EDWARD JARVIS's JOURNAL Dward
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EDWARD JARVIS'S JOURNAL dward Jarvis's Journal of a Journey from Louisville, Kentucky, to New Orleans, of a Visit of Eight Days, and of His Return to Louisville, 16 April to 6 May 1841 Edited by Sarah Chapin Introduction Edward Jarvis was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1803. He was educated in Concord schools, Harvard College (1826), and the Harvard Medical School (1830). His father, a baker, conveyed to his children the cardinal values of a self-made man: deep respect for good education, a moral obligation to accept one's share of responsibility for community affairs, and Yankee thrift. The Rev. Dr. Ezra Ripley (1751-1841), Concord's spiritual guardian, led Edward from the austerities of Calvinism into the serenity of Unitarianism and nourished his belief in repentance and eternal life. Samuel Hoar (1778-1856), tall and lean, with the profile of a Roman senator, was the standard-bearer of Concord's moral character. In addition to a great judicial mind, Squire Hoar had the. gift of simplicity and directness, and it pleased him to demonstrate to youthful Concordlans like Edward that justice and liberty could prevail both in and out of court. An upbringing in Concord's "nursery of strength and virtue"I might have assured a smooth passage through life for Edward, but he was a sensitive fellow and his Concord background (with its I SARAH CHAPIN was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She lives in Concord. She teaches adults and children to play the piano and as an independent scholar she researches historic manuscripts from the Special Collections of the Concord Free Public Library. The Journal of Edward Jarvls's trip along the Mississippi River is her third publication of Jarvls's writings. See acknowledgments and editor's note at end of article on page 303. I Rev. Andrew P. Peabody. "Memoir of Edward Jarvls MD" in The New England Historical & Genealogical Register 39 (1885): 217. TI•e Fllson Club History Quarterly Vol. 70. No. 3, July 1996 227 228 The Filson Club History Quarterly [July emphasis on accomplishment and fortitude) clashed with the standards of medical conduct current in the early nineteenth century. There was something iniquitous, Edward thought, about dispensing medicine whose active ingredients were imperfectly understood. Moreover, ff the same medication (usually calomel) were given for different morbid conditions, surely the doctor could not take credit if the patients recovered. Good medical practice, Edward argued, should consist of consultations to prevent disease. Patients should seek advice from a doctor "as the commercial and Financial world consult[s) the legal profession .... ..2 Since health is the natural condition of humankind, it could be sustained by attention to sensible health habits, good nutrition, and sanitary disposal of waste products. Such a high moral tone appeased Edward's conscience, but it had disastrous practical consequences for his medical practice. Edward's career began in Northfleld, Massachusetts, in 1830. To his dismay, it proved to be neither financially rewarding nor professionally satisfying. He left Northfleld after two years to return to Concord where, surrounded by family and friends, he expected {but failed) to fare better. After four years in Concord, Edward's income was still insufficient to meet his and his wife's needs. Having been assured that the people of Louisville would welcome an "eastern" doctor, he went to Kentucky to continue his quest for a secure professional career. He positioned himself favorably within the medical community, joined social, medical, and religious conversation clubs and served on the Louisville Board of School Visitors. His long-standing interest in history (part of the Concord benefaction from his father) was stimulated by his new surroundings, and he proposed formation of a historical society to preserve Kentucky's manuscripts and documents. Edward tried to "learn the life and character of the West, "3 yet he was never really 2 RosalbaDavico, ed.,AutobiographyofEdwardJarvls (1803-1884)(London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1992), 24. 3 Ibid., 57. 1996] Edward Jarvls's Journal 229 able to set his New England ways aside. Invariably, "there was wanting that completeness of sympathy and co-operation that belong to those whose radical notions and training have been the same. •4 He was repelled by slavery and tried to mitigate its perversion by doing his personal chores himself and only hiring men whom he could pay directly for their services, but he could never really escape its ignominious injustice. By 1840, Edward's practice had dwindled as it had in Northfleld and Concord: patients came, they got well--but they did not return. Even making allowance for the fact that his office, located near the waterfront, attracted mainly the transient river population, it was evident to Edward that his reliable core of patients was too small. Disappointed yet again in the progress of his medical career, Edward, true to his Concord heritage, turned to writing essays for literary, medical, and religious magazines on such far-ranging subjects as education in Massachusetts, the rationale for humanitarian treatment of animals, and the lack of adequate care for the insane in the southern states. He wrote informally about life in the south for the Concord newspaper: he wrote letters discouraging easterners from moving west: he wrote home to his family in Concord and his brothers in New Orleans. Altogether, he wrote 2049 letters in five and one-half years. 5 With Edward's father's death in the autumn of 1840 and Dr. Ripley growing increasingly feeble, the potency of the Concord legacy began to wane. By spring, Edward was restless and in need of a change; he longed to visit his two brothers in New Orleans. After characteristic hesitation, discussion, reflection, and prayerful consideration, he took passage on the Edward Shlppen bound for 4 Ibid. Jarvls was a charter member of the Academy of Medicine, an attending physician of the Marine Hospital {elected by the Louisville City Council). a member of the Louisville Conversation Club, a member of the Louisville Board of School Visitors [ 1838-1842). a founder of the State Historical Society with the Reverend BenJaznin Peers. Mr. Leonard Bliss, Judge Henry Ptrfle, "and others." See ibid., 52. 5 Ibid.. 54. 230 The Filson Club History Quarterly [July New Orleans. It was his first vacation in two years and, as far as we know, his last for twenty more years. Once under way, Edward yielded to the diversions of travel. H!s habits of introspection and obsession with failure were neutralized by the novel effects of his surroundings, and, unable to "suppress a glow of exhilaration," he concentrated on the .immediacy of the unfolding scene. He barely took time to wash his face for fear of missing "some new view, some island, some trees, some eddy.... " The rich mixture of the exotic colors, sounds, and smells of New Orleans jolted Edward's provincial temperament. His family, determined to awaken their solemn-minded brother to the attractions of modern life, made an effort to show him "every place of note in New Orleans." Among the sights were a theatre, where Edward was shocked by a dancer's "exposure of her person," a ballroom where he was "strictly examined" for weapons, and a bowling alley where, despite past experience in his childhood, he "failed most sadly." It was all a dazzling change from life in Louisville. Edward summed up his journey in words of personal pleasure and admiration for the river's shoreline towns and the people who traveled or earned their living on its waters. "I had enjoyed eight days of uninterrupted pleasure.., and received much knowledge, and laid the foundation of further happiness in future." Thoreau, traveling in 1839 on another river which "has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood •..until it found a breathing place in this low land,"6 surveyed the bordering landscape and cozy country towns with a thoroughness similar to Edward's. Both travellers sailed along the water "beholding from its placid bosom a new nature and new works of men, as it were with increasing confidence, finding Nature still habitable, genial and propitious. "7 Thoreau's woods and water reflected meanings consonant with Edward's expression of humbler 6 Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966; originally published in 1849l, 99-I OO. 7 Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack, 131. 1996] Edward Jarvts's Journal 231 ecstasy. "Still, the river and its banks are beautiful today," Edward wrote simply. "I enjoy them. I like to be in sight of them, and I feel that all the time spent below is lost. I shall never regret this journey." Edward returned to Massachusetts the following summer. He decided not to live in Concord but in the Boston suburb of Dorchester ("a very desirable town, but not strong in medical supply"), and to open his home as an exclusive private sanitarium for the mentally ill. His plan worked. Patients came and were cured. More followed. Edward made friends, wrote articles, and conferred with other doctors interested in his specialty. He was sought after not only as a compiler of data pertinent to the care and treatment of the mentally ill but also as an authority on accurate retrieval of census information. His trip to Europe to visit asylums and to attend the International Congress of Statisticians in 1860 "gave a greater power to his other knowledge" and "established exchanges. "8 Four years before Edward's death in 1884, his old friend George Hosmer wrote to him nostalgically: Do you remember how, slxty years ago, we used to stop studying our Latin lesson and try to look forward? I yield the palm to you.