History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
PIONEER CONDITIONS-PRIMITIVE STATE OF MEDICAL PRACTICE-ALLOPATHIC PRACTITIONERS PRIOR TO I837-DR. WILLIAM THOMPSON,
FIRST PHYSICIAN-DRS. OLMSTEAD AND JOHN CHAMBERLAIN-DR.
EZRA S. PARKE —DR. CYRUS CHIPMAN-DRS. LAMB, LAMOND AND
ALGER —DR. JOHN C. EMERY-THE OLD COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY
-ALLOPATHIC PRACTITIONERS FROM 1837 TO I866-THREE EARLYTIME HOMEOPATHS-PRESENT COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY —PONTIAC
MEDICAL SOCIETY-PRESENT PRACTITIONERS.
By Mason fW/. Gray, A. D.
The first settlement in Oakland county in 1817 was followed, one year
later, by the opening of the Erie canal to Buffalo and by steamboat navigation between Buffalo and Detroit in 1819, thus making the region appropriately called Oakland more accessible for these heroic men and
women from New York state and the eastern states who were destined to
transform the wilderness into the productive farms and the modern firesides enjoyed by the present generation.
PIONEER CONDITIONS
Consequently the first settlement was rapidly followed by others, so
that two years later the territorial government found this section of sufficient importance to establish the boundaries of Oakland county. In I820
the population of the county was 300, but so rapidly did settlers occupy
the land that in I830 it was 5.000, and in the territorial convention of
1836 Oakland was entitled to six delegates and Wayne eight, which presumably was an index of the comparative number of inhabitants of the
two counties.
During this period it is doubtful if the pioneers enjoyed any more of
the physical comforts than had been the common lot of English-speaking
people for three hundred years. It is true they were a free people to
whom were vouchsafed full civil and religious liberty, but their homes
were crudely built, as we know, from the unhewn trees of the forest and
heated by a single fireplace which served also for cooking purposes. The
outfit of the pioneer consisted chiefly of his axe, his rifle and his ox-team.
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