a diploma from some medical institution authorized
to confer degrees." The notable thing about the forming of this organization
was that it was seven years before the State of Illinois required doctors
to have a state license.
During this era physicians were often referred to as homeopathic, allopathic
or eclectic. The homeopathic idea was to use minute doses to produce symptoms
similar to those experienced by the patient. The principle was recited
that "like cures like" so frostbite was rubbed with snow and burns were
treated with heated oil. Allopathic doctors used remedial measures to produce
symptoms the opposite of the original. The eclectic physician selected
the mode of treatment he considered expedient from all the theories or
from any one theory.
A sample medical card carried in The El Paso True Patriot for
November 25, 1865, reads as follows:
Dr. R. B. Roberts would respectfully inform the citizens of El Paso
and vicinity that his health is so improved that he is able
to attend professional calls in the country as well as in town. To such
calls he will promptly attend, from rich of from poor, by day or by night.
Strictly eclectic in practice, he uses no calomel or other poisons.
Twenty years of practice.
In the same issue appeared an item on Dr. J. M. Perry, purportedly written
by a friend:
Another physician, Dr. J. M. Perry from Pontiac, has taken up residence
in El Paso. The Doctor doesn't blow his own horn much, preferring acquisition
of popularity by the success of his practice. But it is said he has few
equals and fewer superiors. Thirty years practice it is believed has made
him complete master of most diseases incident to this climate. He certainly
has the appearance of possessing one prominent characteristic of a successful
physician – good judgment.
When the roads were laid out, the mode of travel gradually improved until
in 1892 the El Paso newspaper announced that Dr. Frank Stubblefield had
purchased a regular physician's cab having panels inset with glass. In
1904 Dr. R. E. Gordon purchased a two-cylinder Oldsmobile, and some time
later Dr. Frank H. Henderson purchased an automobile. But two cylinders
could not always pull out of the deep Illinois mud, and when the roads
were newly crowned or freshly oiled it was not a surprise to slide off
into the ditch, making it necessary to have cab and horses for several
years to supplement the car.
Before the present system of highways existed, no matter how great the
emergency, patients could reach the hospital only by train. Today the injured
or critically ill can receive aid in a matter of minutes, and can be whisked
to the hospital in ambulances fitted with oxygen and other sources of treatment
for use en route.
DENTISTS.
P. A. FERBRACHE, El Paso's earliest dentist of record, was a native
of Ohio who practiced here several years. His notice of dental practice
appears in The El Paso True Patriot of November 25, 1865.
Page 218
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