Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/728



was an up-to-date man in everything, and a man of fine native talents and per- sonal attainments, with practical experience of great value. He soon concluded that Portland was too small a field for his ambition and went to Chicago, where he stands at the head of his profession.

The homeopathic school of medical thought and practice took a firm hold of Portland people very early in the history of the city ; and its promotion was greatly aided by the character of Dr. H. McKinnell, one of the best men in the history of the medical profession in Portland. Dr. McKinnell, organized a medical college to teach and promote homeopathic ideas and practice of which college McKinnell was president. The college existed more as a society than a school ; but it rapidly increased the believers in the school of medicine founded at Leipsic, Germany, in 1755 by Dr. C. F. S. Hahnemann ; the fundamental principle of which is ex- pressed by the Latin adage "Similia similibus curantur" (likes are cured by likes.)

Dr. Z. B. Nichols, who passed away in 1895 was also another founder of the homeopathic school in Portland. Dr. Nichols was a native of Vermont, a grad- uate of Dartmouth university and a physician of very extensive practice — twenty years at Fairbault, Minnesota, fifteen years at Walla Walla, and ten years in Portland. Drs. A. S. and Herbert Nichols, of Portland, and Dr. Clarence Nichols, of Hood River are sons of Dr. Z. B. Nichols.

THE WOMAN PHYSICIAN.

The woman physician had a long and stubbornly contested battle to secure recognition as a practitioner of medicine. But she won the victory over prejudice, selfishness and society ridicule, and today has a certain fixed and useful position in this most useful of the learned professions. Rachel Perry Gaston, the grand- mother of the author of this book, was probably the first woman in general prac- tice of medicine and surgery in the United States ; although she was not the first woman graduate of a medical college, or a graduate at all. Elizabeth Black- well was the first graduate of a medical college, after making a fight for many years to obtain the privilege of entering a medical college.

Rachel Perry Gaston studied medicine with her husband. Dr. Alexander Gas- ton of Morristown, Belmont County, Ohio, where she was rearing a family of eight children, two of whom became physicians — Dr. Ephraim Gaston of Morris- town, Ohio, and Dr. Joseph Gaston of Lloydsville, Ohio. For ten years before the death of her husband in 1825, Mrs. Gaston took charge of the greater por- tion of his practice, and attended to calls to the sick in a greater part of the county, riding horseback as far as thirty miles from her home, ridding astride, enveloped in a fur coat, that being long before the invention of rubber coverings from the storm.

Dr. Mary Thompson, still in good health in Portland, was the first woman practitioner of medicine in the city; and well and faithfully discharged every duty laid upon her as such by all the ethics and obligations of the medical profession. Aside from her standing in the profession, Dr. Thompson has been a leader and maker of wholesome public opinion on all the moral and civic questions of the day as they affected the rights and privileges of women, or influenced the well being of the rising generation. Her character and record in the building of the city, doing everything possible within her opportunities and means to accomplish results, is a credit to the medical profession and an honor to herself. There are now about twenty woman physicians in regular practice in Portland ; and all of them doing a fairly good business alongside the male members of the profes- sion. And the total number of physicians and surgeons of all schools of belief and practice now practicing in the city amounts to two hundred and fifty, or something more than one doctor to each one thousand people.

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

For a time Portland had two medical colleges. The first was the medical college of the Willamette university, removed from Salem to Portland, in 1878.