Ohio History Journal

JAMES FAIRCHILD BALDWIN, M.D., 1850-1936

by GEORGE M. CURTIS, M.D.

James Fairchild Baldwin, surgeon extraordinary, was born in

the little village of Orangeville, New York, on February 12, 1850.

He died at Columbus, Ohio, on January 20, 1936, approximately

86 years of age. He had practiced almost sixty years, and nearly

forty of these as a surgeon. A master of his craft, this "rugged

individualist" was finally conquered by one of the surgical dis-

eases of which the least was then known, i. e., cancer of the lung.

In fact, the first successful removal of the lung for cancer had

been accomplished by Evarts Ambrose Graham of Washington

University less than three years previous to Baldwin's death.

His mother, nee Mary H. Fairchild, died when he was a boy

of four, and with its keystone gone the Baldwin family divided.

Two brothers and a sister went west to Oberlin, Ohio. James was

sent by his father, Cyrus H. Baldwin, to the home of friends, Mr.

and Mrs. C. B. Allen, in the village of Otto, Cattaragus County,

western New York. There he obtained his early schooling and

lived for eleven years.

At the age of fifteen he was ready to enter Oberlin College

where he matriculated in 1865. There he became an excellent

student, even though it was necessary to do extracurricular work

to help finance his further education. At one time he even was

forced to quit his schooling and teach a year in a boys' school in

Brownsville, Texas, in order to continue his studies. He was

graduated in 1870 with the degree of B.A. from Oberlin College.

He was an honor student and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. His

gold key, hanging from his watch chain, was a familiar sight to

those who saw him daily throughout his later active life. He re-

ceived an M.A. degree from Oberlin in 1874.

He entered the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia the

same year and received his M.D. degree in 1876. His graduation

thesis, "The Relation of Ozone to Disease," won the first prize and

374

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JAMES FAIRCHILD BALDWIN                 375

 

was later published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences

for October 1876. He selected this subject at the suggestion of

Dr. Robert C. Kedzie, at that time professor of chemistry at the

Michigan State Agricultural College. It was then the prevailing

view that too much ozone in the atmosphere was often the cause

of inflammation in the respiratory passages, and that lack of ozone

was responsible for the spread of respiratory infection. After

carefully reviewing the evidence presented in the available litera-

ture, and even living in an atmosphere surcharged with ozone, he

concluded that ozone was in no way responsible for respiratory

disease. Subsequent studies have not altered his original con-

clusions.

James was the first physician in the Baldwin family. His

father, who lived in Dayton, Ohio, urged him to come there and

begin his practice. The young physician, however, chose Colum-

bus, since it was the site of the State Capital and more centrally

located. He earned two dollars during his first month, and during

his first year of practice, 1876, a total of eighty dollars. He con-

tinued in general practice for twenty years, during which period

he saw "bleeding," as well as other heroic modes of treatment,

pass into history.

In 1896 he began his work in surgery. Asepsis was then

unknown; antiseptics were in their infancy; and operative risks

were high. He had used chloroform as an anesthetic six years

previously due to the influence of Dr. J. R. Reeve of Dayton.

From then on followed a series of brilliant achievements sufficient

to warrant him a niche in the history of technical surgery.

He intubated the larynx in diphtheria; used plaster casts in

the treatment of spinal tuberculosis; urged the use of chloroform

in childbirth; introduced local anesthesia to central Ohio; removed

a foreign body--a knife blade--from the lung (June 23, 1898);

and studied ectopic pregnancy. He invented instruments and an

operating table still in use. There were other notable achievements

of particular interest to the technical surgeon.

Dr. Baldwin became a prolific writer and a leading contributor

to the literature of surgery in central Ohio. In 1876, along with

the commencement of his practice, he founded the Columbus

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376 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Medical Journal and remained its editor until 1894. His one

book, Operative Gynecology, was published in Columbus in 1898,

two years after he began his work in surgery.

As an educator he was associated with the faculties of various

medical schools, which in their development finally led to the found-

ing of the Medical College of the Ohio State University. He was

professor of physiology at the Columbus Medical College; professor

of anatomy at the Columbus Medical College; professor of surgical

gynecology and later chancellor of the Ohio Medical College; and

finally professor of clinical surgery in the Medical College of the

Ohio State University. He advocated an earlier union of the two

Columbus medical colleges similar to the mergers which had

already taken place in Cleveland and in Cincinnati; however, the

union which later eventuated was unpopular for a time.

In 1900 he founded, built, and opened Grant Hospital. He

felt that the wealthy could care for themselves when in need of

hospitalization and that the poor were cared for by the clinical

services of the "teaching" hospitals. The middle classes, however,

were in real need of a hospital so well managed that the cost of

unexpected illness would be most reasonable. For years it was a

matter of pride to him that the poor received as fine service in

Grant Hospital  as those who could afford to pay. In special in-

stances they received not only private rooms but even needed

nursing service.

During his 36 years of incessant labor at Grant Hospital he

had virtually no private life. He was wholly devoted to his pro-

fession. He was always "on call" day or night and willing to

attend those in need of his services, under all conditions.

It is said that he never took a real vacation. His vacations

were attending the medical conventions and one busy trip to

Europe in 1896 previous to the commencement of his active career

in surgery. In the following letter to Jonathan Forman is clearly

expressed this ascetic spirit:

Dear Doctor Forman:

You spoke to me some weeks ago about wanting a list of my "firsts",

as you were preparing some sort of a sketch of the contributions of central

Ohio physicians to medical progress.

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JAMES FAIRCHILD BALDWIN                     377

 

I have been looking the matter up as I had time, and now comply with

your request. "Anyone who works hard", according to the world-famous

chemist Ostwald, "will find something new."

It would possibly be of passing interest to know some of the things

that I have not done, the doing of which would possibly have taken so

much time that I would not have had so much to my credit; I have never

even seen a game of golf or tennis; have never gone to a movie; have not

seen a game of baseball or football for nearly forty years; have no radio

about my house or office; once in several years my wife drags me out to

the theater, particularly if there is a Shakespearean play on the boards.

Possibly the entire absence from my brain cells of any paralyzing in-

fluence of nicotine or alcohol may have had some bearing on my report.

By thus not doing certain things that are so commonly done by others

I have had time to read all the new books along my line of work and to

read and digest about three dozen of our best medical journals.

With kindest regards,

Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 6, 1934                 J. F. Baldwin, M.D.

His social life consisted of membership in the Six Handed

Euchre Club which he attended faithfully with Mrs. Baldwin once

every two weeks. He was a member of the First Congregational

Church and took a prominent part in the formation of the

Columbus Y. M. C. A.

He was regular in his habits, arising at 6:30 each morning

and taking his meals at scheduled times. Although large in frame

and six feet in stature, he was a light eater. On finishing the

day's work he would often play solitaire for half an hour. He

claimed that it relaxed his mind for the night's rest. He had

perhaps one weakness, a busman's hobby, the collection of gall-

stones!

Dr. Baldwin's patients speak of his kindly and gentle reassur-

ances in preparing them for operations which were then far more

serious than now. To the hesitant he quoted Walter Scott, "To

the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it

seems so."

His long and fruitful life was so filled with professional

activities that he actually accomplished more than most successful

men. His devotion to his arduous work was sustained by a

powerful body and a rugged constitution. Up to 1934 he had

been ill but a single day. His mornings were spent at operations,

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378 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and his day was rounded off by visits to his patients. Often he

worked late at night at his office on Grant Avenue, thumbing

the journals and poring over his medical books. In 1931 he

asserted to one of his friends that he had performed 17,000 major

abdominal operations. He operated without glasses, sometimes

performing as many as thirteen major operations a day.

On Christmas eve of 1934 he was struck by an auto near

Grant Hospital. He was taken into the hospital, where he spent

two weeks as a result of the accident. He never fully recovered

from these injuries although he steadily refused to give up his

activities. In November of 1935 he developed what was thought

to be a respiratory infection, which gradually weakened him. He

was gradually succumbing to the now second common foe of

civilized mankind.

His last working day, after nearly sixty years of single-

minded service to sick humanity, was Christmas of 1935. He

made several calls on patients, visited Grant Hospital, and then, at

three P.M., retired to his home and to bed. Even during this last

illness he worked upon a medical article.

It appears to take ordinarily a lapse of about 75 years in

order to assess properly an outstanding medical figure, and prob-

ably more for a surgical one. For example, there was Leopold

Auenbrugger and mediate percussion, and his later discovery by

Corvisart. The eleven years since Dr. Baldwin's death is not

sufficient for complete evaluation of his work. He had an interest

in education, in the training of young surgeons, in surgical

pathology, and, as a whole, in the principles of Hunterian surgery.

His principal contribution was in the field of technical surgery.

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