What a Piece Of Work Is Man???

Sometimes, the things you find accidentally/ serendipitously/ unexpectedly, all while looking for other stuff can be a whole lot more fun than the stuff you set out to find in the first place.   

Here’s an example, followed by a comment.

While searching the October 1896 edition of The Medical Brief  (see above) for something else entirely, I came across the following – written for the journal by a doc in Kentucky:

Man

Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of microbes.

He cometh forth like a flower, but is soon wilted by the winds of adversity and scorched by flames of perplexity.

Sorrow and headache follow him all the days of his life.

He hoppeth from his bed in the morning and his foot is pierced by the cruel tack of disappointment.

He ploddeth forth to his daily toil and his cuticle is punctured by the malignant nettles of exhaustion.

He sitteth himself down to rest at noonday, and is lacerated in his nether anatomy by the pin of disaster.

He walketh through the streets of the city in the pride and glory of his manhood, and slippeth on the banana peel of misfortune and unjointeth his neck.

He smoketh the cigar of contentment but, lo! It explodeth with a loud noise, for it was loaded.

Behold he glideth down the banister of life and findeth it strewn with splinters of torture.

He is stung by the mosquitoes of annoyance by day and his frame is gnawed by the bedbugs of affliction by night.

What is man but the blind worm of fate, seeing that his days are numbered by cycles of pain and his years by seasons of mourning.

Behold he is impaled upon the hook of desolation, and is swallowed up by death in the fathomless ocean of time and is remembered no more.

In his infancy he runneth over with worms and colic, and in his old age he groaneth with rheumatism and ingrowing toe-nails.

He marryeth a cross-eyed woman because her father hath a bank account, and findeth that she is ridden with hysteria and believeth in witches.

His father-in-law then monkeyeth with stocks and goeth under.

What is man but a carbuncle on the neck of existence? Yea, but a tumor on the back of fate.

He playeth at the races and staketh his substance on the brown mare because he hath received a tip. The sorrel gelding with a bald face winneth by a neck.

Behold he runneth for office and the dead beat pulleth him ever and anon and then voteth against him.

He exalteth himself among the people and swelleth with pride, but when the votes are counted he findeth that he was not in it.

He boasteth of his strength in Israel, but is beaten by a bald-headed man from Taller Creek.

He goeth to the post office to glance at the latest papers, and receiveth a dun from the doctor for his last year's attentions.

He goeth forth to breathe the fresh air and to meditate on the treachery of all earthly things, and is accosted by a bank cashier with a sight draft for $127.39.

A political enemy lieth in wait for him at the market place and walketh around him crowing like unto a cock.

He trusteth in a man who claimeth to be filled with righteousness and standeth high in the synagogue, and gets done up.

For behold his pious friend is full of guile and runneth over with deception.

From the cradle to the grave man giveth his alms to him that smiteth him.

His seed multiplyeth around him and cryeth for bread, and if his sons come to honor he knoweth it not.

Fate prevaileth ever against him.

What is man but a painful wart on the heel of time.

John Collins, M. D. RockHouse, Ky.

So, just who was this “John Collins, M.D.?”  Being a genealogist, I needed to know, so it was off to the census and a few other quickie online sources.

Aside from being a physician taken with the cadence of his King James Bible, Dr. Collins was a farmer – doctor.

The 1900 US Census shows that John Collins, age 36, physician, lived on a farm in Magisterial District 3 – Rock House in Letcher County, Kentucky, along with his wife of 13 years,  Polly, age 33, and their three children Ada, 12, Arthur, 11, and Bruce, 7.

In 1901, Dr. Collins was secretary to the Letcher County Board of Health.  Lest you think he spent his days in quiet reflection as a country doctor, writing humorous poetry and attending to the occasional sick person, Marcus Welby-like, his July 16^th, 1901 letter to the Kentucky State Board of Health will likely disabuse you of that notion.

While discussing the successful containment of an outbreak of five cases of smallpox, he noted:

“Our chief difficulties in stamping out the disease were: These cases occurred in a district where a bitter feud was raging, and our doctors were loath to visit the district; but the people near, on first intimation of the trouble, instituted prompt means for confining and limiting the disease.”

The feud – known as the Wright – Reynolds Feud – was the conflict referenced above. 

I guess it’s hard to think about smallpox containment when members of your potential patients’ families are shooting at each other…

A Short Intermission

Consider this the “short intermission” in the “food is family” series.

I decided this small nugget was too good to pass up, and if I waited till the end of the “food” posts, I’d slip into other things and probably leave it behind, despite my good intentions.  

Here’s the story behind it:

I spent the past three days (along with several other members of the NYG&B’s Education Committee) at the New York State Library and Archives in Albany, providing research advice and assistance to participants of the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society’s 2011 Albany Research event.  Participants from  all over the US got to pick our brains – for whatever that might be worth – on potential solutions to their “brick wall” problems.

In between appointments, I did some of my customary grazing in the 7^th floor library stacks, discovering research treasures in some of the “non-genealogical” sections that I never spent much time with before.

While skimming the first issue of the Kansas Law Journal for its potential for family history gold, I happened upon this “filler” piece.  I love it when you find stuff like this in unexpected locations.  It reminded me of the little pieces that David Greene inserts here and there occasionally on a “space available” in The American Genealogist  (TAG).

I couldn’t help capturing this law journal piece and passing it on.  Best of all, it's all about the consequences of providing advice.  Enjoy!

It is narrated that John R. Porter of the State of New York, now famous throughout that State for his brilliant attainments, when a young man, was assigned by the court the defense of a man charged with assault in the second degree, to give the accused the best advice he could under the circumstances, and to bring the case to trial with all convenient speed.  Porter immediately retired to an adjacent room to consult with his client, and returned shortly without him.

“Where is your client?” demanded the astonished Judge.

“He has left the place, I guess,” replied Porter with the most refreshing sang froid.

“Left the place! Why, what do you mean, Mr. Porter?”

“Why, your Honor directed me to give him the best advice I could under the circumstances.  He told me he was guilty, so I advised him to cut and run for it.  He took my advice, as a client ought, opened the window and skedaddled.  He is about a mile away now.”

The very audacity of the young barrister deprived the court of the power of speech,  and nothing came of the matter.

“Notes”, Kansas Law Journal, Volume 1, Topeka, 1885, page 44.

Hallowe'en Decorations, Books, and Rev. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's - All Together in One Swell Foop!

PUMPKIN!!!!

In less than a week and a half, Hallowe’en will be upon us.

Mrs. Blogger will celebrate the annual return of industrial-sized bags of candy corn to the supermarket shelves and yours truly will be all a-goggle at the new crop of inflatable Hallowe’en lawn ornaments that populate the private manicured green spaces called “lawns” in local suburbias.   Frankly, as a confirmed and probably certifiable lover of both kitsch and bargains, it’s hard to resist (at only $179.95) the seven-foot animated inflatable skeleton that plays the pipe organ.  Yes, exactly!  A Pipe Organ!!!  Like Lon Chaney in "Phantom of the Opera!!!"

C’mon; you KNOW you want one!  Just follow the link here to admire it and perhaps to order one for yourself.   

Of course, Hallowe’en isn’t generally much of a genealogy or book holiday.  

At least that’s what I thought until a few days ago.  But then, I stumbled upon a website that dealt with the age-old question I’ve been pondering here for a week or so.

The Big Question: What to do with all the books that nobody really wants anymore?

After all, in spite of being the unrepentant “bookie” that I am, I’m still a realist. You can’t save everything.  There’s only so much shelf space. Eventually, some stuff has to go. And if truth were to be told, there’s a lot of stuff (book-wise) that should never have existed in the first place.

(Take no personal offense, Danielle Steele…)

Sooner or later, excess books can become a problem, for both libraries and “private-sector” owners.

As I said, you can’t save everything, at least not in book form.  So, what’s the solution – if, in fact, there is one?

Welcome to the world of the Crafting Mom.  It is, of course an online world of wonder for the Mom Who Does Crafts.

Who would have thought that the solution to the world-wide “book backlog” problem could be simply solved by a crafting mom with a razor-sharp Exacto knife and a bucket of paint?

Frankly, the holiday possibilities are endless.  Why stop at Hallowe’en?  Other holidays – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving - are now all fair game as book-recycling holidays.  The only limits are the crafting imagination, which, I am led to believe, knows no bounds.

Anyway, I know you’re intrigued by all this hype; so here’s the simplest of solutions.  Check out the website and wonder why this has not become some sort of national biblio-recycling policy.

Rev. Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)

For some reason (and no doubt one that reflects the perverse nature of my own mental processes), this immediately caused me to think of one of my all-time favorite works in English dealing with recycling:  the Rev. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. 

Swift (1667 – 1745), the Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and one of the greatest writers in English, is probably best known for his classic “Gulliver’s Travels.”  Nonetheless, “A Modest Proposal” is a fine example of social commentary written by one of the truly great masters of satire. 

Before writing this pamphlet and releasing it in 1729, Dean Swift thought long and hard about one of the pressing social problems of his time:  the widespread problem of poverty in early 18^th century Ireland and the “excess population” of Irish children – children who were mostly the offspring of impoverished Irish Catholic families. 

As a descendant of some of the very-same children the Dean was writing about, I immediately saw the genealogical implications of Swift’s “solution” when I first read “A Modest Proposal” at university a long, long time ago.

What to do, what to do, thought the Dean?  Lots of Loony-Tunes ideas were being floated about in both Ireland and England by folks with pretty shallow thought processes.  The Dean figured that since nothing quite succeeds like excess, he'd pile on with a "why haven't we thought of this before???" solution of his own.

 If you haven’t read “A Modest Proposal” in a long time, here’s the link to an online version at Project Gutenberg. 

Remember as you read it – Jonathan Swift was perhaps the most gifted satirist of his (or, for that matter, any) time.   “A Modest Proposal” is a fine example of what a great artist can do with a serious question if he sets his mind to it and at the same time plants his tongue firmly in his cheek.  Solutions to complex problems are not always “9-9-9” simple, obvious or practical, no matter how “interesting” they may first appear. 

And sometimes, absolutely inane ideas can sound positively reasonable in the right set of circumstances.   

The more “sane-sounding” inane solutions appear to be, the more insane the times.

Imagine what the Dean might suggest could be done with all the excess books in the world.  He’d likely put the Crafting Moms to shame with his solutions.

Cherub Kitsch or Great Art?

Oh, and I wasn’t kidding about loving kitsch-y things:  Here’s a pic of one of the “presents” I got folks several Christmases ago.  I just hadda keep one for myself, perhaps as a collectible “inflation hedge” in the event of hard economic times.  

I understand art collectors will likely pay big money for fine ceramics like this…

At least - - - I live in hope ...

19th Century Medical Practitioner Ads: “Warranted To Give Entire Satisfaction”

A Medieval Physician

Researchers often find ancestors and ancestral relations in the census with occupational titles that indicate they were medical practitioners of some sort; these listings therefore suggest to modern researchers that their ancestors pursued years of academic study at some college or university. 

That, however, is often more a case of wishful thinking on the part of the researcher than historical fact.  Consider for a moment the occupation of “dentist”, which now requires a thorough postgraduate education and professional licensing. 

That important “education and licensing” part was not always the case.

The first dental school in the United States – the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery -  was chartered in 1840. Prior to that year, practitioners who called themselves dentists were either trained by others already in the field (the best case scenario) or were completely self-trained (a not-infrequent state of affairs).

Chances are, Henry J. Boynton, who lived in Portland, Maine and self-identified as a “dentist” in the 1850 Federal census, did not have much in the way of formal dental education in the modern sense since he was already in his mid-30s when the first dentistry school opened its doors hundreds of miles away.

His census listing (below) shows that he was married to a young lady from Nova Scotia. The young child also listed, Isabella, age 2, was very likely his daughter.

Dr. Boynton’s practice was probably fairly financially successful since he was able to afford a full-page advertisement in the Portland, Maine 1850 – 1851 city directory (pictured below.)  

 Of course, the construction and insertion of “mineral teeth” on gold plates was no doubt both expensive (for the patient) and, for Boynton, highly profitable. And, of course, he guaranteed “entire satisfaction.”

Henry Boynton continued to practice dentistry in Portland for at least another decade.  Here is his 1860 listing. 

 Interestingly, during this period, his practice seems to have taken a decidedly “scientific” turn. We know this from the advertisements that Boynton placed weekly in “The Maine Temperance Journal”, an anti-alcohol newspaper with a statewide circulation edited by Darius Forbes and published in Portland by Brown Thurston.  The Journal described itself as “Devoted to Temperance, Agriculture, Education, Science and News.”

During this period, no display ads for Dr. Boynton appeared in the Portland city directory. He appeared to have chosen the newspaper as his primary advertising vehicle. Newspapers reached a much larger audience at a lower cost.  The small bit of code in the lower left hand corner of the ad means that he contracted for one year's worth of ads in each issue, starting on September 6th, 1858.

Despite his simple description of his occupation as “dentist” in the 1850 & 1860 censuses, Boynton’s newspaper ad showed that he was now calling himself an “electropathic physician.” While he still extracted teeth (now claiming to use shock-free electricity), he also claimed to treat diseases of the eye, ear, head, throat, lungs and chest. 

His ad from “The Maine Temperance Journal” newspaper of Thursday, 17 March 1859 is shown below:

 I wonder exactly what kind of “electropathic” equipment he had in his office and just how effective his “breathing apparatus to administer medicated vapors by inhalation” actually was?  Since he continued to advertise for more than a decade with the phrase “warranted to give entire satisfaction”, could it be that he may have been on to something?

More to the point, would it be a “covered service” under today’s health insurance plans?