MEDICINE IN AflERICA. 



BY TWINQ B. WIGGINS. 



[Twmg Brooks Wiggins, physician, was graduated from the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons, Chicago, 111., 1886; post graduate courses at New York post graduate 

 school, Johns Hopkins hospital, in London, Paris and Vienna; professor princi- 

 ples and practice of medicine, Dearborn Medical college: professor physiology 

 and general pathology in Northwestern university dental school; adjunct pro- 

 fessor of medicine, college physicians and surgeons, medical department Univer- 

 sity of Illinois; formerly professor of physiology in the same; formerly member of 

 the associate staff Cook Co. hospital; attending physician to the Samaritan and 

 Lakeside hospitals, Chicago, 111 ; member of the American Medical association, the 

 Illinois State Medical society, the Chicago Medical society and the Physicians' Club 

 of Chicago; author of several medical text books.] 



The history of the progress of medicine in America, as 

 distinguished from surgery, is essentially the history of the 

 men who practiced medicine. It had a beginning when Thom- 

 as Wotten came out with the expedition which sailed from 

 England on December 19th, 1606, for Jamestown. This was 

 before Harvey had announced his great discovery of the cir- 

 culation of the blood. The world was new, doctors many, but 

 scientists were few. The many theories and systems of the 

 time may be compared to their religious creeds, and interest 

 us no more. Wotten, the first of our pioneer doctors, with an 

 education such as the England of that day afforded, probably 

 was able to do little to help those of the colonists who fell sick. 

 The high courage and vigor however which impelled him to the 

 voyage to the distant and unknown land, seemed to make him 

 a worthy predecessor to the long line of able men who have 

 honored American science. Soon after came Doctor Walter 

 Russell, Doctor Lawrence Bohn, and Doctor John Pott. 

 Whatever their value or merit, they made a beginning of one 

 good work, the completion of which lies with us of the present 

 time. In 1639 they stirred up the assembly, then but twenty 

 years old, to pass laws regulating medical practice. That first 

 law was an act to compel physicians to declare on oath the 

 value of their medicines. Virginia must be remembered as the 

 landing place of our first physician, and that there the first 

 law demanded better things of medical men. It was not until 

 1620 that Dr. Samuel Fuller brought the science of Europe to 



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