Physicians on Mont Blanc (1786-1854)

PHYSICIANS ON MONT BLANC (1786-1854) By J. MONROE THORINGTON, M.D. PHILADELPHIA HE medical men whose lives village notary. Dr. Paccard studied first are here briefly sketched had a at Turin, obtaining his degree there, mutual interest in their scien- and later at Paris. Familiar with peaks tific and esthetic approach to and glaciers from childhood, he formed Tthe loftiest summit in the Alps. botanicalThey and geological collections, and were in no sense explorers, and Mont made barometric observations for alti- Blanc (15,781 feet) was die great adven- tude determinations. In 1785 he was ture of their lives, undertaken on the made a corresponding member of the spur of the moment, in a time when Royal Academy of Sciences at Turin on mountain ascents were not regarded in the basis of a paper3 dealing with rock the light of pure sport. Yet the tradition stratification. of physicians in alpine surroundings He was a careful student of the works goes back to the sixteenth-century Zü- of the Geneva scientist, Saussure, and rich school, led by Conrad Gesner, explored routes on Mont Blanc as early whose tract “De Montium Admira- as 1783. Saussure, who met him at Cha- tione” (1543)1 was the first to give voice monix in 1784, calls him “a fine fellow, to the urge of the scientist to leave the full of intelligence, fond of botany, cre- study for the field. ating a garden of Alpine plants, want- Mont Blanc was visible to travelers in ing to climb Mont Blanc or at least to Geneva, Chamonix became a fashion- attempt it.” able inclusion in the Grand Tour, and The difficulties of the ascent, in which young medical graduates of many coun- Paccard took his share of the labor, pre- tries visited European resorts in a final cluded all but the simplest experiments fling before settling down to the routine on the summit. He read the thermome- of practice. ter, but the barometric reading was un- satisfactory; he used a color-scale to The ascent of Mont Blanc by Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard and the guide, measure the blueness of the sky. Jacques Balmat, on August 8, 1786, was On his return, Paccard issued a pro- from many points of view the most impor- spectus and opened a subscription for a tant event in the history of mountaineer- book to be entitled “Premier voyage fait ing. It is a very unfortunate fact that no a la cime de la plus haute montagne de complete account of their exploit by either l’ancien continent, le Mont-Blanc.” of the climbers ever appeared. Dr. Pac- Due to insufficient subscription and card undoubtedly intended to publish lack of means, it appears never to have such an account, and if he had done so, it been published, although Paccard was would have been read from one end of Eu- still at work on it in the summer of rope to the other.2 1788. Dr. Paccard was born in Chamonix The doctor survived his ascent by in February, 1757, his father being the more than forty years, and kept a diary4 of events occurring on the mountain day, and brought to its solution a com- during the period 1783-1825, living to bination of courage and enterprise un- see fourteen climbers follow in his foot- equalled in his own time. steps to the summit. During the occu- Dr. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and his pation of Chamonix by the French friend, William Howard, received their (1792-1814), Paccard was Juge de Paix medical degrees in 1817 from the Uni- for seven years, and mayor in 1794. He versity of New York and the University married Marie-Angélique Balmat in of Maryland, respectively, and left soon 1796, and some of his descendants still afterward to visit the medical centers of live. We know nothing further of his England and the Continent. life except that many distinguished vis- In the spring of 1819 they journeyed itors paid their respects to him and he to Italy and ascended both Aetna and frequently lent climbers his scientific Vesuvius. Returning over the Simplon instruments—which they often broke or they reached Geneva and Chamonix, lost. He died May 21, 1827, aged sev- where they conversed with Dr. Paccard enty years. and made excursions to the glaciers. As a mountaineer he set before him- Their curiosity was aroused and, on self the greatest alpine problem of his July 12th, 1819, they stood upon the summit of Mont Blanc. This was the In one of his numerous slips on the first American ascent.5 snow while descending, Howard unfor- Notwithstanding the indisposition to tunately broke his precious bottle of air, action which he felt, Howard made a as well as the thermometer which they few observations, and carefully sealed a had borrowed from Dr. Paccard. How- bottle filled with the air of the summit, ard and Van Rensselaer were nearly intended for examination on his return. snow-blind by the time they reached They fired a pistol several times and Chamonix, and returned to Geneva in noted that “the report was that of a a darkened carriage, “having purchased squib.” The dark indigo of the actinic perhaps too dearly the indulgence of sky amazed them. They read the ther- their curiosity.” mometer (-2° F.) but “suffered a much Their narratives were the first printed greater degree of cold from the rapid descriptions in America of the ascent of evaporation from their body surfaces.” an alpine snow-mountain. They regretted the lack of instruments Jeremiah Van Rensselaer was born for making experiments on “the absorp- at Fort Crailo, the old family mansion tion and radiation of caloric, and on the in Greenbush, New York, on August 4, degree of cold produced by the evapora- 1793, and graduated from Yale in the tion of aether and other liquids.” class of 1813, receiving his m.d . from the University of New York four years Academy of Fine Arts; while among the later. After his return from the Euro- numerous honors conferred upon him pean tour he began to practice in New were membership in the Royal Society York City, following an apprenticeship of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy in the office of his uncle, Archibald of Sciences at Naples. Bruce, then professor of materia medica In 1840 he visited Rome and re- and mineralogy. Van Rensselaer was for mained in Europe for three years, re- many years secretary of the New York suming practice in 1843. after Lyceum of Natural History, before more than thirty years of medical activ- which he presented his ‘‘Essay on Salt,” ity, he retired, and with the exception and in 1825 published a popular “Trea- of periods spent in European travel, tise on Geology.” During 1820-41 he lived at Greenbush until his death on contributed eight papers to the Ameri- February 7, 1871.° He married twice: can Journal of Sciences and Arts, cover- first, Charlotte Foster, of Boston, and ing a wide range of scientific subjects. second, Anne Ferrand Waddington, of He became associate lecturer on geology New York, who survived him by more to the Athenaeum (the name of Wil- than twenty years. liam Howard appears on the list of pa- William Howard was born in 1793, trons), and a director of the American the fourth son of Col. John Eager Howard (1752-1827), who fought at and Sherry Wines and Curacao, and Germantown, Monmouth and the Cotv- Maraschino.” pens, and became Governor of Mary- land, was elected to the Senate, and Dr. Edmund Clark, of London, became a candidate for Vice-President ascended the mountain August 25-26, in 1816. 1825.7 At the rock called Pierre William’s birthplace was the family l’Echelle, where one first enters upon homestead, Belvedere, where in 1826, the glacial ice, he took the pulse rates of the possibility of the Baltimore and his companions. “I had expected to find Ohio Railroad was first discussed. Tra- the pulse of the strongest and most mus- dition relates that Dr. Howard with- cular subjects the least accelerated. drew from medical practice after losing This, however, did not appear to be the his first patient, a friend whose life he case.” A young Hercules of a guide had strove in vain to save. He continued, a rate fourteen beats higher than Dr. however, as adjunct professor of anat- Clark’s. omy in the University of Maryland, his His guides fired a pistol, and Clark alma mater. thought that the concussion helped to His interest in mathematics became produce an avalanche which fell shortly predominant and he resigned to enter afterward. He was told of an experience the service of the United States Govern- when the guides camped on the snow, ment engineers, being appointed one of and one of their number falling asleep three to determine the route of the Bal- over a charcoal brazier was rendered in- timore and Ohio. He was also locating sensible by carbon monoxide and could engineer for the Chesapeake and Ohio only be roused with great difficulty. canal. In 1828 he published a “Report On the summit one of the party had of the Survey of a Canal from the Po- a hemorrhage from an accidental blow,, tomac to Baltimore,’’ and in the follow- which Dr. Clark was quick to see was ing year the Franklin Institute of Phila- not from the rarefaction of the air. delphia brought out his “Specification The blood appeared of a duller colour for an Improvement in Locomotive En- than natural; our lips were quite blue, gines.” but no one had the least spontaneous In 1828 Dr.

Load more