Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/386

 320 EISTOEY OF GOODHUE COUNTY The early history of the pioneer physician is naturally a story of feeble resources. His professional limitations were, therefore, necessarily great. To enable us to understand these limitations we must take a retrospective glance at the condition of medicine sixty years ago. Imagine, if you can. the forlorn condition of the doctor without our present means of physical diagnosis, without the clinical thermometer, the various specula, the hypodermatic syringe, the ophthalmoscope, the otoscope, the rhinoscope, the aspirator, and many other similar instruments; without the aid of hematology, of anaesthetics, of antisepsis, of the modern micro- scope, without our laboratories and experiments, our chemistry, our bacteriology, our Eoentgen .rays, our experimental pharma- cology, and our antitoxins — without anything except his eyes, his ears, his fingers, his native vigor and resourcefulness; then we can appreciate the professional limitations of our fathers, appre- ciate no less the triumphal march of medicine during a single lifetime. It requires no prophet's power to foretell the fact that the science of medicine stands at this hour upon the threshold of an era which will belittle all the past. In this most wonderful era of the world's history, this magic age, the science of medicine is rapidly being elevated into the position of one of the bulwarks of society and one of the mainstays of civilization. It made possible the building of the Panama canal, made Havana a clean city, and diminished the possibility of introducing yellow fever among us. It has kept cholera in cheek, pointed out the danger of bubonic plague through the rat-infested districts of San Francisco, and it now urges that the government shall maintain sentinels to guard the Gulf coast from yellow fever, the Mississippi from cholera, the whole United States from bubonic plague. It also discovered the stegomyia as a yellow-fever carrier, and the rat and ground squirrel as plague distributors. Though none of the immortal discoveries or inventions were made in Goodhue county, all of them have been applied and util- ized for the benefit of the people in this vicinity. The practice of medicine has had some able representatives in this county, many of whom have gained distinction and an honorable place among their fellows. Some of them have been sought out for public service and broader fields of usefulness, while others have led a quieter but no less honorable existence in the sphere of their choice, many being laid to rest after lives of sacrifice to the community amidst general regret and deep sorrow. The medical history of this county begins with the arrival of Dr. W. W. Sweney, in 1852. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1818. After receiving an academic and professional education, he was graduated at Rush Medical College in 1851. He was presi- dent of the Goodhue County Medical Society in 1872. and of the