Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 37/Whitman: "The Good Doctor"

by O. Larsell

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WHITMAN: “THE GOOD DOCTOR”^{[a 1]}

By O. Larsell

We have heard this morning of Dr. Marcus Whitman's education and early practice of medicine. We have learned of the excellent quality of his training and the considerable experience he had as a practitioner before he started for the northwest. Not only had he studied under some of the best medical teachers of this country in his day, and graduated from a school that ranked very high, but he had acquired the experience and self-reliance of the country doctor.

What manner of man was Marcus Whitman personally? We have the estimates of those who knew him and his work intimately. When he offered himself at the age of thirty-two to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1834, the Reverend H. P. Strong of Whitman's home town, Rushville, New York, wrote to Mr. Wisner, secretary of the board, as follows:^[1] “I find his talents are above mediocrity, his mental improvement respectable, in his profession above ordinary physicians; in appearance among respectable people, rather forbidding at first, but makes a good impression soon & is respected. Is pretty well calculated to acquire & retain influence, will be a pleasant missionary companion, cooperate well with others ..." J. W. Nesmith, one of the leaders of the wagon train of 1843, which Whitman guided for much of its journey, and afterward United States senator from Oregon, described the doctor as:^[2] “A quiet unassuming man and of great purity of character. Of powerful physical organization, possessed of a great and good heart, full of charity and courage, utterly destitute of hypocrisy, shams & effeminacy, and always terribly in earnest. After fatigue of hard day's march would spend much of the night going from one party to another to minister to the sick.” Elsewhere Doctor Whitman is described as the most important man in the northwest, second only to Dr. John McLoughlin.

With this picture of the doctor, let us look a little more closely into his medical activities from the time he became part and parcel of old Oregon. But first let us give this a proper setting with a brief consideration of the medical knowledge and practice in this country one hundred years ago. Let us recall that the relation of bacteria and other micro-organisms to disease was entirely unknown. Leeuwenhoek had discovered the world of microscopic forms in the seventeenth century, but not until Louis Pasteur, from 1863 and on, demonstrated that many of these minute organisms produced various types of disease, was it possible to devise effectual means of combatting them. Based upon the discoveries of Pasteur, Koch, and their contemporaries, scientific knowledge, as we have it today, of the causes of disease has been erected.

When Whitman treated Fontenelle and his men for cholera, at Bellevue, in 1835, he knew nothing of the organisms taken into the intestine with the water the men drank. The origin of the disease was so obscure and its onset so sudden as to strike terror into the heart of the bravest and strongest, for who could fight or escape so unseen an enemy. In England, in 1832, the mortality had amounted to one-third or one-half of those attacked, and in many cases, two-thirds had fallen victims.^[3]

The favorite remedies in England^[4] for cholera were: "blood-letting, emetics of ipecac and tartrite of antimony, or of mustard; purgatives of castor oil, or of rhubarb, or of jalap, or of jalap and calomel, or of calomel with capsicum; alteratives, of calomel and opium; dry heat applied in bottles of hot water rolled in flannel or heated bricks, or sand, bran, etc.” Portable medicines made up in doses were advised which the physician could administer on his first call on a patient. Here is a list: "compound emetic; one grain of tartrite of antimony, with twenty grains of powder of ipecac; mustard emetic; composed of two drachms of powdered capsicum; jalap powder, twenty grains of jalap with four grains of ginger; calomel with jalap, five grains of calomel with fifteen grains of jalap; calomel and opium powders, two grains of calomel in each, with a quarter of a grain of powdered opium.”^[5]

Castor oil was regarded as invaluable. "Fifteen or twenty drops of laudanum, mixed with an ounce or half an ounce of castor oil is an advantageous combination, where there is much twisting or uneasiness in the stomach or bowels." With these measures, "rigidly carried into effect" the mortality was reduced to an estimated one in ten of those attacked.^[6] The same authority recommends blood letting, in the first stage of cholera, as universally applicable. As much as three teacupfuls were drawn from adult patients, sometimes by non-medical "bleeders." The attack of cholera was regarded as checked or retarded, and the patient was "in a favorable state for the administration of internal remedies, and for the repetition of the operation, if deemed necessary,” by the physician when he arrived.^[7]

Undoubtedly, by 1835 these methods of treatment, disseminated throughout the English speaking world by the authoritative reports on cholera published by Hammett and Kennedy in 1832, were known to Whitman. It is probable that he followed the methods of treatment above described. He told Fontenelle that strong men, if treated early, might hope to escape death. Only three of the fur company's men died, and these were already sick when Whitman joined the party. How much the several successive moves of Fontenelle's party away from the river town of Bellevue and into the comparatively unpopulated region along the trail had to do with the cessation of the scourge among these men can only be left to conjecture. There can be little question that Whitman was of material assistance in the serious emergency. The grateful Fontenelle and his men accepted the praying missionaries as part of their company to the Rendezvous on Green River, Wyoming, and the men ceased their egg-throwing.

Regarding the causes of other epidemic-diseases, knowledge was as meager. Yellow fever and malaria were dread scourges whose dissemination was not understood. The dread "yellow jack,” particularly, spread terror to the populace. Matthew Carey's account of an epidemic of this disease in 1793 in Philadelphia, which at that time was the center of medical knowledge in the United States, gives a picture which was duplicated in other cities, especially of the south, as late as the beginning of the twentieth century. Carey writes: {{quote|Most of those who could by any means make it convenient, fled from the city. Of those who remained, many shut themselves up in their houses, being afraid to walk the streets. The smoke of tobacco being regarded as a preventive, many persons even women and small boys, had segars almost constantly in their mouths. Others, placing full confidence in garlic, chewed it almost the whole day; some kept it in their pockets and shoes. Many were afraid to allow the barbers or hair-dressers to come near them having shaved the dead, and many having engaged as bleeders. Some who carried their caution pretty far, bought lancets for themselves, not daring to allow themselves to be bled with lancets of the bleeders. Many houses were scarcely a moment in the day, free from the smell of gunpowder, burned tobacco, nitre, sprinkled vinegar, etc. Some of the Churches were almost deserted, and others wholly closed. The coffee-house was shut up, as was the city library, and most of the public offices—three, out of the four, daily papers were discontinued, as were some of the others. Many devoted no small portion of their time to purifying, securing, and whitewashing their rooms. Those who ventured abroad, had handkerchiefs or sponges, impregnated with vinegar or camphor, at their noses, or smelling-bottles full of thieves vinegar. [Thieves' vinegar, or the vinegar of the four thieves, was a preparation the composition of which was said to have been discovered by four young men during the plague at Marseilles. It was said to have rendered them immune from the disease and enabled them to rob the sick while pretending to serve as nurses]. Others carried pieces of tarred rope in their hands or pockets, or camphor bags tied round their necks. The corpses of the most respectable citizens, even of those who had not died of the epidemic, were carried to the grave on the shafts of a chair, the horse driven by a negro, unattended by a friend or relation, and without any sort of ceremony. People uniformly and hastily shifted their course at the sight of a hearse coming towards them. Many never walked on the footpath, but went into the middle of the street, to avoid being infected in passing houses wherein people had died. Acquaintances and friends avoided each other in the streets, and only signified their regard by a cold nod. The old custom of shaking hands, fell into such general disuse, that many shrunk back with affright at even the offer of the hand. A person with crape or any appearance of mourning, was shunned like a leper, and many valued themselves highly on the skill and address with which they got to windward of every person whom they met.^[8]

Not until Walter Reed, the American army surgeon, and his coworkers, discovered the relation of the mosquito Stegomyia, to the transmission of yellow fever in 1901 was it possible to conquer this captain of the hosts of death. The Englishman, Ross, had already discovered the relation of another mosquito, the Anopheles, to malaria in 1897 and 1898.

Packard^[9] writes of yellow fever: "This terror gave rise to the greatest cruelty ... Many persons were abandoned by their nearest relatives and friends. Bodies were frequently found lying in houses which had been deserted by all other dwellers in them. Women died in childbirth because no one would render them assistance in their hour of need. Wives deserted their husbands, fathers their children, and children their parents." There were also examples of the greatest heroism in the face of what seemed almost certain death. Physicians and ministers, as well as others, obeyed the call of a common humanity in giving aid to the unfortunate.

One hundred years ago purging and bleeding were the standard method of treatment for most ills. In surgery as late as 1867 "laudable pus" was expected after an operation. Even so careful a surgeon as Joseph Lister reported from his own statistics of amputation 45 per cent of fatal cases^[10] before he introduced antiseptic surgery in the year named. Asepsis in the present sense did not begin until twenty-four years later.

Abdominal surgery, now an every day occurrence, was a last desperate measure, practiced by the most skillful only. General anaesthesia with ether was unknown until 1846. It had been successfully used by Crawford Long, a country practitioner in Georgia, as early as 1842. Not until Morton's independent discovery and demonstration of its use at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846 did it become known to the medical world generally. Whitman of course knew nothing of its use. When Crawford Long in Georgia removed a tumor from the neck of a patient rendered unconscious by ether, Whitman was in far-off Oregon. When Morton, in Boston, successfully demonstrated to the world the use of ether, thirteen months before Whitman's death, the latter was busy at Waiilatpu, harassed by the problems of his mission. He might possibly have heard of this great boon to mankind before the massacre in November, 1847, through the immigrants of that year but we have no means of knowing whether he did or not.

The skillful surgeon of Whitman's day was he who could operate most rapidly. For amputations, knives of different lengths were a part of the surgeon's equipment. These could be selected with reference to the size of the part to be amputated. With a suitable knife the surgeon, with one quick circular stroke could amputate the part, while strong men held the frequently shrieking patient.

Oliver Wendell Holmes' important essay on childbed fever was read in Boston on February 13, 1843, a little more than six weeks before Whitman arrived in that city on his mission to the headquarters of the American Board. Whitman remained until April 8. It would be surprising if he did not hear something of the discussion aroused by the radical views of the Harvard professor of anatomy, physician and poet. Fortunately for Whitman and his obstetric cases, the contagion of the hospitals had been far away, and the births among the small white population which he was called upon to attend were far apart, so puerperal fever played little if any part in his practice in old Oregon.

Whitman came to the northwest as a physician under auspicious circumstances. The fame of his successful treatment of Fontenelle and his men on the Missouri and his skill as a surgeon at Green River must have preceded his actual arrival in Oregon. Let Whitman describe in his own simple words the Green River incident. Under date of August 13, 1835, he writes in his journal:^[11] "I extracted an arrow point from the back of James Bridger, one of the partners of the company, which had been shot in by the Blackfeet Indians near three years previous; and one from another man which had been shot in by the same Indians about a year before." Jim Bridger was Whitman's friend from that day. Parker gives a somewhat more complete account of the incident, and states that "calls for surgical and medical aid were constant every hour in the day."^[12] At Green River it was decided that Whitman should return to the east and report favorably on establishing the proposed mission, thus saving a year.

Whitman's return to the states, while Parker went on to the Columbia, was marked by too great activity in the interests of the proposed mission to allow much time for medical affairs. His long journey westward again with his bride and the Spaldings was marked by the violent physical effort of what most medical men of today would undoubtedly describe as getting that accursed wagon to Oregon. But to Whitman that wagon meant getting civilization to the Columbia. Also here were two white women, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, proposing to cross 2000 miles of country never before traveled by women of our race. It is difficult to understand the apparent attempt of the fur traders' cavalcade to run away from Whitman and his party, instead of picking up the missionaries, according to arrangement, in view of the doctor's valuable service to a similar group the preceding year. Perhaps the explanation lies in a change of personnel in the 1836 expedition of the fur company, with possible confusion as to previous arrangements. On finally arriving at Waiilatpu Whitman made a home, built his mission, broke ground, planted a farm, and attended to the multitudinous affairs of a new enterprise in a new country. There is little detailed record of his medical activities although we know he was in constant demand. Farnham writes^[13] in 1839:

It appeared to me quite remarkable that the doctor (Whitman) could have made so many improvements since the year 1834 (1836). But the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree of the labors of the school, are perhaps circumstances which render possibility probable that in five (three) years one man, without funds for such purposes, without other aid in that business than that of a fellow missionary at short intervals, should fence, plow, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness, learn an

Indian language, and do the duties meanwhile of a physician to the associate stations on the Clear Water and Spokan.

Whitman's medical care of his associates began before he reached the Columbia. Mrs. Spalding was so ill during much of the journey from the Mississippi that she was expected to die. Whether due to the doctor's administrations or to her own powers of recuperation she recovered sufficiently to complete the journey. On arriving at Fort Walla Walla in September, 1836, a statement of expenses for the expedition, including medicines and surgical instruments in the amount of $28.39, signed by Whitman, Spalding and Gray, was sent to the American Board.^[14]

The doctor writes^[15] that on November 7, 1837, he left his station to assist Mrs. Spalding in childbirth. This was more than a year after the arrival of the little company in Oregon. With three Indians and a Hawaiian, he traveled the one hundred and twenty miles to the Nez Perce mission on the Clearwater, through rain and snow, crossing the Snake River. He adds that on the morning of November 15, "after our arrival Mrs. Spalding became the mother of a fine, healthy daughter." He left the Spaldings on December 2 and reached home on December 9. In the same letter to the mission rooms in Boston he writes: "We now have a boy sent by Doct. McLoughlin & the attending physician at Vancouver for medical aid." It would be of interest to know more of the circumstances of this case. Why did McLoughlin and Tolmie, both physicians, the latter trained in Scotland, send this boy to Whitman? The record does not say.

When W. H. Gray returned to the states in 1837, Whitman requested him to consult with some physician about medical books.^[16] Gray writes:^[17] "Have since called upon Profs Delamater and Mussey and requested them to give me a list of Such Medicle Books as they could recommend for the benefit of the Mission." He got quite a list from several physicians, totalling about $70 in cost. It includes the best authorities on medicine, midwifery and surgery of the time, and also books on anatomy, chemistry, pharmacology and the United States pharmacopeia. Since the list is of interest in giving Whitman's sources of medical information after he got to Oregon it is included, as Gray wrote it:

Paxtons Anatomy; Dublin Dissectors; Olivers Physiology; Eberles Practice of Phissic; Eberle on Diseases of Females; Eberle on Diseases of Children; Colins Manual of Auscultation; Vel Peaus Midwifery; Sam'l Coopers first lines of Surgery, Last Edition; Astley Coopers Surgical Lectures, three volumes; Vel Peaus Operative Surgery; Paine on Diet; James Johnson on the liver; James Johnson on Tropicle climates; Cadyenave on Cutaneous diseases; Andeals Pathologicle Anatomy; Suglison Medicle Lexicon, one for each station; Thompsons Materia Medica; Turners Chemistry; Burns Midwifery, Last American edition; Good Study of Medicine, Merrimans Synopsis of Midwifery; Gibsons Surgery; Two approved Manuals of Anatomy; United States Pharmacopeia, 3 copies; Paris Pharmacology.

In the list^[18] of "Receipts and Expenditures for Rev. C. Eells, E. Walker, A. B. Smith and W. H. Gray Company from Independence, Mo." made out at Rendezvous on Wind River in July 1838, are included the following:

1

case surgical instruments and 1 pocket case

$20.00

1

pocket case and medicines by Mr. Smith

22.75

6

E. lancets, 1 Ginn lancet, 1 turnkey

5.12½

1

oz. quinine 2 oz. quassia 1 lb. jalap 144 lb. camphor

2.95

1

lb, calomel 11 oz. W. Ointment 1 lb. saleratus 2 lb. oil

2.34

2

oz. soda 2 oz. acid 1 oz. pep-mt. 1 oz. ansseed

.50

1

oz. N'meg 2 lbs salts 2 boxes pills

.75

It is not stated if the instruments and medicines were turned over to Dr. Whitman when the party arrived at Waiilatpu. The books apparently were not obtained in time for Gray to take them with him on his return to the mission. On his arrival he wrote from the Nez Perce station: "The list of Medical Books I gave you while at Fairfield if possible we want filled and a dispensitory, for each station and Hooper Medical Dictionary for each. I find as the practice of juglers ceases we have more to attend to in the medical department."^[19] When they finally arrived later in the same year, having been sent in some other way, Whitman claimed the books as his charge, being the medical man of the mission. Gray protested against this in a letter,^[20] stating he needed some for his own use and added "we can better dispense with almost every other book except our Bible than medical—and especially when we have had but little experience in that department.”

After the massacre in 1847 the inventory^[21] of Whitman's medical equipment "taken or destroyed by the Indians” is listed as follows:

Medical Library

$ 80.00

1 case Surgical Instrument as estimated by Doc Barkley

100.00

1 do. imperfect

15.00

1 packet case with medical bags

20.00

Medicine just arrived from Vancouver as pr. Vancouver bill

69.00

Medicines, phials, bottles, etc.

120.00

Another list^[22] of medical supplies obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1839 includes: ⅛ lb. calomel 10/10; 4 lb. Epsom Salts /4; 4 lb. Glauber Salts /4; ⅛ Sulph. Copper 1/3; 1/16 Sulph. zinc 4/3. It will be seen that purgatives constituted the principal items.

The doctor's own health had not been of the best for some years before he left for Oregon, but in December, 1834, he wrote^[23] with reference to being sent to the mission field: "My health is so much restored that I think it will offer no impediment.” He had previously diagnosed his own case as an inflammation of the spleen. He suffered from a pain in his left side, which however was relieved by remedies. During his journey with Parker over-exertion brought about a recurrence, and during part of this journey he also suffered much from a painful bowel complaint which weakened him to such an extent that he fell behind the party for a time. He appears to have recovered, but in the spring of 1841 he writes to his brother:^[24]

"By these several causes [hard work and exposure] I was reduced to the same affliction of which I complained before I left the United States. After taking medicine for two weeks and feeling somewhat relieved I was called to see a sick man at Walla Walla." On this journey of twenty-five miles Whitman suffered so much from exposure that he became ill again. He writes^[25] that by the second day after this last exposure he was obliged to be bled and to go to bed for several weeks. He adds "from that time (the previous fall] to this [May 1841] I have not recovered nor do I ever expect fully to do so. I am, however, now in comfortable health, but unfit for bodily labor." Later in the year however, he writes: "My health has become good again."^[26]

Whitman attended the white women in childbirth, several times riding horseback one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty miles on this errand, and remaining with his patients for weeks until they were on the road to strength again. There is no mention of his ever having served as obstetrician to the Indians. He also served as dentist for the mission. There is the interesting item: "Dr. Eells gave Dr. Whitman a two-dollar and a half gold piece in payment for filling a tooth."^[27] This is the only mention of a fee I have found and must have been a misinterpretation on the part of the child, probably Myron Eells, who saw the transaction. It is much more likely that the gold was used to fill the tooth.

The numerous patients he had at times at the mission made it necessary to set aside hospital quarters. Dr. Whitman thus established the third hospital of record in old Oregon. The first was a temporary one at Nootka Sound, in the summer of 1788, for the scorbutic patients of Dr. John Mackay; the second was set up at Fort Vancouver in 1833 by Dr. Meredith Gairdner.^[28] A hospital building had been begun in 1837 at the Methodist mission near Salem, Oregon. It grew very slowly and finally was needed to house the "great reinforcement" to the Methodist mission which arrived in 1840. It apparently was never used for its original purpose.

To add to Doctor Whitman's already great and diversified burden insanity found its way to the mission. Asahel Munger and his wife had somehow made their way across the plains for the purpose of becoming independent missionaries in the northwest. They reached Waiilatpu destitute and helpless. Whitman could not turn them away, and gave Munger carpenter work to do at the mission. On March 28, 1841, the doctor was obliged to write:^[29] "Mr. Munger ... has become a monomaniac ... an unsafe man ... holds himself as the representative of the church & often having revelations ... only allows me to stay in the mission house for a time when he is ready to take it in some way away from me." This situation must have caused the doctor much uneasiness during his many absences from the mission. On his way home from the east in 1843 Whitman suffered from lameness caused by a tumor of the instep, which he feared was a bony growth. For a time he went about his duties at the mission with the aid of a crutch. Most of the statements he makes about himself are so casual as to make it difficult to get a picture of his own condition.

Mrs. Whitman also suffered poor health for a time. At one time the doctor writes^[30] that she had been sick for nearly two months with inflammation of the kidneys. Subsequently she became seriously ill with what Whitman describes as enlargement of the ovary. During his absence in the east she had been under the care of Dr. Barclay at Vancouver, and of the physicians of the Methodist mission. In December, 1843, her condition was described as almost hopeless and she was in danger of sudden death from tympanitis.^[31]

Others of the little band suffered from various complaints. On Whitman's return with the wagon train of 1843, he was met by messengers who urged him to hasten ahead of the train to care for the Spaldings, who were seriously sick. He found them at their station recovering from scarlatina. He writes^[32] that he feared Mrs. Spalding was tending to a pulmonary consumption, but later states that she was not in as dangerous a condition as he had thought. In 1844, he writes: "Mr. Walker and oldest son were both sick with remittent fever, but both recovered well."^[33] During the overland journey with the caravan of 1843 we have glimpses of the doctor, cheerful, courageous, forceful, now helping a mother in childbirth, again attending to some one injured in the march, sharing the toils of the day, looking after the sick far into the night.

Busy as he was at his station with many duties, Whitman must have kept some kind of records of his cases. These however, have not come to light. Presumably they were destroyed with his medical equipment after the massacre. We have no statements from him directly, except the brief mention in his letters, regarding the ills he treated or his methods of combatting them. In addition to treating the white people of the missions and at Fort Walla Walla, as well as those who came with the successive wagon trains from 1843 and on, Doctor Whitman gave medical aid to the Indians without sparing himself. There is abundant contemporary evidence for this statement, as well as mention in his own letters of treating the Indians.

The only descriptions of the ills from which the natives suffered come from H. H. Spalding and W. H. Gray of the mission, and from Dr. Forbes Barclay^[34] of Vancouver. Gray, in 1840, wrote a description of an epidemic to Dr. R. D. Mussey, of Dartmouth, asking for aid in diagnosis. In a previous letter to David Greene he had written regarding his relations with Whitman:^[35] "The Doct. & I differ in some of his professional points, and so far as our practice goes I do not know as I have lost any more X patients that he has. I may not have had as severe cases. I cannot say—I may have felt too sensitive on 'medicine business,' as Mr. Smith says—but this will not alter the facts as they stand in the Docts. treatment forms." Whitman had protested to the board in October, 1839, against reporting Gray as a physician, asking: "What can a man learn in 16 wks. of public lectures . . . to entitle him to that distinction?"^[36]

Gray's letter to Doctor Mussey was, no doubt, one result of this attitude. Because this letter gives the best description available of one of the epidemics among the Indians it may be quoted in part:^[37]

The patients complain of a pain in the head back upper and lower extremities pulse strong and rather quick tungue point red, root coated with a white coat cheeks flushed and quite red —some cases complain of nausea and want of a petite. The third day there is an eruption upon the head face and arms of small watery blisters, about the fifth day they assume a light grayish or yellow color circumscribed with rather a palish red hue, from the sixth to the seventh day a scab forms and about the eighth or ninth day falls off leaving rather a rounded surface. I have noticed and administered to a number of cases that so nearly resemble what I have just described that I am quite of the opinion that it is a contagious disease of some kind. About this time the last year a complaint prevailed quite extensively among the Natives having different symptoms. Those in the Spring of 1839 complained of severe pains in the head chest back and extremities. Tong coated with a thick yellow or dark brown coat pulse about 40.45—bleeding or caustic or cathartic generally gave immediate relief …

No one is suspecting the appearance of the small pox among us, or I might … think that the disease.

He calls it "disease Innominita." His own son at the time of writing was in the 10th day of the epidemic. Eliza and Henry Spalding were in the 5th and 3rd days, respectively. He continues: "The Indian children lie as dead, but still breathe. Inclined to consider it, according to Eberle, a milder form of small pox—vaccination has been quite extensively introduced among this people the last two or three years. I have vaccinated some hundreds."

In March, 1840, Whitman writes^[38] of ten deaths among the Indians during the winter and spring, near the station, and after they left for their hunting he heard of five more. He does not state the nature of the epidemic, but adds that they are "attached to their superstitions of jugling. Of late they have shown a wish to receive medicine ... but fear revives all their former prejudices.” The doctor had difficulty from the beginning with the native medical practices, if they can be so called. In the spring of 1837 he writes^[39] of the Indians working faithfully to help prepare ground for planting, but "owing to a severe inflammation of the lungs among them they suspended their labor.” He writes: “Their sickness gave me much trouble from their love for their native juglers . . . relying on incantations—giving no medicine.”

It would be of interest to compare Indian medical practices with those of the white man one hundred years ago. According to Dr. A. C. Jones^[40] the northwest Indians used various preparations as astringents, ointments, cathartics, etc. The steam bath appears to have been their chief therapeutic measure. A low hut with a pit was built near a stream. Stones were heated in a fire and water was thrown on them to make steam which filled the hut. “The bathers remain in the mud and heat as long as possible, yelling and singing, then dash out to dive into the nearest stream.”

The tewats or medicine men, however, with their sorcery were the chief resource of the Indians when sick. They were called upon to chase out the evil spirits of disease from their patients. If the patient died the tewat might share the same fate at the hands of relatives of the deceased. In his attempts to carry healing to the Indians, Doctor Whitman faced some of his greatest difficulties, and probably laid the seeds which led to his destruction. Spalding wrote^[41] in February, 1847, nearly ten months before the massacre:

... Medicine & care for the sick is an other source of trouble & perhaps of more real danger to our person than ony other. We often see it stated that a knowledge of medicine in the missionary & attention to the sick, go far to secure the favor of a heathen people. Strange as it may appear, the reverse is the case with these tribes. Doct Whitman is a skillful & most attentive physician, spends very much of his time in attending upon their sick, sometimes riding 30 miles neglecting important business at home spending much in the purchase & much time in the preparation of medicines. Yet it is all looked upon with a jealous eye and regarded as coming from sinister motives, yet claimed as a debt due from us. If we fail to have the medicine desired it is impossible to imagine the abuse which often heaped upon us. We are pronounced gamblers & robbers, i e we withold from them what is their just due, i e medicine. Medicine is made by white people therefore it is due to them. And it is our duty to have it on hand at all times in sufficient quantities to supply their demands. If any one article fails, not being to be had in the lower country, or the supply runing out, we ought to be reproached & shall be, for in that case we compel the sorcerers to resume their sorceries & compel the people to resort to them. This was publicly stated at a full meeting of the chiefs, sorcerers & people last spring at this place. Doct Whitman is regarded as the cause of many or all the deaths in that vicinity & his life has been frequently threatened. I know not that my life has been threatened but it is very frequently proclaimed publicly that I am the cause of numberous deaths which have occured among this people the last two years.

To add to the difficulties already encountered, an epidemic of measles visited the northwest in 1847. It is said to have been introduced by the immigrants, although other accounts trace the epidemic to the Montreal express. Like many other epidemics which affect the white man relatively slightly, the measles was very serious among the Indians. Their sweat baths and cold plunges made matters worse with this type of disease, and many died. The mutterings against the doctor became more threatening. The approved methods^[42] of treating measles in Whitman's day, namely, by protection against exposure, use of warm drinks, pennyroyal tea, gentle purging, etc., with bleeding and catharsis in severe cases, were beneficial, or at worst, comparatively harmless by the side of the heating and chilling of the sweat bath. Many of the Indians who submitted themselves to the doctor's treatment died nevertheless. With each death a new enemy was made for the physician. The wife of Tamahas, already called the murderer, died while under Whitman's treatment.^[43] According to some accounts, the son of Tamahas died.^[44] Possibly it was both. At any rate the Indian's desire for revenge was aroused. He would deal with the white doctor as with his own tewats.

Now comes the final scene. The doctor had ridden twenty-five miles to the Umatilla to attend sick Indians.^[45] He remained until the afternoon of Sunday, November 28, 1847. While there he was warned by his staunch friend, Isticas, of the stories being circulated by the half-breed, Joe Lewis, and of the threats against his own life, and for the first time became really alarmed. He rode home as rapidly as possible, concerned for his family and the safety of his mission. He relieved Mrs. Whitman, who was caring for the sick in the hospital room, and watched all night with them himself. The next morning, November 29, he was busy at his medicine case, probably preparing more medicines for the sick, when two, some accounts say three, Indians approached him. While one asked for medicine for his family, which the good doctor reached to get, another struck him on the head with a tomahawk. The massacre had begun. It is not necessary to enter here into the details of this sanguinary event which has cast its shadow over the northwest for nearly ninety years. The good doctor who came to old Oregon to minister to its people, died in the act of service, a martyr as truly as any saint of old.

As we study the fragmentary writings of Doctor Whitman, as we read the testimony of those who knew him, worked with him, or came into contact with him, we are impressed with the greatness of the man, his simplicity, his goodness of heart, his devotion to the cause which brought him to Oregon. His labor as a practitioner of medicine was but a part of his activities, although the part with which we are most concerned today. We behold the first American, trained as a physician, to practice his profession in the great northwest. We see a man, respected by all, who served his fellowmen, an honor to the healing art. In the best traditions of the country practitioner he faced danger, hardship, storm and flood to carry healing and relief to his patients. He made no effort to save or to spare himself, but gave without stint of that which he had, professional and material. From the time he first set foot in old Oregon, he was recognized as, and has been called to the present, “the good doctor."

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1. H. P. Strong to B. B. Wisner, August 12, 1834, cited from Hulbert and Hulbert, Oregon Crusade, 266.
2. Quoted from H. S. Lyman, History of Oregon, III, 329.
3. James Kennedy, History of Contagious Cholera, 3rd edition, 1832, 335.
4. Same, 346.
5. Same, 349.
6. Same, 350.
7. Same, 354.
8. Quoted from F. R. Packard, History of Medicine in the United States, 1931, I, 133.
9. Same, 134.
10. F. H. Garrison, History of Medicine, 4th edition, 1929, 589.
11. Oregon Historical Quarterly, XXVIII, 239-57.
12. Samuel Parker, Journal of an Exploring Tour, 1st edition, 1838, 77.
13. T. J. Farnham, Travels, 1843, 81.
14. Oregon Historical Quarterly, XXXVII, 128.
15. Whitman to D. Greene, March 12, 1838. The letters herein cited are in the American Board archives, Boston; transcripts are in the Oregon Historical Society.
16. Gray to Greene, Fairfield, November 29, 1837.
17. Gray to Greene, Fairfield, January 10, 1838.
18. Statement to the American Board.
19. Gray to Greene, September 22, 1838.
20. Gray to Greene, December 13, 1838.
21. Inventory of property destroyed at Waiilatpu. This document is letter 80, volume 248, of the American Board archives; copy in the Oregon Historical Society.
22. Whitman to Greene, October 15, 1840.
23. Whitman to B. B. Wisner, December 2, 1834, quoted by Hulbert and Hulbert, Oregon Crusade, 269.
24. Myron Eells, Marcus Whitman, 1909, 119.
25. Same.
26. Whitman to Greene, July 13, 1841.
27. W. A. Mowry, Marcus Whitman, 1901, 100.
28. O. Larsell, "Outline of History of Medicine in Pacific Northwest," in Northwest Medicine, XXXI, 485.
29. Whitman to Greene, March 28, 1841.
30. Whitman to Greene, October 15, 1840.
31. Whitman to Greene, April 8, 1844.
32. Whitman to Greene, November 1, 1843.
33. Whitman to Greene, April 8, 1844.
34. O. Larsell, in Northwest Medicine, XXXI, 487.
35. Gray to Greene, March 20, 1840.
36. Whitman to Greene, October 22, 1839.
37. Gray to R. D. Mussey, May 4, 1840, letter 133, volume 138, American Board archives, copy in Oregon Historical Society.
38. Whitman to Greene, March 27,1840.
39. Whitman to Greene, May 5, 1837.
40. Arthur C. Jones, "Medicine and Medical Practices among the Indians of the Northwest," in Medical Herald, LI, 327.
41. Spalding to Greene, Februray 3, 1847.
42. Capron and Slack, New England Popular Medicine, 1848; Coley, Practical Treatise on Diseases of Children, 1846.
43. J. B. A. Brouillet, Authentic Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman, 1869, 13.
44. P. C. Phillips and W. S. Lewis, Oregon Missions as shown in the Walker Letters, 1839–1851 (Sources of Northwest History, No. 13, University of Montana, 1930).
45. Snowden, History of Washington, II, 310.

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1. Address delivered at the celebration of the Whitman centennial, Walla Walla, Washington, August 13, 1936.