VOLUME 1 NUMBER 2 AN N ALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY FRANCIS R' PACKARD 'M 'D ' EDITOR [PHILADELPHIA] PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY PAUL ' B - HOEBER 67-69 EAST FIFTY-NINTH STREET'NEW YORK CITY J o hn S h a w B il l in g s (1838-1913) ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY V o lu m e i S u m m er 19 17 N u m b e r 2 EULOGY OF DR. JOHN SHAW BILLINGS READ BY DR. ABRAHAM JACOBI AT THE MEMORIAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, I913 HE death of Dr. John Wm. A. Hammond. A few years of hard Shaw Billings has work on the part of Billings and the liber­ robbed America of ality of Congress made the library grow so one of its greatest that in 1876 the plan of publishing the In­ men. This New York dex Catalogue was matured and in 1880 Academy of Medi­ the first volume was printed. Of this monu­ cine, the representa­ mental work which amazed the world there tive and headquar­ are now thirty-five1 volumes. The same ters of medical fertile genius created the Index Medicus, endeavor in New York, is anxious and eag­ which was continued by Fletcher. er to honor itself by extolling a man who His military labors developed in him an was so prominent in many fields of knowl­ inexhaustible interest in public health and edge, research, and activities that each of in hospital organization. He was the ad­ them would have secured his immortality viser and builder of the Johns Hopkins and both in medical and general history. Indeed other hospitals. He delivered courses on the it is mostly to mere specialistic learning history of medicine in Johns Hopkins Uni­ and labor that many of our famous men versity, was professor of hygiene in the owe their deserved renown. University of Pennsylvania and director of Dr. Billings began his life as a demon­ its new laboratory of hygiene. In 1896 he strator of anatomy in a western college. In became the director of the New York Pub­ the Civil War he served the country as a lic Library. Some weeks ago he left behind surgeon, and finally as a medical inspector him two millions of books and fifty branch of the Army of the Potomac. He then set libraries. For two editions of the U. S. Cen- out to develop the scanty library of the 1 The completion of the second series makes the Surgeon General’s Office established by total now thirty-seven volumes. n o Annals of Medical History sus he was the statistician. Of the Carnegie The multiplicity of his virtues, aims and Institution of Washington he was the chair­ results cannot be expressed in a few sen­ man. tences. We trust, however, that it is not His erudition was stupendous, not only- probable that the light-heartedness and for­ in medicine, but in history and the litera­ getfulness of an ungrateful republic will tures of the world. His vast reading and re­ deal with his memory as with that of less­ tentive memory carried him into all conti­ er men. It is in him that the combination nents and zones, into sciences and trades, of American idealism and creative con­ into chemistry, physics and meteorology. structiveness is best represented, an exam­ Such was the commanding genius with ple to be emulated by all men, both great the measured tones, the pleasant voice, the and small, in all countries. Though Billings humorous remarks, the interest in all that was rarely active in this hall, his perfec­ is human, in social problems, and economic tions are known to us and will be appre­ and political questions. Withal he was gov­ ciated forever. His very life, ever vigorous, erned by unfailing modesty and a cheerful ever modest, ever bountiful, is his eulogy. readiness for self extinction. In his disin­ There is nobody here who is not impover­ terestedness he did not so much as think ished by the loss of his efficiency and influ­ of complaining, when the inauguration, two ence. To those who were personally near to years ago, of his very creation, the Library, him, to the members of his immediate fam­ was not even to be graced by his ever ily, it is for us a sad and honorable duty to thoughtful and forceful eloquence. express our mournful sympathy. T vooBl 2eainov What am I? How produced? And for what end? Whence drew I being? To what period tend? Am I th’ abandoned orphan of blind chance, Dropt by wild atoms in disordered dance? Or from an endless chain of causes wrought? And of unthinking substance Born with thought. The purple stream, that through my vessels glides, Dull and unconscious Flows like common tides. The pipes through which the circling juices stray Are not that thinking I, no more than they. This Frame compacted with transcendent skill Of moving joys obedient to my will, Nurs’d from the fruitful Glebe, like yonder Tree, Waxes and wastes, ’tis mine but ’tis not me. New matter still my mouldering Mass sustains The Fabrick chang’d, the Tenant still remains. John Arbuthnot {1675-1743-$). THE HYGIENIC IDEA AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS IN WORLD HISTORY1 B y PROFESSOR KARL SUDHOFF UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG Translated by DR. FRANK J. STOCKMAN LIBRARY OF THE SURGEON GENERAL^ OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D. C. LD familiar childhood recollec­ jection to that old and oft-quoted catch- tions and beautifully contrived phrase anent the “ life comformable to na­ poetic fantasies of ancient and ture.” In fact, it would be possible to de­ modern impress flatter us with vote a whole volume to an account of the theO notion that, at least in the field of many times that the cry “ Back to Nature” hygiene (as was seriously taught, centuries has resounded in its innumerable varia­ ago, of many phases of human knowledge), tions; well nigh every possible view of the the acme of enlightenment and achievement universe and a stately array of marvelous was already attained in man’s earliest in­ philosophizing would necessarily be pre­ fancy; that, in this science, at least, the sented; a lengthy jeweled chain of bril­ beginning of wisdom was synchronous with liant names in the history of human thought the genesis of things in general. would pass in review. Such teachings haunted the science of I shall not commit the heresy of denying chemistry for the longest period. As late each and every justification of this cry, as the seventeenth century, it was assumed even though there is more beating of the thatTubal-Cain was her greatest master, and air on this point than is commonly sur­ that wise Solomon, while building his tem­ mised. I shall be content with demon­ ple, knew more of the mysteries of chemis­ strating that the paradisiacal condition of try than possibly the great Geber, Paracel­ a long life, free from care, with a late un­ sus, Basilius-Tholde2 and Andreas Liba- encumbered old age, was by no means the vius together. rule in prehistoric and ancient times. It is This false idea, as being self-contradic­ true that, as compared with the present, tory, eventually annihilated itself. But those times could boast of superiority in numberless ages ago, our ancestors along some, but by no means in all respects. the Baltic Sea and the Bay of Biscay, or Upon inspecting the many early Egyptian on the Highlands of Pamir, the residents and Nubian crania, for instance, we are along the Euphrates or the Nile, are still astounded at the perfect preservation of supposed to have imparted the most im­ the teeth, although the extensive abrasion portant lessons in hygiene, in healthy liv­ of the masticatory surfaces is rather start­ ing and immunity from disease. Even to­ ling, suggesting simple, suitable fare, but day, some assume that this is incontrover­ mainly of vegetable character, rich in cel­ tible and self-evident. A well informed lulose and with a generous adulteration of man will hardly venture to offer valid ob- sand particles. We become rather thought­ 1 Deutsche Revue, Stuttgart, 1911, iv, 40-50. ful, however, on finding in the majority of 2 SudhofF is of opinion that the writings of Basil adult skeletons from Upper Egypt and Valentine are the work of the editor, Johann Tholde. Nubia of five to seven thousand years ago, 112 Annals of Medical History signs of a disease which to-day appears hovel, depressed below the surface of the only under the most unhygienic condi­ ground to the depth of a meter, only tions, and then hardly to such degree as it gradually (at least in the case of sleeping formerly affected a tremendous majority, quarters), emerging from the pits which even in the third decade of life, causing from the Stone Age to La-Tene constantly ankylosis of the joints and spine with al­ became more and more shallow. A moderate most absolute immobility, so that at an advance, perhaps, but highly important! early age these unfortunate people became Although climate may exert only a helpless dependents. Osteoarthritis de­ minor influence upon the character of formans in that “ Golden Age” afflicted habitation, this is not true in the matter humanity of both sexes with such fre­ of clothing. Enthusiastic as we may be quency and severity as to stagger all power about the light, hygienic clothing of the of imagination in this our own period, so Egyptians, Babylonians, or even of the corrupt with “ refined culture” on the one Greeks, we must nevertheless properly hand and misery on the other.