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.

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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

PRIMITIVE STATE OF MEDICAL PRACTICE
But if the life of the average pioneer was one of privation and hardship, that of the pioneer doctor was one beset with greater difficulties.
His patients were widely scattered throughout the wilderness, and previous to 1830 Oakland county roads were little better than blazed trails,
which during a good part of the year were impassable.
The outfit of the pioneer doctor was quite as meager as was that of his
brother settler. His lancet and calomel, his turnkeys and Peruvian bark,
constituted his essential armamentarium. We, in this generation, are
sometimes prone to speak jestingly of the practice of those early doctors,
but due reflection will accord to them a full measure of credit for what
they did for their patients. In the first third of the nineteenth century
the healing art was primitive and largely empirical. But two epoch-making discoveries had been made in the world of medicine up to that timenamely, the discovery of the circulation of the blood and that of vaccination. The use of ether as an anesthetic was not demonstrated until
1846, and chloroform was introduced two years later; so that any necessary surgical operation was most painful for the patient and difficult
for the doctor. The great scourge of those times was the malarial
fevers, but chemistry had not devised a method for the separation of
quinine from Peruvian bark until 1820, and for years after, this drug
was so very expensive that only the rich could obtain it. Pharmacy
had not yet come to the aid of medicine, so the practitioner necessarily
was obliged to make his own tinctures, triturate his powders, roll his
pills and gather, each in its season, the native herbs and plants having
medicinal qualities.
However, it is certain that the early practitioners of the county were
men capable of bringing to their work in the care and relief of the sick
every available means and influence. They were, moreover, prominent
in the community. They were the educated men and therefore the influential citizens. As family physicians they sustained with their
patients the relation of counsellor and friend. Indeed, it has been said
the pioneer doctor was generally present at all the important family
events: "He was present at every birth, he sat with the minister by
every death-bed, and his signature was affixed to every will." Most
of these physicians had, for the time, thorough qualifications. Many
of them were graduates of medical colleges. Some had graduated in
New York; others in Philadelphia; still others, from European institutions. Some, of course, had not had the benefit of collegiate training, but they had served long and active apprenticeships under the tutelage of some physician and surgeon, and had earned the right to practice by passing a rigid examination before a committee of the County
Medical Society.
The first Oakland County Medical Society being chartered and having authority to grant licenses to practice had been organized under a
permit granted June 12, 1831, on petition of Drs. William Thompson,
Daniel L. Porter, Ezra L. Parke and Thaddeus Thompson. The permit to organize was granted by the first Michigan Medical Society which
had been organized August Io, I8I9, under territorial law.