

Probst organized a state-wide voluntary association of medical

and lay workers to employ popular education as a means of de-

feating the "tubercle bacillus." The Ohio Society for the Pre-

vention of Tuberculosis became the spearhead of the movement

to control this endemic and communicable disease.16 This use of

popular health education as a method of attack upon a specific

disease was unique in the world.  It has set the pattern for the

host of similar organizations which have been organized since

against specific diseases or menaces to the health of our people.

 

Vital Statistics

In 1908 Dr. Probst prepared the final draft of what is now

our vital statistics law. The bill became a law without much op-

position since the Secretary of State, Carmi Thompson, was in

accord with the idea. The Bureau of Vital Statistics was estab-

lished as a part of the Secretary of State's Department until 1921,

when it was transferred to the Department of Health. Ohio was

admitted into the United States Death Registration area in 1911

and into the Birth Registration area in 1917. In order to become a

part of the registration area, the state must collect records of more

than 90 per cent of its births and deaths. So has ended the long

struggle to place this cornerstone in the system to control epidemic

diseases in Ohio.

 

Vitality

Perhaps one of the most important public health reports

issued in this country from the point of view of its influence

upon public opinion was that made by Professor Irving Fisher

in 1909. The document was entitled "Report on National Vitality,

Its Wastes and Conservation." It was prepared for the National

Conservation Commission created by President Theodore Roose-

 

16 Ohio Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, 1901-20; Ohio Public

Health Association, 1920-46; Ohio Tuberculosis and Health Association, 1946--.

• 22
 

332             OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICALAND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

velt.      The burden of the prophetic argument, in brief, was as

follows:

There is no  need, however, of waiting a century for this increase

[in the average duration of life]. It could be obtained within a genera-

tion. Three-fourths of tuberculosis, from which 150,000, Americans die an-

nually, could be avoided.... From these data, it is found that fifteen

years at least could be at once added to the average human lifetime by

applying the science of preventing disease. More than half of this ad-

ditional life would come from the prevention of tuberculosis, typhoid, and

five other diseases, the prevention of which could be accomplished by purer

air, water, and milk.17

That Professor Fisher, at the time thought to be radical, was con-

servative in his estimate has been demonstrated by the actual re-

sults achieved during the period under review.

 

Contrasts 1910-1886

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the crea-

tion of the State Board of Health in 1910, Dr. Probst embraced

the opportunity to contrast the health conditions in that year

against those obtaining in 1886. He wrote:

Twenty-five years ago the people generally paid but little attention

to health questions.  They were afraid of smallpox, yellow  fever and

cholera, and to a less extent of diphtheria and scarlet fever, and asked

protection from such diseases when quarantine measures did not interfere

too much with business. Sewer gas and things and places that created bad

odors, were more feared than disease germs.

The law authorized council to appoint boards of health with authority

to enforce quarantine measures for the prevention of dangerous diseases

and to abate nuisances, but in only a few cities and villages, about 45 or

50, had this been done. No one had authority to act in the township except

in smallpox the trustees had certain powers.

Consumption was almost universally regarded as an inherited disease,

and little or no effort was made for its prevention. Even diphtheria was

still considered as a non-communicable disease by many members of the

medical profession, and "membranous croup" was quite generally considered

as a distinct affection requiring no preventive measures.

The people in a general way knew that impure water was a cause

 

17 Irving Fisher, Bulletin 30 of the Committee of One Hundred on National

Health. Being A Report on National Vitality, Its Wastes and Conservation (Washing-

ton, D. C., 1909), 1.

• 23
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                     333

 

of disease, but took scant heed of the necessity for protecting the sources

from which it came. No community had undertaken to purify the water it

drank, nor the sewage which it turned into the stream from which its

water supply was taken. Infected or dirty milk as a cause of disease, and

especially its relation to infant mortality, was scarcely spoken of outside

of medical circles. School hygiene and medical inspection of schools had no

public support and few advocates.

There was practically no conception, except among the few interested

in sanitary science, of the intimate relation of sociological and industrial

conditions to health problems. Neither the State nor the municipality felt

any special responsibility for the health of its citizens; and the conception

that the public health is a valuable asset and like other property should be

protected for purely economic reasons, if for no other, was entertained by

few, and had had no public expression.

At the end of this quarter of a century we find great changes. Health

officials with large powers and charged with weighty duties, are a neces-

sary part of the government of every city, village and township.

Antitoxin for the cure and prevention of diphtheria, unknown twenty-

five years ago, is now, through the agency of the State Board of Health,

within easy reach of every physician in the State, and is supplied free to

the poor and needy.

Tuberculosis is being fought everywhere. A State Sanatorium has

been provided for the cure of its victims, and many county and district

hospitals have already been established, with others under way, for the

care of advanced cases.

A state society (organized in the office of the State Board of Health)

and many local tuberculosis societies are engaged in combating this disease.

Ohio has become a leader in the protection of its water supplies, and

its fame in this direction has spread to most parts of the world. The

State, through its State Board of Health, has entered upon a policy which

will prevent further injurious contamination of its streams and lakes

and must eventually free them from all sources of defilement.

The purity of milk supplies, once unquestioned, is receiving more

and more official and public attention. Great gains have been made in

school hygiene and school sanitation. Medical inspection of schools, now

authorized everywhere, has been undertaken in most of our larger cities.

The most hopeful sign of advancement is the change in opinion as re-

gards health matters. Indifference, and even, to some extent, hostility has

been replaced by keen interest and a desire for help.

Twenty-five years ago a visit by a representative of the State Board

of Health was often looked upon as an unwarranted interference and a

• 24
 

334    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

reproach to the community where this was necessary. Today the difficult

is adequately meeting the many demands for such assistance.

Public education in health matters has been immeasurably extended.

Hygiene is taught in all schools; the press and lay magazines are devot-

ing more and more space to health subjects.

It is only by thus contrasting conditions as they were in 1886 with

what may be seen today that a fair estimate can be made of our growth in

power and service in protecting the public health.

Much of what has been done must be regarded as simply the founda-

tion, soon to be buried, upon which will rest the magnificent superstructure

which should, and we trust will, be erected. The future should see the

sovereign state chiefly concerned about the health of its subjects.

The next quarter of a century should bring about immense improve-

ments in the public health.18

 

Medical Education

In 1910 Dr. Abraham Flexner issued a report on medical

education in the United States and Canada based upon a survey of

the medical schools as they were operated. Flexner pointed out

that among a total of 155 medical schools in these two countries--

a larger number than existed in the rest of the world--only a

small fraction provided proper medical training. Less than a

third were integral parts of universities.19 This report had a

tremendous effect upon medical education, and Ohio did not

escape its impact.

Out of the 140 medical schools recognized by the Ohio State

Medical Board in 1896 there were 26 in Ohio whose diplomas

were recognized.    Today there are but three medical schools in

the State, each an integral part of a university.

 

United States Public Health Service

No account of the efforts put forth by Ohio to control

epidemic diseases would be complete without taking into account

the development of the United States Public Health Service.

 

18 Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of the State of

Ohio for the Year Ending December 31, 1910 (Columbus, 1911), 5-7.

19 Abraham Flexner, Medical Education in the United States and Canada. A

Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Bulletin No. 4

(New York, 1910), passim.

• 25
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                   335

 

Until 1912 the earlier Marine Hospital Service (1798), later

the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service (1902), was ex-

clusively a medical relief and quarantine agency. In that year

the beginning was made for providing on the federal level a public

health organization which has since grown into an effective safe-

guard against epidemic diseases being introduced from outside

the United States as well as exercising control over interstate

communication of epidemic diseases.20

 

State Department of Health

The laws of Ohio relating to the organization of the State

Board of Health received a thorough overhauling at the hands

of the General Assembly in 1917. There emerged essentially the

present form of organization which is known as the Department

of Health of Ohio.²¹

 

Influenza Epidemic

In 1918-19 there occurred in Ohio and throughout the world

the pandemic of influenza. This epidemic nearly reproduced the

same degree of fear and social disorganization that had been

produced by the previous cholera epidemics. A high mortality

rate and an enormous amount of illness forced upon every one ??

realization of the thin dividing line between the years of com-

parative good health and the sudden onset of a devastating

epidemic.²² As one outcome of that epidemic, the General As-

sembly in 1919-20 completely revamped the ancient system of

local health organization in Ohio. A reduction from 2,150 local

health units to some 200 was effected.23

There is discernible in this period a gradual shift from

etiology to therapeutics.  The exploration of the gross patho-

genic microorganisms gradually exhausted itself under the pat-

tern laid down by Pasteur and Koch. We are today face to face

with the virus diseases which have not yielded thus far their

 

20 Cf. H. S. Mustard, Government in Public Health Commonwealth Fund

(New York, 1945).

21 Ohio Laws, CVII, 522-5.

22 Forrest E. Lindner and  Robert D. Grove, Vital Statistics Bates in the United

States, 1900-1940 (Washington, D. C., 1942), passim.

23 Ohio Laws, CVIII, Part 2, 1085-93.

• 26
 

336   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

full secrets.  Astonishing discoveries in the field of chemo-

therapy are at the moment holding the center of attention. The

speed with which the sulfa compounds, DDT, penicillin, and

streptomycin have become common in popular discussion is al-

most breath-taking. The next shift may be in the field of physics

as we speculate concerning the application of atomic energy to

the realm of medicine.

 

Table IV

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO, 1900-1945

 

Year                                Population                                   Disease                                                  Period

1902                               4,321,527                                     Small-pox                                              1901-3

1905                               4,458,354                                     Small-pox                                              1905-13

1919                               5,683,124                                     Influenza                                               1918-19

1921                              5,921,257                                     Diphtheria                                             1921

1923                              6,182,537                                     Influenza                                               1921-23

1926                              6,503,581                                     Measles                                                 1926

IV. Future Outlook

As we look back over the long trail that epidemic diseases

have blazed in Ohio there are certain broad trends which seem

to mark the reasons for the decline of such diseases. There has

been an amazing growth in scientific knowledge in the areas

of etiology and therapeutics. There has been an equally astonish-

ing improvement in medical education, in hospitals, and public

health. There has also gone along with these improvements an

unprecedented diffusion among all the people of better standards

of daily living.

There has never been in the history of the world such a

vast migration of human beings from the temperate zone to the

torrid zone and even to the arctic zone as we have witnessed

within the past seven years. Nor has there been less threat from

epidemics to the lives and health of our people.   If ever we

needed a demonstration of the degree of our control over such

diseases, we have just lived through one never equalled in the

world before.

But to say this is not without recognizing that there are

many unsolved problems before us. The discovery of a specific

• 27
 

EPIDEMICS IN OHIO                 337

 

for tuberculosis or a complete understanding of the virus diseases

or the cause of cancer may be right around the corner.

If we can project ourselves into the future on the basis

of our present knowledge and past experience in the control of

epidemic diseases it seems. clear we shall follow somewhat along

the following lines:

I.  Organization of research coordinated closely on a

national basis.

II.  Extension of conditions for the establishment of

higher standards of living for all our people.

III.  Synthesis of our present separate entities of medical

school, laboratory, hospital, and public health organiza-

tion within a university to comprehend a truly theore-

tical and applied biological science.

IV.  Integration of our local, state, and federal public

health services.

V.   Improvement in technics and content of health educa-

tion both on an individual and mass basis.

 

As Pasteur himself said at the evening of his long and use-

ful life, "Much has been done; but there is still a great deal

to do." And the people of Ohio must needs join in the doing.

• 28
 

A CLEVELAND DRUG STORE OF 1835

 

by HOWARD DITTRICK, MD.

Editorial Director, the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland

 

This presentation outlines many activities of an early Cleve-

land druggist with some mention of contemporary patrons and

customs. The information is based upon a manuscript volume

which was presented recently to the Howard Dittrick Museum of

Historical Medicine in the Cleveland Medical Library. Written

in long hand, the book deals with drugs, medicine, and a number

of things, with brief reference to persons who have previously

owned the book.

The title page reads "E. F. Punderson, Receipt Book, Cleve-

land, January 7, 1835." The book is 6 x 4 inches in size, the back

is broken, and one cover has disappeared. The 220 pages are

much yellowed with age, but the ink remains distinct and the

writing clear and legible. Written after the manner of some

oriental manuscripts in which one book is written from before

backward and the other from behind forward, the first part deals

with medicine and prescriptions and the other with veterinary

medicine, husbandry, and home economics.

The information contained in the manuscript was assembled

during an era when difficult and uncertain transportation of nec-

essary medicines led to the establishment of drug stores in the

more populated centers along waterways and overland trails. Often

these drug depots were found in the general store or in the post

office. Here the doctor came on horseback to replenish his saddle-

bags with crude drugs, a few liquids, and some powders. Not

infrequently the doctor dispensed remedies from an assortment

of as many as one hundred and fifty preparations. When time

and distance permitted, he instructed his patients to procure their

medication from the nearest drug shop.

Dr. David Long, the first physician in Cleveland (1810), is

said to have opened the first drug store of the settlement adjacent

338

• 29
 

CLEVELAND DRUG STORE                339

 

to his home on Superior Street. Two other drug stores were

added on the same street in 1831, the Aaron Tufts Stickland

(later the Gaylord store), and the Handerson and Punderson

stores.

Lewis  Handerson, senior partner in the latter store, was born

in 1806 in Columbia County, New York. Upon completing his

training he sold drugs in New York City. In 1831, he and the

son of one of his former preceptors in Hudson opened the Han-

derson and Punderson drug store in Cleveland. They conducted

a progressive store, for in 1833 they advertised stethoscopes for

sale.  Handerson married Punderson's sister and, having no

children, he adopted two orphaned children of his brother,

Thomas. One of these children was Dr. Henry E. Handerson

(1837-1918), who fell heir to the manuscript under consideration

upon the death of Punderson.  Mrs. Henry E. Handerson pre-

sented it to the Dittrick Museum.

A word about this Henry E. Handerson. Upon graduation

from Hobart College he wrote in Greek a thesis on Socrates which

I had the opportunity to examine. The meticulous care and neat-

ness displayed reminded me of the manuscript of Benvenuto

Cellini's autobiography  in the Laurentian Library in Florence.

After graduation Handerson spent two years studying medicine

under a private tutor in Louisiana. At the outbreak of hostilities

in 1861 he enlisted in the Louisiana Volunteers and was made a

captain two years later. He was captured at the Battle of the

Wilderness in 1864 and remained a prisoner until June 1865. He

resumed medical study and graduated from the College of Physi-

cians and Surgeons of New York in 1867 and practiced there

until he came to Cleveland in 1885. A successful practitioner

and earnest scholar, he left a deep impression upon cultural medi-

cine in Cleveland. His translation of J. H. Baas' Outlines of the

History of Medicine, with his own flavorful footnotes, remains a

classic in its field. A chapter on medicine was written by him

for S. P. Orth's History of Cleveland (1910). Another work

Gilbertus Anglicus, was published after he had lost his sight.

Such, then, is the family history of this book.

• 30
 

340   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Today through innumerable channels we are bombarded with

varied instructions for everyday living, all of which we accept as

; matter of course. In pioneer days those living in isolated com-

munities had to pool such useful information. The general store,

the tavern, or the drug store was a clearing house for such data

to meet the needs of the settlers. Folk medicine, founded upon

the test of trial and error, thrived and often was sufficient unto

the day.

Books were scarce and when purchased they had to be trans-

ported to the Western Reserve by boat and by horseback from

Pittsburgh or even from  Philadelphia.  The druggist supple-

mented his knowledge of drugs by keeping a record of recipes

and practical suggestions for ready reference. This manuscript

was such a record. The entries began on January 7, 1835, and

the last date mentioned is December 1857, about six years after

Handerson retired.

Like the cookbook of an old housewife, it is badly worn with

use and is interleaved with clippings, in this case chiefly patent

medicine testimonials. Among them is noted a "Pain Extractor"

which promised to cure as by magic, "burns, chronic diarrhea,

inflammatory rheumatism, salt rheum (eczema), inveterate sores,

swelled and broken breast, and spavin lumps in horses. . . . A lady

in Syracuse, who had lost two fingers by felons, was attacked by

another; she applied the Extractor and repelled the enemy. Mr.

Swartz, Lydius Street, Albany, chopped his four fingers nearly

off. His brother cut an enormous gash above his knee. His

child was horribly burnt, and his horse had a dangerous cut. In

every case the Extractor was applied and cured all as by magic."

Many of the drugs employed in the various formulas re-

corded in the book are still employed more or less frequently.

Were it not that so many preparations are now compounded by

manufacturing concerns and supplied to the trade under a pat-

ented name, we would be familiar with most of the individual

drugs in Punderson's prescriptions.

In addition to counter prescribing and compounding  prescrip-

tions, the druggist of 1835 was his own specialty manufacturer.

• 31
 

CLEVELAND DRUG STORE                341

 

He made court plaster (both black and flesh-colored), corn plaster,

wart remover, adhesive plaster, perfume, tooth paste, shaving

liquid, shaving cream, hair remover, hair tonic, and many hair

dyes, one of which contained hartshorn, nitrate of silver, and

rain water. He was also prepared to furnish the customer with

any kind of animal oil desired. Buffalo oil, for example, was

made of lard oil, perfumed with equal parts of oil of lavender

and oil of lemon. Although it is not mentioned the accommo-

dating druggist doubtless could extract from the same jar those

popular old medicinal fats, goose grease, dog grease, and bear

grease.

Care of livestock frequently demanded the druggist's atten-

tion, especially since there were few veterinarians at the time.

John Baird appears as the sole veterinary surgeon in the Cleveland

Directory for 1837. I remember as a boy being warned against

giving a horse cold water when he was still hot after a workout,

lest he be foundered. In the Punderson manuscript directions

were laid down for treating the stiff joints of the foundered

horse. The formula and method of compounding drenches, em

brocations, washes, and blisters for horses were given in detail.

Early incision was not the treatment of choice in abscesses of

horses; a poultice of bread and onions was applied. Squills were

given for heaves; a preparation of corrosive sublimate, oil of

origanum, and camphor was used locally for spavin. Numerous

prescriptions were noted for introducing medicines in the form

of a ball, with a flavoring agent such as licorice and mucilage as

a base to hold the ingredients together. Physics, tonics, and cor-

dials for horses were described, and even the favorite "condition

powders" which contained resin, nitre, and levigated mercury.

For cattle, remedies were given in a drench instead of a ball. For

sheep the dose was one-quarter that for the horse. There were

also included procedures to make hens lay and remedies to cure

the roup.

The drug store was also the pet shop of those early days, but

this feature was limited largely to the care of birds. Full in-

structions were outlined by Punderson for the feeding and care

of song birds. To prepare a German paste, "take the crust of

• 32
 

342   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

bread and moisten it in clean water. Put in a stone mortar and

having added some carrot finely grated and a few spoonsful of

fine barley or wheat meal, grind the whole well together with a

pestle. This paste should be made fresh every two days at least.

This paste for nightingales, thrushes, blackbirds, robins and such

birds that feed on insects and seeds both."  Observation had

proved to those early settlers that carotene, although not recog-

nized under that name, was an essential element in the food of

birds.

"The gold finch," Punderson wrote, "is a healthy bird and

seldom out of order. Too much hemp seed will cause epilepsy,"

he reported, "in which case instantly abandon it and feed him

entirely on thistle seed or lettuce seed." If the bird is scoured,

Punderson instructed, crumble dry chalk in his seed.   Bull

finches and siskins are other varieties of birds for which special

care was mentioned. A special diet was recommended for can-

aries while pairing.

Punderson did not state whether nightingales were resident

in Cleveland or whether they were imported for aviaries. They

were, however, sufficiently numerous in the settlement to war-

rant an outline for their diet.  "For nightingales," Punderson

explained, "the best food in summer is ant eggs, to which add

daily 2 or 3 meal worms. To secure a plentiful supply, nearly

fill a quart earthen jar with bran or oatmeal, add some old pieces

of leather, throw in a gill of meal worms, cover it up with a piece

of wet cloth (woolen).   In 3 months they will change into

beetles which will lay eggs: these will be converted into maggots,

and give a supply of food for some time. In autumn [feed them]

very ripe elderberries dried and mixed with ant eggs." Punder-

son ended these notes, "So much for the aviary."

This druggist was also an authority on gardening.   His

handbook contained instructions for the care of strawberry plants

and the so:l in which they grew. For grafting trees he used a

wax made of tallow, beeswax, and rosin. He advised planting

tansy around the roots of the peach tree to prevent infestation

with the peach worm. Could it be that this represents the influ-

• 33
 

CLEVELAND DRUG STORE               343

 

ence of horticulturalist Jared P. Kirtland, who moved to the out-

skirts of Cleveland in 1837?

If the ratio of reference items is significant, it would appear

that the druggist was consulted more frequently for problems of

the household than for those of the sickroom, and since the house-

wife found him so accommodating and dependable, the man of

the house also sought him in consultation. Thus this druggist

prepared red, blue, and indelible inks, sealing wax, varnish, paint,

wood stains for oak, mahogany, or black walnut, putty remover,

wagon soap, and oil blacking. Beef gall mixed with rain water

was advised for cleaning carpets.  Full directions were given

for transforming a sheep's skin into a serviceable doormat. If

the patron wished to make iron look like copper, whiten iron,

color leather, or polish metals, the druggist would make up a

serviceable product. A mixture of milk, sugar, and pepper was

his favorite fly killer, phosphorus for killing rats, and corrosive

sublimate, sal ammoniac, and whiskey for killing bedbugs. He

could tell the housewife how to make candles burn more clearly

and without running. Recipes for making such dyes as madder

red, scarlet red, emerald green, and permanent blue, as well as a

bleach or bluing for the laundry, were also filed in this book. He

could even make up a brilliant whitewash "such as was used on

the east end of the President's house in Washington."

He had a valuable collection of recipes to tempt the epicure.

One seems interesting: "To make peach brandy, take 2 quarts

brandy, 5 pounds sugar, 16 pounds peaches, water sufficient to

dissolve the sugar; in which you boil the peaches till soft and

when cold add the brandy." Other recipes were given for marking

claret, currant wine, gin, cider, and champagne. Here also were

included methods to prepare cocoa, preserve eggs, cook omelets,

pickle fish, dry peaches, figs, or plums, and stew, pickle, or pre-

serve tomatoes. In 1840 there was an entry, copied from Samuel

Johnson's Dictionary, for making "froisels," i.e., fried bacon

enclosed in a pancake.

Prominent citizens and regular customers rated special pre-

scriptions. Thus there was listed a special ointment for Hannah

• 34
 

344  OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Barnard, made of Burgundy, pitch, wax, and olive oil. Some

members of the clergy held decided opinions about certain forms

of medication, and occasionally were given to prescribing. Hence

a special pill was made up for "Rev. L. Windsor."  For some

pioneer doctors special prescriptions were compounded. Dr. G.

Wheeler ordered an ophthalmic ointment made up under his

name. Dr. Charles A. Terry's toothache remedy was a mixture

of cloves, cajeput, laudanum, camphor, and ether, a combination

which should relieve any aching tooth. Several formulas were

attributed to other doctors.

For Dr. Robert Johnstone, an Edinburgh graduate of great

promise, who died of "ship fever" at an early age, this pharmacist

compounded "favourite pills" of blue mass, colocynth, and

ipecac. Dr. Brooks had a cough syrup of squills, hyoscyamine,

blood root, lobelia, morphine sulphate, and syrup of tolu. Dr.

Royal Dow also had his own cough remedy. Other outstanding

physicians mentioned include Dr. George Mendenhall, Dr. E. W.

Cowles, and Dr. John Delamater. Mendenhall, a graduate of the

University of Philadelphia, practised from 1835 to 1843 in Cleve-

land, but had to move to Cincinnati because of a respiratory

disease. He prescribed Windham pills, the formula of which

was obtained from the Patent Office in Washington.

Cowles began practice in Austinburg in 1811, practised for a

time in Mantua, moved to Cleveland in 1832, to Detroit and Ann

Arbor in 1834, and returned to Cleveland in 1838, where later he

became a member of the Board of Health. Cowles had a private

formula for "bilious pills," consisting of calomel, aloes, gamboge,

and tartar emetic. Delamater, a member of the first faculty at

Cleveland Medical College, came to Cleveland in 1843. The

prescription prepared for him contained hydriodate of potassium,

iodine, and rain water. In the light of research regarding the

relation of thyroxin to diseases of the thyroid gland his prescrip-

tion must have benefited many people in this goiter belt.

This little recipe book reveals side lights which help in the

appreciation of pioneer conditions a century ago. Early Cleve-

landers were largely dependent upon one another for the neces-

• 35
 

CLEVELAND DRUG STORE        345

 

sities of living both in health and disease. When practically

everything had to be made locally, it was essential to know a

number of things. Evidently when confronted with the un-

known, the settlers simply asked the druggist.

• 36
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE, EARLY OHIO SCIENTIST (1792-1856)

 

by ADOLPH E. WALLER

Associate Professor and Curator of the Botanic Garden.

Ohio State University

 

The nineteenth century in the United States suddenly swung

into its expanding programs of research and education. No one

was prepared for the impact of the increasing realization of the

power over nature which man now possessed. The illusion of

the perfectibility of all men through knowledge stretched un-

dimmed. The inherent weaknesses of man and the snail's pace

of education were not yet perceived. Gigantic discovery was so

close at hand that no one troubled to consider disappointments as

more than temporary obstacles. A little proficiency in mathe-

matics, languages, and the law marked the educated man. Scien-

tific training was unknown. Science laboratories were just start-

ing and the skills and techniques they were to impart were born

on the spot.

The thesis that the medical colleges of the time were the

sources of our trained scholars in the natural sciences has been

stated in previous papers in this series. Three months at "Cam-

bridge College" prepared Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth for his degree

in medicine, after an apprenticeship with practicing physicians.

Many others were likewise briefly exposed to formalized study.

Dr. John Locke was more fortunate. His formal training lasted

about three years.

Philadelphia and Cincinnati were early in asserting leader-

ship in the quality of medical training offered. Many of the

students trained in medicine were not as interested in its practice

as in following the leads offered by their training in sciences. Our

outstanding botanists and geologists of the 1830's were thus

educated. Dr. Locke's story follows a similar pattern with the

difference that he added physics to his earlier inclinations toward

botany and geology. Perhaps it was from his keen observation of

346

• 37
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE              347

the applications of botany to both medicine and agriculture. John

Locke's father also contributed to his son's interest in the sciences.

Samuel Barron and Hannah Russel Locke, John's parents,

had lived at Lempster, New Hampshire, and Fryeburg, Maine,

before going to settle near Bethel, Maine, on the Androscoggin

River. John was then four years old. It was a choice location

for the skilled artisan, Samuel Locke. There was a large tract

of land to be purchased there. There was water power to operate

his own saw- and grist-mills. There he built a shop which made

him the outstanding millwright of the region. A number of

people settled nearby and were given work in the mills and shop.

The settlement came to be called Locke's Mills.

Here young John grew up and received his early schooling

which was supplemented by the varied assortment of books that

his father's library offered.  As the community prospered a

Methodist Meeting House and other establishments were added.

For all of his skill as a machine builder in a young country hungry

for machines the senior Locke found time to teach handicrafts,

mathematics, and some languages to his son. He was also able

to send him to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to attend an academy

where he obtained the usual classical courses of study. John

roamed the area collecting plants and hunting. It was a sad mo-

ment of realization for the father when young Locke decided he

was not longer content to stay in Bethel to do what his father

had successfully accomplished. John was eager to study medi-

cine and began at Bethel in 1815 and shortly afterward with

Dr. Twitchell at Keene. New Hampshire.   A  fragment of a

diary shows the determination of a rebellions young citizen forced

by his own decree away from his father's abundance:

July  15, 1815.                 Left Bethel, arrived           at  Keen, Aug.15

Oct. 20, left Keen  for    New  Haven    tarried  in northfield.

Oct. 25, Northfield to     West Springfield  Expenses                              $0.85

Oct. 27, Thence to Weathersfield          do                                             $0.72

Oct. 28, From Weathersfield to New Haven   "                                       $0.90

 

$2.47

• 38
 



• 39
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE         349

 

The journey was performed on horseback and it will be thought sur-

prising that no more expense was involved. Economy was the object as

I had, I thought, hardly money enough to bear my expenses at college.

I ate milk, with sometimes a piece of apple pie with it only twice a day.

Oct. 29 went to church in the chapel. Oct. 30 attended Professor Silliman's

lecture on chemistry.

A search made for a youthful portrait of John Locke has

not been successful. A portrait of him as a man about 50 years

of age shows a large, somewhat spare figure with a thin face and

prominent cheek bones. He is said to have had clear blue eyes of

an unusually sparkling quality. It is doubtful if the active stu-

dent at Yale could have maintained his Spartan diet for long. He

became Dr. Silliman's assistant. With that great man's recogni-

tion there was undoubtedly some means of subsistence provided.

Besides, there may have been money from home.

Conversations with Silliman offered mental pabulum   of a

stronger sort. John was fired to emulate his chief in travels in

Europe and other places. He began by a visit, in the summer of

1816, to Dr. Nathan Smith, the eminent founder of Dartmouth's

Medical School.

At Hanover he met also young Dr. Solon Smith who was

struggling toward an education and toward increasing knowledge

in a field of special interest to John. They had to become ac-

quainted first in order to feel free to exchange ideas which were,

perhaps, a little strange and not too welcome to some of their

elders and preceptors. They both wanted to know how to identify

plants. This was the common bond. Solon Smith owned a book

they would both try to study. It was Dr. Jacob Bigelow's Plants

of the Vicinity of Boston, a new book, the first edition having

been published in 1814. Presently it was to become the favorite

New England version of the artificial system for naming plants,

better known as the Linnean system. The system following nat-

ural orders and families was still regarded as revolutionary. It

was some years before the North American flora would be so

classified by Torrey or Gray. Jacob Bigelow's book was there-

fore well known and twice was revised and enlarged. The third

edition appeared in 1840, still demonstrating its usefulness to

• 40
 

350   OHIO ARCHNEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

amateur botanists. Dr. Bigelow's scientific reputation rested on

his lectures at Harvard and on his contributions to the United

States Pharmacopoeia. His Plants of Boston was known as the

most popular manual of its day.

What could not be accomplished by Solon Smith alone,

namely, rouse an interest among Dartmouth students in plant

studies, Locke and Smith together were able to do. Soon they

had a number of the students tramping the hills around Hanover

in search of specimens. To the delight of Dartmouth's medical

college faculty, particularly to Nathan Smith, these became regu-

larly organized field trips.

Back in New Haven the best parts of the next two years

were busy ones for Locke who continued to assist Dr. Silliman

in chemistry and at the same time continued his plant studies

with the help of Dr. Eli Ives. He lectured in Portland, Boston,

and Salem, and at Dartmouth and Yale. Probably with the en-

thusiastic backing of Dr. Nathan Smith he was offered a curator-

ship of the Cambridge Botanical Gardens by Dr. Jacob Bigelow.

It seems, however, he was able to remain there only a short time,

though not for lack of botanical qualifications. He was too out-

spoken on religious subjects for the peace of mind of some of the

members of the Cambridge group. It is recorded, however, that

he had been most pleasantly welcomed by Harvard's president,

John Thornton Kirkland, who found Locke sufficiently engaging

to pay him the compliment of offering to study botany with him.

Though not yet equipped with his medical degree he was

ready to combine medicine and botany on an expedition. The

United States Frigate Macedonian was to sail under special orders

to explore the Columbia River. It was to leave Boston Harbor

on September 20, 1818. What an opportunity for Locke, prob-

ably still smarting a little from having lost his curatorship! He

was warned that he would be badgered as a landlubber, a down-

east country boy, and a noncombatant. Perhaps most of all the

rugged seamen would resent the presence of a young intellectual.

If tempers really broke he would have to stand in an "affair of

honor" of large or small consequence.

• 41
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                    350

 

When Locke appeared on board the Macedonian he was ac-

companied by a long mahogany box somewhat resembling a sur-

geon's amputating case. This he contrived to drop on the deck

in such an awkward manner that the lid flew open exposing a

beautiful and complete outfit of dueling pistols. He was invited

to join when pistol practice for the officers was announced. His

skill in hitting any spot selected upon the targets convinced the

crew that the surgeon's mate was a man who knew how to handle

small arms. He was no longer a stranger of uncertain position

on shipboard.

Sailing orders for the Macedonian brought her off the Caro-

lina coast in time to meet a West Indian hurricane of great vio-

lence. She was dismasted and so beaten by the waves as to be

almost destroyed. After the storm she limped slowly back to

Norfolk. Upon deliberation, the Navy abandoned the Columbia

River operation. Locke applied for his discharge and made his

way back to New Haven as quickly as he could. life on the sea

was a gamble. Others might take it if they chose. For him there

was other work.

He set in at once to complete his requirements for a medical

degree at Yale and in 1819 was graduated with the sixth class.

Dr. Eli Iyes taught Materia Medica and Botany, the usual ar-

rangement made in the medical curricula of that period. He had

a reputation for scholarship and had published a brief list of the

plants of New Haven as early as 1811. This was later extended

with the help of his students to more than a thousand plants. Also

at his own expense he had set out a botanical garden near the

college.¹ Locke must have spent a great deal of his time in study-

ing the collections and he resolved to prepare a manual for

students which would quickly familiarize the beginner with the

meanings of terms used in classification.

To prepare the illustrations for this, Locke learned the art

of engraving. His father's careful instructions in the use of

tools served him well, and his own skills and desires as a crafts-

 

 

1 Andrew D. Rodgers, "Noble Fellow" -- William Starling Sullivant (New York,

1940), 81,

• 42
 



• 43
 

146          EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

PLATE     15. A.

CLASSES--See Frontispiece.

This plate contains a figure of a flower in each of

the 24 Classes. With the exception of 1, 9, and 23,

they are either native or commonly cultivated.

Fig. 1. Monandria, 1 stamen; Mare's-tail, Hippuris

culgaris. Native of Britain.

This is an example also of the order Monogynia, having 1 pistil.

2. Diandria, 2 stamens; Speedwell, Veronica.

3. Triandria, 3 stamens; Common Timothy-

grass or Herds-grass, Phleum    Pratense,

much magnified.

a. The entire Floret, having three stamens and two

feathered styles projecting from the two compressed

glumes which enclose them at the base.

b. The Pistil shown separate, consisting of the germen

and two feathered styles.

This is an example also of the order Digynia, having 2 styles.

4. Tetrandria, 4 stamens; Cornel, Cornus pani-

culata, somewhat magnified.

5. Pentandria, 5 stamens; Common Elder, Sam-

bucus niger, magnified.

It is an exemple also of the order Tryginia, having three sessile

stigmas.

6. Hexandria, 6 stamens; Barberry, Berberis

culgaris.

7. Heptandria, 7 stamens; Chickweed winter-

green, Trientalis Europeus.

8. Octandria, 8 stamens; Dwarf tree primrose,

(E1nothera punnila.

9. Enneandria, 9 stamens; Flowering Rush,

Butomus umbellatus. Native of Britain.

This is also an example of the order Hexagynia, having 6 pistils.

10. Decandria, 10 stamens; Broad-leaved Lau-

rel or Lamb-kill, Kalmia latifolia.

11. Dodecandria, 12 to 19 stamens; Houseleek,

Sempervivum tectorum.

FACSIMILE OF EXPLANATORY PAGE FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

• 44
 

354   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

man enabled him to complete his task.     It was a teaching aid

not paralleled in the United States. The Linnean system     of

classification was illustrated with examples of North American

species. These would be readily obtainable for class use. The

descriptive writing of Jacob Bigelow's book was supplemented

by figures of the plants which beginners could not fail to grasp.

The dedication of Locke's Outlines of Botany was to "Jacob

Bigelow, Rumford Professor of Materia Medica, Harvard." In

his preface he separates elementary from practical work and

characterizes his work as showing the same difference that a dic-

tionary or grammar woull bear toward works of history or

poetry.  His raison d'ctre gives the following recommendation to

plant study: (1) medicine, the arts, and agriculture depend upon

it; (2) it is a rich source of pleasure; (3) it affords discipline

by means of which methodizing a subject and analyzing it may

be learned; (4) it offers spiritual inspiration.  "The study of

nature is the elder scripture written by the hand of the Creator."

Instructors of botany today will take heart in the following item

from his preface: "From what little experience I have had in

instructing I cannot recommend to teachers to oblige their pupils

to commit any of the following pages formally to memory, in do-

ing which they are by no means certain to get the ideas."

Published in Boston in 1819, this work must have come to

Dr. Bigelow's notice and won the approval of President Kirkland.

When Dr. Bigelow brought out his second edition of the Plants

of Boston (1824), he might well have used Locke's illustrations.

An excellent teaching, manual redounding to the credit of both

Locke and himself would have been the result.  By this time

Locke was in Ohio where other interests were crowding into his

busy life. Bigelow's second edition was too late for him. An

associate of Locke said of him that:

Scarcely four years had elapsed since he left the valley of the

Androscoggin a plain country boy, and yet, within that time he had

secured the favor of distinguished men, had received the appointment of

Assistant Surgeon in the Navy, had become a Doctor of Medicine, an

author of a popular scientific work, a teacher and lecturer in colleges, not

• 45
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                 355

 

only to pupils but to professors. All this was accomplished without one

dollar of patronage or support except that created by his own exertions.²

He was not to find a remunerative medical practice however.

Things might have been different had he remained aboard ship

or had he read medicine under a physician.    Medical colleges

offered no instruction in dealing with patients, and the hard life

and meagre living of a country doctor offered little to attract him.

He accepted the position of assistant to Colonel Dunham who was

the proprietor and head of an academy for girls at Windsor,

Vermont. Here his gifts as a teacher could again shine forth.

When Colonel Dunham     developed the plan for establishing a

similar school in Lexington, Kentucky, Locke agreed to go there

for that purpose. He felt that New England was dominated by

religious intolerance and he preferred to live in another part of

the country.

A boyhood memory was a probable factor in this decision.

His father had built a Methodist Meeting House at Locke's Mills

giving both land and materials for construction.   By an old

Massachusetts law, which applied in Maine as part of Massachu-

setts, a tax for the support of the prevailing sect was levied on

members of other sects unless exempted by payments to the sup-

port of their own denomination. Locke, Senior, refused to qual-

ify under the exemption clause and also refused to pay the asses-

sed cash tax because of his donations. He regarded the law as

invasion of religious liberty. John witnessed the officers of the

law driving away cattle from his father's farm, having seized

them in lieu of tax money. This injustice so strongly impressed

itself upon John that he determined he would some day live in a

place where there was less upholding of the letter of religious

administration and greater tolerance for human rights.

Since Colonel Dunham's plans had altered, Locke came to

Kentucky alone and founded the    Lexington Academy in 1821.

Little is known about the Kentucky school. He may have made

some important acquaintances in Lexington. It probably served

 

2 M. B. Wright, An  Address on  the  life  and Character of the Late Professor

John, Locke (Cincinnati, n. d.), 14.

• 46
 

356    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

as a means of establishing Locke as an educator in that section

of the country.   It likewise was the means of bringing him      one

step nearer establishing his residence in Cincinnati which was to

become his permanent residence.

One authority wrote:

He began his work in Lexington, Ky., in 1821 and soon evinced his

superior talents as a teacher. In 1822 Locke had occasion to visit Cincinnati,

making the trip from Lexington on horseback. "As he emerged from the

woods of Kentucky, and rose over the hill south of Newport, the valley

surrounding the now Queen City opened to his admiring view. On approach-

ing the city the rattling of drays, the clink of hammers, the smoke of

factories, the rush of steamboats, the firing of signals of arrivals and

departures, acted upon his mind with all the force of enchantment. He fell

in love with the Queen City and decided to make his home here."  Ethan

Stone, that remarkable pioneer and philanthropist, took an interest in the

young stranger and aided him in establishing a non-sectarian school for

young ladies (Dr. Locke's School) which enjoyed a great reputation for

many years and was patronized by the best people. The school was located

on the east side of Walnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets.³

Other friends soon included the ministers of several denom-

inations of churches in Cincinnati. Dr. Joshua L. Wilson and Dr.

Ruter, whose daughter became a pupil of Locke's school. There

was no concealment or evasion in respect to moral or religious

instruction in Locke's academy.  None was offered, teaching be-

ing construed as secular. Yet he was firm in making opportunities

to "impress on the minds of these pupils the great principles of

religion, the existence and attributes of Diety, the expedience

and necessity of cultivating social virtues.     Open your school

then that it may be patronized by all denominations," said Dr.

Ruter, "and great good will result."

In a History of Cincinnati and Hamilton Country is the fol-

lowing statement concerning Locke's school:

In 1823, Dr. John Locke, a man of science and of some progressive

views in education, organized in Cincinnati a private school for girls,

under the name of Locke's Female Academy. In this school, as in others

established about the same time in the Ohio Valley, some of the methods

of Pestalozzi were followed. It is interesting and suggestive to reflect

 

3 Otto  Juettner Daniel Drake and His  Followers (Cincinnati, 1909), 156.

• 47
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                          357

 

that just at the time when the old Swiss reformer was nearing the close

of his life, dejected from  the apparent failure of his toils, enthusiastic

teachers on the banks of the Ohio river were putting his wise advice into

practice.4

A  family weekly magazine published at the time praised the

school thus: "It was truly gratifying to witness the rapid im-

provements of the pupils generally, in all the branches of science

taught in this institution, and more particularly in those of Natural

and Moral Philosophy and Botany."5 During the twelve years

of Locke's proprietorship somewhere near four hundred pupils

received an education in the school. Mentioned for high attain-

ment in the early days of the school were Amanda Drake, Mary

Longworth, Sarah and Jane Loring, Frances Wilson, Jane Keyes,

Eliza Longworth, Selima Morris, Charlotte and Mary Rogers,

Elizabeth Hamilton, and Julia Burnet.

Mrs. Trollope who usually displayed unlimited irritation in

her criticism  of Cincinnati and its inhabitants gave some space to

the school following her attendance at one of the commencements.

She described Dr. Locke as a

gentleman who appears to have liberal and enlarged opinions on the

subject of female education . . . [and] perceived, with some surprise, that

the higher branches of science were among the studies of the pretty crea-

tures I saw assembled there. ... 'A quarter's' mathematics, or 'two quar-

ters' political economy, moral philosophy, algebra and quadratic equations,

would seldom, I should think, enable the teacher and the scholar, by their

joint efforts, to lay in such a stock of these sciences as would stand the

wear and tear of half a score of children and one help.6

However, Mrs. Trollope's judgment has been             seriously

questioned.   liven her own son, Anthony, wrote of her that "no

observer was certainly ever less qualified to judge of the pros-

pects or even of the happiness of a young people."7

Contemporary writers in Cincinnati agreed that Mrs. Trol-

lope and her English friend, Miss Frances Wright, stirred a great

deal of discussion because of their unconventional attitudes.⁸ In

 

4 History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio, Their Past and Present

(Cincinnati, 1894), 100.

5 Cincinnati Literary Gazette, July 31, 1824.

6 Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London, 1832), 114-5.

7 Anthony Trollope, Autobiography (New York, 1905), 156.

8 John P. Foote, The Schools of Cincinnati and Its Vicinity (Cincinnati, 1855),

64-5.

• 48
 

358   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

spite of bitter opposition they probably caused people to think

about some of the current problems of education and they may

have led the way to reform. Locke's school is noteworthy be-

cause it was turned definitely toward the concepts of modern

education. During its fourteen years, it would have established

Dr. Locke's reputation if he had never engaged in any other

occupation. He became famous for simple lucid exposition. His

method of asking questions designed to inculcate thinking habits

made the school known throughout the nation.

His methods were based on the principles of Pestalozzi.

During his brief association with educational methods while at

Windsor, Vermont, and his attempt to work alone while at Lex-

ington, he must have had an opportunity to try several methods.

There is also the possibility that he met Dr. Joseph Buchanan

while in Lexington, acquiring from this original, though some-

what frustrated genius, the firm conviction that mathematics and

science should become a part of a liberal education. If Locke's

school was not the first in the United States to try the Pestaloz-

zian method, it was certainty the first of such schools in the Ohio

Valley.  When Dr. Daniel Drake later turned to educational

problems he failed to acknowledge Locke's plan probably because

Locke had left his school and was a professor in the Ohio College

of Medicine, a rival of Drake's Cincinnati College.

Dr. Locke also began lectures in the Mechanics' Institute. He

is credited with being one of the early workers or founders of.

that valuable source of instruction. He began the lectures in his

own home and, when that became too crowded, gave them in a

building on Walnut Street occupied by a Baptist congregation.

Later, after Mrs. Trollope's financial debacle the Institute occu-

pied her bazaar.

In 1825, John Locke was married into one of Cincinnati's

distinguished families. Mary Morris, of Newark, New Jersey,

and niece of Nicholas Longworth, became his bride. In the course

of time six sons and four daughters were born.9 More and more

 

9 George M. Roe, Cincinnati: The Queen City of the West (Cincinnati, 1895),

360.

• 49
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                     359

 

John Locke was devoting time to his own investigations in elec-

tricity and less to the preparatory school. He was ready in I835

to accept an appointment as Professor of Chemistry in the Medi-

cal College of Ohio. He also was becoming interested in geolog-

ical studies.

Probably his first interest in geological questions had come

from being asked to make chemical analyses of various minerals

submitted to him. The other possibility is that he had privately

begun some surveys of his own, the direct result of his student

days when he had served as assistant to Professor Silliman. His

lectures at the Mechanics' Institute would have promoted an at-

tempt to keep abreast of new publications. He may also have met

Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth at some of the medical meetings begin-

ning to be held at that time. Dr. Hildreth had been writing on

the geology of Ohio and publishing, among other places, in Silli-

man's Journal as the American Journal of Science and Arts was

popularly known. Dr. Hildreth had also served as chairman of

the governor's committee to report on the best method of obtaining

a complete geological survey of Ohio.10

Dr. Locke contributed to the Second Annual Report of the

Geological Survey, along with Charles Whittlesey, J. W. Foster,

Caleb Briggs, and Dr. J. P. Kirtland, with W. W. Mather as Chief

Geologist. Dr. Locke's report was the last one received as he

was lecturing and traveling in England during I837. His open-

ing sentence shows his eminently practical point of view and his

desire as an educator to reach his public. "As the geological re-

ports are intended, in part at least, for the distribution of useful

information among the people, it will be necessary to introduce

occasionally, though briefly as possible, such elementary explana-

tions as will enable them to understand the subject discussed."11

He was assigned the southwestern quarter of the State. He be-

gan with the chemical analysis of the limestones which had been

included in the first report of the committee as well. The lime-

stones were not fully classified as they are at present, of course,

 

10 Report of the Special Committee . . . on the Best Method of Obtaining a

Complete Geological Survey of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1836), 15.

11 Ohio Geological Survey, Second Annual Report on the Geological Survey of

the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1838), 203.

• 50
 

360   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and he simply states them by color as "blue limestone" or as "cliff

limestone."   The latter derived its name originally from       early

reports of surveys made in Scotland. It was the general name

for limestones forming cliffs. Locke wrote:

In accordance with this nomenclature a creek which falls into the

Ohio below Madison (Ia.) [Indiana] and makes in its course some magnifi-

cent leaps cover the cliff limestone has received the name of "Clifty Creek"

and the cascade that of "Clifty falls," the / being added agreeably to a

common provincialism of the west which makes a skiff, a "skift," a cliff, a

"clift," etc. Clifton, a town north of Xenia, is just at the commencement

of the same stone, and has borrowed its name from it.12

He surveyed and drew with great skill a diagrammatic section

of the valley and channel of the Ohio River at Cincinnati from

Keys Hill in Ohio to Botany Hill in Kentucky and records the

high water of the Ohio in I832, sixty-two feet above its low water

level of I838.13

Of the importance of studying the dip of geological forma-

tions he has this to say:

The strata are nearly horizontal, and having a slight and irregular

undulation, the dip is with difficulty ascertained, while one confines his

attention to the layers of the same formation, for example, to the blue

limestone about Cincinnati.  The inclinations resulting from  undulation,

are seldom more than one foot in 45; unless water be contiguous to mark

the level, the strata appear to the eye to be quite horizontal. I have exam-

ined the inclination of the strata of blue limestone about Cincinnati very

particularly with the leveling instrument, and have sometimes found a uni-

form and consistent dip for half a mile; in another locality the dip would

be in an opposite direction. The strata in the bed of the Ohio at its lowest

stage in Sept. 1838, showed, by comparison with the surface of the water,

that these local undulations were extremely irregular, presenting inclin-

ations which vary in all possible directions, in planes continued uniform

not generally more than one fourth of a mile. A single stratum cannot in

general be identified far enough to determine on the whole, whether it has,

independent of local undulations, an absolute dip. However, when we

examine the several formations, previously named, on a large scale, the

dip becomes very evident; and as one formation sinks gradually below

the surface, and another superior one presents itself, gives rise to those

important changes in the face and productions of the country, which we

should hardly attribute to a slope so moderate as one inch in a rod. By a

 

12 Ibid., 211.

13 Ibid., plate facing p. 211.

• 51
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                         36I

 

correspondence held between Dr. Owen, the Geologist of Indiana and my-

self it has been ascertained that the strata slope downward each way from

a line not far from that between Ohio and Indiana pitching eastwardly

in Ohio and westwardly in Indiana in such a manner that the cliff lime-

stone, which shows itself not many miles east and west of Richmond, in

Indiana, descends and comes to the bed of the Ohio river, at the east side

of Adams Co., in Ohio, and at the falls of the Ohio, at Louisville.

It follows as a'consequence of this arrangement that the out-cropping

edges of the strata present themselves at the surface in the same order in

the two States, but proceeding in opposite directions. For example, on

ascending the Ohio eastwardly, we meet with blue limestone, cliff lime-

stone, slate, fine sandstone, conglomerate, and coal. On descending the

Ohio westwardly, we meet with the same things, in the same order, viz;

blue limestone, cliff limestone, slate, &c.14

This quotation is given in full as a splendid example of his

simple explanations and descriptions. Here Locke is the student

in the field beckoning the stay-at-home to venture out of doors

and try first hand an interpretation of nature. This is also the

first description of the great limestone arch, "the Cincinnati anti-

cline," as it came to be called in the textbooks. Locke had given

up his private school but he was still the educator addressing a

larger unseen audience as well as the special group for whom his

remarks Were prepared.

He was also eager to present the value of the study of geol-

ogy to the average citizen. On the map he prepared of Adams

County he placed a section connecting with Scioto County on the

east. He showed by this means that the coals of Scioto County,

because of their dip toward the east and their rise westward,

would be in the air I,160 feet above the level of western Adams

County. At a glance anyone would know that searching for coal

in Adams County would be useless. It is believed this is the first

time a geological report carried so much useful information in

such a simple, graphic way. Part of its purpose was to demon-

strate the practical side of the survey to the State legislative

assembly. However, it was not until thirty years later under

John S. Newberry that the work was resumed.

For some years, Dr. Locke had been investigating terrestrial

 

14 Ibid., 206.

• 52
 

362  OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

magnetism and the deviation from true north noted in the hand of

the compass. While he had been in England in 1837, Locke had

met some of the British investigators of this problem. He was

able to add data for comparison with the European published

results. He continued these investigations for a number of years

and soon was a recognized leader in this field. Possessed of an

inquiring mind and a passion for designing or improving pieces

of equipment he produced a "microscopic" compass and the

famous Locke level still used by civil engineers. Both of these

were employed first by him in his own survey work and then

offered for use to others.

Locke's connection with the Geological Survey produced a

number of results of permanent value to the State. It was

through his researches on the variation of the magnetic needle

that the corrections in the separate tracts of land in the survey of

the State of Ohio could be made. The Virginia Military Lands

were parceled out to the owners of claims without any regularity

or system. Locke helped to establish order in this confusion by

his knowledge of the behavior of the magnetic compass. He was

also able to locate iron deposits with a special instrument he devel-

oped, and made a journey into southeastern Ohio with other

members of the Survey for that purpose.  It was clear to the

members of the Geological Survey that much of the school land

originally appropriated to the State had been sold too quickly.

Without a geological appraisal the land had been sold on the basis

of its potential agricultural value only. The intelligent work of

men like Hildreth and Locke unfortunately could not prevail in

the moulding of public opinion. Instead of squandering most of

its land grant Ohio might have profited as was later possible in

some of the other states, notably Minnesota.

Locke was to have prepared detailed surveys of both Butler

and Adams counties. He completed Adams before the work was

abandoned. The survey of Adams County was thus appraised

years later by Evans and Stivers:

There has never been but one geological survey of Adams County,

and that was made by Prof. John Locke, Assistant State Geologist, in

• 53
 

Dr. JOHN LOCKE

 

1838. There is a more recent report but it does not at all cover the county.

Prof. Locke's report is so comprehensive and withal so plain that anyone

by reading it may acquire much valuable knowledge of the geological for-

mations of Adams County. It is however necessary to note some changes

in classification and nomenclature in accordance with present usage.15

 

On April 25, 1838, the disaster to the river steamer Moselle

occurred. It was the worst accident of its kind. The boilers had

exploded and the ship was burned. Since a number of lives were

lost, the citizens of Cincinnati called upon Dr. Locke to head a

committee of investigation. With his usual thoroughness Locke

examined the possible causes of the explosion.     He centered

blame upon the ship builders and owners, accusing them        of

neglect in taking precautions to guard the lives of crews and pas-

sengers.  His report was widely read.     The discussion of his

report became an important factor in establishing modern laws

to protect all who use steamboat navigation.

Dr. Locke may have accepted the chair of chemistry in the

Medical College of Ohio in 1835, though his actual teaching seems

to have begun in 1837. Locke went abroad between 1835 and

1837, for the purpose of purchasing new apparatus for the

courses he intended to teach. His connection with the college is

clearer after 1837, when the faculty was reorganized and the

rivalry with the Cincinnati College was declining.

He entered this period of teaching fully aware of the storms

that had centered around the medical faculties or one might also

say around the personality of Daniel Drake. By the time Locke

joined the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio, originally

founded by Drake, Drake had also founded two other medical

faculties in Cincinnati, the Medical Department of Miami Uni-

versity which lasted only a year and from which Drake resigned

when it was included in the Ohio College, and the Medical De-

partment of the Cincinnati College which lasted from 1831 until

1839. Meanwhile Drake had taught at Transylyania University

and at Jefferson College in Philadelphia. Drake's brilliant, tur-

 

 

15 Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers, A History of Adams County, Ohio

. . . (West Union, Ohio, 1900), 10.

• 54
 

364 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

bulent career, full of zeal and ambitions to be the foremost medi-

cal teacher in Cincinnati, touched the lives of all the prominent

medical, scientific, and public spirited citizens of the town. Locke

should have been forewarned by the frequent upsets in the medi-

cal faculties. This did not prove to be the fact.

When the political intrigues which had been fomented in the

Ohio College resulted in Locke's dismissal in 1849-50, he was

stunned. Although he was reinstated and served two more years

he no longer retained the enthusiasm for the college that carried

him through the creative years he had spent there. It was during

this period of about fourteen years that Locke proved to be one

of the most remarkable figures in the advancement of science in

his time. It is the aim of the following paragraphs to show this

phase of Locke's life.

locke had carried with him to England his observations of

the deviations of the magnetic compass and thus was able to make

comparisons with the results obtained in England. Col. Sabine,

of Woolwich, wrote to Locke, November 20, 1843: "Permit me

to express hope for early publication of your observations com-

paring Cincinnati, Toronto . . . on terrestrial magnetism. If

there should prove a difficulty causing a serious delay in the pub-

lication of your discoveries in the United States, I cannot doubt

that either the Royal Society or the British association would be

very proud to receive them and print them."¹⁶ There was sound

practicality in this request. The accuracy of surveying and navi-

gation were still too dependent upon the erratic compass.

He invented a thermoscopic galvanometer of great sensitivity

and demonstrated it to members of the British Association. Prob-

ably at this time he met Professor Wheatstone and Sir David

Brewster who were interested in his experiments on optics which

they were likewise investigating. G. M. Roe adds another factual

nugget:

In connection with this trip of Dr. Locke to Europe may be men-

tioned a circumstance illustrative of the uncertainties regarding municipal

action. The city of Cincinnati then used an incorrect linear measure and

requested Dr. Locke to secure a standard. He did so, having two made

16 Wright, Address on . . . John Locke.40.

• 55
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE    365

 

and compared with the English standard by William Simms, who made

the originals for the British Government. One of these is 413 millionth

of an inch too long, the other 150 millionth of an inch too short. (Stand-

ards can not be made exact but practically are so by having a known

error.) The city authorities failed to reimburse Dr. Locke, and the meas-

ures . . . still remain in the hands of his heirs. The measures are now of

great interest as the original English standards are under seal, and can only

be opened by an act of Parliament.17

The acquaintances he made abroad probably caused him to

think about the advantages of systematic gatherings of scientists.

He began to attend meetings of the newly organized Association

of American Geologists. He did not attend the founding meeting

held at the Franklin Institute in April 1840. He may have been

at that time with David Dale Owen on the Indiana Geological

Survey, the report of which was published that year. However,

W. W. Mather was present. Mather had known Locke for his

work on the Ohio survey and may have seen to it that Locke came

to the second meeting of the Association, and thus tied him in

with the group that included Edward Hitchcock, L. C. Beck,

Douglass Houghton, J. N. Nicollet, A. D. Bache, and others.

When the second meeting was held beginning April 5, 1841,

at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Locke was

appointed one of the committee to plan the conduct of business.

From the previous year a committee to discuss mineral manures

had been held over. Locke took part in that discussion. W. W.

Mather asked to postpone his paper on the "Drift" and Locke

read a paper on the "Geology of Some Parts of the U. S. West

of the Allegany Mountains." In this he offered some compari-

sons between the position and age of European formations and

those he had studied in Ohio and Indiana. This brought forth

some discussion and objections that were quite natural since "cliff

limestone" and "blue limestone," the currently employed terms,

were inadequate for comparative studies.

In a later session he described a new species of trilobite

found at Cincinnati and named by him Isotelus maximus. He

demonstrated by casts one specimen 93/4 inches long and frag-

 

17 Roc, Cincinnati, 360.

• 56
 

366 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

ments of another 19 1/2 inches long. The latter was the largest

trilobite known. In another paper he discussed the "diluvial

scratches" that he had observed in limestone. He called attention

to variations in the widths of the lines or grooves, up to 1/2 inch

broad. Some were "1/8 inch deep, scaled rough in the bottom as

if they had been ploughed by an iron chisel properly set and car-

ried forward with an irresistible force."  From  their exact

straightness and parallelism Locke drew the inference, now accep-

ted as factual, that the lines had been formed "by a body of im-

mense weight, moving with a momentum scarcely affected by the

resistance offered by the cutting of the grooves." He pointed out

that one set of grooves might be crossed at an angle by another,

but that the parallelism of each set remained.18

All of this data on striae must have set the geologists think-

ing that perhaps diluvial was not the way to describe these

scratches.  Not many of the members present had been West.

There was Nicollet who had explored in Missouri. He, Douglass

Houghton, Bela Hubbard, Mather, D. D. Owen, Locke, H. D.

Rogers, also of the Medical College of Ohio, and possibly some

others were opening up the explorations of the continent. The

great continental ice theory was not to be announced by Agassiz

for some years. The announcement of the parallel nature of the

grooves must have made that second session of the geologists

pretty much Locke's session.

At the second meeting, also held in Philadelphia, the presi-

dent, Rev. Professor Edward Hitchcock, referred to Locke's ob-

servations. There is not available a first hand report of all that

Locke had included in his paper. Hitchcock's address depends

in part on remarks that must have been made by Locke. Hitch-

cock brings out the point that the grooves even cross sharp ridges

without alteration of direction.  It was difficult after that ses-

sion to attribute all the facts about drift to a deluge. The stage

was being set during these meetings for the modern discussions

of glacial geology that were to follow in the next few years.

The place of leadership that Locke was filling in the early

 

18 American Journal of Science, XLI (1841), 158ff.

• 57
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                    367

 

years of the Association of American Geologists continued dur-

ing the following meetings. At Boston in 1842, Dr. Samuel

Morton did not arrive on time and Locke was asked to take the

chair.  A constitution was adopted, the name being altered to

Association of American Geologists and Naturalists.  Its cos-

mopolitan aspect was attested by the presence of Charles Lyell.

As in the previous year, Locke presented papers on a diversity

of topics. His paper on "Ancient Earthworks in Ohio" led to

the formation of a committee to examine and report on the

western mounds.   Locke, J. N. Nicollet, John H. Blake, Dr.

George Engelman, of course Hildreth, Prof. Troost, and Dr. B.

B. Brown were named. A search for any work by this com-

mittee fails to turn up a report, however.

Locke also presented a paper on a new instrument he had in-

vented, a reflecting level and goniometer. He also described a

reflecting compass. His skill in designing instruments suited to

his problems was second only to his ingenuity in measuring and

observing facts others neglected. He was a teacher because he

was ready to deal with the situation at hand. He returned to

plant studies with a paper on a prostrate forest under the Ohio

diluvium. Not presented at the meeting was a published report

on observations made at Baltimore on the dipping compass. To

test his observations his friends, Major Graham, Nicollet, and

Bache, made similar use of his instruments. He also published

a drawing of the large trilobite, changing the name to Isotelus

megistor.19

Locke published a report on mineral lands ordered to be

surveyed by Congress in 1839. This had carried him to the lead

regions in Wisconsin and in Missouri. His observations on the

subject of terrestrial magnetism carried him to the north side of

Lake Superior.²⁰  He also became interested in transportation

problems at Sault Sainte Marie and was asked by the War De-

partment to prepare a report on the subject of a ship canal around

the rapids. He observed the granite boulders along the lake shores

 

10 Ibid., XLII (1842), 235, 366.

20 U. S. Congress, 26  Cong., 1 sess., Executive Document No. 239, pp. 53,

116-39.

• 58
 

368   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

with strong doubts as to their usefulness in canal construction.

He stated that the want of materials for such a work need

not be any impediment as the limestone of Drummond's Island

could be easily transported to the Sault. He made an observation

contrary to a recommendation which had been made to the War

Department with regard to the depth of the canal. He doubted

whether vessels drawing more than six feet of water could at all

times navigate St. Mary's River on account of two bars, one of

rock at the Nebish Rapids and the other of mud in Lake Huron.

Therefore it would hardly be necessary to make the proposed

canal twelve feet deep as had been suggested. Since Locke's time

more than a century of thoughtful experimentation has attempted

to adjust the ore and grain cargoes, the ships themselves, and the

docking facilities to the fundamental geological problems his alert

eyes reported in his "hasty" observations.

Then the Doctor, the almost forgotten person in the several

John Lockes of whom the reader must by this time be aware,

came forward to express himself.

There remains another consideration which although not immediately

connected with wealth is still important in furnishing that without which

wealth cannot be enjoyed. We venture to urge the opening of Lake

Superior to steam navigation in order to facilitate the access of thousands

of invalids to a region so picturesque, so novel, and so invigorating as can

scarcely be equalled on the globe.

He mentioned the weariness of life created by the "Mias-

mata of the Mississippi and the calm dry heat of a summer in the

Southwest."   He grew poetic in recommending an early escape

to the "pure water, the clear atmosphere, the temperate summer

climate, the rugged fir clad rocks, the piney glades carpeted

with reindeer licken and hung with the dangling usnea."

It was probably nostalgia for his own boyhood in Maine after

a succession of sultry summers in the Middle West that brought

the enraptured praise that follows:

The canal being opened the citizens of New York escaping from dust

and ennui and the resident of New Orleans fleeing from the pestilence of

the summer months may be speedily wafted to a meeting at Porter's Island,

at Isle Royale or at La Point and there enjoy most of the Boreau wonders

• 59
 

DR. JOHN LOCKE                         369

 

of which they have read in the voyages and travels of Ross, Franklin and

others and there in the day admire the delusive mirage of the distant shores

and in the night the portentous streamers of the aurora.

The fifth annual meeting of the Association of American

Geologists and Naturalists was held in        1844 at Washington.

Dr. Locke     served        as chairman, and               Dr. Douglass Hough-

ton as treasurer.              Dr. David D. Owen          who had    been  elected

secretary was not present. Locke read a paper on the connection

between geology and magnetism, since he had always made both

kinds of observations on his field trips. He noted that the great-

est magnetic force was to be found in the Lake Superior region.

Douglass Houghton read a paper on the importance of connecting

geological surveys with linear surveys of public lands.         The

Washington meeting, close to the seat of Congress, contained in

the papers of these two investigators a      symposium    which, if

noticed, would serve to call the attention of government officers to

the needs of research and exploration of our natural resources.

John Locke, the quiet teacher, was on the way to becoming          a

national figure.

In the paper he read at the meeting he remarked:

In the year 1838, I began to examine the elements of terrestrial

magnetism, including dip declination and intensity, both horizontal and

total, over various parts of the United States. Every year since I have

made journeys to extend this kind of research until now I have embraced

in a general way the region from Cambridge, Mass. westward to the ex-

treme of Iowa and. from the middle of Kentucky northward to the north

side of Lake Superior. It was but natural that I should note the geology

of the substratum at each station; and on reducing my observations and

putting them into tabular form I examined the properties of each group

extending over rocks of a similar kind and found so far as I had examined

some general indications of which classes of rocks might be distinguished

although concealed at considerable depths, the magnetical instruments in

this respect answering the general purpose of a mineral or divining rod.22

This may    have contained   a little over-extension    of his

enthusiasm--yet in the Lake Superior region compasses were al-

was showing crazy local deflections. What excitement was con-

 

22 American Association of Geolgists and Naturalists, Abstract of the Pro-

ceedings, V (1844), passim.

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370  OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

cealed beneath the lofty cool words of Locke's paper! He was

talking to the men who knew better perhaps than any other group

in America the lack of knowledge of our mineral resources. They

were the custodians at that moment of enormous potential wealth

before which even Aladdin's lamp would have blinked out.

Present at the meeting were Douglass Houghton whose name

will always be associated with Michigan and Minnesota, Wm. B.

Rogers, H. D. Rogers, and A. D. Bache of the Coast Survey

Office. Capt. Wilkes of the United States Exploring Expedition

invited the company to visit the collections housed at the U. S.

Patent Office. An invitation was extended likewise from the U.

S. Naval Observatory. To a number of the men he met, Locke

was shortly to become indebted for attention they gave to other of

his inventions.

He had strung a telegraph line--the first one in Cincinnati

-- from the laboratory where he worked in the Ohio Medical

College to his home. He had trained two of his sons to help him

put together various instruments and pieces of scientific appara-

tus he continually was designing. Excerpts from Locke's report

seem the most appropriate for describing his greatest invention.

This instrument was the electro-chronograph.  "My attention

was first drawn practically to the subject of the combination of

clocks and electrical machinery for producing useful results in

1844 and '45."23 He had obtained a lathe and a set of tools from

the sculptor, Hiram Powers. Whenever he needed a new piece

of apparatus to demonstrate a principle he was able to design an

effective device. In consequence the lectures he offered attracted

a distinguished audience.  His assistants were Thomas K.

Beecher and his sons John Locke, Jr., and Joseph M. Locke.

He devised two types of electrotomes, one with a conducting

pendulum swinging through a mercury cup, the other a wheel

with pins or teeth to break the circuit of tripping a tilt hammer.

This second form avoided friction. It then occurred to him,

particularly after correspondence with Sears C. Walker of the

Coast Survey Office, that an improvement could be made on the

 

23 American Journal of Science, n. s., VIII (1849), 233.

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DR. JOHN LOCKE                          371

 

observations of time signals and star signals made in the calcula-

tion of longitude.   Heretofore these had been made by ordinary

clock readings and manual contact with an electric circuit breaker

to send signals by telegraph to another station.     Due to an un-

certain loss of time the observations were not at the level of ac-

curacy desired.

Locke then thought of using the Morse register on which a

magnet marked traces on a paper ribbon.        By this means any

station connected with the observer could have an event recorded

at the split second the circuit-breaker key was moved.       "Almost

every astronomical observer has intiutively felt a desire to have

some kind of a chronograph with which to subdivide a second

and record fractionally the punctum of observation."

Sears C. Walker wrote:

Dr. John Locke of Cincinnati, has invented a very cheap and simple

instrument which can be attached to the same pivot along with the second

hand of any clock, and which will, when put in connection with the tele-

graphic circuit, make the clock beat at the same instant all along the line.

The hours, minutes and seconds, may be registered on the fillet of

paper, and by striking on the telegraphic key at the instant of any occur-

rence, the date of it is recorded on the same paper to the hundredth of a

second. This invention will be useful for many practical purposes. It

makes the current of time visible to the eye in a permanent record. It does

not change the rate of going of the most delicate clock. It will doubtless

be applied hereafter to many purposes for the advancement of science; such

as the determination of geographical longitude, in connection with transit

instruments, measurement of the velocity of sound; perhaps, if the circuit

be long enough, of lightning itself.²⁴

Lieutenant M. F. Maury, Superintendent of the National

Observatory, wrote in a letter to Hon. John Y. Mason, Secretary

of the Navy. this graphic account of the use of the electro-

chronograph:

Thus the astronomer in Boston observes the transit of a star as it

flits through the field of his instrument, and crosses the meridian of that

place. Instead of looking at a clock before him, and noting the time in the

usual way, he touches a key, and the clock here subdivides his seconds

to the minutest fraction, and records the time with unerring accuracy.

 

24 Ibid., 237-8.

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372   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The astronomer in Washington waits for the same star to cross his

meridian, and, as it does [the key for circuit breaking on] Dr. Locke's

magnetic clock is again touched; it divides the seconds and records the

time for him with equal precision. The difference between these two times

is the longitude of Boston from the meridan of Washington ....

And thus this problem, which has vexed astronomers and navigators,

and perplexed the world for ages, is reduced at once, by American ingenu-

ity, to a form and method the most simple and accurate. While the pro-

cess is so much simplified, the results are greatly refined. In one night

the longitude may be determined with far more accuracy by means of a

magnetic telegraph and clock, than it can by years of observation accord-

ing to any other method that has ever been tried.25

The Coast Survey had made an arrangement with the Tele-

graph Company in Cincinnati to have a line extend through Dr.

Locke's house. On November 17, 1848, this experiment of ob-

serving longitude with Locke's instruments was tried for the first

time and it was successful. The model instruments had been com-

pleted by the fourth of November. Dr. A. D. Bache communi-

cated a full report to Congress in December of that year and to

Dr. Locke a special Congressional award of ten thousand dollars

was the official recognition that the representation made on the

part of his colleagues in this advance into the realm of science

was approved.

This invention would be a happy, elevated note on which to

conclude the account of the work of Dr. John Locke. One must

not forget that his work in the fields of physics and astronomy

sprung from the lectures on chemistry he conducted in the Ohio

Medical College.   That was always an institution given to per-

sonality conflicts among the faculty members. Locke had be-

gun his work there during one of the frequent reorganizations of

the faculty personnel.  He was to leave it in the same manner.

The blow of being asked to resign was too much for him to bear,

even though he knew it was a political quarrel that forced his dis-

missal. He was shortly afterward reinstated, but the damage to

his spirit of loyalty had been too great to rekindle hi's old enthus-

iasm for the school. He remained two years after reinstatement

 

25 Ibid., 241.

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DR. JOHN LOCKE                   373

 

but moved to Lebanon, Ohio, and there managed a preparatory

school. This was too weak a challenge to his broad grasp of the

world of science. But he had no further taste for original in-

vestigation if he and his labors were to be subject to political

vagaries.

At the meeting held in 1851  in Cincinnati of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science, a lineal descendant of

the old Association of Geologists and Naturalists. over which he

had presided, Locke was not present. His son, L. T. Locke of

Nashua, New Hampshire, is listed among members of the asso-

ciation, but his name is dramatically lacking.  His friend and

associate who had done much to praise the electro-chronograph, A.

D. Bache, served as president. O.D. Mitchell, the Director of

Astronomical Observatory of Cincinnati, delivered an address on

the longitude of Cincinnati, and Sears Walker gave a report, but

the only mention of the name of Locke is an acknowledgement of

a chronometer loaned by him.26 To Locke it was easier to sub-

divide seconds than it was to regain emotional composure and

balance.

He made one strong effort to return to his first interest in

the field of science--the plant world. He delivered at Lebanon

an address, "On the means of renovating worn out farms." After

discussing declining fertility in soils and the methods of com-

batting this, he recommends the establishment of libraries of

agricultural schools and an agricultural survey. It is interesting

to note that a paper by N. S. Townshend is contained in this same

volume.27 The brilliant genius of John Locke was dimmed.

He was not looking backward but was passing something of his

spirit to others who would look to the natural resources of Ohio

and their future development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26 American Association for the Advancement of Science, Proceedings, V

(1851), passim.

27 Ohio  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  Ninth  Annual  Report  .  .  . 1854

(Columbus, 1855), 212-2.

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