American Medical Biographies/Allen, Charles Linnaeus
Allen, Charles Linnaeus (1820–1890)
Scholar, sanitarian, lecturer at Middlebury College and the University of Vermont, Dr. Charles L. Allen practised medicine and surgery in Middlebury and Rutland, Vt., for more than forty years. He was born in Brattleboro, June 21, 1820, the son of Dr. Jonathan Adams and Betsy Cheney Allen. His boyhood was spent on a farm in Jamaica, Vt., his mother's home. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a printer in Burlington. Not satisfied with his treatment, he ran away, enlisting at Boston in the United States Navy as a "powder monkey." On account of his penmanship, he was employed by the captain as clerk. After several months, he deserted at New York, tramped to Middlebury, where his father was then practising, and in 1837 began a college course, working his way by doing farm work and teaching. During his college course he was suspended for a year for leaving town to attend a Tippecanoe meeting at Brandon, so that he graduated in 1842.
His health failed him after graduation and he was considered hopelessly sick with consumption. He went south to North Carolina, where he spent two years regaining his health; meantime tutoring. Returning to Vermont he entered the Castleton Medical College, where he received his degree in 1846 and at once took up the practice of his profession in Middlebury.
Dr. Allen married June 14, 1854, Harriet W. W. Garfield, widow of Dr. F. A. Garfield, by whom he had two daughters. Mrs. Harriet Allen died April 25, 1858, and he married, May 31, 1865, Margaret Gertrude Lyon. By her he had three sons, Edwin Lyon, Charles William and Harris Campbell.
Dr. Allen lectured on chemistry at Middlebury College, although he never received a formal appointment. He divided his practice between Middlebury and Rutland for several years, at the same time lecturing at the Castleton Medical College. In 1855 he was appointed professor of chemistry and later, in 1860, of the practice of medicine, at this institution. In the spring of 1862 he delivered lectures in the Medical Department of the University of Vermont on civil and military hygiene, the first lectures on that subject ever delivered in this country. In 1861 he was a member of the State Board for examining candidates for regimental surgeons. Later he was appointed a surgeon of the United States Volunteers, Ninth Vermont Infantry, but learning from Senator Foote that there was a vacancy in the Brigade Corps of Surgeons, U.S.V., he resigned, hastened to Washington, and in June, 1862, took the examination for the Brigade Corps of Surgeons and passed the best examination, with one exception, during the war. He was at once appointed on the examining Board with Doctors Clymer and Brinton with the rank of major. Later he was transferred to the department of the south and in 1864 he was made medical purveyor. He resigned in August of that year "because he went into the army to serve as a surgeon, not as a druggist."
After the war he was appointed a pension examining surgeon and held the position until his death with the exception of four years of Cleveland's first administration. He was secretary of the Vermont State Board of Health from the first organization of the board in 1886 until his death. This position was one for which he was admirably qualified. Boards of health were comparatively unknown at this time. The science of preventive medicine was in its beginning and it had not then made for itself a place in the popular mind. Dr. Allen did much valuable educational work for the newly appointed board in Vermont. He prepared circulars in popular language, dealing with infectious diseases, school houses, water supplies, and other details of state sanitation and edited a periodical, called The Sanitary Visitor, in the name of the board. Thus he laid the foundation for the successful work of the board in later years.
Dr. Allen was for many years a member of the Vermont State Medical Society and was twice its president, first in 1850 and again in 1858. He had been a prominent member of the Addison County Medical Society and its treasurer and librarian from 1847 until 1859. In 1888 he became a member of the American Public Health Association. He was a member of the American Medical Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Allen was always a student. He did not specialize, but was a good all-round surgeon and physician. He had a wide reputation in Western Vermont and beyond, and his consultation practice was extensive. He acquired considerable reputation for his success in the management of Bright's disease and other dropsical affections, the essential feature of his treatment being a skim milk diet. Every case to him was an object of study and he devoted himself most unselfishly to the welfare of his patients. He was a man of few words, loyal to his profession, always a friend of the young doctor, studiously ethical and honest with all. He died suddenly at his home in Rutland on the morning of July 2, 1890, of cerebral hemorrhage.
Dr. Allen was of striking personal appearance, short in stature, and in his early days muscular and well knitted He had a large, well formed head, patriarchal gray hair and beard, prominent features and brown eyes, a face not readily forgotten.
His knowledge and reading were not confined to his profession. He was a well-read man and from the first was a prominent member of the Shakespeare Club of Rutland, which had a long and honorable career in that city. He was also a member of the Quarter Century Club of Vermont.