High Forehead"
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
"NAN-TAN-BE-TUN-NY-KI-AYE" "The White Chief with the High Forehead" or "The Boss with the Bald Head" H .n II ill " ih till I il II il Wi Mi i H I' I'M Ill nil mdimi I 1 I " NAN-TAN- B E-TUN-NY-KI-AYE " ''The White Chief with the High Forehead" or "The Boss with the Bald Head" PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS ITpleasureis superfluousof greetingtotheexpressmemberstheofhonorthe West-and ern Surgical Association. Most of you, perhaps, were born in eastern states, but by right of migra- tion and subsequent adoption have become faith- ful citizens of the West. Whether we bear a localized fealty to the basin of the Mississippi, to the rugged country of the Rockies, or the Pacific sea board, we all feel a common pride in the name of Westerners. As surgeons we are justifiably proud of many worthy contributions by our confreres of the West. In this field we believe we are keeping pace quite satisfactorily. In mentioning the achievements of the west- ern physician, I need not point only to medical achievement, but also to worthy work done in governmental fields by such western representa- tives as Ray Lyman Wilbur and Hubert Work. The West has given generously of its medical talent in every need, and the development of the West, from the earliest days to the present, is rich with historical data attesting the influence of the western physician. When General Kearney marched west to Cali- fornia in 1846 to establish American rule, Dr. John S. Griffin was the chief army surgeon. He settled in Los Angeles and became intimately linked with its early development. His account 2 of that campaign is one of the most authentic. Griffin Avenue in Los Angeles today bears mem- ory to his name. In the "Mariposa Battalion" that discovered Yosemite Valley during the campaign against the Yosemite Indians was Dr. LaFayette Hough- ton Bunnell. Those who visit Yosemite today will see a bronze tablet erected to his memory, unveiled at the meeting of the California Medical Association in 1925. Following the acquisition of California from Mexico there was a gradually increasing migra- tion of physicians from the east. Dr. Lyman of San Francisco in his book, "The Scalpel under Three Flags in California," vividly describes these days. In 1849 upon the heels of the dis- covery of gold, the gold fever attacked physician and laymen alike and there was an increasing influx of physicians but like their brethren, they, too, went into the hills to search for gold. Most of them learned within a short time that more was to be obtained from practice and returned to the towns. In these days the common medical fee was two ounces of gold a visit (thirty-two dollars), apparently an exorbitant fee until it is learned that laudanum cost a dollar a drop, quinine a dollar a grain, potatoes a dollar a pound and a hair cut five dollars. 3 The medical history of California for the next quarter of a century reflects well the rough and ready character of life in general, shot through as it was with the wild influence of the gold min- ing days. The spirit of those thrilling days is well illustrated in the following lines: "Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold, Spurned by the youngs but hugged by the old. Price of many a crime untold. Gold! Gold! Gold! Good or bad a thousandfold Many a colorful character existed in these days, and perhaps no other physician excites our interest more than the bellicose Southerner, Dr. Beverly Cole, a talented Virginian whose elo- quent but ungovernable tongue kept medical affairs in a constant turmoil. He it was who drew down the wrath of Californians upon him by an interesting speech at a medical meeting, in which he commented upon the frontier character of the life and suggested that the women were of some- what easier virtue than those in the east. This insinuation was roundly denounced by his med- ical associates and he was subjected to a scathing scorn which would have proved withering to a less hardy soul. He seemed to thrive on conten- 4 tion and his next move was that of accusing several of his medical brothers of negligence and malpractice in caring for a prominent patient. The trial that followed brought several doctors to verbal blows and assaults and provided much general interest. ItSfi an interesting commentary Snathe fitness of epita thatTrk^tomb^5tie_t:od ay"* ts-sur- mounted by^thj^figure otn^peaceful little lamb a that the ins tion on>me stonfcxreads, leverly*SvHee ^a«^anwa^an onlySononlj ana his Vptwents, survived him, had dictated the ' inscription. Leonard Wood, later to rise rapidly in promi- nence, first gained recognition by his work as army surgeon with General Miles in the cam- paign against the Apaches. I could paint in detail a picture of many phy- sicians which would stand as a tribute to our early medical brothers. Instead allow me today to pay homage to a man who without a medical degree, although he had studied three winters in the army medical school at Washington, D. C., ministered to the ills, obsessions and manias of five thousand Apache Indians. Grant me the privilege to digress and direct your attention to some of the early history of the Southwest that 5 should engage the common interest of all west- erners. In sunny Arizona a short half century ago, the fear of the Red Man cast a menacing shadow over the land. Now calm order and tranquillity prevail. It is difficult to visualize the stark dis- quietude that existed during the dark rule of the Apaches when the "Bloody Eleven" were on the war path. A time when the fearful name Geron- imo was a synonym for savagery and no isolated settlers were safe from murder and depredation. The attempt to refashion a savage of wild nomadic habits and martial spirit into a peaceful dweller upon a reservation was proving a parlous problem to our government. Manifold factors united to prevent an equable solution. The Red Man's natural antipathy towards the white man (overcome, it is true, in many instances by the formation of many individual friendships), still precluded mutual understanding. Unfortunate handling of the Indians on the reservations by unsympathetic agents led to further dissension. The unscrupulous peddling of liquor to a race notoriously unbridled in its use of alcohol, often converted clear thinking Indians into wild savages. There is perhaps no living man more inti- mately familiar with the details of those trouble- 6 some days than Mr. John P. Clum, who lives today in Los Angeles. He bears the unique honor of having first captured Geronimo, of having so strategically lured this wily leader into a trap that he was forced to submit to an unconditional surrender and was shackled in chains and taken five hundred miles to San Carlos Indian Reserva- tion—A. T. As agent at San Carlos from 1874 to 1877, he became a close and sympathetic student of the Indian. The Apache, with a mind at the same time childlike and mature, was capable of reac- tions at time suggesting childish petulance and again the normal reaction of a developed mind. Many times they were apparently pathologic reactions swayed easily by the incantations of a medicine man. Mr. Clum, as Indian agent, was in a similar position to that of the superintendent of a school for impulsive, incorrigible children. Only a close student of a man and his mind could have obtained the remarkable results that he did. We salute him as one whom, we feel, though eminently successful in his own work, would have made the history of Western medi- cine richer in many respects, had he selected medicine as a vocation. Mr. John P. Clum was born September 1, 1851, in the valley of the Hudson. He attended 7 district school and was graduated from Hudson River Institute in 1869. He entered Rutgers College in 1870, but left the quiet halls of Rut- gers College in 1871, and accepted the position of "Observer Sergeant" in the Signal Service of the United States. He was ordered to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the purpose of recording mete- orological observations. When he arrived at the then remote spot, he little knew the thrilling experiences in store for him. The situation at that time existing between the Indian and the white man, although tern- porarily quiescent, was charged with potential menace. The southwest was the last remaining section where the red man still presented a prob- lem in so far as protection for settlers was con- cerned. The relentless westward sweep of the white man gradually had penetrated to the very heart of the Apache home. Naturally a mountain Indian, living on the fruits of the hunt and some corn planted in the valleys, they now found their mountains overrun with prospectors and their valleys occupied by settlers. It is to the credit of the red man that for ten years following the acquisition of the country by the Gadsen purchase, the Apaches were the friends of the white man. Not until they were starving, and no appropriations of Congress had 8 been made to consider their necessities in any way, was there retaliation on their part. They resorted then to the only means they had at their disposal to obtain food and clothing; steal- ing from those who had driven them from their mountains and valleys and now were allowing them to starve.