Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The other day – August 29, to be exact – was the birthday of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. He was a great American. Many remember him as a medical doctor, many remember him as a poet. I respect his accomplishments in both of those fields, plus I also admire him as a heroic administrator and a novelist. Heroic administrator? Yes. When he was appointed dean of Harvard Medical School in 1847, he admitted a student named Harriot Kezia Hunt. She would have been the first female medical student there, but Holmes’ decision was overridden by university “overseers.” Harvard Medical School did not admit a female student until almost 100 years later. Holmes didn’t give up. In 1850, he admitted three black men to the Medical School. At a meeting, the faculty forced Holmes to withdraw his decision. Although Holmes did not succeed in breaking down these barriers, he tried. With horrendous barriers, there usually must be multiple attempts to destroy them before destruction happens. He set the wheels of positive change in motion at Harvard Medical School. Another great accomplishment for Holmes was convincing the medical establishment that the biggest killer of women in childbirth, puerperal fever, was being spread by doctors who did not wash their hands before delivering babies. Other doctors vociferously denied this theory of contagion. Holmes, of course, won the argument – even if it took a decade or so. The most important part of Holmes’ medical education occurred in Paris, where he went to study in 1833. He’d been appalled at the primitive state of medicine at the time. In America, he’d studied under James Jackson, who emphasized the importance of observing the patient, and using humane treatments. Then in Paris, medicine was undergoing a revolution. The hospital system was being reformed and reorganized. In the École de Médecine, he learned the new “clinical” method for diagnosing and treating patients. He thought he would give up writing poetry when he received his M.D. from Harvard in 1836, but that didn’t happen. His first novel, Elsie Venner, was published as a series in the Atlantic, starting in 1859. It got a lot of notice, including praise from Whittier, and condemnation by the church, which called the novel a work of heresy. I, like Whittier, liked the novel very much. Holmes was also known for denouncing “quackeries.” He included homeopathy in this category (the 19th century homeopathy, which is not the same as today’s homeopathy). I just rediscovered the following footnote that I and others wrote years ago, about a letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter, Una, who was writing to a family friend about Dr. Holmes in 1864; Una’s father’s health had continued to deteriorate, following the illness he experienced in Paris in 1858 (see my August 24 journal entry). Hawthorne and Holmes were friends. In her May
8, 1864, letter to James T. Fields, Una Hawthorne
wrote, "Mamma is very anxious to have Dr. Holmes see Papa. He has so visibly lost in every way this
week, and grows so very weak, that we have longed for a physician's eye to be
upon him, but he has refused all along to see a doctor. Today, however, Mamma discovered that it is
only to a homeopathic physician he has an objection, so we are very glad,
because I suppose learned doctors in these days of whatever belief, do not
drug their patients as absurdly as they did in old times, and very likely
Papa only needs to be directed in diet and mode of life to recover. So we hope Dr. Holmes will be able to see
him." (MS, Boston Public
Library) Hawthorne did discuss his
health with Dr. Holmes in Boston on May 10, 1864. On May 12, he departed Boston with Franklin
Pierce for a tour of New England. He
died on May 18, 1864, in Pemigewasset House,
Plymouth, New Hampshire. (NHL XVII, p.
97) Sophia probably did not object to
Dr. Holmes as much as she would to other allopathic physicians. Holmes was more a scientist and medical
researcher than a practicing physician, and, beginning in 1843, he bucked the
allopathic medical establishment by insisting, as a result of his painstaking
research, that puerperal fever (childbed fever) was contagious and was being
spread by the doctors, nurses, and midwives who attended pregnant women at
delivery. (The problem of puerperal
fever was brought to Holmes' attention by his former teacher, Dr. Walter
Channing, who also was Sophia's former doctor. As early as 1773, other doctors had
suspected the disease was contagious; Holmes, however, was the one who
carried out the research and argued the case.) Although Holmes was not a rebel by nature,
he stood his ground because this dangerous disease was killing women in large
numbers. His views were eventually
accepted by the medical establishment, but not until after 1855‑more
than twelve years after his first published article on the subject. His work was a precursor to the modern
field of bacteriology. Holmes's work
on puerperal fever preceded that of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis
by four years, although Semmelweis is frequently
incorrectly credited with discovering the nature of this disease. (Baker, pp. 35-38; Duffy, pp. 162-163;
Tilton, pp. 169-176)
So in closing today, I say, stay healthy, avoid quacks, read a good book, and wash your hands. |
Monday, August 31, 2015
Statue
called “Abundance,” by Jean Antoine Injalbert, on
the Pont Mirabeau.
Flowers in
the Village Suisse. |
