medical education at the moment he receives his medical diploma, but those who are in the practice of medicine know that this is the end of only the initial phase of professional education and that there are many things not taught in the school that must be learned in practice. Therefore it is fitting to sketch something of Dr. Whitman's experience in practice after graduation.
A few weeks after his graduation from medical college, he settled for practice in the spring of 1832, in the hamlet of Wheeler, Steuben County, New York, twenty-five miles south of his birthplace. In this little village he practiced for three years. There was no other physician within nine miles in one direction and six miles in the other direction. His nearest neighboring physician was the man whose practice he had taken over. Here in this rural community first settled thirty years before, Dr. Whitman became a "country doctor."
This term is not used in derision—far from it, for the country doctor is an American institution which forms the foundation of American medicine. From him springs all American medicine, since in colonial times, there being no cities, all physicians were country doctors. Of the great medical names of the nineteenth century many were country doctors.
We lack documentary evidence regarding Dr. Whitman's three years of practice as a country doctor in western New York, but there are extant many original documents concerning country doctors in that same general region and period that permit us to sketch his experience during these years.
Every doctor was a general practitioner and was called upon to serve in all the fields of medicine. There were no specialists to whom he could refer difficult cases, or call in for consultation. There were no office hours. He went whenever called, day or night, regardless of weather. The patient who was able to come to his office for treatment must wait there until more serious cases were cared for.
His method of transportation was on horseback. The doctor must be a good horseman and have a good horse, for when called he was expected to hasten. Returning from one call with a tired horse he might find another call to which he must also hasten and this required a fresh horse. The busy doctor must keep more than one horse.
