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THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 
 
The Medico-Historical Writings 
 
 of Victor Robinson, ph.c, m.d. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON HASHEESH 
 
 An historical and pharmacological study of 
 Cannabis Indica, including observations and 
 experiments. Published, 1912. 
 
 PATHFINDERS IN MEDICINE 
 
 Biographic sketches of Galen, Aretseus, Paracelsus, 
 Servetus, Vesalius, Par5, Scheele, Cavendish, 
 Himter, Jenner, Laennec, Simpson, Semmelweis, 
 Schleiden and Schwann, Darwin. Published, 
 1912. 
 
 ESSAYS IN MEDICAL HISTORY 
 
 Landmarks in Pharmacology, The Children s 
 Plague, Atitobiography of the Tubercle Bacillus, 
 and several other medico-historical articles 
 published in volumes xxii-xxiii of the 'Medical 
 Review of Reviews,' which the author edited 
 during 1916-17. 
 
 THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 
 
 A chapter in the history of American medicine, 
 containing information not elsewhere available. 
 Published, 1919. 
 
 In Preparation 
 
 HISTORY OF GONORRHEA 
 
 From the earliest time to the present, based 
 largely upon the original sources. 
 
THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 
 
 By 
 Victor Robinson 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HISTORICO-MEDICAL PRESS 
 
 ie06 BROADWAY 
 
 1919 
 
Copyright, 1919, by 
 Medical Review of Reviews 
 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co.. New York 
 
TO A. LEVINSON, 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 Dear Doctor: 
 
 In the year that Dr Clevenger was ap- 
 pointed to the staff of the Michael Reese 
 Hospital, you and I were born. The snows 
 and saffrons of more than thirty years have 
 passed since then, and Dr Clevenger no 
 longer walks among the wards of the Michael 
 Reese — but you do. I have often told you 
 fragments of the tale of your predecessor; 
 take now the finished story from 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 The Author. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEH PAGE 
 
 I The Formative Years 11 
 
 II At the Chicago Medical College . . 30 
 
 III Medicine Under King Mike .... 59 
 
 IV The Kankakee Affair 100 
 
 V Dreaming and Drifting 123 
 
 VI Books and Essays 143 
 
 VII The Philadelphia Group 203 
 
 VIII Friends in New York 254 
 
 IX Letters from Spitzka 280 
 
 X The Closing Years 317 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 S. V. Clevengrr, portrait 
 
 William E. Quine, portrait and autograph . 
 
 Robert L. Rea, portrait and autograph . 
 
 William H. Byford, portrait and autograph 
 
 James S. Jewell, letter to J. J. Putnam . 
 
 HosMER A, Johnson, portrait and autograph 
 
 Nathan Smith Davis, portrait and autograph 
 
 S. V. Clevenger, portrait .... 
 
 S. V. Clevenger, portrait .... 
 
 Medical Staff at Kankakee, autographs 
 
 Clevenger's Cottage at Kankakee . 
 
 Horatio C. Wood, letter to Clevenger . 
 
 Clevenger Book Typewriter 
 
 Charles Hamilton Hughes, portrait 
 
 John Eric Erichsen, letter to Clevenger 
 
 William Francis Waugh, portrait and autograph 
 
 Joseph Leidy, portrait . 
 
 Edward D. Cope, portrait . 
 
 Joseph LeConte, portrait . 
 
 E. D. Cope, letter to Clevenger . 
 
 William Pepper, letter to Cope 
 
 William Pepper, portrait . 
 
 RoswELL Park, announcement 
 
 7 
 
 PAGE 
 
 28 
 
 36 
 
 38 
 
 42 
 
 45 
 
 46 
 
 52 
 
 98 
 
 98 
 
 111 
 
 116 
 
 129 
 
 133 
 
 166 
 
 177 
 
 184 
 
 212 
 
 234 
 
 234 
 
 239 
 
 243 
 
 248 
 
 258 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 William A. Hammond, letter to Clevenger . . . 262 
 
 William A. Hammond, portrait and autograph . . 270 
 
 Burt G. Wilder, card to Clevenger 274 
 
 Edward C. Spitzka, portrait 284 
 
 Burt G. Wilder, portrait 284 
 
 E. C. Spitzka, letter to Clevenger 291 
 
 S. V. Clevenger, portrait and autograph . . . 324 
 
THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 
 
THE DON QUIXOTE OF 
 PSYCHIATRY 
 
 THE FORMATIVE YEARS 
 
 HAVE you ever heard of Dunning? That's 
 the town, seven miles from Chicago's cen- 
 ter, where the Insane Asylum of Cook County 
 is located. Had you lived there in 1880, when 
 Dunning was only a patch of prairie, with 
 nothing but the asylum and some saloons to indi- 
 cate that civilization had reached the spot, you 
 would often have noticed a person walking along 
 the road, holding in his hand a tightly-closed 
 tin-bucket on which the sun glittered. He 
 seemed to be a friendly sort of man, and ac- 
 quaintances who passed him, called out, 'Hello, 
 Doc' As he was not far from forty years of 
 age, you might have supposed that he had been 
 practising for some time, but your name is not 
 Sherlock Holmes, for S. V. Clevenger was an 
 
 M.D. of only one year's standing. 
 
 11 
 
12 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 There had been too many cross-roads in his 
 journey to enable him to reach his destination 
 sooner. His adventures began with his birth, for 
 altho springing from strictly American stock — 
 in 1690 John Cle^^nger signed a petition to the 
 king 'for better government of East Jersey,' 
 and during the Revolution Captain Job Clev- 
 ENGER of the Burlington Mihtia was killed by 
 the British at Crosswicks, while his mother's fam- 
 ily was related to bold John Hancock — yet he 
 himself drew the first breath of life beneath the 
 bluer skies of Florence. 
 
 His father had worked in Cincinnati as a 
 stone-cutter — until the day that he chiseled a 
 man's head in a rock and all the city recognized 
 the editor of the Cincinnati Evening-Post. The 
 stone-cutter had grown into a sculptor, and the 
 workingjman's quarry-yard became an artist's 
 studio. He traveled to other cities, to see who 
 would trade gold for marble. Memorable men 
 sought this gifted boy: two presidents of the 
 United States, William Henry Harrison and 
 Martin Van Buren, and the best-known states- 
 men of the day, Daniel Webster^ Henry Clay 
 and Edw^ard Everett, were among his sitters. 
 Old Judge HoPKiNsoN who signed the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, young Julia Ward the 
 
The Formative Years 18 
 
 poetess, Washington Aixston the painter, and 
 John Eberle the physieian who helped to found 
 the Jefferson Medical College, were featured for 
 futurity by his chisel. 
 
 There came into his life the call of Italy, and 
 with his family he sailed for the artist's Holy 
 Land — and by the Arno, on the twenty-fourth 
 of March, 1843, Shobal Vail Clevenger, Jr, 
 came into the world. The sculptor toiled hard 
 and learnt much, and when the time came for 
 him to exhibit his handiwork, it was found he 
 had not carved a worn-out Roman theme, but 
 the first distinctive American figure done abroad 
 — the Indian. But what has become of this In- 
 dian no man knows; he seems to have disap- 
 peared like the living members of his race. 
 
 Only thirty years of age, his genius recognized, 
 his fame increasing, full of plans, mapping out 
 his work, the future beckoned brightly to the 
 sculptor. But that same enemy which wrote 
 Finis to the poems of Keats, and hushed the 
 music of Chopin, was already shaking the 
 plaster from Clevenger's hand. Tuberculosis 
 marked him, and the stricken youth prepared to 
 return to America — to die at home. Whatever 
 we are, wherever we are, when the final summons 
 comes, we want to die at home. 
 
14 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 A ship passed Gibraltar with furled sails, for 
 a passenger had died on the boat, and lay draped 
 in the American flag. The captain read the 
 burial service, and when he reached the words, 
 'We consign his body to the deep,' a board was 
 lifted, and the corpse of Clevenger slid into the 
 waters of the Atlantic. He had a grave to which 
 his widow could bring no flowers. Only Junior 
 did not weep, for he was six months old, and 
 did not understand that he had lost a brilliant 
 father. 
 
 When the widow arrived in New York, John 
 Jacob Astor^ the founder of Astoria, advised 
 her in disposing of the statuary that had caused 
 the vessel to dip below Plimsoll's mark. Henry 
 Clay also called in reference to the bust that he 
 had ordered, and when the tall orator bent over 
 to shake hands with Shobal's little sister, she 
 mistook him for a giant stepping out of one of 
 her fairy-tales. Shobal himself stared at the 
 man who claimed he would rather be right than 
 president, but only said 'Boo,' — perhaps he 
 didn't believe him, even then. Years later, the 
 government used Clevenger's Webster for its 
 fifteen-cent postage-stamp, and today his mar- 
 bles are found in the Boston Atheneeum, in the 
 Academy of Fine Arts at Philadelphia, and at 
 
The Formative Years 15 
 
 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 
 City. The builder was frail, and his body fed 
 the fishes, but his work shall not perish. 
 
 The Clevengeks had relatives along the Mis- 
 sissippi, and there they went. Matters were 
 talked over, and it was decided that Mrs 
 Clevenger should open a fashionable hotel — a 
 high-class boarding house it really was. To re- 
 main a widow when you are young, and have 
 three children and an hotel on your hands, is 
 not always convenient, especially if the hand- 
 some star-boarder is importunate, and before long 
 Mrs Clevenger became Mrs Thwinq, and the 
 three children — thru no merit of their own — ac- 
 quired a step-father, while the hotel gained a new 
 manager. 
 
 The second husband showed marked ability in 
 spending the first husband's money, but other- 
 wise he was not talented. He was a Southern 
 gentleman, and in those days Southern gentle- 
 men did not work. Altogether, Mr Thwing 
 failed to play an important role in the lives of 
 the family, for not many years later he too was 
 silenced by the Captain of the ]Men of Death, as 
 John Bunyan quaintly called tuberculosis. 
 
 So Shobal grew up in the West. It was not 
 the West that Daniel Boone and Davy Crock- 
 
16 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ETT knew, for a changing land was growing out 
 of the broadened trails, already treading on 
 the trader's and the trapper's heel; yet it was 
 far from the decorous West of the present, where 
 Pullman berths are more plentiful than wig- 
 wams; it was the West raw from the broad-ax, 
 the strange territory where the express receipts 
 of Wells & Fargo read: 'This company will not 
 be responsible for the acts of God, Indians, or 
 other public enemies of the government.' 
 
 The boy never met God out west, but he saw 
 the redskins, naked and hostile in the wild woods ; 
 he looked upon the corpses of men swinging 
 from lodge-poles, the words Vigilance Commit- 
 tee pinned upon their last suit of clothes ; he felt 
 the earth tremble beneath a herd of buffaloes 
 that stretched for miles; he lived next door to 
 people who had played their parts in the great 
 Western drama: first a forest, then a pioneer, 
 then a clearing, then a log-cabin, then a massa- 
 cre, and when the hills no longer re-echoed the 
 war-whoop, nothing — until the next settler's fam- 
 ily stepped out of the prairie-schooner. 
 
 Shobal Clevenger^s earliest recollections 
 date from an Indian trading-village which has 
 since become St Louis. Small as it was, it sur- 
 passed all its neighbors, and even boasted of 
 
The Formative Years 17 
 
 traveling salesmen. One of these drummers had 
 occasion to visit a town that was springing up 
 along Lake Michigan, with the result that when 
 he got back, he amused his friends by telling 
 them, 'That dirty little mud-hole of Chicago ex- 
 pects to equal our city some day.' Here we have 
 evidence that even a traveling salesman's judg- 
 ment may be at fault. 
 
 Shobal next found himself on a farm in Ohio, 
 where his big brother Albert took him rabbit- 
 hunting, and allowed him to watch as he chopped 
 down the trees, to the whistled tune of a popular 
 song. 
 
 They went to Alabama for a short time, soon 
 coming to New Orleans. Here Shobal was 
 sent to school, and found that the principal part 
 of the curriculum consisted in chastisement. Yet 
 mischievous as he was, his own hide never felt 
 the rattan, for when a good-natured gi-in on his 
 face caused him to be called forward to receive 
 a licking, he jimiped out of the window and never 
 returned. 
 
 To beat children was quite the thing in those 
 days — it had Solomon's sanction. It is not on 
 record that Solomon has revised his maxims, but 
 it is evident that we have revised our opmion of 
 Solomon. The constant whippings brutalized 
 
18 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 the youngsters, and certainly aroused sadistic 
 instincts in the teachers. 
 
 Yet the chief grief of Shobal's childhood was 
 not due to a school-master — when punishment 
 was imminent he graduated rapidly — but to his 
 own mother. She had bought him his fii*st pair 
 of pants, and like a true youngster he had spoiled 
 the precious garment by sitting on a wet lawn. 
 'That settles it,' she remarked as she changed 
 him back to frocks, 'you. will have to wear petti- 
 coats as long as you live.' He was an impres- 
 sionable lad, and the picture of himself grown to 
 tall manhood, with long legs imperfectly covered 
 by short gowns, disturbed his sleep for several 
 nights. 
 
 The family liked New Orleans, but in 1853 
 came the yellow fever. It proved to be an his- 
 toric plague, and the stolid cry of strangers, 
 'Bring out your dead, bring out your dead,' be- 
 came as common as when Benjamin Rush 
 waded thru the remains of stricken Philadelphia, 
 stopping in amazement when he saw some one 
 building a house for the living in the city of the 
 dead. All the Clevengers were attacked, 
 Albert worst of all. The remarkable physi- 
 cian, JosiAH Clark Nott, — who even in that 
 day believed in the mosquito-theory of yellow- 
 
The Formative Years 19 
 
 fever, but died before any one else believed it — 
 treated the sufferers, and left special orders in 
 regard to Albert. Nurses have disobeyed phy- 
 sicians — with resulting benefit to the patients — 
 but it was not thus in this case: as soon as Dr 
 Nott's back was turned, the nurse did just what 
 he told her not to do, and in a few hours there 
 was one Clevenger less in the world. 
 
 Shobal went back to St Louis, alone this 
 time, as he was already twelve years old; first 
 he worked as a clerk in his Uncle Yates' boat 
 store, then another relative, John J. Roe, the 
 merchant prince of St Louis, put him in the 
 States Savings Institution as a messenger, and 
 he was soon promoted to a collectorship. It was 
 the largest bank in the west, there were no clear- 
 ing houses then, and some days he collected over 
 a million dollars in gold and silver, but he evened 
 up matters by seeing little money since. It was 
 often necessary to take trips down the river, and 
 he remembered at least one of the cub pilots, as 
 he happened to be Mark Tw^ain. 
 
 The California fever heated the young man's 
 blood, but because of Indians on the war-path he 
 was switched to Colorado and New INIexico. As 
 indicative of the types that one was likely to meet 
 in those days, let it be mentioned that at Pike's 
 
20 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Peak he came across Pat Casey, a rich mine 
 owner who could not sign his name, but who 
 could pay $300 for a night's use of the bridal 
 chamber in a New York hotel, sleeping alone in 
 the gorgeous bed with his boots on. 
 
 Shobal remained an inhabitant of St Louis 
 until the lowering war-clouds broke into a red 
 outpour. It became plain that Henry Clay's 
 compromises had effected nothing; nor indeed 
 was any concession possible with a people whose 
 leading newspapers uttered sentiments such as 
 these : 
 
 'Free Society!' cried the Muscogee Herald of 
 Alabama, 'we sicken at the name. What is it 
 but a conglomeration of greasy workmen, filthy 
 operatives, and small-fisted farmers? All the 
 Northern States are devoid of society fitted for 
 a well-bred gentleman. The prevailing class is 
 that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and 
 small farmers who do their own drudgery and 
 are not fit for association with a gentleman's 
 body-servant.' 
 
 'The establishment of the Confederacy,' ex- 
 plained the Richmond Enquirer of Tennessee, 
 'is a distinct reaction against the whole course of 
 the mistaken civilization of the age. For liberty, 
 equality, fraternity, we have deliberately substi- 
 
The Formative Years 21 
 
 tilted slave labor; for voluntary labor, the Con- 
 federacy has substituted involuntary labor; for 
 paid labor, the Confederacy has su])stituted un- 
 paid labor.' 
 
 'There are slave races born to labor,' pro- 
 claimed the Jiichvicmd Eocaminer, 'and master 
 races born to govern and control the fruits of 
 labor.' 
 
 One portion of the community was to drudge 
 and be common, and the other portion was to 
 reap the benefits and be gentlemen — such was 
 the creed of these high-toned highwaymen. The 
 arch-southron, proprietor of negroes and father 
 of mulattoes, — a gentleman of such exquisite 
 sensibilities that he was quite capable of selling 
 his own children into slavery — needed a national 
 disaster to convince him that he was out of place 
 in the nineteenth century. 
 
 When the call for volunteers came, Shobal 
 Clevenger^ a splendid youth of nineteen, en- 
 listed as a private in a regiment being raised in 
 Kansas City. During the course of the war he 
 was in the armies commanded by Grant, Fre- 
 mont, Howard, the lamented McPherson, and 
 Thomas. 
 
 At Nashville, Tennessee, he joined the United 
 States Engineer Corps, and was occupied in 
 
22 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 building bridges and railroads. Here he met 
 Miss Mariana Knapp, a graduate of the West- 
 em Female College of Oxford, Ohio; after that, 
 whenever he marched off with the troops, and 
 the regimental musicians played, 'The Girl I 
 Left Behind Me,' Shobal had something to 
 think about. Altho we find no date attached, 
 we opine that it was around this time that he 
 wrote the Invocation containing the lines : 
 
 Help me, O muse, to sing her praise, 
 
 Mark with me all her gentle ways ; 
 
 Her sylphid form, her deep blue eye 
 
 That purity of soul imply — 
 
 Her easy, unassuming grace, 
 
 Jler modest, lovely, downcast face, etc. 
 
 Private Clevenger joined Sherman when 
 that doughty General started on his journey to 
 the sea, but he was turned back by the order of 
 Andrew Johnson, military governor of the 
 state, who promoted him to a first lieutenantcy 
 in the Tenth Tennessee Infantry, and placed 
 him in charge of Sherman Barracks, with the 
 additional privilege of raising a battalion of his 
 own. So while Sherman was marching thru 
 Georgia, Clevenger was inserting patriotic ad- 
 vertisements in the newspapers, under the title, 
 
The Formative Years 28 
 
 'To the Truly Loyal,' urging all able-bodied 
 males to enlist under his new lieutenant's sword. 
 Most participants in the Civil War have 
 talked about it for the remainder of their lives — 
 the veteran winning battles with his tongue and 
 cane has been a familiar figure in American life 
 since the sixties — but Clevenger rarely alluded 
 to his martial exploits, altho his career in the 
 army was honorable and hazardous. He per- 
 formed his duty and volunteered for more, as 
 may be seen by the characteristic note which he 
 sent to the commander of the post at Johnson- 
 ville : 
 
 I have the honor to request the privilege of taking 15 
 of my men out on a scout across the Tennessee. Hav- 
 ing experience, and experienced men who know the coun- 
 try thoroly, I might be enabled to do much service by 
 being permitted to scout tomorrow. 
 
 Hoping that my request will be granted, your ac- 
 quiescence will find me at your headquarters tomorrow. 
 
 Special order 1721, directing Lieutenant 
 Clevenger to report with twenty-five men at 
 Picket Post to escort a quarter-master train 
 twelve miles out, was signed by Andrew John- 
 son — and it certainly looks like the chirography 
 of a man who couldn't write until his wife taught 
 
24 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 him. In the remarks on the muster-out arolll 
 that lies before us, it is stated that Clevenger 
 served in four regiments and commanded one; 
 that he was Captain by appointment, but was 
 not mustered in; and that in December, 1864, for 
 his services at the Battle of Nashville, he was 
 appointed Brevet Lieutenant Colonel by An- 
 drew Johnson — presidential approval pending. 
 When the time for ratification arrived, Johnson 
 himself was the man in the White House, but 
 he was so occupied with the terrible Stanton 
 that he forgot the Battle of Nashville and neg- 
 lected to approve his own appointment. So 
 Clevenger remained only a lieutenant. 
 
 When the war was over, he became chief clerk 
 in a claim agency, and helped to muster the boys 
 in blue out of service, an occupation in which he 
 earned considerable money. By this time Miss 
 Knapp was his wife, and together they started 
 for Montana — accompanied by the books that 
 had been used at the Western Female College; 
 Mrs Clevenger didn't need them any more, but 
 Clevenger did: he wanted an education too. 
 
 It took ninety days to reach Montana, but 
 when they were settled, they became personages 
 in the land: at White Tail Deer, Clevenger held 
 the office of justice of the peace, and at Fort 
 
The Formative Years 25 
 
 Benton, Mrs Clevenqer organized the first pub- 
 lic school, while her husky mate was hotel keeper, 
 probate judge, court commissioner, and revenue 
 collector. Besides, he made meteorological ob- 
 servations for the Smithsonian Institution, with 
 rain-gauges furnished by Joseph Henry him- 
 self. 
 
 As a worker for Uncle Sam it was one of 
 Clevenger's jobs to look after the illegal whisky 
 that the white men were selling to the Indians — 
 really mixtures of chemicals with tobacco juice, 
 red pepper and fusel-oil in spirits of cologne — 
 and he had the sport of emptying hundreds of 
 such barrels into the Missouri river, tho some- 
 times the trader would not give up the rot-gut 
 whisky until he found a file of soldiers in un- 
 comfortable propinquity. 
 
 Nature is a harsh step-mother to the hmnan 
 race: if a man is syphilitic or has gallstones, his 
 children are in danger of inheriting the disorder, 
 but if he has any special talent, his offspring 
 are not so liable to be infected with it. None of 
 the sculptor's childi'en showed any artistic in- 
 clination, but Shobal was gifted in another 
 direction: he had a bent toward scientific things. 
 In spite of his official functions, the long silent 
 winter-evenings at the isolated fur-post gave him 
 
26 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 leisure to cultivate himself. His wife was his 
 teacher, until he went beyond her. He qualified 
 as a civil engineer, and soon had a contract to 
 sui'vey the military reservation. 
 
 Thruout all his surveys he carried with him 
 the identical copy of Loomis' Trigonometry and 
 Logarithms which his wife had used in the Ohio 
 school, but he carried it across that sandy waste 
 of New Mexico known as the Journey of Death, 
 for all along the route were the bones of men, 
 oxen, deer, buffaloes, wolves, dogs, horses, — 
 animals that perished from want of water. On 
 these surveys he learnt what it was to wander in 
 a blizzard without food for days, and finally to 
 cook a steak from a government-mule that was 
 found frozen on the ground. He learnt what 
 it was to go without drink, when the tongue 
 hangs out, swollen, blackened, fissured, and a 
 cracker turns to dry powder in the mouth, and 
 then, delirious with joy, dash and roll, with 
 clothing on, into a creek of water. Hunger and 
 thirst; clouds of mosquitoes and whirlwinds of 
 sand; storms that tore his tents to shreds, and 
 dust that blinded the eyes; mountains and 
 prairies; Indians and politicians: these obstacles 
 did not prevent him from surveying endless miles 
 in what was then unexplored Dakota Territory, 
 
The Formative Years 27 
 
 now the states of North and South Dakota. 
 
 He did more for Dakota : he built its first tele- 
 graph, thus connecting isolated Yankton with 
 the outside world. It meant much to the town, 
 which now decided to consider itself the metropo- 
 lis of the northwest. The mayor, the news- 
 papers and the inhabitants turned out to wel- 
 come the builder, a telegraph-ball was given in 
 honor of the thread-like wire which could carry 
 Yankton's messages over the far-stretching 
 prairies into the busy haunts of men, and just 
 to prove that everything was all right, Cleven- 
 GER played a game of chess by telegraph with an 
 operator in Chicago. 
 
 But we must take things as they come on our 
 planet, and a few months after this triumph, 
 the Clevengers lost their daughter Bessie, a 
 child of five, from scarlatina, and the world 
 looked changed to them. But men must work, 
 tho their children die, and as the Dakota 
 Southern Railway was being erected, Clevenger 
 secured the position of its chief engineer. 
 
 As his engineering skill increased, his ambi- 
 tions expanded, and he formed the project of 
 building monuments of masomy along boundary 
 lines and doing such creditable astronomical and 
 geographical work that engineers from afar 
 
28 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 would come to study it. To accomplish this, he 
 calculated, would take three years of labor and 
 about thirty thousand dollars. To get such a 
 contract it was necessary to visit headquarters. 
 He had another reason for going — he was loaded 
 with evidence against the Land and Indian De- 
 partments in the West, and if the government 
 agents could be prevented from robbing the In- 
 dians of their annuities and swindling them to 
 the starvation point, there would be no more out- 
 breaks like the Minnesota Massacre. H. H.'s 
 A Century of Dishonor — a white woman's in- 
 dictment of white men — is America's bitter 
 classic. 
 
 So the day came when the western youth, 
 tanned with the sun and winds of Dakota, 
 walked thru the streets of the national capital. 
 It was fortunate for Clevenger that he came to 
 Washington. He learnt many things : he learnt 
 that no one wanted to hear anything in favor of 
 monuments of masonry, and that no one wanted 
 to hear anything against government agents. 
 
 Still he lingered, and at last the wheel of for- 
 tune seemed to take a more favorable turn. A 
 few Washingtonians approached him, and prom- 
 ised to obtain the appropriation. Clevenger 
 thanked them cordially. 'Provided,' they added, 
 
CLEVENGER 
 During the Yankton Period 
 
The Formative Years 29 
 
 *yoii give us a certain percentage, ahem.' This 
 was followed hy the gentle hint that he didn't 
 have to do the work at all — it could easily he re- 
 ported that Indians had destroyed it. vSome one 
 thought it time to take pity on his simplicity, 
 and told him, 'Go home, and I'll give you a base 
 line to measure, at which you can earn an engi- 
 neer's salary, tho it will take a year or two before 
 you can have it. If you stay in Washington, 
 your political friends who claim to be pledged 
 to your ideas, will rob you of your papers, put 
 you in the wrong and sell out to the senators who 
 even now are secretly laughing at you.' 
 
 It was a sobered engineer who set his face 
 westward again, determined to survey no more 
 land for the government, resolved to follow a 
 new calling — where politicians could not enter: 
 Medicine. 
 
II 
 
 AT THE CHICAGO MEDICAL 
 COLLEGE 
 
 AT this juncture, General Alfred J. Meyee, 
 chief of the United States Weather Bu- 
 reau, which was then in the signal service of the 
 war department, requested Clevenger to take 
 charge of the observatory at Fort Sully, Dakota, 
 and he consented for the sake of a livelihood. 
 His work consisted in telegraphing three times 
 daily to Washington, the barometer and ther- 
 mometer readings, minimum and maximum tem- 
 peratures, nature and direction of clouds, hu- 
 midity and wind force, translated into cipher. 
 
 But it w^as medicine that filled his dream, and 
 under the direction of the army surgeons he read 
 the Vienna masters, Rokitansky, Skoda, and 
 Hebra — but did not hear of Semmelweis. He 
 studied also anatomy and chemistry — preparing 
 for college. He sent East for a copy of 
 Holden's Anato7ny, and when it arrived, he and 
 Dr Bergen, the post surgeon, pored over it with 
 delight — but they needed a skeleton to compare 
 
 30 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 31 
 
 with the beautiful plates. No doubt they felt 
 like killing the post commander — a snob who 
 wasted honest men's time by demanding that 
 they perpetually salute him and dress punctili- 
 ously for parade. But deciding it would he 
 safer to obtain a ready-made frame-work of the 
 human body, they plamied to rob an Indian 
 place of sepulture — across a ravine, on a high 
 bluff, some miles from the fort. 
 
 They prepared flour sacks, dark lanterns and 
 revolvers — and waited for night; sliding down 
 one hill and climbing another, they hurried along 
 until they came to a Sioux village of teepees, 
 where many dogs howled. Hiding until all was 
 still, they crept on again, and reached the grave- 
 yard. The bodies were not buried, but were in 
 boxes hanging on poles. They tumbled these 
 down, and after filling the flour sacks with bones, 
 the adventurers returned to the fort without inci- 
 dent. 
 
 Content but exhausted, Clevenger threw 
 himself into bed with torn clothes and shoes 
 bristling with prickly pear stickers, his body 
 pierced all over with cactus spines. He slept. 
 He awoke in full daylight to find the hospital 
 steward bending over him with a gi'in that almost 
 split his face. The steward was a little Yankee 
 
82 The Bon Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 who spoke in so squeaky a voice that if heard 
 on the stage it would be considered a caricature. 
 'Were you and Dr Bergen poking around the 
 Indian burying ground last night?' he queried. 
 
 'Is that any of your damned business?' asked 
 Clevenger. 
 
 'Not a bit,' he cried in delight, 'but you ought 
 to listen to the racket down in the Indian village. 
 The major sent down to find out what was eat- 
 ing them, and they said the spirits of their dead 
 friends were dancing on the hill last night. The 
 major did some guessing on his own account and 
 sent for Bergen who gave the secret away.' 
 
 'Well,' answered Clevenger, 'I guess we can 
 survive the major knowing that we are studying 
 anatomy at this post.' 
 
 'That's all right,' agreed the steward, 'but there 
 is more to tell: that was a special grave-yard.' 
 
 'What sort?' asked Clevenger, yawning. 
 'Kings and queens, chiefs and chief esses?' 
 
 'Worse than that: small-pox!' 
 
 Suddenly Clevenger became interested in his 
 surroundings, and with a leap was at his keys 
 telegraphing for vaccine lymph — which came in 
 a month. The small-pox, however, did not come 
 at all — the Indians must have been hanging a 
 long time — but Clevenger was again bitten by 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 33 
 
 a political trick: Captain IIowgate boodled so 
 much of the signal service funds that the Fort 
 Sully office was discontinued. 
 
 Clevenger now sought employment from the 
 owner of a fleet of steamboats, John H. 
 Charees, the same who advanced the wire and 
 expenses for his telegraph, and was one of the 
 best friends he ever had. Under this good- 
 hearted Commodore he worked as a steamboat 
 clerk until he considered he had sufficient money 
 to go to medical school. 
 
 He had set his heart on Harvard, and was 
 frank enough to inform the Secretary of his cir- 
 cumstances: his family was increasing, his in- 
 come was not. The Secretary was Reginald 
 Heber Fitz, but in his reply of December, 1876, 
 the investigator of the intrapleural lipomata of 
 the mediastinum appears as a sensible economist. 
 He explained to Mr Clevenger that even an 
 unmarried student cannot live on less than $7 
 a week, that the tuition fee was $200 a year, that 
 outside work could be obtained only with ex- 
 treme difficulty, and that such work was hardly 
 feasible, as the college demanded the student's 
 entire time. Good-bye, Harvard! 
 
 The University of JNIichigan also was thought 
 of, but he finally decided that the Chicago Med- 
 
34 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ical College, now Northwestern University, 
 would be his alma mater. This was not the old- 
 est medical school in Illinois. In the early 
 thirties, when Daniel Brainard was studying 
 medicine in Philadelphia, Chicago had a popula- 
 tion of about one hundred — and all its mail was 
 deposited in a dry-goods box. Yet the boom 
 was on, and in the fall of 1835, when Dr Brain- 
 ard rode into Chicago on his little Indian pony, 
 he found a village of three thousand inhabitants. 
 The mortar was already hardening in Chicago's 
 first brick building — erected by Gurdon Sal- 
 TONSTALL HuBBARD and kuowu as 'Hubbard's 
 Folly.' But hogs still roamed thru the business 
 section, and when it rained hard, the placard 
 'No bottom' was posted near the chief streets, 
 and an old hat floating with the warning, 'Keep 
 away — I went down here,' was a ghastly re- 
 minder that men and horses could drown in mud. 
 But Daniel Brainard walked on the sunny 
 side of the street, and applied to the legislature 
 for permission to open a medical college. It 
 was not a niggardly legislature: in 1837 it sent 
 Brainard a charter for his school, and at the 
 same time sent Chicago a charter that made it a 
 city. So a medical college was founded in 
 Chicago — on paper. Six years were to pass be- 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 85 
 
 fore Brainaiid issued a four-page leaflet, full 
 of typographical errors, announcing that Rush 
 Medical College was open. The lectures were 
 delivered in the office of Dr Buainard's wooden 
 house, the course lasted sixteen weeks, the fac- 
 ulty consisted of four men, and twenty-five stu- 
 dents were present. 
 
 What grows like Chicago? Fifteen years 
 after this experiment, Rush was a flourishing in- 
 stitution, with hospital facilities and famous pro- 
 fessors on its staff. Brainard himself could not 
 keep pace with some of the teachers. They de- 
 manded that the two years of instruction which 
 the college was now giving, be lengthened to 
 three, and that the course be graded. Brainard 
 refused to accede to these innovations; the man 
 who had founded the first medical school in 
 Chicago was fighting against improved medical 
 education ; it is sad when the pioneer becomes the 
 reactionary. 
 
 But Daniel Brain ard's day had passed: he 
 who cannot keep step with the world's progress 
 is left behind. The most talented instructors on 
 the faculty severed their comiexions with Rush, 
 and taking with them the clinical service of 
 Mercy Hospital, the rebels established in 1859 
 the rival institution known as the Chicago INIed- 
 
36 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ical College, and here it was that a bearded Da- 
 kotian matriculated eighteen years later. 
 
 So a new life dawned for Cle^tenger, bring- 
 ing with it new pleasures and new troubles — to 
 struggle across the arid wastes of Gray's 
 Anatomy, to scale its mountains of technicalities, 
 to flounder in its swamps of details, to be lost 
 by lamp-light in its jungle of terms, was per- 
 haps as difficult as surveying a waterless prairie. 
 But he was in no danger of flunking. He had 
 read the Vienna Triumvirate, and the army sur- 
 geons had taught him anatomy and chemistry. 
 As for materia medica, he knew it by rote ; he had 
 made the mistake of thinking it was necessary 
 to know the entire Pharmacopeia before matricu- 
 lating, and with his usual enthusiasm and ability 
 he practically memorized the volume from cover 
 to cover; it is doubtful if there was another stu- 
 dent in the country who knew the Fifth Decen- 
 nial Revision of the U. S. P. as well as 
 Clevenger. 
 
 At least one member of the faculty was about 
 ten years younger than himself — Roswell 
 Park, the demonstrator of anatomy. 
 
 William E. Quine, who taught materia 
 medica and general therapeutics, was not nearly 
 as venerable as he has since become, but that 
 
^fm. ^ J26fm(\ 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 87 
 
 he was not too young is evident from the tribute 
 which Clevenger hastily scribbled upon the 
 blackboard while the class was waiting — not too 
 impatiently — for the professor's appearance: 
 
 Sound the stage horn, ring the cow bell, 
 That the waiting world may know; 
 Publish it thruout our borders. 
 Even unto Mexico. 
 
 Seize your pen, Oh dreaming poet! 
 And in numbers smooth as may be, 
 Waft the joyful tidings round us: 
 BiLLiY QuiNE has got a baby. 
 
 Robert Laughlin Rea, who climbed from 
 the plow to a professor's chair, was the teacher 
 of anatomy. It is something of a coincidence 
 that he had previously taught at the school where 
 Mariana Knapp was a student. We may here 
 relate the tale of the flower of the Oxford Semi- 
 nary: among Rea's pupils was a Southern girl, 
 endowed with intellect and miusual beauty. 
 Her charms brought most of the young sparks 
 of the town to her feet, and before her tuition 
 was concluded, she was betrothed to one of these 
 gentlemen. But a story that leaked out of the 
 South, cut the thread of her trousseau. Her 
 lover discovered that she was not a white woman, 
 
38 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 but an octoroon — and he promptly disowned her. 
 The maid was in despair, and it became neces- 
 sary for her father to visit her. Nature is fre- 
 quently unfair; at the very moment when the 
 father required all his resources to comfort his 
 lovely but distressed child, he fell a victim to 
 disease. Dr Rea attended him with devotion, 
 but the cholera added another corpse to its mil- 
 lions of victims. The physician, who was ap- 
 pointed executor of the will, conveyed to its 
 Southern home the body that he could not save; 
 then secretly and successfully, tho at consider- 
 able personal risk, he brought back with him his 
 pupil's two sisters, as it was not safe for these 
 young women to remain in that section of the 
 great republic where a bit of extra pigment was 
 made an excuse for slavery. The villain in The 
 Octoroon was once well-known in American 
 melodrama; but certainly Dr Rea played a 
 hero's part in a real racial tragedy. 
 
 Rea was regarded by many of his colleagues 
 as the greatest anatomist that Chicago had pro- 
 duced, but he was not a research worker. He 
 seems to have been a master of his subject, altho 
 he did not specialize in anatomy — he owned busi- 
 ness blocks on Monroe Street. We understand 
 Rea was the first to point out that Rembrandt's 
 
At the CJdcago Medical College 39 
 
 Anatomy at the Hague, where Nicholas van 
 TuLPius demonstrates a disseetion to a ^uild of 
 Amsterdam surgeons, eontains the mistake of 
 representing the flexor siiblimis digitorum as 
 originating from the outer instead of the inner 
 side of the arm. 
 
 While Rea divided his affections equally be- 
 tween money and medicine, Ralph N. Isham 
 let the scales tip low to the side of cash. He 
 went thru college at the expense of a medical 
 friend, and refused to return the loan until the 
 exasperated doctor drew a revolver upon him. 
 Isham's greed was such that he did not interfere 
 when his own father was sent to the poor-house. 
 Isham married an albino — she had no color in 
 her iris, but she had green and yellow at the 
 banko These hateful qualities did not prevent 
 Dr Isham from being an accomplished surgeon 
 and an entertaining teacher. Nature often puts 
 talents into the wrong hands. Railroads need 
 men with hearts of steel, and Ralph N. Isham 
 was chief surgeon of the C. & N. W. R. R. In 
 swearing to anything that would aid the road 
 lawyers against injured cases, he proved himself 
 unscrupulous. 
 
 But Cle^tenger's pet aversion on the faculty 
 was John H. Hollister, the secretary of the 
 
40 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 school, and professor of pathology. Hollister 
 was undoubtedly one of the most religious physi- 
 cians in Chicago: even in ordinary conversation 
 he would fold his hands prayerfully and roll the 
 whites of his eyes heavenward; if patients were 
 willing, he would kneel at their bedside and pray 
 for them, and from Sunday-school pulpits he 
 would relate how he and God cured the sick — 
 tho it was common knowledge among his con- 
 freres that he would desert critical cases at crit- 
 ical times. His love of Christ was surpassed 
 only by his love of Coin. He was a poor pathol- 
 ogist — his duties to the Lord left him no leisure 
 to enter his laboratory. He was so occupied 
 with studying Isaiah^ he had no opportunity to 
 read Rokitansky. As a lecturer he was inco- 
 herent, 'usually beginning with the therapeusis 
 of the aurora borealis and winding up with spec- 
 ulations upon the climatology of hades.' It was 
 said that if Hollistee should be examined by a 
 state board for qualification as a practitioner, his 
 rating would be as follows: anatomy, 0; chem- 
 istry, ; materia medica, ; medicine, ; surgery, 
 0; piety, 105. 
 
 A man of an entirely different stamp was 
 Edmund Andrews, the professor of surgery, 
 Wholesome, kindly, talented, he was the 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 41 
 
 Rabelais of the faculty in his love of hurnor — 
 altho an active supporter of the Presbyterian 
 Church — and his laugh was infectious. Many 
 a college quiz and clinic were enlivened by his 
 gaynesso 'Mr Hayes,' he asked, 'what would 
 you do in case of post-partum hemorrhage?' 
 'I would tie the post-partum artery,' bluffed the 
 student. When old Andrews heard that, he 
 stood on one leg and laughed, and when he got 
 tired, he stood on the other leg and laughed — 
 and all the boys laughed with him. 
 
 Andrews rose from a farm-hand to the leader- 
 ship of the surgical profession in the mid-west. 
 American medicine can tell of many lads who 
 were once forced to cut grass, but later gained 
 permission to place their knives in human flesh. 
 Andrew^s began the study of medicine under 
 ZiNA Pitcher — a name that is heard no more, 
 but there was a day when fossils and plants were 
 named after Zina Pitcher, and he was elected 
 president of the American Medical Association. 
 Pitcher had been a surgeon in the war of 1812, 
 and his pupil rendered similar service in the war 
 of the sixties. Later, Andrews organized state 
 societies, scientific academies, journals and medi- 
 cal colleges. He wrote much, but better even 
 than his text-book was his warm nature, which 
 
42 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 shone thru every pore of his benevolent face, with 
 its halo of snow-white beard. 
 
 William Heath Byfokd — a mechanic's son 
 and tailor's apprentice — was one of the original 
 seceders from Rush, and occupied the chair of 
 gynecology. He was also a founder of the 
 Women's Medical College, and he lectured there 
 for years, as he was a most enthusiastic advocate 
 of medical education for women. 
 
 The history of medicine is strewn with blun- 
 ders, but they cluster thickest on the gynecologic 
 branch. Time can never cleanse the dark pages 
 that tell the story of puerperal fever. When we 
 were a bit younger, every hospital collected 
 bushels of ovaries that should have been left in 
 the pelvic cavity. In Byford's day, lacerated 
 cervices with everted mucous surfaces were mis- 
 taken for ulcers, and accordingly cauterized. 
 But Marion Sims' assistant, Thomas Addis 
 Emmet^ sewed them up — trachelorrhaphy — ^be- 
 coming famous, while Byford publicly acknowl- 
 edged that he had committed thousands of these 
 errors. He likewise told of taking a country 
 doctor's diagnosis of cystic tumor ; so Byford cut 
 into the abdomen, and instead of a cystic tumor 
 he beheld a gravid uterus — but that's an old 
 story. 
 
/#V//L/^^ 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 48 
 
 No man advertises his mistakes, unless he has 
 virtues to match. Byford could afford to point 
 out his own shortcomings, because before Law- 
 son Tait he advocated laparotomy for ruptured 
 extra-uterine pregnancy; he championed the 
 slippery elm tent, and was among the earliest to 
 employ ergot for expulsion of uterine fibroids; 
 he observed that pelvic abscesses may become 
 encysted and undergo alteration without being 
 discharged, and his name is associated with the 
 innovation of stitching the open sac to the ab- 
 dominal wound after enucleation of cysts of the 
 broad ligament. His text-books, a Treatise an 
 the Theory and Practice of Obstetrics, and the 
 Medical and Surgical Treatment of Women, 
 were standard in their time. For years, Byford 
 was one of the most familiar figures in the gyne- 
 cologic and obstetric circles of the city, and all 
 agi'ced that his reputation was honestly acquired 
 and well-deserved. 
 
 Obstetrics at the college was taught by that 
 upright man, E. O. F. Roler — Byford's pupil 
 — who unfortunately suffered constantly and 
 terribly from organic headaches, but lectured 
 splendidly and kept near the head of his profes- 
 sion. 
 
 Henry Gradle was the physiologist, and an 
 
44 The Don Quiocote of Psychiatry 
 
 excellent one; he was noted for his scientific and 
 literary education. 
 
 Samuel J. Jones was the ophthalmologist 
 and otologist. He was an old naval surgeon, 
 pedantic, pompous, a trifle antiquated, and jeal- 
 ous of the younger generation which was making 
 inroads into his specialty. 
 
 James Stewart Jewell, tall and thin, with 
 impressive and courtly manners, was a member 
 of the first graduating class of the Chicago Med- 
 ical College, and his first connexion with the fac- 
 ulty was in the department of anatomy. Seven 
 years later he resigned his professorship, his 
 reason being that in order to become a better 
 teacher in the Sabbath schools he found it neces- 
 sary to visit the Holy Land to study biblical his- 
 tory at its source. Upon his return in 1871 — 
 disappointed in the backwardness of Palestine — 
 he decided to specialize in nervous and mental 
 diseases, and was at once appointed to this chair 
 in the college. In 1874 he established the Jour- 
 nal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and under 
 his editorship it was the foremost journal of its 
 kind in America, and compared favorably with 
 any similar periodical published in Europe. 
 Jewell suffered from intestinal tuberculosis, 
 but was a hard and efficient worker. He pos- 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 45 
 
 
 2^ 
 
 /■ 
 
 - ^T^ 
 
 1 JkJ' 
 
 / 
 
 '^•^^^'- -.-r^ 
 
 ^ c-- 
 
 
 LETTER FROM J. S. JEWELL 
 
46 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 sessed the best neurological library in the West. 
 Hammond's Treatise on Insanity was dedicated 
 to Jewell, 'whose learning has always com- 
 manded my heartiest admiration, and whose 
 friendship is one of the greatest pleasures of my 
 life.' Jewell was indeed a worthy man, his 
 chief fault being that he wrote his correspon- 
 dence on fancy note-paper and mailed it in cute 
 little envelopes, so that if you received one of his 
 missives in the presence of company, they were 
 likely to wink and ask, 'What's her name?' 
 
 The learned Hosmer Allen Johnson, the 
 professor of medicine, was probably the best 
 throat and chest doctor in the West at that time 
 tho he himself was a life-long victim of bronchial 
 trouble. He was a fine teacher, an admirable 
 character, an old-fashioned scholar, a credit to 
 the profession. Like Andrews and Byford and 
 Davis, he came from Rush at the time of the 
 schism. 
 
 Then there were H. P. Merriman, the gen- 
 tlemanly and conscientious lecturer on medical 
 jurisprudence and hygiene; Marcus P. Hat- 
 field, the professor of chemistry and toxicology; 
 and Lester Curtis, the able histologist and 
 teacher. 
 
 But towering above all, and ecHpsing all, was 
 
'U<-^^-^^ 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 47 
 
 the eminent dean of the faculty, Nathan Smith 
 Davis. No medical event in Chicago was com- 
 plete without his participation. He was not 
 named — as some have supposed — after Nathan 
 Smith, the medical Hercules who founded 
 Dartmouth Medical College, and for a dozen 
 years constituted its entire Faculty, teaching 
 every subject himself. Nathan Smith Davis, 
 the son of Dow and Abagail Davis, was bom in 
 1817, in a log-cabin, barefoot, and stayed that 
 way for several years. He grew up an untu- 
 tored farm-boy in an unsettled district. One 
 day, Dow Davis, standing in the fields, saw him 
 trying to drive a plow and oxen with one hand, 
 and holding a book in the other. Dow Davis 
 was not as erudite as Joseph Leidy, but he em- 
 phatically knew that decent plowing requires 
 all the hands a man has. Accordingly he de- 
 cided that since his sixteen-year-old son was more 
 interested in cultivating his mind than the 
 ground, there was nothing to do but send him to 
 Cazenovia Academy. 
 
 At seventeen he began to study medicine 
 under the preceptorship of Daniel Claek, and 
 soon entered college. Davis later achieved the 
 distinction of having a biographer, who says he 
 'feels perfectly safe in hazarding the assertion 
 
48 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 that the student by the name of Davis never 
 was passed up, never smoked cigarettes, never 
 came home at night when he was unable to find 
 the keyhole, never fell in love with the college 
 widow, and never indulged in any of the rowdy- 
 ish freaks which have always accentuated and 
 frequently disgraced student life.' In 1837, 
 while still a minor, Davis graduated from the 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons of Western 
 New York; the school has long been silent, but 
 in those days it harbored a teacher like Theo- 
 DORic RoMEYN Beck, the gi-eatest American 
 name in medical jurisprudence. More than 
 ninety years have gone by since his Elements of 
 Medical Jurisprudence appeared, but like 
 James Parkinson's description of paralysis 
 agitans, it remains unsurpassed. 
 
 Immediately after obtaining his diploma, Dr 
 Davis settled in Vienna — Vienna, Oneida Coun- 
 ty, State of New York, not the other Vienna. 
 Nathan Smith Davis was too much of an 
 American to waste any time abroad. We have 
 been told that the foreign Vienna is the gayer 
 of the two, but the young doctor did not find it 
 dull where he was, for there was a girl in town 
 named Anna Parker — who was not a college 
 widow — and it may be maintained that a youth 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 49 
 
 who woos a ni.'iid in Vienna, Oneida County, 
 State of New York, is less lonesome than a youth 
 who doesn't know an enchantress in the real Vi- 
 enna. They were married, and remained in that 
 civil state for over sixty-six years. 
 
 Davis grew too big for the place, and came to 
 New York City in 1847. The following year 
 he delivered a course of lectures on Medical 
 Jurisprudence, his favorite subject ever since he 
 heard Theodoric Romeyn Beck. He probably 
 expected to remain here for some years at least, 
 but John Evans, professor of obstetrics at Rush 
 Medical College, was in the East at this time, 
 and invited Davis to occupy the vacant chair of 
 physiology and pathology. Thus, in 1849, when 
 the college was six years old, Davis became a 
 westerner in order to join Chicago's earliest 
 medical institution. Ten years later he was one 
 of those who spoke to Brainard of increased in- 
 struction, periodic examinations and entrance re- 
 quirements — tho he had none himself — and when 
 Daniel Brainard said, 'Not necessary,' Davis 
 was one of those who walked out of Rush, and in 
 a short time he was delivering the introductory 
 lecture at the new Chicago jNIedical College. 
 
 It was as dean of this institution — the first in 
 this country which demanded three years of 
 
50 The Don Quiocote of Psychiatry 
 
 graded instruction — that Davis became the most 
 celebrated medical man in Chicago, unless he 
 was such already. He founded societies and 
 hospitals, and by his successful efforts to organ- 
 ize a national medical association he earned that 
 badge of fame — a sobriquet. Just as Benja- 
 min Rush is known as the American Hip- 
 pocrates, and John Morgan as the Father of 
 American INIedical Education, and Philip Syng 
 Physick as the Father of American Surgery, 
 and James Thacher as the Father of American 
 Medical Biography, and Benjamin Water- 
 house as the Jenner of America, so Nathan 
 Smith Davis is known as the Father of the 
 American Medical Association; he is the only 
 man who was twice its president. Davis was a 
 powerful speaker and a writer of ability. 
 Among his numerous works are the History of 
 Medical Education and Institutions in the 
 United States, and History of the American 
 Medical Association. He was the first editor of 
 the Journal of the American Medical Associa- 
 tion, and had edited seven other periodicals. 
 
 He made no contributions of importance to 
 the science of medicine, but impressed himself 
 upon his profession and generation by his force- 
 ful personality. He was always 'a character.' 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 51 
 
 In spite of the encomiums which have been heaped 
 upon his virtues, and much of which he undoubt- 
 edly deserved, it is a matter of congratulation 
 that his type is passing away. Agassiz may 
 have been a fanatical opponent of Darwinism, 
 but he remained a pioneer in ichthyology; Aus- 
 tin Flint was certainly an obscurantist in re- 
 ligion, but he was open to new ideas in physical 
 diagnosis ; Marion Sims may have been undemo- 
 cratic in his penchant for royal glitter, but he 
 was always a pathfinder in operative gynecology. 
 But Nathan Smith Davis was an all-around 
 bigot — a bigot in religion, a bigot in politics, a 
 bigot in science. After helping to reform the 
 medical curriculum in 1859, he closed the door 
 of his mind and would no more think of allowing 
 a new idea to enter than of changing his Andrew 
 Jackson face and swallow-tailed coat. 
 
 For years he opposed everything new in medi- 
 cine. Seeing the hypodermic syringe used in 
 Europe, George T. Elliott and Fordyce 
 Barker introduced it into America, but Davis 
 met it with anathemas. During the civil war 
 John Shaw^ Billings used a clinical thermom- 
 eter, and later the elder Seguin wrote books 
 about the instriunent, but Davis thundered 
 against the innovation. 'Why do I need a ther- 
 
52 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 mometer?' he cried. 'Can't I tell a fever with 
 my hand?' Davis was fond of lecturing on ty- 
 phoid fever, and would give a long list of etio- 
 logical factors which he regarded as conclusive. 
 'And yet,' he added in ineffable scorn to the class 
 of 1879, 'some day some Dutchman will come 
 along and tell us that typhoid is caused by a 
 bug!' And the very next year a 'Dutchman,' 
 named Caul E berth, did come along and prove 
 that typhoid is caused only by a 'bug,' and today 
 every dispensary-patient knows it. 
 
 Not a hint of these characteristics is to be 
 found in the biography of Davis or in any sketch 
 that we have seen; apparently Dr Danforth 
 thought it more important to open his tenth 
 chapter with the solemn statement, 'It is an his- 
 toric fact which I have upon the excellent au- 
 thority of Mrs Davis herself that Dr Davis 
 never tasted an alcoholic beverage in all his life.' 
 At a testimonial banquet given in honor of 
 Davis^ Robert H. Babcock said, 'As an alum- 
 nus of the old Chicago Medical College, I call 
 on you to rise, and in that beverage which Dr 
 Davis loves and has continued to pledge his life, 
 drink to his health.' 'Pure water,' exclaimed 
 Davis^ 'nature's universal aseptic; it disorders 
 no man's brain; it fills no asylums or prisons; it 
 
,/. J. 9 
 
 C^.--\y^^-^ 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 53 
 
 begets no anarchy, but it sparkles in the dew- 
 drop, it glows in the peaceful rain])Ow, and flows 
 in the river of life close by the throne of God. 
 Let us take it, not only as guests here, but for 
 the whole profession of America.' Let us also, 
 if we feel convinced that the water contains no 
 typhoid bacilli, drink to the memory of the sturdy 
 old Doctor who meant well. wSpiritus frumenti 
 and spiritus vini gallici have been denied a place 
 in the latest edition of our Pharmacopeia: we 
 wish there were also a way of expelling narrow- 
 mindedness from science. 
 
 So on the whole it was a worthy and compe- 
 tent teaching-staff, comparing favorably with 
 any that could be found in the United States. 
 Clevenger was glad to breathe the atmosphere 
 of a temple of knowledge. He fervently hoped 
 that never again would his path in life cut across 
 a political trail — for within the sanctuary of sci- 
 ence what boodler dare intrude? The Hon. 
 Michael McDonald, Cook County's boss, 
 under whose foot Chicago bent; King Mike in 
 truth, no man receiving any city job Avithout his 
 approval, no man being discharged without his 
 consent, ruling the mayor, dictatmg to judges, 
 controlling the police, selling the streets to rail- 
 
54 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ways, collecting and disbursing the taxes and 
 revenues — even he could have no jurisdiction 
 over a disciple of Hippocrates. Clevenger 
 was now among scholars and gentlemen: he had 
 looked his last upon the grafter's face. 
 
 The fourth of March, 1879, was the great day 
 which crowned the ambitions of years — gradua- 
 tion. The exercises were held at Plymouth 
 Church on Michigan Avenue. The dean and 
 members of the faculty sat on the platform — 
 which was further decorated with banners and 
 flowers and ladies. A large concourse had been 
 invited and looked with interest at the ex-stu- 
 dents. But it is to be feared that the new doc- 
 tors were not over-attentive to the clergyman's 
 invocation or to the dean's opening address. 
 Even on solemn occasions boys are not inclined 
 to listen to the advice of old men. 
 
 Indeed, only the previous year the seniors 
 went so far as to print a circular of their own — 
 outside of the official program. The Faculty 
 heard of the affair, and on graduation night 
 every boy was searched, but nothing was found 
 — of course not, since some friendly girls smug- 
 gled the circulars in under their shawls. And 
 while the minister was calling down the divine 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 55 
 
 blessing upon tlic assembly, these leaflets were 
 distributed, and it is surprising that Dean Davis 
 escaped a fit of apo2)lexy, for seldom has GuT- 
 TENiiEiic's invention issued so scandalous a 
 screed. On the first j^age, in large letters, was 
 the announcement: 'Another Batch of Sawbones 
 to Swell the Already Hyperemic Ranks of the 
 Disease Accelerators.' Under the heading, 
 'Bill of Fare,' were these items: 
 
 Music — Pity the First Patient. 
 
 Prayer — Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. 
 
 Music — Why Don't the Baby Come.? 
 
 (Intermission to allow the ushers to sprinkle chloride 
 of lime over the feet of the graduates.) 
 
 Grand Entre — The saloon keeper and laundryman 
 with due bills. Panic among the students. 
 
 Undress — Class Picture as an Anthelmintic. 
 
 Valedictory. — Vermiform Appendix as a Switch. 
 
 Music — It is Finished. 
 
 On the second and succeeding pages, under 
 the caption of 'Chancres,' various classmates 
 were characterized; we select, from the original 
 circular, some of the more reserved: 
 
 G. B. Abbott: He wanted to be Valedictorian, and 
 by voting for himself twice succeeded in getting three 
 votes, thus showing his popularity with the class. 
 
56 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 E. Moore: As friends, we advise you to proffer 
 your services to a bird store on Clark street, where a 
 young man is wanted to chew crumbs for sick canaries. 
 
 J. W. Dall : This cross between a half-breed and an 
 anthropoid ape will make a first class abortionist, as 
 that sickly smile of his would give a parturient woman 
 convulsions. 
 
 P. M. WooDwoETH : The appearance of this lean, 
 lank, lantern-jawed limb of laziness is so suggestive 
 that he had better resolve himself into an agent for a 
 tombstone factory. 
 
 W. R. Speaker : He cannot tell the difference be- 
 tween the Eustachian and Fallopian tubes, altho he 
 has devoted the last three years to calico dresses and 
 petticoats. 
 
 N. J. Neilson, alias Charlie Ross: Carry the news 
 to his paternal ancestors that Charlie is alive, and 
 today graduates at the Chicago Medical College. Ru- 
 mors afloat that he was preserved in alcohol. Bar- 
 NUM has telegraphed to his agent to secure him at any 
 price. Charlie has consented, and will travel as 
 Barnum's What is it. 
 
 Personal: An embryotic physician, rather tall (6 ft. 
 6), not handsome, sore eyes, but rich (as Job's tur- 
 key), wishes to correspond with a lady of color, on 
 Biler avenue. Address Dr Hastings or Buck, C. M. C. 
 
 S. Mac Wiley: The valedictorian will disembowel 
 himself before the august assembly. For profundity 
 
At the Chicago Medical College 57 
 
 of thought and prolixity of expression he is par ex- 
 cellence. He is an oratorical flower by the wayside. 
 Gaze upon the prodigy, the wind-bag of nothingness. 
 
 Just to prove that youthful audacity has no 
 limits, the conspirators capped their impudence 
 by announcing that the leaflet was printed by 
 the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 
 Poor Professor Jewell! 
 
 If we could follow Clevenger^s classmates 
 out into the world, no doubt we would find that 
 some became rich in practice, and others won- 
 dered why luck was against them; that most of 
 them married, and that a few remained deaf to 
 the harmony of wedding-bells — yet all these 
 things we merely surmise from our general 
 knowledge of the human race; we really possess 
 no authoritative information, for oblivion has 
 covered the tracks of the class of 1879, and we 
 must bid these boys farewell. 
 
 Only Clevenger has come across our horizon, 
 and we have already seen him carrying the tin- 
 can from Dunning to his home several miles 
 away. If we wonder as to its contents, our 
 curiosity will soon be appeased, for he has now 
 reached his room and approached his laboratory- 
 desk; he takes off the pail's cover, carefully turns 
 the pail over, and out rolls the brain of a lunatic. 
 
58 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Ever since his graduation he had been engaged 
 in neuro-pathological studies, performing autop- 
 sies at the asylum, and bringing the brains to 
 his room for detailed investigation. 
 
Ill 
 
 MEDICINE UNDER KING MIKE 
 
 ABOUT this time there was a proposition to 
 appoint a special pathologist to the asylum, 
 and what more logical candidate was there than 
 Dr Shobal Vail Clevenger? He was already 
 doing the work — privately; now let him do it — 
 officially. Some of the most prominent physi- 
 cians in Chicago — Dean Davis and Professor 
 Rea among them — wrote letters urging that he 
 be appointed. The superintendent of the 
 asylum, Dr J. C. Spray, was favorably disposed 
 towards him and one day proposed, 'Come along 
 with me and see if you can pass muster.' 
 
 To Clevenger's astonishment he brought him 
 into a drinking-saloon on Clark street; the pro- 
 prietor, an ordinary-looking fellow, was leaning 
 on the customer's side of the long counter. 
 Spray went over to him and Cle\tenger heard 
 him whisper, 'This is the doctor I was telling 
 you about.' At these words the saloon-keeper 
 
 raised himself, looked at Cle^':enger for a mo- 
 
 59 
 
60 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ment, nodded quietly, and put out one finger for 
 him to shake. 'I congratulate you,' smiled 
 Spray to Clevenger. 
 
 It seemed like a joke, yet they were in a seri- 
 ous place: on the first floor were the wines and 
 liquors, on the second floor were the roulette 
 wheels and faro layouts, while the third seemed 
 limited to whoredom — yet that den was the true 
 City Hall of Chicago, and Clevenger had 
 touched the hand of royalty. It was King Mike 
 whose nod had made him Special Pathologist to 
 the Cook County Insane Asylum; had Mike 
 turned away from him, all the recommendations 
 of all the physicians in Chicago would have 
 availed him nothing. 
 
 It smote the conscience of Clevenger to ac- 
 cept a position from Michael McDonald — yet 
 it was his heart's desire. He found excuses for 
 himself; he looked at John Campbell Spray; 
 he too was a medical man and an alumnus of the 
 same school, and still he remained superintendent 
 of the asylum for years with apparently no 
 trouble. • 
 
 No sooner did Clevenger enter the asylum as 
 pathologist than all doubt vanished. The mate- 
 rials for original study were so vast, every one 
 of the seven hundred patients presented so many 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 01 
 
 interesting problems, that his contentment was 
 supreme. He grudged every moment he had to 
 waste on eating, sleeping, shaving — his wife had 
 her troubles. He was surprised to find that no 
 records of cases had been kept, so he secured 
 large blankbooks and wrote up the histories from 
 all available data. He was forty years of age, 
 and to the strength of a man he added the en- 
 thusiasm of a youth. Day and night he was on 
 the go — diagnosing new cases, re-examining old 
 ones, making post-mortems, cutting with his 
 microtome, looking thru his microscope, prepar- 
 ing reports for the press — he filled scientific 
 periodicals with his contributions. 
 
 Clevenger became known as a man worth 
 watching, and when the time came to elect a new 
 superintendent, he was asked to be a candidate. 
 Unwilling, however, to spend time in administra- 
 tive duties, he suggested for this position Dr 
 James George Kiernan, who was elected. An- 
 other change was made by the Commissioners. 
 Dr Spray had been given entire control of the 
 institution, but Dr Kiernan 's authority was 
 divided, for he was the medical superintendent 
 only, while JNIr Harry Varnell^ a handsome 
 fellow, was appointed warden, and took charge 
 of the domestic and financial management. 
 
62 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 Clevenger was glad that Kiernan had super- 
 seded Spray. For Spray proved to be one of 
 those doctors who like to be considered ethical by 
 their confreres, but like still more to eat the po- 
 litical pie. Altho descended from Quaker par- 
 ents, he seemed to have borrowed his manners 
 from Mike McDonald's gang, for he was con- 
 stantly threatening to whip and shoot people, 
 and on the slightest provocation pulled out his 
 revolver. Moreover he was as ignorant as medi- 
 cal politicians usually are. Clevenger had come 
 across a female patient who alternated her stu- 
 porous state by somersaulting along the ward 
 corridor; examining her further, he was inter- 
 ested to find it was a case of katatonia, an uncom- 
 mon disorder which had been described by Kahl- 
 BAUM of Gorlitz. Immediately he told Spray 
 of his discovery, and was met with the retort, 
 'The damned Dutch are always doing things 
 like that. I never heard of that, and I don't 
 believe there is no such disease.' 
 
 Then Kiernan was certainly more interested 
 in reform than Spray. And as time went on 
 Clevenger could not help but notice gross abuse. 
 Even before Kiernan 's appointment he was im- 
 pressed with the fact that a lady physician was 
 needed for the female department. Clevenger 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 68 
 
 thought of two influential women whom he knew, 
 Mrs Helen Sitedd and her friend Mrs Ei-len 
 Henrotin, the wife of Mr Charles Henrotin, 
 the first president of the Chicago Stock Ex- 
 change, and known as 'the most decorated man 
 in Chicago,' because of the numerous ribbons and 
 medals he received from foreign governments 
 where he had served as consul. Clevenger dis- 
 cussed the subject with them, mentioning that 
 a lady physician had never been appointed to a 
 public asylum before and detailing what quali- 
 fications she would have to possess. 'Such a 
 woman as you described to me,' answered Mrs 
 Shedd a few days later, 'would require almost 
 an act of special creation, yet I fully understand 
 you cannot abate one of the requisitions named, 
 as they are vital to the success of the experiment.' 
 Mrs Shedd and Mrs Henrotin managed to in- 
 terest the Chicago Women's Club in the matter, 
 with the result that on May 1, 1884, Dr Delia 
 E. Howe moved into the asylmn — and found 
 plenty to do. 
 
 Clevenger had not been long at Dunning be- 
 fore he heard that the milk given to the patients 
 in the dement wards frequently caused fatal epi- 
 demics. Examining this milk he found it of low 
 specific gravity and of acid reaction, but he found 
 
64 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 no suspicion of cream. Always curious, he de- 
 termined to learn what became of the cream. 
 One day he waited in the kitchen ice-house, and 
 saw an attendant skim the cream from the milk- 
 cans and carry it outside. Then he understood. 
 For out in the yard were expensive kennels where 
 King Mike kept his hunting-dogs — thorobred 
 hounds, setters, pointers, retrievers. Clevenger 
 went back to his work of classifying patients. . . . 
 
 There was little F. S., only six years old, the 
 youngest patient in the asylum. He was a vic- 
 tim of heredity, the usual etiology of insanity. 
 Show us one hundred lunatics and we know what 
 caused the mental disease in most of them: the 
 parent. In the Cook County Insane Asylum 
 were whole families, father or mother, and broth- 
 ers and sisters, with occasional uncles and aunts 
 and cousins, all insane together. Well might 
 they curse the ancestry that brought them forth 
 with a germ-plasm biologically defective, and 
 bitterly may we condemn that system of society 
 which encourages these unfortunates to sow their 
 malformed seed. 
 
 There was Joseph C, the Bohemian shoe- 
 maker. He would be sitting or standing on the 
 grounds, quiet and subdued, when without warn- 
 ing such an uncontrollable rage would seize him 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 65 
 
 that it required a force of strong attendants to 
 hold him. Agile and crafty, he once hoi ted thru 
 the door, and in spite of his straight- jacket 
 ran up the ladder to the roof, and danced upon 
 the chimney-tops. But he sold his freedom for 
 a plug of tobacco; it was held out to him as a 
 bait, and while attempting to take it with his 
 teeth, his feet were pinioned, and like a wounded 
 eagle he was returned to captivity. 
 
 There was R. D., the Scotch bookkeeper. He 
 had been an exhorter in the Methodist Church, 
 and all was well vnitil in a newspaper he noticed 
 an advertisement about the errors of youth. As 
 he was guilty of involuntary seminal ejaculations 
 he knew the advertisement was personally aimed 
 at him, and he further knew it was inserted by a 
 Reverend Doctor Inman, of New York. To 
 escape this malign advertisement he fled home, 
 but it stared him in the face from his native vil- 
 lage paper in Scotland. He sailed to oNIontreal, 
 but found every one discussing Inman's adver- 
 tisement. He shipped to the Indian archipelago, 
 but the bluff old sea-captain insinuated that 
 Scotchy was not as pure as he might be. He 
 went to Cape Town, South Africa, and there he 
 saw Inman's advertisement printed in Boerish 
 Dutch — altho he didn't understand a word of 
 
66 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Boerish Dutch. He hastened back to America, 
 but noticed that the Chicago police had read In- 
 man's advertisement, for they followed him 
 wherever he went. Indeed, one policeman got on 
 the same car that he did; his forbearance was at 
 an end, and he struck the city guardian to his 
 knees. He was promptly arrested, but after tell- 
 ing his tale of persecution was not sent to prison 
 but to the asylum. 
 
 There was Emil Rein, the old German mu- 
 sician. For years he was the leader of a musical 
 society in Chicago, but alcohol jarred the mel- 
 ody of his life. He became so abusive to his 
 relatives that he was sent to Dunning. Here 
 his behavior must have delighted the recording 
 angel. It was his pleasure to teach music to the 
 children and to play for the amusement of the 
 patients. His amnesia was marked, and he 
 could not remember the names of his pieces, but 
 when some one started to hum or whistle the air, 
 he played it with skilful fingers. At the asylum 
 the children led him into the music-room, and 
 after he had given them their lesson they led him 
 back to his ward, for he was as docile as a lamb 
 in a picture. His conduct was so irreproachable 
 that he was sent home ; immediately he got drunk, 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 67 
 
 seized an ax and smashed his piano, and tried to 
 murder his family. 
 
 There was Mary F., whose mother and sister 
 were also confined to the asylum. She lay 
 crouched upon the floor, with her beautiful black 
 hair drawn across her face, listlessly passing her 
 fingers thru the entangled coils, but beneath the 
 sable meshes was a bloated visage without reason. 
 
 There was Ingab, R., a Scandinavian. She 
 was useful in the ward, helping with the sewing 
 and cleaning; she had regal manners, frowning 
 severely upon all, but smiled complacently if pet- 
 ted or flattered. A grand juror, a countryman, 
 once visited the asylum and spoke Swedish to 
 her; she answered all his questions so intelli- 
 gently and otherwise spoke so rationally that he 
 angrily demanded her instant discharge upon 
 threat of bringing the matter into court. Ingae. 
 was told to go to her room to di-ess for town, 
 while her bumptious compatriot waited for her. 
 She reappeared with a gilt paper crown on her 
 head, a robe of many colors with window tassels 
 at the hem, and a broom-stick for a scepter. 
 Pompously approaching the grand juror, she 
 informed him she was the Queen of Tragedy and 
 the Queen of Song, and a few other queens, and 
 would fine him five dollars for daring to smoke 
 
68 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 in her presence — but his mouth was too agape 
 to hold a cigar. 
 
 There was young Mary Ryan, the Irish immi- 
 grant. A happy and innocent girl, she had lived 
 on her father's farm near Dublin. She married 
 and came with her husband to America, and in 
 the pitiless streets of Chicago he left her, friend- 
 less, penniless, pregnant. She gave birth to a 
 girl baby at a public place, and was transferred 
 to the asylum. She raved incessantly. She 
 never slept. Sedatives had no effect on her. 
 She died exhausted. 
 
 There was James C, the lawyer who was 
 picked up in the streets of Chicago after the 
 great fire. That terrifying conflagration which 
 escaped man's masteiy, the uncontrolled flames 
 mocking the firemen for half a week, burning at 
 Chicago's heart and leaving the city homeless, 
 made many candidates for Dunning. The law- 
 yer claimed he was trying a case in court when 
 the judge turned into a boa-constrictor and the 
 jury into monkeys; he had hallucinations of sight 
 and hearing, yet retained much of his former 
 legal ability, and one of the asylum attendants 
 who had stolen a horse sneaked this lawyer out 
 to the trial, and the insane attorney successfully 
 defended his client. He was one of the show 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 69 
 
 patients, but would not rei)ly to queries until 
 the visitors handed out some chews of tobacco. 
 Once he turned inquisitor himself and asked, 
 'You know that Susan B. Anthony is president 
 of the United States?' 'Yes,' answered the 
 caller, thinking it expedient to acquiesce in all 
 that an insane j)erson said. 'And you know that 
 Andrew Jackson is vice-president, and that 
 Harriet Beecher Stow^e is secretary of war, 
 and that we have captured England?' 'Yes.' 
 'Well, you know a blamed sight more than I do, 
 and you're the bigger fool of the two.' 
 
 Another fire victim was a motherly soul, a 
 pious respectable matron who claimed to be Mrs 
 Lincoln, and consistently said her maiden name 
 was Todd ; she would sew industriously until vis- 
 itors annoyed her with questions, and then would 
 turn on them with an unexpected torrent of 
 filth and ribaldry. 
 
 There was Samuel N., the English lithog- 
 rapher, insane over spiritualism. He claimed 
 he was arrested for writing an article in the Re- 
 ligio-Philosophical Journal. He worked several 
 years in the asylum drug-room, and jocularly re- 
 marked that he 'never got further than pound- 
 ing cinchona bark.' He could be trusted any- 
 where on the grounds, as he was under the im- 
 
70 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 pression the spirits would not let him leave. He 
 threatened to take away spiritualistic control 
 from bastard mediums, but conferred medium- 
 ship upon Clevenger. Every morning he 
 adorned the trees with proclamations against 
 ghosts, of which the following is a characteristic 
 example: 'Little Church Round the Corner. 
 Moral Church we bury our brothers in one piece. 
 In honor of the canons of our order. Ladi Lado 
 Lade Ladum Lady. These ladies know nothing 
 about Red Stockings. In honor of the Nitric 
 Acid ceremonies.' 
 
 There was Daniel S., the negro teamster. He 
 imagined himself the wealthy owner of coal 
 mines. Once he saw God drive in a chariot to 
 his window and heard him say, 'Daniel, come 
 out.' Accordingly he smashed his iron bed and 
 employed it as a weapon to batter down the pan- 
 els of his door, and it required several attendants 
 to prevent him from obeying the Lord's com- 
 mand. 
 
 There was J. S., the German printer. His 
 case excited attention and was reported in the 
 newspapers. He had fallen in love with a young 
 lady who was living with his wife; she returned 
 his passion, but as she could not marry him, she 
 committed suicide. Husband and wife identi- 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 71 
 
 fied her body when it was fished out of the lake. 
 After that nothing in life interested him, and he 
 could speak of nothing except his misfortunes. 
 The cloud of melancholia settled upon him. He 
 attempted to drown himself, had unsystematized 
 delusions of persecution, and saw the young lady 
 alive. Many graves opened to him, and he spoke 
 to persons who had long been dead. Clevenger 
 induced him to read an article in the Zeitschrift 
 fur Psychiatrie, and the patient was startled to 
 meet a case similar to his own. It sort of gave 
 him a look at himself; his mind cleared, and 
 he was discharged as cured, going back to his 
 compositor's trade. 
 
 Another interesting patient was P. Kelly, 
 the policeman. He was patrolling Halsted 
 street bridge when he was shot in the neck by a 
 burglar. The result was a wound of the cervical 
 sympathetic, causing incurable insanity, a genu- 
 ine case of mania from traumatism. The case 
 was discussed by Dr H. Isl. Bannister in the 
 Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease^ and 
 later was reported by Dr Cle^tenger in the Chi- 
 cago Medical Journal and Examiner. The bur- 
 glar, a friend of INIike McDonald, was acci- 
 dentally sentenced for a term of six years, but 
 as soon as he came out of the penitentiary, Mike 
 
72 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 made amends by appointing him an attendant 
 at the asjdum, and he was assigned to Kelly's 
 ward, thus having charge of his shattered victim. 
 
 So the cases ran, hundreds of them, illustrating 
 every variety of mental disorder; not only those 
 we have named, but imbecility, idiocy, stuporous 
 insanity, transitory frenzy, brain lesions, and the 
 usual assortment of senile dements and the he- 
 bephreniacs, 'stranded on the rock of pu- 
 berty.' . . . 
 
 At length Clevenger completed his classifi- 
 cations of the patients — on paper, but he wanted 
 to do the same thing in fact. He therefore ap- 
 proached Warden Varnell, and informed him 
 that if the mild cases could be separated from the 
 violent ones, their chances for recovery would 
 be increased. He started to explain how the 
 treatment of the insane could be made more sci- 
 entific, but his enthusiasm was cut cold by a reply 
 which he never forgot : 'To hell with the damned 
 cranks,' answered Harry Varnell. 'They are 
 cattle to me, and I don't give a damn for them 
 and am here for boodle. I'm going to make a 
 pile out of the bughouse, and start a big sporting 
 place in the city.' Evidently the ambitious war- 
 den was not satisfied with the medium-sized gam- 
 bling saloon that he already possessed. While 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 73 
 
 Clevenoer's interest in pathology did not cease 
 after this conversation, he determined to do some 
 research work in the sociology of the place. 
 
 Clevenger had read that for certain cases of 
 mania a new drug was being recommended — sul- 
 phonal. The conium which was used at the asy- 
 lum was often inert and unreliable and he re- 
 quested the warden to purchase five or ten dol- 
 lars' worth of sulphonal for the drug-room, 
 which was so poorly stocked that there was less 
 than a dram of quinine at a time when many of 
 the patients were suffering from intermittent 
 fevers. Varnell refused with his customary 
 oath, saying the damned sulphonal was too ex- 
 pensive. But Clevenger learnt that the next 
 week there was bought by the management 
 $1,500 worth of whisky, wine and cigars — 
 charged as sundry drugs. He learnt also what 
 became of these drugs, for on Saturday night he 
 heard a female giggle the command, 'Quit pour- 
 ing champagne down my back, Harry.' 
 
 These Saturday nigjlit frolics were gay af- 
 fairs. As soon as it grew dark, gangsters and 
 their women arrived, keeping up night-long or- 
 gies that made the imiiates furious for want of 
 sleep. Sometimes they would amuse the patients 
 by shouting, Fire! It must have been a cui'ious 
 
74 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 sight for Clevenger to watch these thugs and 
 shits dancing on the patients' health and on the 
 people's money. The asylum was the ideal place 
 for such revels, for it contained expensive Turk- 
 ish and Russian baths, built 'for the patients/ 
 but the scaldings discouraged them from indulg- 
 ing in these luxuries, and it became the regula- 
 tion thing for politicians to sleep off their de- 
 bauches in the bath-rooms, being massaged to 
 soberness by the county rubbers, for which the 
 people seemed to pay cheerfully, as it was not 
 proper that the County Commissioners should 
 be drunk too long. 
 
 Clevenger met some of these jolly Commis- 
 sioners from time to time. There was John 
 Hannigan, the saloon-keeper; Mike Wasser- 
 MANN, who ran such a notorious resort under the 
 Brevoort that it was closed by the police; Dan 
 Wren, the skilful forger, recently out of jail; 
 Mike McCarthy, the ex-stevedore, who found 
 politics more profitable than his former job; 
 Buck McCarthy, the drunken terror of the 
 stockyards district, a strong animal who won 
 elections with his fist. 
 
 These were the individuals who had charge of 
 an American medical institution in the latter part 
 of the nineteenth century. Pinel and Chia- 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 7o 
 
 RUGi, Gardnkr TThj. and Puny Earl spent 
 years attempting to ameliorate the conditions of 
 the insane; to remove iron fetters and brutal 
 keepers from these helpless people was the aim 
 of the devoted lives of Doro'jiiea Dix and John 
 Conoli-y; Reil and the Tuke family worked 
 with tongue and pen to improve the lot of their 
 fallen brothers, and the great Esquirol wrote 
 Des maladies mentales in two volumes — but 
 Mike McDonald didn't read French. 
 
 The inmates of the county asylum in 1883 
 might just as well have lived before Pinel's 
 day, for they derived little benefit from the mod- 
 ern methods of treating the insane. Wilhelm 
 Griesinger, of Stuttgart, made important sug- 
 gestions about clinical psychiatry in his ArchiVj 
 but he was another of those 'damned Dutchmen.' 
 The trouble was that politics ruled the asylum, 
 while science was the despised outcast. The 
 meanest attendant there knew that his job was 
 more secure than the physician's. 
 
 On the first of September, 1884, Dr Charles 
 KoLLER was elected assistant physician, and in 
 November he was discharged — probably because 
 he found maggots in a festering ulcer. The doc- 
 tor left his effects for a time in his room; they 
 were thrown out into the hall by the housekeeper, 
 
76 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 and Varnell threatened to shoot him if he saw 
 him again. 
 
 Dr James G. Kiernan, upon becoming medi- 
 cal superintendent, decided to make some 
 changes. He issued three orders: first, that the 
 attendants should restrain patients only under a 
 physician's direction; second, that the night- 
 watch should not administer medicines without a 
 physician's specification; third, that all employes 
 should take off their hats when passing thru the 
 wards, and if they found it necessary to speak to 
 the patients should address them as Mr, Mrs, or 
 Miss, according to their civil state. 
 
 No attention was paid to these requests, but 
 Dr Kiernan, an impractical man, went further. 
 He ordered that all bruises and injuries inflicted 
 on patients should be dressed at once. Also, he 
 closed the liquor room for a time, and the engi- 
 neer got so angry he swore he would kick the door 
 down if he didn't get his share of beer and 
 whisky. A female patient was suffering from a 
 disorder peculiar to her sex, and in violation of 
 all the rules of common humanity and hygiene, 
 the housekeeper. Miss McAndrews, took her 
 from her ward and set her to scrubbing floors. 
 When Dr Kiernan expostulated with her, she 
 answered, 'I do not propose to have anything to 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 77 
 
 do with you or your orders.' The entire medical 
 staff united in a request for Miss JMcAndkkws' 
 discharge, but they were invited to go to hell, 
 and Commissioner Leyden announced that if 
 Dr KiERNAN mentioned the subject again he 
 would make it hot for him. 
 
 For such and similar attempts at reforms Dr 
 KiERNAN was knocked down by an attendant, 
 struck by the engineer, and choked by the night- 
 watchman so that he had a hemorrhage and was 
 confined for some time to his bed. 'What are you 
 going to do about it?' asked the political em- 
 ploye. 'You haven't got enough pull to fire me.' 
 
 Dr Delia E. Howe may have appreciated the 
 honor of being the first medical woman in a pub- 
 lic asylum, yet at times she found fame a trouble- 
 some bubble. She found that the patients were 
 insufficiently clothed, even tho they brought 
 clothes with them — the attendants often stole the 
 patients' bedding and raiment to help pay gam- 
 bling debts; and while suffering from a lack of 
 proper garments, they were employed in making 
 fancy work for the housekeeper and others; nor 
 were they allowed to come from their rooms until 
 the task was completed. 
 
 The dope-bottle w^as freely dosed out to pa- 
 tients to keep them quiet, directly against the 
 
78 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 doctor's instructions. Dr Howe found that the 
 drug-room was turned into a saloon. Often she 
 had to wait for a prescription needed for an ur- 
 gent case, until the druggist had served with 
 beer, port, sherry, or whisky a room full of men. 
 She never visited the drug-room but with trepi- 
 dation, and always felt relieved when she left its 
 degrading atmosphere. The pharmacist repeat- 
 edly remarked that the drugs sent to him were 
 unfit to be compounded, and he complained of 
 being turned into a bar-tender. 
 
 Dr Howe was much annoyed to find that the 
 mechanics had keys to the female wards, and 
 visited them at all hours of the night. The as- 
 sistant engineer was frequently detected there, 
 amorous, intoxicated, half-dressed. The female 
 patients were all more or less mentally upset, but 
 several of them, like the actress Capitola Del- 
 ZELL, were neat in their habits and comely in 
 face and body — and they were also helpless. 
 Some of them had relatives at home, praying 
 and waiting for their recovery, but rape was not 
 likely to aid in their mental restoration. It was 
 now easy for Dr Howe to understand where the 
 illegitimate babies came from, nor was it difficult 
 to comprehend why mothers who had insane chil- 
 dren fell on their knees before judges and im- 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 79 
 
 plored them to send their daughters anywhere 
 except to Dunning. Such outrages were known 
 to the community, and had Chicago been one of 
 Walt Whitman's great cities, 'where the popu- 
 lace rise at once against the never-ending audac- 
 ity of elected persons,' the county commissioners 
 and their henchmen would have dangled from 
 the nearest telegraph-poles. But instead of that 
 a male attendant who had been relieved of his 
 key because he entered a female ward too clum- 
 sily at one o'clock in the morning, received the 
 instrument back the next day, and Chicago 
 boasted that the statistics of the cattle industry 
 showed an increase over last year. 
 
 One of Dr Howe's associates observed an em- 
 ploye pounding a defenceless dement, and when 
 she sought to remonstrate, she received what she 
 called her 'first taste of discipline,' for he gave 
 her a blow that felled her to the ground. 'What 
 are you going to do about it?' he asked. 'You 
 haven't got enough pull to fire me.' Delia 
 Howe had been a missionary in China — perhaps 
 that ruffian's fist convinced her that reform 
 should begin at home. 
 
 The food, so important a consideration in the 
 treatment of the insane, would have been re- 
 jected by an average house-dog. A carpenter 
 
80 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 named Hughes once saw the butcher dump a 
 load of putrefying meat in the kitchen. 'What 
 do you do with that?' he asked. 'That's for the 
 cranks.' 'In the name of goodness, you don't 
 mean to say that you cook that for them?' 'No, 
 I don't, but the cook does. They don't know the 
 difference.' The patients were far away from 
 the sad sea-waves, yet there was such a lack of 
 fruit and vegetables that many of them suffered, 
 and some of them perished, from the former 'ca- 
 lamity of sailors,' — scurvy. 
 
 The chief article of diet was pigs' heads, hair 
 and dirt and all— they were brought to the tables 
 unshaved and uncleaned. With her spoon Dr 
 Howe lifted up from a patient's plate the head 
 of a hog suffering from catarrh, and in its un- 
 washed snout was an iron ring. When the relic 
 was exhibited to the commissioners, Mike Was- 
 SERMANN queried, 'What did you expect to find 
 — ^gold watches?' But the other commissioners 
 viewed the situation with more perspicuity, and 
 accordingly decided: Whereas, it is unseemly 
 that iron rings should be found in pig-snouts, 
 and Whereas, precautions must be taken against 
 the recurrence of such an accident, Resolved, that 
 no more lady physicians be employed at the asy- 
 lum. Exit, Dr Howe. 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 81 
 
 Clevengkh's mail jiiid telcgj-arns were not de- 
 livered, and once wlien he stepped into Dychk'h 
 drug-store, I)rs Quine and Baxter happened to 
 be there, and they asked him why he did not an- 
 swer telephone calls — their messages to him had 
 been intercepted. 
 
 Ci.evenger was informed he could perform no 
 more autopsies — it was against religion. This 
 was an astonishing bit of news for a pathologist, 
 but there was really nothing surprising about it: 
 the commissioners were selling the bodies to the 
 medical schools. 
 
 A patient complained of being ill, and was 
 constantly going for water. The attendant said 
 to him, 'Come, Jack, if you won't work I'll put 
 the jacket on you.' 'I can't work.' So the jacket 
 was put on. In a day or two the patient died; 
 cause of death — 'typhoid fever.' Not only were 
 the male employes a coarse set of men, but sev- 
 eral of the female attendants were frequently 
 drunk and always impudent. Ireland seemed to 
 have emptied her scum into the Cook County In- 
 sane Asylum. Attendants were so neglectful that 
 their charges found opportunities to commit sui- 
 cide; some of the patients died from starvation, 
 others from violent brutality. A father named 
 August Herzbekg came to the asylum to visit 
 
82 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 his son, and was treated to the spectacle of see- 
 ing four attendants attack the boy and tear 
 nearly all the clothes from his body, after which 
 they knocked him down and kneeled on his stom- 
 ach, accusing him of concealing some trivial ar- 
 ticle. 
 
 At the end of the nineteenth century, the con- 
 servative Secretary Wines, of the State Board 
 of Charities, thus described the condition of the 
 insane in Illinois: 
 
 They are sometimes chained to the benches and to 
 the floors; penned up in pens without any doors, hut 
 only having holes in the wall thru which to pass food 
 and water; kept locked up in solitary rooms for years, 
 without going out or setting foot on the grou/nd. The 
 keepers intimidate them by brute force. Pistols are 
 sometinfies fired over their heads. 
 
 In what respect does this picture differ from 
 the one that Esquirol drew at the beginning of 
 the century, when he wrote to the Minister of the 
 Interior: 
 
 Nude were the lunatics I saw, covered with rags, 
 stretched on the pavement, a little straw to defend 
 them from tJie damp cold. I saw them grossly fed, 
 deprived of air to breathe, of water to slake their 
 
, Medicine Under King Mike 88 
 
 thirst, and of things necessary to life. I saw them 
 convmitted into the hands of whippers, a prey to their 
 brutality. 
 
 Upon reaching manhood's estate, after mature 
 reflection, Shoual Vail Clevenger had de- 
 cided to abandon his profession of engineer and 
 become a physician in order to escape the politi- 
 cal criminal, and by a trick of fate he found him- 
 self the crony of drunkards, gamblers, burglars, 
 ravishers, murderers. He had eluded Captain 
 HowGATE, but bumped into the arms of Mike 
 JNIcDoNALD. 
 
 There was one day in the year when Mike 
 McDonald and Buck McCaethy and Haery 
 Varnell shone in especial strength and splendor 
 — election day. By working hard that day they 
 lived in ease for the days to come. There was 
 a young Jewish dreamer who had imagined that 
 when all the people won the franchise and 
 marched to the polls, each citizen expressing 
 himself by ballot, the dawn of democracy and 
 the triumph of justice would tread on their heels 
 — the end of demagogues and tyrants, the era of 
 the Brotherhood of Man. But if practical poli- 
 ticians ever heard of Ferdinand Lasalle, they 
 must have laughed his pipe-dreams to scorn. At 
 
84 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 the back door of IMike's saloon, in the alley, was 
 a voting-shed with a little window cut out of 
 boards; during the general elections in Chicago 
 the citizens passed thru the crooked lane, hold- 
 ing up their ballots and a hand collected them. 
 The owner of the hand was invisible, but who- 
 ever he was, he could have informed the father 
 of social democracy how candidates are elected. 
 
 On the fateful November morning of the year 
 1884 the bosses got ready to round up their herds 
 of cattle. Mike McDonald issued orders from 
 his gambling-dive, Buck McCarthy polished 
 his fists, and Harry Varnell gave his revolver 
 a love- tap. The warden had a congenial task 
 before him : to make the suburbs of Chicago vote 
 one way — his way. In the second precinct of 
 Norwood Park there registered a total of 129 
 voters, but under Varnell's adroit management 
 225 votes were cast, 207 for his ticket. Among 
 the exponents of higher mathematics, a W. H. 
 Frogart, known to local fame as Cracker Bill, 
 excited the admiration of the gang by the num- 
 ber of times he re-voted. Paupers from the poor- 
 house, and the insane from the asylum, were 
 brought to the polls to increase the ballots, and 
 as Varnell had not erudition enough to invent 
 aliases for all of them, they were registered un- 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 85 
 
 der the cognomen of* sonic Clii(!;igo cclcbi-ity, as 
 Pat Carhoi., Austin Doyi.k, Mike McDonald, 
 Henry Donovan. 
 
 It might be presumed that with legitimate vot- 
 ers and tax-j)ayers it was found necessary to 
 adopt more subtle and refined methods than were 
 employed with beggars and lunatics, but Var- 
 NEiJi knew only the methods of intimidation and 
 fraud. Early in the day an honest old farmer, 
 Herman Schroeder, cast his ballot, number 
 155, and went home; later another vote was de- 
 posited in his name, number 176. The vote of 
 Joseph Koenig, also a farmer, was cast out with- 
 out any adequate cause. An assistant engineer 
 under Mr Kavanaugh voted according to his 
 convictions, and was discharged. Richard Sus- 
 siCK, a laundryman at the infirmary, possessed a 
 political creed that was not above suspicion— in 
 fact he belonged to the opposite party. Var- 
 NELL watched Sussick when he voted, and said 
 to J. K. Beatty, 'Keep track of that vote; I 
 w^ant to see it when the count is made,' — it was 
 before the Australian ballot. Now Dick Sus- 
 sick was no plimied hero; he was a laundryman 
 who wanted to keep his job, and he voted Var- 
 nell's waj^ Dr Cle^t^nger also was threatened 
 with expulsion if he did not vote according to 
 
86 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 directions, but the ward heeler Lee doubted if 
 he would be obedient. E. D. Smith, an old resi- 
 dent of Norwood Park, was incensed at the 
 wholesale bulldozing. 'Things have come to a 
 pretty pass,' he remarked to Varnell, 'when 
 in this enlightened section of the country a man 
 can't vote as he pleases.' 'I don't propose,' re- 
 plied Varnell, angrily, 'that any man who eats 
 bread and butter under me shall vote any other 
 ticket.' Such was the boasted freedom of the 
 American voter. 
 
 In the corral there was hardly a decent kick. 
 One after the other the victims stepped meekly 
 forward to be branded by Varnell's iron. It 
 was now seen why he had been made warden — 
 he was a handy man for the gang. Then came 
 the surprise. Some one was untamed and un- 
 lassoed, some one had proved balky and was 
 rearing high, allowing no rider on his back. The 
 loafers in Mike's saloon put down their beer 
 glasses and listened. It was unbelievable, but 
 there it was — in the first column of the third page 
 of the Chicago Inter Ocean. It was headed Ap- 
 peal to Physicians, and spoke of the numberless 
 outrages against the patients that the politicians 
 in charge had been committing for years, and 
 urged all honest men to be sure that the county 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 87 
 
 commissioners for whom they voted bore no al- 
 legiance to these gamblers and thieves. In those 
 days it was dangerous to be a reformer in Chi- 
 cago ; either he was privately stabbed in the back 
 and thrown in a sewer, as happened to Dr P. 
 Ckonin, of the Clan-na-gael, when he proved 
 that Alexander Sullivan was gambling away 
 on the board of trade the patriotic money that 
 had been collected to liberate Ireland; or else 
 the agitator was legally executed, as happened 
 to labor leaders like Albert Parsons and Au- 
 gust Spies. The man who wrote the Appeal to 
 Physicians and affixed his signature to it was the 
 bravest man in Chicago, and the name that it 
 bore was S. V. Clevenger, M.D. 
 
 That night a bullet came crashing thru his 
 room, narrowly missing his wife and daughter, 
 breaking a pane of his book-case, and lodging 
 in a volume of Gegenbaur's Comparative Anat- 
 omy. As Clevenger could not afford to lose 
 his valuable books in this manner, he resigned 
 his position. Never again was there a special 
 pathologist at the Cook County Insane Asylum. 
 
 Dr Clevenger was by no means the first phy- 
 sician who walked out of the asylum because of 
 political corruption. Some years previous, three 
 reputable neurologists — Professors Jewell, 
 
88 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Brower and Lyman — were connected with the 
 asylum; as soon as they clashed with the ring 
 they escaped from Dunning, quickly and quietly, 
 and rarely alluded to their experiences. These 
 men were good in imparting text-book knowl- 
 edge and in preparing students for examinations 
 — they were not reformers. But in Dr Cleven- 
 GER the gang found a different species of the 
 genus homo. Armed with evidence, bitter with 
 indignation, eager for justice, Clevenger vowed 
 not to rest until he had exposed the county com- 
 missioners. 
 
 He procured affidavits from various individ- 
 uals testifying to the outrages they had wit- 
 nessed. Clevenger tried to induce the Union 
 League to listen to this material, but the director 
 was 'just going away on his vacation.' Cleven- 
 ger left a statement of abuses with the secretary 
 of the Chicago Citizens' Association, and that 
 enterprising individual copied the accusations, 
 and sent them — to Mike McDonald. Cleven- 
 ger appointed a committee of the Chicago Medi- 
 cal Society to investigate the matter, but its 
 members either compromised with the politicians 
 or grew luke-warm — all except sturdy old Dr 
 Paoli, who fought against the asylum clique as 
 vigorously as he fought in favor of his two hob- 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 89 
 
 bies: women in medicine, and the freethonght 
 propaganda of Tom Paine and Bob Inqersoi.l. 
 Mrs Shedd and Mrs ITenrotin, faithful as ever, 
 headed a reform group, and Ci-evenger urged 
 the Women's Chib to help in the crusade; they 
 gave him a pink tea, and the wives and daugh- 
 ters of Chicago's successful business men listened 
 to his recital of horrors, and smilingly told him 
 they enjoyed his lecture very much — it was more 
 interesting than the minister's description of the 
 scenery of Palestine. Everywhere Clevenger 
 found these sloughs of unconcern that dampened 
 his hopes. He appealed to preachers of various 
 denominations, but they 'declined to discuss poli- 
 tics in the pulpit.' 
 
 At last the popular Rev. David Swing agreed 
 to bring the woes of the county asylum before 
 his large congregation; his sermons were re- 
 ported in the JNIonday papers, and Clevenger 
 bought a copy of the Inter Ocean, anxiously 
 turning to the second page where Dr Swing's 
 eloquence filled three columns. In the first, he 
 spoke of Noah and Elijah, of the oaks of Dodona 
 and the raving Sibyl, of the dog Cerberus and 
 the Golden Fleece, of Queen Mab and Paradise 
 Lost, of Aladdin's lamp and the ruins of CaXyp- 
 so's grotto, of Adam and Eve and the council 
 
90 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 where Satan went as the ambassador of evil, of 
 the Ides of March and the idea of the Trinity — 
 one topic had no connexion with another, but 
 the pastor of the flock had to show off his clas- 
 sical knowledge; in the second column he men- 
 tioned perhaps half the names that are found 
 in the index of Taine's History of English Lit- 
 er attire — the Rev. David Swing was certainly a 
 learned gentleman; in the third column he ex- 
 citedly asked if the imagination was dying, and 
 with many exclamation points and ejaculatory 
 remarks he proved it was not, far from it, on 
 the contrary. But what had he said about the 
 atrocities at the asylum ? Amid his flowery apos- 
 trophes he had uttered this line: 'To the di- 
 ploma of medical science must be added one 
 signed by the merciful name of Jesus Christ.' 
 Three columns of inane twaddle, while Cleven- 
 GER had expected that Swing would risk his 
 popularity by attacking current conditions. O 
 Simple Simon — as Hilgard warned you in 
 Washington: Go home. 
 
 Clevenger wrote article after article for the 
 newspapers, and the editors wore out their blue 
 pencils and overfilled their waste-paper baskets. 
 Several times his life was in peril; he received 
 requests to make night-calls in neighborhoods 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 91 
 
 where he previously had no patients. He was 
 about to go, but on second thought decided to 
 let Roiu^irr Bruce go instead. 15oijijy was a pri- 
 vate detective who tried hard to get some excite- 
 ment out of modern life by drinking to excess, 
 by brandishing a revolver, and by mixing up in 
 mysteries; he wounded a man in a boarding 
 house, slew the proprietor of a saloon, and spent 
 a year in prison, but otherwise was an honest and 
 reliable fellow, except when drunk. On his let- 
 ter-heads was a radiant eye beneath the motto 
 Fides et Justitia, while at the side a spider was 
 spinning a web above the maxim. We never give 
 up. Bruce investigated the 'patient,' found 
 there was no such person at the address given, 
 but that two tough politicians, Gleeson and 
 Ryan, had concocted a plot to pounce upon the 
 doctor and *do him up.' He further discovered 
 that the engineer Kavanaugh offered a former 
 convict $100 if he would kill Cle^tenger. These 
 were Clevenger's rewards: stupidity, misunder- 
 standing, laughter, threats. One poor man 
 against a powerful clique — ^mountains of discour- 
 agement rose in his path. 
 
 Yet somehow, some way, somewhere, there 
 came a turning of the tide. The accumulated 
 evidence overflowed the high banks of indiffer- 
 
92 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ence. From all sides witnesses poured in, add- 
 ing fresh tales to Clevenger's accusations. As 
 the testimony proceeded, it involved merchants 
 whose reputations were considered untarnished. 
 Governor Oglesby summoned the State Board 
 of Charities to investigate the situation. 
 
 In the crowded court room Clevenger met 
 the county commissioners: 
 
 'Did you ever see me at the asylum in an in- 
 toxicated condition?' asked Comjnissioner Van 
 Pelt. 
 
 'Yes, sir,' answered Clevenger. 
 
 'How drunk, please?' 
 
 'So drunk you could not navigate.' 
 
 'Did you ever see me at the dances at the 
 asylum?' 
 
 'Yes, sir, I have.' 
 
 'Was I drunk?' 
 
 'You were.' 
 
 'Was I accompanied by disreputable women?' 
 
 'You mingled with women who were boister- 
 ous and slangy.' 
 
 'How did I act?' 
 
 'Disgi'aceful.' 
 
 Commissioner Wassermann then mounted the 
 stand : 
 
 'Did you ever see me drunk at the asylum?' 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 98 
 
 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 'Did you ever see Commissioner Ochs drunk 
 at the institution?' 
 
 'No, sir, not Commissioner Ochs.' 
 
 'Commissioner IIannigan ?' 
 
 'Repeatedly; I seldom saw him sober.' 
 
 The commissioners had devised this meeting 
 with Clevenger, thinking he would not dare at- 
 tack them to their faces — but this was the time 
 that they miscalcidated. Why, even the plans 
 of the Hon. Michael McDonald sometimes 
 went astray; for instance, Mike did not care to 
 cross the ocean, but he wished to enjoy the beau- 
 ties of Paris, so he visited a French woman until 
 it was time to save her good name; thereupon 
 Mike offered a policeman several thousand dol- 
 lars, a house on Washington Boulevard, and a 
 city position for life if he would marry the trans- 
 planted Parisienne and father the forthcoming 
 child; the limb of the law accepted the offer; it 
 was a clever plan, but alas — when the baby girl 
 grew up she resembled INIike, nose and mouth 
 and eyes, and she smiled sweetly, just like her 
 daddy. 
 
 But where was Mike during the troublous 
 days that the alarmed commissioners were be- 
 ing pelted by the muckrakers ? He and his f am- 
 
94 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ily were down south, enjoying the palmettos of 
 Asheville, North Carolina — till Mike's vacation 
 was cut short by a telegram in cipher. The 
 dapper boss hastened to the asylum, burnt the 
 books and records, and lit a cigarette. The worst 
 was over — now let the prosecution proceed. 
 Thruout the trial, confessed his wife, nightly con- 
 ferences took place in the mansion of the master 
 boodler. 
 
 The callers used to sit there and wrangle un- 
 til after midnight, and the loud talk would reach 
 the room upstairs where Mrs McDonald was 
 sitting, and often she would come down and warn 
 them to lower their voices — Bob Bruce might be 
 eavesdropping. Father Leyden, brother of the 
 implicated commissioner, was there; and the 
 wives of Dan Wren and Harry Varnell 
 frequently spoke of their husbands to Mrs 
 McDonald. Of course the ringsters came, noisy 
 as ever, drinking, smoking, swearing. But there 
 was another class of visitors — men who were sup- 
 posed to be above reproach, whose names were 
 good for untold sums along State street, and 
 they were pleading before Mike as if for their 
 lives. Mrs McDonald, according to her own 
 words, had seen hundreds of men unnerved by 
 drink and losses at play, but in those few months 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 95 
 
 she heard more lords of creation hreak down and 
 sob than in all her previous interesting career. 
 As she neatly expressed it: 'They'd been bood- 
 ling — that was all — and they didn't want to be 
 caught.' One night she opened the door for a 
 prominent merchant — she blackmailed him later 
 to keep his name secret — and she saw he was in 
 tears; two hours later he came out of Mike's 
 room, smiling. He noticed the chief's wife sit- 
 ting near the hallway, and he said to her : 'We're 
 thinking of running Mr McDonald for mayor 
 in the spring, Mrs McDonald.' 
 
 But the slick grafters could no longer make 
 Chicago smile. From everywhere arose a cry 
 of wrath. Those Chicagoans who were in the 
 habit of reading their newspapers at breakfast 
 had to swallow a lot of dirt with their morning 
 coiFee. The Tribune, Daily News, Inter Ocean, 
 Herald, Times, united in a chorus of denuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 'The county commissioners,' wrote one of the 
 leading papers, 'are blackguards who have pros- 
 tituted their trust by making a pot-house of the 
 Insane Asylum and insulted honest idiocy by 
 flaunting Jezebels. Their disgusting crimes, 
 perpetrated at the public expense, are not likely 
 to be the subject of legal investigation with a 
 
96 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 view to punishment, for they themselves make 
 the grand juries whose duty it is to examine into 
 the management of county institutions. And the 
 guzzHng, lying, thieving rascals of commission- 
 ers kept the public jug for the benefit of those 
 jurors.' 
 
 But at last the boodlers had overstepped the 
 limits of the city's tolerance. They had stolen 
 too much — ten million dollars within a few years 
 — and by their cruelties they made Chicago blush 
 for its reputation. 'The story is a terrible one 
 to go to the public outside of Chicago,' said the 
 Inter Ocean. 'Does a condition of affairs exist 
 in the Cook County Insane Asylum which would 
 disgrace an African slave-kraal ?' asked the Daily 
 News. 
 
 So State's Attorney Julius S. Grinnell 
 saw his opportunity; he instituted proceedings 
 against the county crooks — 'the omnibus bood- 
 lers' bill' was on its way. We must immediately 
 acquit the wide-awake State's Attorney of any 
 humanitarian motives; Grinnell was interested 
 exclusively in Grinnell; he was a 'get-there 
 Eli,' but he knew his business, and the verdict 
 that he secured was one terrible word: guilty. 
 
 Commissioner Hannigan escaped to Canada, 
 but those of his fellow boodlers who were not so 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 97 
 
 fleet of foot were put behind stone walls and iron 
 bars. Harry Varnkli. and Van Pelt were 
 among those convicted. It was April when little 
 Van Pelt passed into the prison-yard at Joliet; 
 he looked up at the trees laden with springtinne 
 buds, and he said, 'The leaves are coming out — 
 I wish I was a leaf.' Even a county grafter may 
 have a glimjise of the Tennysonian soul. 
 
 The law left Mike McDonald alone, but his 
 wives were his ruin. Mike's first wife ran away 
 with a minstrel-man ; Mike went after them, and 
 he didn't kill Billy, and he brought his wife 
 back. She was extremely devout, and for her 
 sake Mike built a private confessional in their 
 home, and took in a priest for her personal use. 
 Within a year she developed such piety that she 
 and the Raphael-faced priest eloped to New 
 York — accompanied by Mr McDonald's dia- 
 monds. This time Mike did not follow the 
 mother of his children; he went to a certain sa- 
 loonkeeper and bought his wife from him. The 
 original Mrs INIcDonald did not find love and 
 religion profitable in Manhattan; her tonsured 
 swain appropriated her property and disap- 
 peared. She wrote to her son Williajvi for 
 money, admitting she was destitute. The boy 
 brought the letter to his father; JNIike rested his 
 
98 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 chin in his hand, rubbed it a little, and said 
 quietly, 'Will, she's your mother.' She received 
 the funds, returned to Chicago, and visited mil- 
 lionaire merchants, threatening to expose their 
 transactions with Mike — unless hush-money was 
 forthcoming. Later she invaded the red-light 
 district and opened an assignation-house. Once 
 she was in the saloon at 121 South Clark street 
 — in other days it had belonged to Mike — and a 
 quarrel arose; she was familiar with the place, 
 and she put her revolver thru a small spyhole in 
 the wall and shot one of the gamblers. She went 
 out by the back door and was never brought to 
 trial. JMiKE^s second mate was also a sport: 
 she entered the studio of her artist-lover and 
 killed him. She, too, escaped prosecution ; a Mrs 
 McDonald was safe in Cook County. Life is 
 a gamble; many a worthless pander has won the 
 slavish faithfulness of women, while Mike the 
 mighty, who bossed an army of men and used the 
 County of Cook as his backyard, and was the 
 warmest-hearted fellow in his crowd, couldn't 
 keep the devotion of a couple of strumpets. 
 These domestic difficulties took the joy out of 
 life, and he died a broken-hearted millionaire. 
 
 But even before he left the streets of Chicago 
 forever, he ceased to be a power in politics. Mike 
 
CLEVENGER, in 1888 
 
 CLEVEXGER, in 1892 
 
Medicine Under King Mike 99 
 
 allowed his lieutenant, Joseph Mackin — Gen- 
 tleman Joe and Chesterfield Joe, the gang ealled 
 him — to serve a prison term for an election con- 
 spiracy, and bitter feelings were brewed in the 
 political pot. Later, Mike played another un- 
 forgivable trick: to secure the franchise for a 
 long elevated route it was necessary that an ordi- 
 nance be passed by the city council, and in the 
 presence of forty aldermen Mike wrote forty 
 names on forty envelopes, placed a thousand-dol- 
 lar bill within each and handed the precious 
 packet across the counter to a trustworthy bar- 
 tender. Forty men hastened away to vote for 
 Mike's franchise, and forty men hastened back 
 to receive their reward; they called for their en- 
 velopes, tore them open, and each found a dollar 
 bill. The city council was enraged; mutiny 
 awoke within Mike's camp, and encompassed by 
 enemies, the chieftain fell; politicians arose on 
 Clark street who knew him not. Thus ended the 
 reign of King ^Iike. 
 
 In the city of Chicago are many statues, but 
 somewhere in her nmiierous parks or along her 
 ample boulevards is space for one more : a monu- 
 ment should be erected to Dr Shobai. Vail 
 Cle^^engek, the pioneer anti-boodler of the state 
 of Illinois. 
 
IV 
 THE KANKAKEE AFFAIR 
 
 CLEVENGER'S adventures in jurispru- 
 dence did not terminate with his retirement 
 from Dunning. The special pathologist was 
 metamorphosed into an expert, and his services 
 were requisitioned in spinal concussion and in- 
 sanity issues — at the rate of one hundred dollars 
 a day. During his career as an alienist he was 
 summoned to Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, 
 Indiana and Pennsylvania, tho naturally most 
 of his cases were in Chicago. 
 
 Back in the thirties, Isaac Ray wrote the 
 Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, thus open- 
 ing the darkest chapter in American medicine. 
 Juridical medicine is a hybrid incapable of any 
 virtue. Unfortunately, it is medicine and not 
 the law that suffers in this instance. Trans- 
 planted from his clinic, confused in the meshes 
 of the hypothetical question, heckled by some 
 'smart lawyer,' the physician usually makes an 
 ass of himself. But this is by no means the worst. 
 
 100 
 
The Kankakee A fair 101 
 
 The law-court has hecomc an auction-block 
 where medical experts sell themselves to the 
 highest bidder. The side that has money to spare 
 can procure the number of experts it wants, and 
 just the sort of testimony it wants. Much of 
 the disrepute into which our profession has fallen 
 is due to the alienist. 
 
 Chicago's most brilliant lunatic — Frank Col- 
 lier — listened to Dr Kiernan attempting to 
 prove him insane. Coli>ier, who was a lawyer, 
 conducted his own defence, and began to cross- 
 examine Kiernan. Within a few minutes the 
 expert was floundering helplessly in a bottomless 
 swamp of misstatements and contradictions. 
 They argued about paresis, and the layman 
 showed a more intimate acquaintance with the 
 subject than the alienist. The attorney tripped 
 and trapped the doctor, and got him so rattled 
 and excited, that it looked very much as if the 
 squirming Kiernan and not the self-possessed 
 Collier was the insane man. 'Easy now, easy 
 now, doctor,' cautioned Collier, 'you are exhib- 
 iting the very symptoms that you are charging 
 against me.' Collier later wrote an article in 
 which he declared Kiernan had the dress of a 
 Zulu, the manners of a Patagonian, and the face 
 of an orang-outang. 
 
102 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 . Cle^'enger was likewise called upon to testify 
 in this remarkable case, but no Kiernanistic ca- 
 lamities befell him. On the witness-stand he was 
 genial, alert, frank ; his answers showed an exten- 
 sive acquaintance with the practice and literature 
 of psychiatry, but he never pretended to omnis- 
 cience, was willing enough to say, 'I don't know,' 
 and thus was not discomfited. Clevenger could 
 have been a successful alienist — if conditions in 
 the courts were different. But since even such 
 a hardened defender of Things-as-They-Are as 
 Allan McLane Hamilton finds it necessary 
 to condemn the present system of expert-testi- 
 mony, it is not surprising that the soul of Clev- 
 enger revolted against this 'degi-aded expert 
 business,' to quote his own bitter phrase. 
 
 In 1893 there came an unexpected change in 
 the affairs of Dr Clevenger. In that year, for 
 the second time, Mr Cleveland was elected 
 president of the United States; Grover Cleve- 
 land was one of the men the author of The 
 American Commonwealth had in mind when he 
 wrote his chapter, 'Why great men are not 
 chosen presidents.' But the Cleveland land- 
 slide brought a man of another stamp into the 
 executive chair of Illinois — John P. Altgeld. 
 Wading across the filthy morass of American 
 
The Kankakee Affair 103 
 
 politics have been a i'aw clean spirits, such as 
 IIenry Geokge and Gohlen Rule Jones. To 
 this small group Governor Altgeed belongs. 
 That he was a politician cannot be denied; he 
 knew how to sling the buncombe. 'I like Chicago,' 
 he told a Chicago audience at the Auditorium. 
 'I would rather be a private citizen in Chicago, 
 standing around on the street-corners with my 
 hands in my pockets, than be the greatest poten- 
 tate on earth somewhere else.' (Applause.) 
 But there was another side to Ai.tgeld. His 
 book Live Questions proves him to have been no 
 vulgar partyite; portions of it might have been 
 signed by John Stuart Mill or by August 
 Bebel. 
 
 During Altgeld's administration occurred the 
 great Pullman strike, in which Eugene V. Debs 
 gained prominence and six months in jail; the 
 president of the United States was for calling 
 out the federal troops, but the governor of Illi- 
 nois, with finer intelligence, protested, 'Hands 
 off.' 
 
 In one of the state prisons Altgeld found 
 three men — the remnants of an effort to improve 
 the fate of workingmen at a time when con- 
 ditions were unbearable, and when police of- 
 ficers like Captain Bonfield behaved as bru- 
 
10^ The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 tally as Cossacks under the Romanoffs. 
 After repression, the explosion; there was a riot 
 on Haymarket Square, a policeman named De- 
 GAN was killed by a bomb thrown by an unknown 
 person, a fusillade of bullets was fired at random 
 into the crowd, and the law laid its hand on eight 
 agitators — August Spies, Louis Lingg, Al- 
 bert Parsons, Adolf Fischer, George En- 
 gel, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Os- 
 car Neebe. Their ringing speeches in court 
 should have aroused the hosts of labor, but in- 
 stead of a glorious awakening, Chicago — goaded 
 on by the ever-vicious press — stained itself with 
 the unforgettable crime of November 11, 1887; 
 on that black day the gallows turned Albert 
 Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and 
 Adolf Fischer into martyrs. Louis Lingg, the 
 youngest and most picturesque of the group, was 
 likewise scheduled for slaughter, but his sweet- 
 heart gave him a dynamite cartridge for a fare- 
 well gift, and he bit the souvenir between his 
 teeth and blew his intrepid head across his cell. 
 The innocent Fielden, Schwab and Neebe 
 were sentenced to Joliet State Prison, and there 
 Altgeld found them after seven years of in- 
 carceration — and liberated them. His Reasons 
 for Pardoning, proving that the anarchists were 
 
The Kankakee Affair 10.5 
 
 sent to their doom by a packed jury and corrupt 
 judge without evidence, constitutes the most 
 masterly defence of freedom that ever issued 
 from the gubernatorial chambers at Springfield. 
 Altgeli) thus became the only official who 
 earned a tribute of gratitude from that fiery 
 poetess of discontent, Voltairine de Cleyre: 
 
 There was a tableau ! Liberty's clear light 
 
 Shone never on a braver scene than that. 
 
 Here was a prison, there a man who sat 
 
 High in the halls of state ! Beyond, the might 
 
 Of ignorance and mobs, whose hireling press 
 
 Yells at their bidding like the slaver's hounds, 
 
 Ready with coarse caprice to curse or bless, 
 
 To make or unmake rulers ! Lo, there sounds 
 
 A grating of the doors ! And three poor men, 
 
 Helpless and hated, having naught to give. 
 
 Come fi'om their long-sealed tomb, look up, and live, 
 
 And thank this man that they are free again. 
 
 And he — to all the world this man dares say, 
 
 Curse as you will! I have been just this day. 
 
 The emotion which Altgeld could inspire, 
 may be sensed from one of those unforgettable 
 epitaphs in the Spoon Rive?' Antliology: 
 
 Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? 
 For when the returns beffan to come in 
 
106 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 And Cleveland was sweeping the East, 
 
 It was too much for you, poor old heart, 
 
 Who had striven for democracy 
 
 In the long, long years of defeat. 
 
 And like a watch that is worn 
 
 I felt you growing slower until you stopped. 
 
 Tell me, was Altgeld elected. 
 
 And what did he do? 
 
 Did they bring his head on a platter to a dancer, 
 
 Or did he triumph for the people.? 
 
 For when I saw him 
 
 And took his hand, 
 
 The child-like blueness of his eyes 
 
 Moved me to tears. 
 
 And there was an air of eternity about him, 
 
 Like the cold, clear light that rests at dawn 
 
 On the hiUs! 
 
 As governor of the State it devolved upon 
 A1.TGELD to appoint a medical superintendent for 
 the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, at 
 Kankakee — the largest institution of the kind 
 in Illinois, and the second largest in the United 
 States : 40 acres covered with buildings, 800 acres 
 under cultivation, herds of cattle, the board of 
 trustees, the medical superintendent and staff 
 of assistant physicians, the business manager, the 
 chief clerk and other clerks, the nurses and train- 
 
The Kankakee Affair 107 
 
 ing-school students, the stenographers, the en- 
 gineers, the plasterers, the brick-masons, the 
 painters, the male supervisor, the female super- 
 visor, the book-keeper, the store-keeper, the 
 watchmen, the 300 attendants, the 1,000 male 
 patients, the 1,000 female inmates — it was a little 
 empire of the insane on the banks of the muddy 
 Kankakee. 
 
 For fourteen years, ever since its foundation 
 in 1879, this demesne had been ruled by Dr Rich- 
 ard Dewey. His conduct seemed to give gen- 
 eral satisfaction, and strong pressure was 
 brought to bear upon Altgeld to allow Dewey 
 to remain superintendent. But the governor de- 
 clared he had investigated the state asylums, es- 
 pecially Elgin, Jacksonville, and Kankakee, and 
 found the management simply rotten. 'I am de- 
 termined to have some new blood at the heads of 
 these institutions,' he declared, 'and no amount 
 of whimpering will prevent it.' 
 
 When Altgeld served as judge he had lis- 
 tened to the testimony of various alienists, and 
 had been particularly impressed with the exten- 
 sive learning and broad sjonpathy of one of these 
 neurologists; and now that the time came for 
 Altgeld to choose a medical superintendent for 
 the most important insane asylum in his state, he 
 
108 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 thought of this man, and the result was that on 
 the thn-d of JNIarch, 1893, a doctor whose office 
 was at 70 State street, and whose sign bore the 
 name S. V. Clea^nger, M.D., received this com- 
 munication from the chairman of the committee 
 on elections: 
 
 1 just came from the Governor, and he told me he 
 intended to appoint you superintendent of the Insane 
 Hospital at Kankakee. I could not tell him whether 
 you were a democrat or not, but I hope you are. 
 Please let me hear from you on that point and whether 
 you will accept the position when tendered. 
 
 C. Porter Johnson. 
 
 The information was a complete surprise to Dr 
 Clevenger. During the past decade he had built 
 up a fairly lucrative practice, lectured somewhat 
 and wrote much, attended to his duties at the 
 Michael Reese and Alexian Brothers hospitals, 
 appeared frequently in court — at other men's 
 trials — kept out of politics, and had no thoughts 
 of connecting himself with a public asylum. The 
 request was flattering, but it was also disturbing. 
 He was on friendly terms with Richard Dewey, 
 and refused to displace him; only when Dr 
 Dewey wrote that his relations with Kankakee 
 had already been severed by the political ax did 
 
The Kankakee Affair 109 
 
 CiiEVENGER begin to consider the matter. How 
 to dispose of his practice and furniture was an- 
 other problem, but Clevencjer was accustomed 
 to moving, and decided he would go to Kan- 
 kakee. 
 
 Every newspaper in Chicago printed the news, 
 and some shed tears at Dewey's dismissal, while 
 others praised the governor's choice. After the 
 announcement in the press, Clevenger received 
 congratulations from various sorts of men, rang- 
 ing all the way from E. D. Cope, one of the glo- 
 ries of American science, down to T. S. Ajl- 
 BRIGHT, a boodling ex-county commissioner. 
 
 It is curious to note that one of Clevenger's 
 friends, Alfred C. Girard, major and surgeon 
 in the United States Army — he has since become 
 a general — sent regrets instead of congratula- 
 tions : 
 
 I wanted to write you when I first received the news- 
 papers announcing your probable appointment and 
 then the accomplished fact. I wanted to say to you 
 that I saw this change in your fortunes with regret, 
 for two reasons. First, I am satisfied that you will 
 be so crowded with administrative business that you 
 will necessarily drop back from your advanced posi- 
 tion as an investigator, and secondly, this appointment 
 
110 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 depends greatly on the good pleasure of some political 
 party, and when sooner or later you will have to try 
 to regain your position in private practice, you will 
 find the berth occupied by numbers of men, who mean- 
 while have won the confidence of the public, but who 
 wovdd not have attained prominence if you had re- 
 mained in the race. 
 
 I trust I am mistaken. For the sake of the Stg,te 
 and its insane I am satisfied that no better appointment 
 could have been made and your career will be a suc- 
 cessful one. Still I must repeat that I fear that it will 
 be lost time. 
 
 Clevenger came to Kankakee under more fa- 
 vorable auspices than he had come to Dunning: 
 instead of a recent college graduate, he was an 
 experienced professional man; instead of being 
 only the pathologist, he was the chief physician; 
 instead of a brutal warden to thwart him, he had 
 an intelligent governor to aid him; instead of an 
 asylum buried in corruption, he was in an insti- 
 tution of honorable reputation. His fervent 
 hope was that the Board of Trustees was com- 
 posed of men who bore no resemblance to the 
 County Commissioners; the board consisted of 
 President Edmund Sill, agent for the Illinois 
 Central Railroad, at Clinton; J. W. Orr, a 
 banker at Tuscola, who must have been educated 
 
The Kankakee Affair 
 
 111 
 
 in the eighteenth century, lor wlicn he wrote a 
 letter he capitalized all his words; the local mem- 
 bers were the secretary-treasurer, D. C. Taylor, 
 and F. D. Radeke, aptly described by the Chi- 
 
 
 MEDICAL STAFF AT KANKAKEE 
 
 during clbvenqer's superintendency 
 
 cago Record as 'a brewer of Kankakee and a pil- 
 lar of the Lutheran church.' 
 
 Dr Clevenger was glad to find Dr Delia E. 
 Howe at Kankakee; another interesting woman 
 on the medical staff was Dr Effie L. Lobdell. 
 Once a lunatic was choking to death, and the 
 
112 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 male doctors began running around looking for 
 their instruments, but Effie thrust her hand into 
 the patient's throat and pulled out a piece of 
 glass two inches square. 
 
 Clevengee had not been long at Kankakee 
 when a young man, with whom he had a slight 
 acquaintance, came to the institution in consid- 
 erable distress, and related that he had written 
 to the board of trustees applying for the posi- 
 tion of pathologist, informing them that he had 
 worked under the direction of the ablest men in 
 Europe, and had references from H. H. Don- 
 aldson of the University of Chicago, E. C. 
 Spitzka of New York, Forel of Zurich, and 
 Dejerine of Paris, yet no attention was paid to 
 his application. Suddenly he asked Clevenger 
 what he was doing at Kankakee, and much as- 
 tonished and delighted was he to learn that Clev- 
 enger was the new superintendent, for Cleven- 
 ger gave him the pathologist's place, thus put- 
 ting him on the first round of the ladder of suc- 
 cess, for that young man was Adolf Meyer of 
 Zurich, the present Professor of Psychiatry at 
 the Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 One of Clevenger's early acts was to inspect 
 the general conditions of the inmates, and the 
 first examination proved that the insane are not 
 
The Kankakee Affair 113 
 
 immune from the ailments of normal mortals: 
 fifty patients were found suffering from eye 
 troubles, twenty-five had diseases of the ear, ten 
 needed treatment for hernias and painful rup- 
 tures, two hundred and fifty women were afflicted 
 with some uterine derangement, and almost 
 everyone had decayed teeth. 
 
 The regular staff could not cope with this mass 
 of pathology, but Clevenger secured the serv- 
 ices of several Chicago specialists — dentists, 
 ophthalmologists, otologists, gynecologists. As 
 they gave their skill gratuitously, Clevenger 
 could not expect them to pay their own fare to 
 and from Kankakee, so he invited the Illinois 
 Central Railroad Company to participate in the 
 charity, and the road immediately furnished free 
 transportation to these visiting doctors. 
 
 There was no reason why the trustees should 
 oppose this innovation except that it w^as an in- 
 novation — but this is usually a sufficient reason 
 for trustees, and the voluntary specialists were 
 soon excluded from Kankakee. 
 
 Clevenger had intended to make Kankakee a 
 civil service institution, but on the seventh of 
 March, only four daj^s after the chairman of the 
 committee of elections informed him of the prof- 
 fered superintendentship, he received from Free 
 
114 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 P. Morris a note to the effect that he should ap- 
 point Robert O. Pennewill business manager 
 of the hospital. Two months later he told Clev- 
 ENGER to appoint Charles Harwood store- 
 keeper. But who was Free P. Morris that he 
 issued orders to Dr Clevenger with such an air 
 of assurance? In the first place, he was a rascal, 
 but in the second place he was the Iroquois mem- 
 ber of the Illinois legislature, and chairman of the 
 committee on judiciary of the house of repre- 
 sentatives. Then Trustee Sill instructed Clev- 
 enger to appoint Hubert Reynolds farmer at 
 the asylum farm. Then Trustee Orr sent word 
 to Clevenger to appoint Miss Jennie Brinton 
 stenographer. Then Trustee Radeke forward- 
 ed his nephew E. Radeke to Clevenger, with 
 a note of introduction stating, 'Any ting you can 
 do that may lead to his fourture wilfare will be 
 apriviated by me.' From this note, which was 
 one of his most careful literary eiForts, as it was 
 written in ink instead of with his usual pencil, it 
 will be seen that F. D. Radeke spelled like Josh 
 Billings — but Josh was only fooling. Radeke 
 could afford to scoff at book education ; he manu- 
 factured lager and Vienna bottled beer, and like 
 the brewers whom Samuel Johnson immortal- 
 ized, he was 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice.' 
 
The Kankakee Affair 115 
 
 Oh, merit is a fine thing, and civil service rules 
 have no equal, but the way to enter the Illinois 
 Eastern Hospital for the Insane was to cultivate 
 the acquaintance of Free P. Morris and the 
 Board of Trustees. 
 
 Too many people came to the Kankakee insti- 
 tution who had no legitimate business there — 
 crowds of idlers, troops of excursionists, giggling 
 and babbling visitors curious for a new sensa- 
 tion, and some suspicious-looking characters who 
 conversed in low tones with the employes or even 
 with the Board of Trustees. No self-respecting 
 hospital for diseases of the flesh would tolerate 
 such disturbances — why then should a hospital 
 for diseases of the mind permit this nuisance? 
 
 On the twenty-first of May, Clevenger de- 
 cided to introduce a new rule: all who entered 
 the grounds had to sign their name; not that he 
 was particularly anxious for their autographs, 
 but it would give him an idea of the number of 
 visitors, and might serve to keep some away. Lit- 
 tle did Clevenger anticipate the rage which this 
 regulation fomented; the employes were ready 
 to mutiny, the strangers cursed 'the autocrat,' 
 the Board of Trustees spoke of dismissing him, 
 and the Kankakee Times bespattered him with 
 
116 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 editorial dirt. Some of the local wits sang this 
 quatrain : 
 
 Is my name written there 
 On its pages bright and fair; 
 On the register of the Hospital, 
 Is my name written there? 
 
 Within a week the registry-book was thrown 
 into the waste-heap, with many blank pages des- 
 tined never to know a human name. 
 
 There was one day that especially annoyed 
 Clevenger — the Sabbath; every summer Sun- 
 day the street-cars could be seen filled with pas- 
 sengers bound for Radeke's beer and then the 
 hospital. Finally Dr Clevenger issued a cir- 
 cular To Visitors, explaining that the grounds 
 were overrun with pleasure-seekers who intended 
 no mischief, but whose thoughtlessness had pre- 
 cisely the same effect as if they were purposely 
 malicious. He pointed out that near the wing 
 wards are paths meant as short cuts for em- 
 ployes, and in defiance of notices posted at the 
 entrances to these walks, visitors often saunter 
 along, close to the open windows and converse 
 with patients, sometimes gibing them and other- 
 wise behaving improperly. Throngs of sight- 
 seers, whose ideas of mental diseases are ex- 
 
The Kankakee Affair 117 
 
 tracted mainly from sensational novels, and are 
 prompted by a very discreditable curiosity, troop 
 thru the central building and expect to be ad- 
 mitted to the wards, in many cases stating that 
 they wish to be shocked by the horrible sights and 
 plainly requesting to be shown the worst cases. 
 
 Citizens should remember, he exhorted, that 
 this is nearly the twentieth century, and that 
 while the care of the insane has advanced to an 
 extent that the mentally afflicted are treated as 
 sick human beings, such behavior on the part of 
 visitors befits better the tenth century when these 
 unfortunates were publicly and legally flogged, 
 and the populace gathered to deride those sup- 
 posed to be possessed by devils. The institution 
 on the banks of the Kankakee River is a hospital 
 for the sick in mind, and not a menagerie. He 
 pointed out that many of the patients there are 
 in the first, and therefore most curable stage of 
 their disorder. Then he asked the visitors to 
 imagine how they would resent some loved one 
 of their own being on exhibition before a mis- 
 cellaneous mob, and their chances of recovery in- 
 terfered with thru such idle curiosity. Thus he 
 went on explaining, and concluded by saying that 
 it becomes necessar}" to adopt the following rules : 
 relatives and friends of patients are always wel- 
 
118 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 come, and physicians and medico-legal students 
 will be admitted readily, but hereafter the gates 
 on Sunday will be closed to mere pleasure-hunt- 
 ers. This four-page leaflet exhibits such sympa- 
 thy for the insane, and breathes such a determina- 
 tion to save them from insult and injury, that it 
 reads like a chapter from the heart of Pinel. 
 
 But again Clevenger learnt what it means to 
 antagonize men, and conspicuous among his op- 
 ponents was the brewer Radeke — if there were 
 no Sunday crowds, who would buy his beer? At 
 the state institution, as at the county asylum, the 
 saloon-keeper loomed large. The ten years faded 
 away in a mist. The Kankakee River ran dry, 
 and Clevenger was again on the sandy plains of 
 Dunning. The features of Free P. M0RRI& 
 seemed to turn into the face of Mike McDon- 
 ald, and the brewer Radeke looked like the bru- 
 tal Varnell. 
 
 The opposition of boodlers only served to whet 
 Clevenger's fighting soul. The more he 
 prowled, the more he saw, and what he saw was 
 not good. Bitterness increased on both sides. 
 We might give a list of details, but it would be 
 repetition — Dunning all over again. Perhaps 
 Clevenger was not as strong as he had been; 
 perhaps it is not hygienic to add night-work tOi 
 
The Kankakee Affair 119 
 
 the labor of the day, for within a sliort time the 
 superintendent overstepped the boundaries of 
 health ; he did not seek an invalid's bed, but it was 
 a wrecked Clevengkr that walked thru the hos- 
 pital, denouncing political graft. On the third 
 of June, at 4.15 p. m., Clevenger was handed 
 this note: 
 
 Owing to the overwork of Dr Clevenger, Superin- 
 tendent of the Hospital, it is considered advisable by 
 the Board of Trustees to give him a vacation, for 
 recuperation, during which time the Board assumes 
 absolute control of this institution ; 
 
 Therefore, be it resolved, that Dr S. V. Clevenger 
 is hereby granted a vacation of two weeks, during which 
 time he is to be relieved from all duties pertaining to 
 this institution, the said vacation to commence on June 
 3rd, 1893. 
 
 Clevenger went to his son's ranch at Raw 
 Hide Buttes, Wyoming: superintendent for 
 three months and nervous prostration, then a cat- 
 tle-farm far from sin and society. During those 
 two weeks Raw Hide Buttes saw more mail than 
 ever before; Clevenger conducted an enormous 
 correspondence for a man suffering from general 
 exhaustion. He was kept informed about the 
 hospital by a member of the medical staff. Chap- 
 
120 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 MAN V. Dean, who proved a loyal and affection- 
 ate friend to Clevenger; Dr Dean was a col- 
 lege chum of William F. Dose, Altgeld's sec- 
 retary, and they were still on the most cordial 
 terms. One of Dean's letters to Clevenger 
 is worth preserving because of its pen-picture of 
 the redoubtable Radeke : 
 
 Summer has settled down upon us since you left; 
 Albert and I went up the river the day before yes- 
 terday in a row-boat, and took our first swim in the 
 Kankakee, Mr Sill left here about a week ago, and I 
 haven't seen a single specimen of the 'genus trustee' 
 since then in this vicinity. Things are running along 
 very smoothly (that is — fairly so) under the direction 
 of Dr 'Pegger,' who would make a very able driver for 
 our band-wagon indeed had he but a little more con- 
 fidence in himself — could he but muster up a little more 
 moral courage and faith in his own ability, and exuvi- 
 ate that thick skin of Deweyism which seems to stick 
 to him Hke a blanket to an Indian in winter-time. Dr 
 Effie Lobdell and I sit just at the driver's elbow, 
 however; take good care that he keeps the middle of 
 the road, and you may depend we see to it that what- 
 ever happens on our journey, schedule time is main- 
 tained. 
 
 I have kept Dose fully informed of the situation 
 here. We spent last Sunday at the World's Fair to- 
 gether, and I went into detail on a great many points, 
 
The Kankakee Affair 121 
 
 and I was informed that tlicy are only waiting at 
 Springfield for the brewer to show his hand — to make 
 some overt move — that shall give the governor sufficient 
 cause and just reason to remove him. 
 
 The governor 'has it in' for Radeke for wiring him 
 at Champaign (after his speech to the college boys, 
 which I enclose) to 'come up here immediately,' as 
 his 'presence was needed ;' in fact the governor told 
 Radeke in my presence at the supper-table that he had 
 put him to great inconvenience, and had he known how 
 things were he should never have come up here out 
 of his way — there was no necessity for his visit what- 
 ever, etc., and poor Radeke hung his head like a 
 whipped spaniel — nearly swallowed his knife — much to 
 the disgust of his vis a ids, who chanced to be Mrs 
 Altgeld. Dr Lobdell told me later on : 'I placed 
 him in the light opposite her, so she could see just what 
 kind of a swine he really was.' For prudent fore- 
 thought, commend me to the women folks. 
 
 It is nearly dinner-time now, and I must close. I 
 hope you will enjoy your vacation and come back to 
 us prepared to 'turn the hose on.' 
 
 At the expiration of the two weeks, Cleven- 
 GER was ready to return to duty, but his vaca- 
 tion was again extended — this time without pay. 
 The fact was this: the trustees discharged him. 
 Governor Altgeld now realized that Cleven- 
 GER could not work in harmony with politicians. 
 
122 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 and giving him $1,000 above his salary, he let him 
 go. It was an awful fizzle — ousted after three 
 months, and nothing accomplished. Now he had 
 to return to Chicago, and try to regain his for- 
 mer practice. So friend Gieaed was not only a 
 major and a surgeon — but also a prophet. 
 
 Not long afterwards, half of the trustees were 
 expelled, and the other half resigned; the next 
 superintendent was somewhat vague about what 
 he did with the small sum of thirty thousand dol- 
 lars; and a female inmate — Kitty Ward — gave 
 birth to the inevitable illegitimate baby. These 
 incidents brought the Kankakee asylum a little 
 official attention and considerable newspaper 
 fame, and perhaps it was with a grim 'I-told-you- 
 so,' that Clevenger pasted the clippings into his 
 scrap-book. 
 
DREAMING AND DRIFTING 
 
 FOR several years Clevenger was neurolo- 
 gist to a Catholic and to a Hebrew insti- 
 tution — the Alexian Brothers Hospital and the 
 Michael Reese Hospital. These were small 
 structures when they were destroyed by Chi- 
 cago's great fire, but they were rebuilt in impos- 
 ing style. There is a picture of Clevenger 
 taken in one of the medical wards on Belden 
 Avenue, showing the freethinking doctor in the 
 midst of Ambrosius and Arcadius and Aloy- 
 sixjs — disease is non-sectarian, and tic douloureux 
 is as painful in a follower of Loyola as in an 
 admirer of Voltaire. Both hospitals treated 
 the sick of all denominations, but the Alexian 
 Brothers limited their services to males, and even 
 the nurses were males, so Dr Byford never hur- 
 ried there with ergot and forceps. 
 
 Clevenger's experiences in hospitals for sick 
 bodies were not as unfortunate as his adventures 
 in asylums for sick minds, but man is a natural 
 
 123 
 
124 The Don Quirote of Psychiatry 
 
 politician, and the best institutions may be 
 tainted by intriguery — it is said that even the 
 Catholic Church is not wholly free from it. At 
 an age when most men cling tenaciously to posi- 
 tions, the quixotic Clevenger became an exile 
 from hospitals. He ceased to be 'physician for 
 nervous and mental diseases to Michael Reese 
 and Alexian Brothers Hospitals,' and held no 
 further hospital appointments : as a hospital offi- 
 cial, Dr Cletenger was not what is called a suc- 
 cess. However, he came out alive, which is more 
 than can be said of certain other Chicago doctors 
 who crossed the path of politicians — ask the 
 ashes of Theodore B. Sachs! 
 
 On various occasions Clevenger was a teacher. 
 In 1883 he lectured on art anatomy at the Chi- 
 cago Art Institute; in 1887 he lectured on 
 physics at the Chicago College of Pharmacy; in 
 1899 he lectured on medical jurisprudence at the 
 Chicago College of Law. His connexion with 
 these institutions was transient, as was also his 
 lectureship on electro-diagnosis at the Electro- 
 Medical School of Chicago: the faculty was nat- 
 urally expected to boost medical electricity, but 
 as Clevenger was more satirical than eulogis- 
 tic, he was soon thrown out. 
 
 In 1900 he was appointed professor of neurol- 
 
Dreaming and Driftiny 125 
 
 ogy and psychiatry at the Ilarvcy Medical Col- 
 lege, *a night-school for day-workers.' It is evi- 
 dent the management forgave him the trick he 
 had played a few years previous when he was in- 
 vited to speak at the inauguration exercises, and 
 took advantage of the occasion to deliver a broad- 
 side against the political control of asylums. 
 Perhaps the head of the institution was secretly 
 pleased, for she was Dr Frances Dickinson, a 
 relative of Susan B. Anthony, and she pos- 
 sessed some of that indomitable fighter's spirit. 
 Besides being president, Dr Dickinson was also 
 professor of ophthalmology. The vice-president 
 was Dr Effie Lobdell, whom we had the pleas- 
 ure of meeting at Kankakee. Dr Lobdell was 
 quite a personage by this time, being professor 
 of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Harvey 
 Medical College, chief physician and surgeon of 
 the Playfair School for Obstetrical Nurses, and 
 obstetrician to the Cook County Hospital and 
 to the JNIary Thompson Hospital. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the attempt to teach 
 modern medicine by electric-light, Frances 
 Dickinson must be given credit for two things: 
 she published one of the neatest and most cir- 
 cumspect of college catalogs, and she gathered 
 around her an excellent faculty. While Clev- 
 
126 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ENGER was on the staif, the bland Harris E. 
 Santee tried to smile anatomy into the students, 
 William D. Zoethout impressed the facts of 
 physiology upon them with Teutonic thoroness, 
 Bernard Fantus explained the mysteries of the 
 materia medica, W. O. Krohn lectured on psy- 
 chology, and the unique Byron Robinson taught 
 gynecological and abdominal surgery. 
 
 Altogether there were fifty members upon the 
 faculty, and altho we believe all were useful, we 
 are somewhat startled to find that Albert 
 Schneider was listed as Professor of Physiolog- 
 ical and Psychological Physiognomy. From the 
 standpoint of alliteration this position is perfect, 
 tho Professor Schneider has since left this field 
 for the more practical pastures of pharmacy. 
 Professor Clevenger lectured to the seniors, but 
 he formed no lasting friendships with his pu- 
 pils, and when the Harvey Medical College 
 passed out in the night, his personal fortunes 
 were unaffected. 
 
 Several years later, Clevenger became con- 
 nected with another night-school — the Chicago 
 Hospital College of Medicine. This institution 
 is almost a necropolis, for it specializes in old 
 men who once amounted to something. The ca- 
 reer of Samuel Anderson McWilliams ex- 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 127 
 
 plains our ghoulful meaning. In his prime, Mc- 
 WiLLiAMS taught in a Class A school — the Col- 
 lege of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, and 
 his name, as one of the founders, may still be 
 read on the corner-stone of the building. But 
 when his beard was whitened and his mind a 
 trifle dimmed, he became professor in a Class B 
 school — the Bennett Medical College; again the 
 years made inroads upon old McWilliams, and 
 when he was no longer acceptable at Bennett he 
 was received at a Class C school — the Chicago 
 Hospital College of Medicine. Here he re- 
 mained until his death ; his career was a descent ; 
 he could look backward and see that his pupils 
 were occupying positions from which they had 
 crowded him out — but the aged teacher had his 
 wish: he died a professor — thanks to the Chi- 
 cago Hospital College of Medicine. On the 
 other hand, the mercurial Clevenger soon sev- 
 ered his connexion with this college, altho for a 
 few weeks he had held the exalted position of 
 registrar. 
 
 But was Cle^^nger ever connected with a 
 'good school'? Almost. His Philadelphia 
 friends wished him to accept the newly-estab- 
 lished chair of biology at the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, but the professor's salary of $500 a year 
 
128 The Don Quitvote of Psychiatry 
 
 was stationary, while Clevenger's family was 
 growing, so he let the honor go. Then there was 
 talk of Clevenger succeeding William Fran- 
 cis Waugh at the Medico- Chirurgical College, 
 but altho Professor Waugh eventually became 
 a Chicagoan, Clevenger never became a Phila- 
 delphian. At different times, Reeves Jackson 
 and William E. Quine invited Clevenger to 
 deliver courses of lectures at the College of 
 Physicians and Surgeons, but as there was no 
 mention of compensation, he did not accept. 
 Every man has his own code of ethics: Cleven- 
 ger would gladly have written an encyclopedia 
 gratis, but it was against his principles to lecture 
 except for cash. At one time he made plans to 
 found a Biological School in Chicago, but was 
 led to believe that he would be offered the chair 
 of comparative anatomy and physiology at the 
 University of Chicago. While waiting for the 
 official announcement, Clevenger filled in the 
 interval by delivering a Darwinistic lecture which 
 so offended the Baptist authorities of the insti- 
 tution that the old University of Chicago contin- 
 ued its course without him. We may sum up 
 the career of Clevenger as a pedagog by saying 
 that it was not prosperous. 
 
 In Clevenger's scrap-books are various clip-^ 
 
a </L^/./^ ^frv-^ n)^^^ Cl^>^ - 
 
 /^ 
 
 
 IJITTEE FHOM HORATIO C. WOOD 
 
 129 
 
130 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 pings about the hardships that inventors have en- 
 dured, and in some of his pubHshed books he re- 
 lates instances of inventors who have been robbed 
 of the fruits of their labors by shrewd and dis- 
 honest financiers. This strain of talk indicates 
 that Clevenger did not make a fortune from 
 his inventions. 
 
 Yet he had the inventor's knack. Ever since 
 boyhood he was inventing something. A self- 
 reeling hose cart, a rotary brush boot-blacking 
 machine, a self-equating sun dial to give clock- 
 time by inspection, a fac-simile telegraph, a 
 method of measuring the pelvic capacity by 
 means of two rubber bands and a foot of tape, 
 a rubber strap for locating the fissure of Ro- 
 lando, — these are some of his devices which are 
 not on the market. 
 
 Perhaps his most practical invention was a 
 model of the brain, useful for demonstration pur- 
 poses. Clevenger himself thinks so little of it 
 that he refers to it nowhere, and has not even 
 saved a sample, but we find that some of the 
 leading neurologists of the time were anxious to 
 secure copies. Horatio C. Wood is known 
 mainly for his work in therapeutics, but in thei 
 eighties he produced a book on nervous diseases 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 181 
 
 and taught neurology at the University of Penn- 
 sylvania. He wrote to Clevenger: 'Have you 
 a cast of the convolutions of the human brain 
 for sale? If so, please state price.' Charles 
 L. Dana, the neurologist of Cornell University, 
 wrote: 'Will you kindly inform me whether I 
 can now get one or two of the models of the brain 
 devised by you?' William J. Morton's note 
 has an added interest on account of its reference 
 to the distinguished Hammond: 
 
 Would you kindly send me wliatever casts of the 
 brain you have that you are willing to dispose of. I 
 hope I am right in my recollection that Dr Hammond 
 said you had made certain casts and that they could be 
 bought. I should have said above, whatever separate 
 casts, for I would like to see the simple copies first. 
 But of the hemispheres (I have seen Dr Hammond's) 
 I would like at least half a dozen for lecturing purposes 
 in the new Post Graduate School. 
 
 I hope I may have the pleasure of receiving a paper, 
 short or long, for the Journal in some of the suc- 
 ceeding numbers for 1883. You know how welcome 
 to our pages a contribution from your pen will always 
 be. 
 
 Clevenger did not answer by return mail, for 
 in his next communication Dr JMorton says: 
 
132 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 I have just finished my course of lectures on the 
 anatomy of the brain and will not now need the casts, 
 but I am just as much obliged for your kind informa- 
 tion about them, and fear at the same time that you 
 underrate their value. 
 
 We miss your medical pen, and trust it will be soon 
 back at its old work — some good and trenchant speci- 
 mens of which the Journal well knows. 
 
 The Journal to which Dr Morton alludes is 
 the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , for 
 he was now editor of Jewell's transplanted 
 quarterly. Unhappy Morton! His ancestors 
 attended Harvard University when there were 
 only five members in a class, and they fought in 
 the revolution from the battle of Bunker Hill un- 
 til tyranny was overthrown; he was born in the 
 glorious year in which his father gave surgical 
 anesthesia to the world, and he won an honor- 
 able name for himself in neurology and electro- 
 therapy, as practitioner and professor, investiga- 
 tor and editor, but in later days he and Julian 
 Hawthorne got mixed up in King Solomon's 
 mines, and the gates of a federal penitentiary 
 closed upon these talented sons of immortal, 
 fathers. Julian Hawthorne, being an author, 
 eased his grief in a book, but the harrowing 
 experience broke the physician's heart. 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 188 
 
 The big invention of Clkvenger's life was the 
 Clevenger Book and Kleetric Typewriter. After 
 looking upon the basket full of long grasshopper 
 legs, the typebar levers, ratchets, pinions, wheels, 
 cams, racks, cogs, springs, rods, all so clumsy 
 and complicated, he decided that the typewriter 
 required simplification. He studied the whole 
 history of typewriters, from the first crude ma- 
 
 Clevenger Book Typewriter 
 
 For Books, Cards, Envelopes, Letters, Documents of all kinds — ANY SIZE. 
 
 
 ^^^^?^^vj|,,. 
 
 '^^^^k-^^^"' 
 
 ^''*^i>**' 
 
 Wrilci on flnt •urfece. Doe, mor e, and h- Her -'or k thun olhrr mitchinss. 
 
 BOOK AND ELECTRIC TYPEWRITER CO., Park Ridge, III. 
 
 S. V. ClEVCNnER, Stc'y pnd Twjj. 
 
 chine of Queen Anne's time down to the majes- 
 tic Remington, he waded thru all the patent office 
 records in Washington — but nowhere did he find 
 principles which satisfied him. At this period he 
 expected to start a great sanitarium in Dela- 
 ware, but he forgot that a sanitarium requires 
 undivided attention. The sanitarium idea fiz- 
 zled out, but he w^ent on with his typewriter. An 
 inventor is never discouraged — only a little 
 
134 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 longer and all will be well. Why complain if 
 unreasonable neighbors whisper something about 
 a crank? Is it not the fate of all great men 
 to be misunderstood? Did not folks laugh at 
 Fulton's Folly — until they scrambled into his 
 steamboat? Why lament if the purse be empty 
 today? Only another screw to be tightened, only 
 another wheel to be applied — and tomorrow 
 fame and fortune will smile brightly. 
 
 The day came when Clevenger patented his 
 improved book typewriter — a machine that would 
 never get out of alignment, for its working parts 
 were so simple that they could be covered by a 
 small cigar box. The machine could be put on 
 the market for a few dollars — hundreds of thou- 
 sands would be sold. Clevenger started a com- 
 pany — shares of stock were ten dollars each. 
 
 He published a statement to the effect that he 
 now intended to make a business of every aspect 
 of this matter, and to go into the psychology of 
 all persons and things concerned therein, so that 
 the gentry who live by stealing the work of oth- 
 ers will find they have no chance to absorb this 
 typewriter. Capitalists willing to float corpora- 
 tions would be avoided as often unconscionable 
 and liable to exploit stock improperly — not a 
 drop of water would get into this stock. Who- 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 185 
 
 ever subscribes and pays for a sbare of stock in 
 this company at the par vakie of ten dollars per 
 share will have his interests conscientiously 
 guarded, and would, so Ci.evenger hoped, realize 
 a fortune from the venture. Then came the in- 
 evitable comparison: holders of ten dollar shares 
 of telephone stock grew rich on the single share. 
 In a vision he saw his typewriters working all 
 over the land: cheap, easy to manipulate, inde- 
 structible. 
 
 Dreams, dreams, dreams, — frenzied faith of 
 an old Don Quixote. Never has a human ear 
 heard the clicking of the Clevenger typewriter. 
 The company is not doing business, and the pat- 
 ent will lie in the Patent Office in Washington 
 — until it expires. 
 
 An American does not consider his education 
 complete until he has failed as an editor — have 
 we not more periodicals than the rest of the world 
 put together? Clea^enger was an editor on va- 
 rious occasions. While still at Chattanooga, Ten- 
 nessee, he was city editor of the American Un- 
 ion, but when that paper adopted southern prin- 
 ciples, he founded The Unconditional in Harri- 
 son, Hamilton County. As we look over its four 
 small pages, the first entirely devoted to adver- 
 tisements, the third given up to jokes and cases 
 
136 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 in chancery, the fourth exckisively occupied by 
 sheriff sales, we Avonder what was the purpose 
 of such a newspaper, but perhaps the following 
 letter written to Clevenger, in 1866, by John 
 B. Brownlow — editor of The Whig at Knox- 
 ville, and son of 'Fighting Parson' Brownlow, 
 the Governor of Tennessee — may help to eluci- 
 date the situation: 
 
 Immediately upon seeing The Unconditional I or- 
 dered it to be put on my exchange list. 1 am very 
 glad you are publishing a true paper in Hamilton 
 County. The miserable hermaphrodite concern at 
 Chattanooga deserves opposition. 1 wish there was 
 a loyal paper in every county in East Tennessee to 
 strengthen the loyal party. If governed alone by self- 
 ishness I would desire tliis, for if the loyal party of 
 the state goes down, we all go down together. Nearly 
 all the papers in the state are rebel, and this is the dis- 
 advantage we labor under. I trust you will be suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 In spite of this wish, Clevenger was not suc- 
 cessful — his subscribers were few and most of the 
 few were in arrears — and as a result he went to 
 Montana, and later to Dakota Territory where 
 he became editor and half-owner of the Press and 
 Dakotaian. Here too we notice his penchant foi'' 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 187 
 
 supplying jocose information, of which the fol- 
 lowing is an exami)le: 
 
 It is estimated that over 2,000 toes were frozen 
 last winter in Minnesota, because the girls wouldn't ask 
 their fellows in, but kept them standing at the gate. 
 
 It may be mentioned that Clevenger paid 
 $6,000 for his half-interest and sold it for $3,000 
 — but that wasn't so funny. 
 
 Not only did Clevenger fail as an editor, but 
 his friends failed too. In 1880 John Michels 
 founded Science^, and edited it so ably that it at 
 once became one of the leading scientific weeklies 
 in the world. Clevenger's name was mentioned 
 in the first volume a few times, and several of 
 his contributions appeared in the second volume. 
 Michels and Clevenger were on cordial terms, 
 and Clevenger expected to write often for the 
 journal, but Michels was such an admirable ed- 
 itor he had no time to devote to the financial man- 
 agement, and Science soon passed out of his 
 hands. 
 
 Six years after Science was established, Clev- 
 enger had another opportunity to witness the 
 dangers that beset an editor. For some time, 
 B. F. Underwood and his wdfe Sarah, author- 
 ess of Heroines of FreetJiougJit, had conducted 
 
138 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 The Index at Boston. A zinc merchant, Ed- 
 ward C. Hegeler, — one of those rich men with 
 ideas who hkes to be surrounded by intellectual 
 people — desired to found a liberal journal in the 
 West, and he finally induced the Underwoods 
 to abandon The Index, and come to Chicago. On 
 the seventeenth of February, 1887, The Open 
 Court made its appearance. It had none of the 
 malice or the militancy that limited D. M. Ben- 
 nett's Truth Seeker to a certain class, but num- 
 bered among its contributors such men and 
 women as John Burroughs, Thomas David- 
 son, Felix Oswald, Moncure D. Conway, 
 M. M. Trumbull, Edmund Montgomery, 
 Frederick May Holland, E. D. Cope, Les- 
 ter F. Ward, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
 George Jacob Holyoake and Hypatia BiiAD- 
 laugh Bonner. 
 
 In the fifth number of the journal Clevenger 
 saw a review of one of his own books, and after 
 reading the two columns of intelligent praise he 
 decided it was the best review he had seen, and 
 he called upon the editor to express his thanks. 
 Mr Underwood informed him that the review 
 had been written by Dr Edmund Montgomery, 
 who was then living in Texas. 
 
 Montgomery was a Scotchman who had been 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 189 
 
 brought up in Frankfurt, where he daily saw 
 Schopenhauer pass with his poodle. lie stud- 
 ied under Helmiioltz, and became acquainted 
 with Feuerbach and Moi.eschott, and with the 
 pupils of ScHELLiNG, FicHTE and Hegel. He 
 attended various German universities, receiving 
 his M.D. at Wurzburg. Returning to England, 
 he had a laboratory at the Zoological Gardens, 
 where he often met and conversed with Darwin. 
 Montgomery had accomplished the remarkable 
 feat of reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 
 five times, and then wrote a book himself in Ger- 
 man to refute Kant's theory of knowledge. His 
 volume in English, On the Formation of So- 
 called Cells in Animal Bodies, was mentioned by 
 Sir Richard Owen in the Anatomy of Verte- 
 brates as 'an important contribution to the 
 philosophy of physiology.' He busied himself 
 with other researches which appeared in German 
 and English technical journals, but ill-health 
 caused him to come to Texas. 
 
 When Montgomery's essay, Is Pantheism the 
 Legitimate Outcome of 3Iodern Science? was 
 read before the Concord School of Philosophy, 
 Boston was so astounded that such erudition 
 could come out of Texas, that the following 
 lines appeared in the Boston Record: 
 
140 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 A Texan floored the Concord crowd, 
 
 Sing high ! and sing ho ! for the great southwest ; 
 He sent 'em a paper to read aloud, 
 
 And 'twas done up in style by one of their best. 
 
 The Texan he loaded his biggest gun 
 
 With all the wise words he ever had seen, 
 
 And he fired at long range with death-grim fun, 
 And slew all the sages with his machine. 
 
 He muddled the muddlers with brain-cracking lore, 
 He went in so deep that his followers were drowned. 
 
 But he swam out himself to the telluric shore, 
 
 And crowed in his glee o'er the earthlings around. 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 Oh Plato, dear Plato, come back from the past! 
 
 And we'll forgive all that you e'er did to vex us, 
 If you'll only arrange for a colony vast 
 
 And whisk these philosophers all ofF to Texas. 
 
 After Montgomery's review, Clevenger him- 
 self became a frequent contributor to the Open 
 Court, writing a plea for Volapuk and an attack 
 on Christian Science, and various articles on psy- 
 chiatry and monism. He rejoiced to find a me- 
 dium where he could express certain views that 
 he held — and he was paid for it too. 
 
Dreaming and Drifting 141 
 
 It was too good to hist — troul)lc was corning. 
 Mr Hegeler had a private secretary, a doctor of 
 philosophy, Paul Carus. Mr Hegeler had 
 also a daughter named Mary. After Miss 
 Mary Hegeler became Mrs Mary Carus, Mr 
 Hegeler insisted that Dr Carus be one of the 
 editors of the Open Court. From the stand- 
 point of the Underwoods the request was un- 
 reasonable, since they carefully edited every line 
 of the paper and there was not room for another 
 blue pencil. Accordingly, they refused to move 
 up and let Carus sit on the editorial chair. But 
 publisher Hegeler felt he had certain ideas to 
 promulgate, and of course son-in-law Carus un- 
 derstood these better than the strange Under- 
 woods, and as Hegeler owned the paper, the 
 Underavoods were compelled to resign. The 
 first volume of the Open Court contained their 
 salutatory and their valedictory. In touching 
 but dignified words they bade farewell to their 
 readers. They could not return to The Index, 
 as it had been discontinued when they abandoned 
 it ; Mr Underwood was forced into some uncon- 
 genial newspaper work, and soon lapsed into ob- 
 scurity. Dr Carus immediately took charge of 
 the Open Court, and has edited it with industry 
 and ability ever since. He is well known for his 
 
142 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 many philosophical brochures. Dr Clevenger 
 WTote a little under his regime, but he was not a 
 favorite with the new judge of the Open Court j 
 and soon ceased to contribute. 
 
 There have been editors who have swayed the 
 destinies of nations, but editorship was never 
 profitable to Clevenger. 
 
VI 
 
 BOOKS AND ESSAYS 
 
 WE have now seen what a restless and ver- 
 satile man was Clevenger: clerk, sol- 
 dier, hotel keeper, probate judge, court commis- 
 sioner, revenue collector, surveyor, telegrapher, 
 engineer, pathologist, alienist, hospital superin- 
 tendent, teacher, inventor, printer and editor. 
 But tho he tried his hand at twenty trades, yet 
 his credo could be summed up in the noble words 
 of Lowell: 'I am a bookman.' His heart was 
 in his manuscripts. 
 
 He began to write for publication while in his 
 teens, his earliest efforts being miniature articles 
 in the 'Scientific American' for 1859. Similar 
 technical sketches appeared later in 'Van Nos- 
 trand's Engineering Magazine:' Instruments of 
 Aluminium was written at a time when this metal 
 was not much employed, and Clevenger thought 
 its light weight w^ould enable arcs to be made 
 larger, and this would be an advantage in avoid- 
 ing trigonometrical errors. American Car- 
 
 143 
 
144! The Don Quia^ote of Psychiatry 
 
 tography urged uniformity of methods in vari- 
 ous government map-making departments. A 
 Rheostat for Electric Battery appeared in the 
 'American Practitioner.' Optical Appearances 
 of Comets was published in the 'Sidereal Messen- 
 ger,' and contained his theory that comets are 
 mere reflections from nebular masses of vast me- 
 teoric aggregations. Astronomy was one of his 
 hobbies, as is evident from his correspondence 
 with the star-men, particularly with the cele- 
 brated BuENHAM of Lick Observatory. 
 
 Clevenger's articles in 'Van Nostrand's En- 
 gineering Magazine' appeared in 1874. After 
 an author has written a few articles, he usually 
 feels hke producing a book. Your humble ar- 
 ticle is buried among other men's writings, but 
 a book comes into the world clothed in leather 
 or fine cloth, with golden letters stamped across 
 its back, and it stands upright upon the shelf. 
 In 1874, when a United States Deputy Surveyor, 
 Clevenger wrote his first book, A Treatise on 
 Government Surveying, published by the Van 
 TsTostrand Company of New York. It is the 
 only one of his works which has gone thru sev- 
 eral editions, and from which the royalties were 
 visible. We understand that it is still used by 
 students and carried by engineers in the field — 
 
Books and Essays 145 
 
 perhaps because Colonel I. N. IIigbke, one of the 
 oldest and most competent deputy surveyors in 
 the Union, declared he knew several contracting 
 individuals to fail in their tasks, because they 
 did not possess the knowledge contained in Clev- 
 enger's book. 
 
 The volume was dedicated to the Honorable 
 Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior, 
 'in memory of pleasant conversations;' in his let- 
 ter of acknowledgment, the Secretary wrote, 
 'The fame of Clevenger lives in the enduring 
 marbles his genius wrought ; and I trust that his 
 son may achieve equal success as an author.' 
 
 We have read this work for the same reason 
 that Richard Le Gallienne read Grant Al- 
 len's Force and Energy — because a copy was 
 presented to us ; and we confess we know as much 
 about surveying as poet Richard knows about 
 physics. 
 
 It is interesting to note that even in 1874 Clev- 
 enger had begun his campaign against political 
 corruption, for in the circulars advertising his 
 book he inserted hints like these: 'There are sev- 
 eral Surveyors-General who do not sell contracts 
 — but they do not save $10,000 a year from a 
 salary of $2,000.' 'Contractors are not alwiays 
 
146 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 surveyors. Why not entrust our navy to poli- 
 ticians' ? 
 
 Five years later Clevenger was living in an- 
 other atmosphere: he was an M.D., and spent his 
 time at the dead-house of the county insane 
 asylum, and in Professor Jewell's library — the 
 most extensive neurological library in the West. 
 The first result of his studies was an essay on 
 Cerebral Topography, which was published Oc- 
 tober, 1879, in the 'Journal of Nervous and Men- 
 tal Disease.' The recent graduate must have 
 been gratified to find an article by Weir 
 Mitchell in the same issue. Clevenger's essay 
 contained the names, synonyms, and localiza- 
 tions of various portions of the human brain, 
 based on an examination of the English, Italian, 
 French and German literature, and on original 
 studies of about one hundred brains post-mor- 
 tem. It was a splendid beginning — another 
 American neurologist was born. Burt G. 
 Wilder read Clevenger's contribution, and find- 
 ing the description of the sulcus occipitalis longi- 
 tudinalis inferior to be original, he named it Clev- 
 enger's fissure. Strange to say, Clevenger 
 himself insists that Ecker had previously de- 
 scribed this inferior occipital fissure, but Wilder, 
 who of course was familiar with Ecker's writ- 
 
Books and Essays 147 
 
 ings, is our great nomenclaturist, and so Clevenr 
 ger's fissure is found in tlie medical dictionaries 
 unto this day. Thus in the year that he was 
 granted his diploma, the name of Clevenger be- 
 came an eponym in cerebral anatomy. 
 
 In the next number of the magazine, January, 
 1880, Clevenger reviewed Benedikt's Brains 
 of Criminals, disagreeing with him decidedly, 
 Clevenger's contention being that criminals had 
 no special brain shape we could make out with 
 present means any more than they had criminal 
 peculiarities of nose, eyes, etc. Benedikt out- 
 lombrosed Lombroso in his belief in the 'born 
 criminal,' and as he did not hesitate to announce 
 that he found the cerebellum in criminals uncov- 
 ered, it is not odd that he was attacked by ra- 
 tional neurologists. 
 
 For the following number, which w^as the 
 April issue, Clevenger contributed an article on 
 The Sulcus of Rolando as an Index to the Intel- 
 ligence of Animals. He took the position that 
 this fissure w^as farther back in an ascending scale 
 of intelligence, as the increased size of the fron- 
 tal lobe pushed it backward; also that the 
 medulla oblongata developed more rectangularly 
 in bimana, the increase in size of the frontal lobe 
 pushing the entire brain backward to form this 
 
148 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 right angle in proportion to the intelligence in- 
 crease; as the basilar process accompanies this 
 change, skulls can add this index to Camper's 
 facial angle. 
 
 In August of this year the American Associa- 
 tion for the Advancement of Science held its 
 meeting at Boston, and Clevenger journeyed, 
 there. At this gathering he saw several notables 
 with whose work he had long been familiar, but 
 Cle^^nger did not come merely for the purpose 
 of admiring others ; he had a paper of his own to 
 read, the Plan of the Cerehro-Spinal Nervous 
 System, and in October it was published in Jew- 
 ell's journal. Here he suggested cerebral, 
 homologies such as the cerebellum being formed 
 from coalesced intervertebral ganglia: the Gas- 
 serian ganglion was an intervertebral originally 
 and other lobes in all mammals were originally 
 developed from intervertebral ganglia, as arche- 
 typal skull shows ancestral vertebral segment 
 plan. 
 
 Besides the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental 
 Disease,' Cle^'^enger wrote for other periodicals 
 during 1880: he conducted a Saturday Science 
 Column in the 'Chicago Tribune,' and he as- 
 sisted E. C. Dudley in editing the first issue of 
 the 'Chicago Medical Gazette,' later called the 
 
Books and Es.snys 149 
 
 'Chicago Medical Review.' DdDi-KV wanted a 
 pathologist and a surgeon on his staff, and asked 
 Clevenger to hunt up a couple of good men. 
 Clevenger knew a foreigner who had recently 
 arrived in Chicago and had a reputation in 
 pathology, and he told Christian Fenger ahout 
 the new journal, and the talented Dane agreed 
 to write for it, tho he was probably not excited at 
 the prospect, as he had already contributed to 
 medical periodicals. But at the Cook County 
 Hospital, Ceevenger found a promising young 
 interne, fresh from college, named JNIurphy, 
 whom he persuaded to send surgical reports to 
 the 'Review,' — and these were Dr Murphy's first 
 contributions to medical journalism. But in the 
 days when John B. Murphy became the sur- 
 gical king of Chicago, Clevenger despised him 
 for kneeling at an archbishop's feet to receive a 
 knightship from the church which had perse- 
 cuted science when science was weak. 
 
 With the third number, Clevenger became 
 editor of the department of Medical Physics, but 
 characteristically enough, soon relinquished the 
 task. For the JNIarch 'Chicago jNIedical Review,' 
 he wrote Guide to Post-Mortem E.vaminations 
 of the Brain, and in June contributed a brief 
 communication on Laceration of Cervix Uterij 
 
150 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 as a probable cause of recurring abortions, to 
 which Editor Dudley appended this note: 
 
 The history of the lesion as given in the case-books 
 of the Woman's Hospital in the State of New York, 
 in the private records of Dr Emmet, and in our own 
 records, proves the correctness of the views above ex- 
 pressed, altho, so far as we are aware, these views 
 have not hitherto been specially published. 
 
 Clevenger contributed nothing further to 
 gynecology, but young Dudley soon became 
 professor of diseases of women in Clevenger's 
 alma mater, and developed into Chicago's mas- 
 ter-gynecologist : for years his skill has corrected 
 the mistakes of nature and the blunders of lesser 
 surgeons. 
 
 The November 'Chicago Medical Journal and 
 Examiner,' — an important publication which had 
 been founded in 1844 and was now edited by| 
 Davis, Hyde and Brower, — contained Cleven- 
 ger's Cerebral Anatomy Simplified. Further- 
 more, during the year he had read the first re- 
 sults of his research work on the mercurials, to 
 the Chicago Biological Society and to the Il- 
 linois State Microscopical Society. Altogether, 
 1880 was a fruitful year, and Clevenger ac- 
 quired 'standing.' 
 
Books and Essays 161 
 
 During 1881 there were not many days dur- 
 ing which the pen of Clevenger was dry. He 
 wrote up his further researches with mercury, 
 contributed Comparative Neurology to the Jan- 
 uary-February 'American Naturalist,' edited by 
 Edward Drinker Cope, and the July issue con- 
 tained his lecture on the Origin and Descent of 
 the Human Brain, showing the development of 
 lobes from ganglia formed on back of spinal cord. 
 This address had been read in February before 
 the Chicago Academy of Sciences. 
 
 On March 11, 1881, he spoke on Nerve Cells 
 and Their Function before the Illinois State 
 Microscopical Society, and made it the subject 
 of his American Neurological Association thesis. 
 It appeared in abstract in the 'Chicago Medical 
 Review,' but to Clevenger's chagrin, was full of 
 typographical errors. However, such accidents 
 are liable to occur in the best-conducted printer- 
 ies. No doubt the proofreaders of the Bible are 
 conscientious men, and yet one edition appeared 
 in London with the 'not' omitted from the sev- 
 enth commandment. In this paper he advanced 
 his histogenetic nerve-cell theory, claiming that 
 the nerve-fibre and not the nerve-cell is the first 
 to arise in forms above the protozoa, for in noto- 
 chordal animals an elaborate system of nerves 
 
152 Tlie Don Quirote of Psychiatry 
 
 exists without a nerve-cell being present. He 
 took the ground that histogenesis was the main 
 function of the nerve-cell, the axis cylinder being 
 produced from the cell. 
 
 His paper, Schmidt on Yellow Fever, which 
 he read in April before the Chicago Biological 
 Society, appeared in the May 'Chicago Medical 
 Journal and Examiner.' H. D. Schmidt of 
 New Orleans was crippled with rheumatoid 
 arthritis, but when it settled in his lower limbs 
 and left his hands free, he was a master of mi- 
 nute injections, and could make sections and 
 drawings that won the admiration of men like 
 NoTT, Leidy, Jewell, Hammond, Spitzka, 
 RoswELL Park, Lester Curtis and E. C. Se- 
 GUiN. Poor Schmidt! he announced his discov- 
 ery of the biliary capillaries as the commence- 
 ment of the hepatic duct, in the 'American Jour- 
 nal of Medical Sciences,' a generation before 
 Clevenger thought of studying medicine, and 
 now Clevenger was trying to push his books, so 
 Schmidt would have a few dollars for himself 
 and family. Schmidt's work on the histol- 
 ogy of the human liver, on the origin and 
 development of the colored blood corpus- 
 cles in man, on the construction of the double- 
 bordered nerve fibre, on the development of 
 
Books and Essays 153 
 
 the smaller vessels in the liiirnjin einhryo, on 
 the structure and function of the ganglionic hod- 
 ies of the cerehro-spinal axis, on the pathological 
 anatomy of leprosy, and his microtome and in- 
 jector, placed him in the forefront of American 
 microscopists, and much of his work was puh- 
 lished in England by the Royal Microscopical 
 Society of London. His masterpiece, however, 
 was his work on the Pathology and Treatment 
 of Yellow Fever — but the sting of a mosquito 
 antiquated the labors of a life-time. 
 
 More trouble was in store for the unhappy 
 Schmidt: a year after Clevenger's eulogy, 
 Koch proclaimed his discovery of the tubercle 
 bacillus, but in America 'Koch's bugs' excited 
 more skepticism than enthusiasm — read George 
 F. Shrady's editorial of unbelief in the 'Medical 
 Record.' And Schmidt, in the 'Chicago Med- 
 ical Journal and Examiner' had the audacity to 
 state that what Koch imagined were bacilli were 
 only crystals. In this year Darwin passed 
 away, but his mantle of gentleness did not de- 
 scend upon Koch. In scathing terms Koch — 
 who had all the truth on his side — answered his 
 American critics, and was especially ironical with 
 Schmidt. The tone of his reply is indicated 
 in these lines: 
 
154 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 . Schmidt however is considered in America to be a 
 great microscopist, and what Schmidt does not see no 
 one else can possibly see. It could, therefore, be no 
 bacilli that the European microscopists saw. The point 
 then is to discover what sort of things they are. This, 
 too, the great microscopist Schmidt very soon dis- 
 covered. They are fat crystals, of course. 
 
 But every scientist has his 'cupboard of mis- 
 takes,' — whether he acknowledges it or not. Ten 
 years later Koch himself published certain 
 statements which time has not upheld. As for 
 Schmidt, we can write his epitaph in a few 
 words : applauded by scientists and neglected by 
 society, he acquired knowledge instead of 
 money, and died without being able to pay his 
 own funeral expenses. He was a beggar with 
 an international reputation. 
 
 Some writers adopt the policy of praising 
 everyone, and as everyone likes to be praised, it 
 is a policy that pays. But Clevenger was more 
 of a 'knocker' than a 'booster.' Toward the end 
 of the year, in his vice-presidential address before 
 the Chicago Electrical Society, on Medical Elec- 
 tricity, which appeared in the November 'Chi- 
 cago Medical Journal and Examiner,' he de- 
 nounced contemporary electrotherapy — some- 
 what as pharmacotherapy is arraigned today. 
 
Boohs and Essays 155 
 
 G. M. Beard and A. D. Rockwell had pub- 
 lished a large book on the subject, which Clev- 
 ENGETi singled out for attack, tho he put all the 
 blame on Beard, whom he called an 'educated 
 quack,' and accused of 'voluminous nonsense,' 
 and of 'show, pretense, glitter, and ovvlishness,' 
 while he explained that 'the junior partner of the 
 firm became disgusted with the trickiness of the 
 senior, and dissolved the partnership.' Beard — ■ 
 famous for his discovery of neurasthenia — made 
 no reply, but Rockwell did not desire Cleven- 
 ger's exemption, and publicly denied that he had 
 any falling out with Beard. Reginald Heber 
 FiTZ, while thanking Clevenger for a reprint, 
 explained that he had begun a thankless task if 
 he intended rapidly to reform the profession and 
 that most Bostonians had renounced the public 
 calling of names, as personal abuse never digni- 
 fies the profession of medicine. Dr Fitz added 
 that he took the liberty of making this criticism 
 from the interest he had in Clevenger's progress 
 and from the somewhat confidential relation in 
 which Clevenger placed him early in his medical 
 career. 
 
 On the other hand, Spitzka approved of 
 Clevenger^s animadversions — ^because he was 
 not a Bostonian, and because he agreed with what 
 
156 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Clevenger had written. It seems, however, that 
 Clevenger was a trifle hasty with his hammer, 
 for within a decade he himself announced a pos- 
 sible electrical treatment for cholera. 
 
 In this year Clevenger became a contributor 
 to John Michel's 'Science,' his first article be- 
 ing his deduction that love is hunger : he pointed 
 out that as monads eat each other and then fis- 
 sion reproduction occurs, this may be extended to 
 all animal life as indicating that the sexual act 
 is an expression of hunger and that love is de- 
 rived from hunger. Naturally, this theory of 
 the common origin and fusion of the sexual and 
 ingestive act, with the demonstration that in some 
 forms of life the sexual act is identical with eat- 
 ing, attracted considerable attention. We may 
 add that in the light of this theory, the common 
 expression of lovers, 'you look sweet enough to 
 eat,' becomes comprehensible. 
 
 To 'Science,' Clevenger contributed also his 
 theory that the thymus and thyroid are rudimen- 
 tary gills. If this is true it might throw some 
 light on the perplexing subject of goitre, but 
 alas! Clevenger never exhibited any interest in 
 proving his theories. He was most assiduous in 
 hatching them, but neglected them as soon as 
 they came into the world. We doubt if many 
 
Boohs and Essays 157 
 
 scientists during 1881 threw so many brilliant 
 and unproved hypotheses into the field as Sho- 
 BAL Vail Clevenger. 
 
 In the following year Ci.evenger's name ap- 
 peared seldom in print, hut he was preparing sev^- 
 eral of the articles which were published in 1883 
 — the Dunning year. A complete bibhography 
 of his writings up to this date, and a complimen- 
 tary notice of the author, appeared in the July 
 'Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner.' This 
 was inserted by James Nevins Hyue, the well- 
 known professor of dermatology at Rush Med- 
 ical College ; Davis was no longer one of the ed- 
 itors, as he was now editing the first volume of the 
 'Journal of the American JNIedical Association.' 
 
 That Cle^tenger already ranked with the lead- 
 ers of the profession is apparent from a notice 
 which appeared in the 'American Journal of 
 Neurology and Psychiatry,' a quarterly edited 
 by Edward Charles Spitzka, Langdon Car- 
 ter Gray, and T. A. ^IcBride. In discussing 
 their prospects for the coming year, the editors 
 stated : 
 
 In addition, our well-known contributors, S. Weie 
 Mitchell, J. S. Jewell, Roberts Bartholow, S. 
 V. Clevengek, J. G. KiERNAN, H. M. Bannister, V. 
 P. GiBNEY, D. R. Browser, Burt G. Wilder and nu- 
 
158 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 merous others, will continue to favor us with the re- 
 sults of their researches from time to time. 
 
 Clevenger contributed twice to the 'American 
 Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry' during 
 1883: a report on the Recent Appearances Ob- 
 served Post Mortem in a Case of Delirium Grave, 
 in August, and Insanity in Children^ in Novem- 
 ber. 
 
 The year 1884 opened auspiciously for Clev- 
 enger, for the January 'American Naturalist' 
 contained his Disadvantages of the Upright Po- 
 sition. He had read it before the University 
 Club of Chicago in 1882, and before the Phila- 
 delphia Academy of Natural Sciences in 1883. 
 The distribution of valves in the veins had long 
 been a standard puzzle, and Clevenger was one 
 of those who determined to solve it. It was plain 
 enough, from the teleological standpoint, why 
 we should have valves in the veins of the arms 
 and legs: obviously to assist the return of blood 
 to the heart against gravitation. But what 
 earthly use, wondered Clevenger, has a man for 
 valves in the intercostal veins which carry blood 
 almost horizontally backward to the azygos 
 veins? When recumbent, these veins are an ac- 
 tual detriment to the free flow of blood. The 
 inferior thyroid veins which drop their blood 
 
Books and Essays 169 
 
 into the innominate are obstructed by valves at 
 their junction. Two pairs of valves are situated 
 in the external jugular and another pair in the 
 internal jugular, but in recognition of their use- 
 lessness they do not prevent regurgitation of 
 blood nor liquids from passing upwards. Fur- 
 thermore, valves are absent from the parts where 
 they are most needed, such as in the venae cava?, 
 spinal, iliac, hemorrhoidal and portal. 
 
 Who could answer this riddle? Not any of 
 the standard text-books of the time, but the light 
 came to Clevenger. He placed man upon 'all 
 fours,' and the law governing the presence and 
 absence of valves became at once apparent : dor- 
 sad veins are valved ; cephalad, ventrad and cau- 
 dad veins have no valves. This discovery rep- 
 resents Clevenger's most important contribu- 
 tion to science. It was another fact for Darwin- 
 ism. 
 
 Clevenger explained that valves would be out 
 of place in the hemorrhoidal veins of quadrupeds, 
 but to their absence in man many a life has been 
 and will be sacrificed, to say nothing of the dis- 
 comfort and distress occasioned by the engorge- 
 ment known as piles, which the presence of 
 valves in these veins would obviate. Besides the 
 law of valved and unvalved veins, Clevenger 
 
160 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 exposed other drawbacks of the upright posi- 
 tion: 
 
 He pointed out that a noticeable departure 
 from the rule obtaining in the vascular system 
 of mammalia also occurs in the exposed situation 
 of the femoral artery in man. The arteries lie 
 deeper than the veins or are otherwise protected 
 for the purpose, the teleologists would argue, of 
 preventing hemorrhage by superficial cuts. 
 From the evolutionary standpoint it would ap- 
 pear that only animals with deeply-placed ar- 
 teries would survive and transmit their peculiari- 
 ties to their offspring, as the ordinary abrasions 
 to which all animals are subject, together with 
 their fierce onslaughts upon one another, would 
 tend to kill off animals with superficially located 
 arteries. But when man assumed the upright 
 posture, the femoral artery, instead of being 
 placed out of reach on the inner part of the^ 
 thigh, became exposed, and were it not that this 
 defect is nearly fully atoned for by his ability 
 to protect the exposed artery in ways the brute 
 could not, he too would have become extinct. 
 Even as it is, this aberration is a fruitful cause of 
 trouble and death. 
 
 Clevenger next pointed out that another dis- 
 advantage which occurs in the upright position 
 
Books and Enmys 161 
 
 of man is his greiiter liability to inguinal hernia: 
 Quadrupeds have the main weight of abdominal 
 viscera supported by ribs and strong pectoral and 
 abdominal muscles. The weakest part of the lat- 
 ter group of muscles is in the region of Poupart's 
 ligament, above the groin. Inguinal hernia is 
 rare in other vertebrates because this weak part 
 is relieved of the visceral stress, but about twenty 
 per cent of the hmnan family are hernia suffer- 
 ers, and strangulated hernia frequently occasions 
 death. 
 
 He then showed the obstetric peril of stand- 
 ing erect; From marsupialia to lemuridee the 
 box-shape pelvis persists, but with the wedge- 
 shape induced in man a remarkable phenomenon 
 also occurs in the increased size of the fetal head 
 in disproportion to the contraction of the pelvic 
 outlet. While the marsupial head is about one- 
 sixth the size of the smallest part of the parturi- 
 ent bony canal, the moment we pass to erect ani- 
 mals the greater relative increase is there in the 
 cranial size with coexisting decrease in the area 
 of the outlet. This altered condition of things 
 has caused the death of millions of otherwise 
 perfectly healthy and well-formed mothers and 
 children. If we are to believe, continued Clev- 
 ENGER, that for our original sin the pangs of 
 
162 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 labor at term were increased, and also believe in 
 the disproportionate contraction of the pelvic 
 space being an efficient cause of the same diffi- 
 culties of parturition, the logical inference is in- 
 evitable that man's original sin consisted in his 
 getting upon his hind legs. 
 
 Clevenger's star-essay brought him a sugges- 
 tive letter from Lawrence University — now re- 
 duced to Lawrence College — of Appleton, Wis- 
 consin, written by a Frank Cramer who is un- 
 known to us, but who brings upon the scene the) 
 geologist and evolutionist Le Conte, one of the 
 most distinguished of American naturalists: 
 
 In a recent correspondence with Prof. Joseph Le 
 Conte, he called my attention to the demonstrative ar- 
 gument for evolution that may be drawn from the dis- 
 tribution of the valves in the veins of the human body ; 
 and said he thought the point was first brought out by 
 Dr Clevenger. 
 
 I have been seeking a number of typical cases of 
 biological investigations that will demonstrate the 
 power of the theory of evolution to direct the investi- 
 gator, or in other words, to give him the ability to fore- 
 see what ought to be looked for and what will probably 
 be found. Investigators are now largely occupied in 
 following out the suggestions of the theory and veri- 
 fying the deductions that flow from it, but while every 
 
Boohs and Essays 168 
 
 new discovery nowadays strengthens the theory, I do 
 not know of any effort to bring together those that 
 were foreseen as deductions of the theory, as Jevons 
 has so beautifully done for some of the other sciences. 
 
 A good type of the kind of discovery to which I 
 refer is given by some of Ehrenberg's work. From 
 a knowledge of the structure of the carpus in other 
 animals arose the deduction that if the theory of man's 
 descent was the true one, the os centrale or some trace 
 of it ought to be found in the wrist of the hiunan em- 
 bryo. Following this deduction, he made the inves- 
 tigation and found what he looked for; and Wieder- 
 SHEiM pronounces it one of the greatest triumphs of 
 the theory in the whole field of morphology. 
 
 If it will not be too great an annoyance to you, will 
 you please give me the order in which the facts and 
 deduction ca^ne to you? Did the theory suggest search 
 for the facts ? or did you know the facts first and after- 
 wards connect them with the theory.? Or did parts of 
 the facts and the theory together lead you to the de- 
 duction and its verification by farther research.'' 
 
 What I desire, as you will readily see, is the logical 
 relation wliich the facts and the theory bore to each 
 other in your own mind. 
 
 A reply directly from you will put me under lasting 
 obligations, and I shall await it with great interest. 
 
 CusvENGER believed that the Disadvantages 
 of the Upiight Position^ when originally deliv- 
 
164 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ered before the University Club of Chicago, had 
 the additional disadvantage of costing him the 
 proffered chair of comparative anatomy and 
 physiology at the University of Chicago. To the 
 printed essay he appended a foot-note, directing 
 attention to the institution's antagonism to Dar- 
 winism, flaying it as a tottering university — a 
 type of the school which was responsible for East- 
 ern colleges being filled with Western youth — 
 and calmly predicting that it would be five hun- 
 dred years before abstract science could be sup- 
 ported in Chicago. 
 
 Edson S. Bastin, who was the professor of 
 botany, but incidentally filled all the other scien- 
 tific chairs in the University of Chicago, may 
 not have cared to prophesy five hundred years 
 ahead, but he could testify that abstract science 
 in Chicago was not supporting him in the year 
 1884, for he was then engaged in suing the uni- 
 versity for his salary. He wrote to Clevenger, 
 who was then pathologist at Dunning: 
 
 I notice the January 'Naturalist' has your Disad- 
 vantages of the Upright Position, with a blast that 
 will awaken the sleepers, in the form of a foot-note at 
 the end. President Andeeson will doubtless think hard 
 of me if the article meets his eye, but since Dr Garrison 
 and I have declared war on the institution by bringing 
 
Boohs and Essays 165 
 
 suit against it for back \nxy, your statements will only 
 add zest to tlie contest. I have suffered enough injus- 
 tice at the hands of that institution, and I think no 
 hann will now bo done if one great Baptist bubble be 
 pricked. This suh rosa, however. 
 
 I congratulate you on your valuable article, and 
 thank you personally for the kindly mention you have 
 made of me. 
 
 I am sorry I so seldom meet you this year. I very 
 much miss the pleasant talks we were accustomed to 
 have together. Do call on me when you come into the 
 city. 
 
 In the same month in which the Disadvantages 
 appeared in the 'American Naturalist,' Cleven- 
 ger's Paretic Dementia in Females appeared in 
 the 'Alienist and Neurologist,' the quarterly 
 founded and so long edited by Charles Ham- 
 ilton Hughes, of St Louis. In this volume of 
 the 'Alienist and Neurologist,' M. J. Madigan 
 published a lengthy treatise on Was Giiiteau In- 
 sane? He answered the question in the affirma- 
 tive, and in summing up the most eminent neu- 
 rologists, in America and abroad, who adopted a 
 similar view, he included the name of Cleyexger. 
 
 In Februarj^ in the 'Chicago INIedical Journal 
 and Examiner,' Clevenger began a series of 
 Clinical and Pathological Reports of Cases of 
 
166 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Insanity, taken from his records at Dunning. 
 The first case he reported was that of a Swede 
 who was suffering from melanchoHa due to lead 
 poisoning. Clevenger ended his remarks with 
 the suggestion, 'Sanitary boards would do well 
 to examine into the conduct of lead factories, and 
 insist upon proper measures being adopted to 
 protect worlvmen against plumbic toxemia.' 
 Thirty-five years have passed since these words 
 were written, but the slaughter is still unabated. 
 On the battlefields, lead kills men in time of war, 
 but in the industries, lead kills men — and women 
 — during war and peace alike. 
 
 In the April report, he used the word paranoia 
 — the first time that this now-familiar term was 
 employed on this side of the Atlantic. This 
 paper contained his deduction that females 
 largely inherit their insanity, while males largely 
 acquire theirs. We quote Clevenger's original 
 reference to paranoia: 
 
 In former clinical reports I mentioned monomania as 
 a misnomer, and suggested that a name conveying the 
 idea of logical perversion would be more appropriate 
 for this disorder. Since then I have encountered the 
 term paranoia, as used by GrosEPPE Amadei and Silvio 
 ToNNiNi, for this form of insanity, in the November, 
 1883, leading article of the 'Archivio Italiano per le 
 
CHARLES HAMILTON HUGHES 
 
Boohs and Essays 167 
 
 Malattie Nervo.so e Alienazoni Montali,' the or^nn of 
 the Italian Societa Frcniatrica, and in the expectation 
 that it will come into general use instead of the word 
 which has caused so much misunderstanding, have 
 adopted it. 
 
 Clevengeii concluded this strenuous year with 
 a monograph on Nervous and Mental Physics, in 
 the August and November 'American Journal of 
 Neurology and Psychiatry.' 
 
 The outstanding event of 1885 was the appear- 
 ance of Clevenger's second book, Com'parative 
 Physiology and Psychology, published by Jan- 
 sen, McClurg & Company, of Chicago. This 
 thoughtful and technical production was ar- 
 ranged for the printer during the turmoil at the 
 Dunning Asylum, tho most of the ideas were 
 taken from his earlier writings. Like the true 
 monist that he was, he affirmed that mind must 
 be regarded as a mechanism and that an admis- 
 sion of the supernatural ends investigation. 
 Starting with the immortal ameba, he traced 
 objectively the evolution of the human brain. 
 Clevenger's Comparative Physiology and Psy- 
 chology is a book unmarred by a superstition; 
 theology has no place here, teleology is flouted, 
 and metaphysics is defined as 'lunar politics ;' the 
 
168 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 spirit of science is evoked in these pages: the 
 author lived among Mike McDonald's hench- 
 men when he prepared this volume for the press, 
 but he stood where Ernest Haeckel stands, 
 breathing the air of unadulterated rationalism. 
 
 In January, 1886, he contributed Neurological 
 NoteSj from the Alexian Brothers Hospital, to 
 the 'Western Medical Reporter.' In February, 
 his Contribution to Neurological Therapeutics 
 appeared in the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental 
 Disease.' This paper was a plea for the employ- 
 ment of secale cornutum in neurology; even in 
 epilepsy, he preferred ergot to the bromides. As 
 a rule, Clevenger named the bromides only to 
 condemn them — in which respect he differed 
 from Beard who declared the bromides a specific 
 ranking with opium, quinine and electricity. 
 Je^vell had been unable to make his 'Journal 
 of Nervous and Mental Disease,' pay expenses, 
 and it was edited by W. J. Morton from 1882 to 
 1885, but was now piloted by Bernard Sachs, 
 under whose direction it was transformed from a 
 quarterly to a monthly. 
 
 The 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation,' founded in 1883, was edited by Nathan 
 Smith Davis, who had left the 'Chicago Medical 
 Journal and Examiner' for that purpose; in the 
 
Books and Essays 169 
 
 second volume, Ci-kvenger's nuiiie .'ij)i)eare(l 
 among the editorial items: 
 
 Dr Ci.kv[':n(;kii, of this city, su^^csts >i.s a ready 
 means of ascertaining tlic existence and locations of 
 small abrasions, needing a touch of the caustic be- 
 fore holding a post-mortem examination, the holding 
 of the hands over strong aqua ammonia for a moment, 
 when the smarting will quickly reveal all the sensitive 
 or abraded places, however minute. 
 
 There were further references to him in this 
 periodical, but his first contribution to the 'Jour- 
 nal of the American Medical Association' oc- 
 curred during 1887, when his Juiisiirudence of 
 Nervous and Mental Disease, which he had read 
 before the jurisprudence section of the American 
 Medical Association, appeared in the November 
 issue. 
 
 The 'American Naturalist' of July, 1888, con- 
 tained Clevenger^s Cerehrology and the possible 
 something in Phrenology, explaining the few 
 truths in old phrenology and the reasons for cere- 
 hrology taking the place of fallacious skull read- 
 ing. In 1873 Cle^^nger had paid twenty-five 
 dollars to the self-styled Professor O. S. Fowler, 
 for a phrenological reading, which is still pre- 
 served. Fifteen years later, the scientific Clev- 
 
170 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ENGER returned a fitting answer to this ignorant 
 and pretentious charlatan who was never brought 
 to justice. 
 
 In 1886, the 'American Lithographer' had 
 pubHshed the lectures which Clevenger de- 
 livered at the Chicago Academy of Fine Ai'ts, 
 in the capacity of instructor of artistic anatomy. 
 This series of discourses is interesting as an at- 
 tempt to bring the evolutionary doctrine into the 
 art student's domain, and the class certainly 
 heard more of Darwin and Spencer than of 
 Raphael and Joshua Reynolds. Clevenger 
 endeavored to show the relationship that exists 
 between science and the arts, and he pointed out 
 certain errors that famous artists made because 
 of their unfamiliarity with anatomy and physics. 
 It was characteristic of the man that he ter- 
 minated his course with an adjuration to drop the 
 outworn Joves and Venuses, and represent mod- 
 ern conditions. Like an exhortation from 
 Kropotkin's fiery pamphlet. An Appeal to the 
 Young, is Clevenger's concluding paragraph: 
 
 There exist prison brutalities for jou to expose. 
 Charles Reade attempted this in Never Too Late to 
 Mend, and in his Hard Cash he gave accounts of insane 
 asylum atrocities. Such works as his and Charles 
 Dickens' tales of Dothebojs .Hall have done some- 
 
Books and Essays 171 
 
 thing toward instituting reforms, but there is still an 
 immense amount of labor to be done. I have been per- 
 sonally made aware of the hideous management of 
 county insane asylums by bar-keeper politicians, and 
 believe that were the artist to bring the real state of 
 things to public view the appeal to humanity would be 
 more effective than thru rhetoric or 'investigations' in- 
 tended to exculpate the offender and hide the truth. 
 
 After this series had been printed in the maga- 
 zine, arrangements were made to bring it out 
 in book- form, under the title. Lectures on Artis- 
 tic Anatomy. Illustrations were secured, and 
 the pages were electrotyped. Most appropri- 
 ately the volume was consecrated to the memory 
 of his father, and the dedicatory page quoted the 
 beautiful lines that Boston's uncrowned ruler, 
 Edward Everett, addressed to the sculptor on 
 receiving the bust for which he had sat: 
 
 Time, care and sickness bend the frame 
 Back to the dust from whence it came ; 
 The blooming cheek, the sparkling eye 
 In mournful ruins soon must lie; 
 The pride of form, the charm of grace 
 Must fade away, nor leave a trace. 
 
 They shall not fade; for Art can raise 
 A counterpart that ne'er decays : 
 
172 The Don Quiocote of Psychiatry 
 
 Time, care and sickness strive in vain 
 The power of genius to restrain. 
 
 Thou, Clevenger, from lifeless clay 
 Canst mould what ne'er shall fade away, 
 Fashion in stone that cannot die, 
 The breathing lip, the speaking eye; 
 And while frail nature sinks to dust. 
 Create the all but living bust. 
 
 Everything seemed in readiness for the publi- 
 cation, but certain parties concerned in the ven- 
 ture were guilty of delay, and this dilatoriness 
 caused others to retreat, and the plates were sent 
 to another publisher, and then to still another 
 who kept them a twelvemonth, and finally 
 shipped them to a firm in Chicago where they 
 were burnt in 1888 in a printing-house fire. So 
 nothing now remains of the work except a soli- 
 tary dummy bound in boards, and we are justi- 
 fied in claiming that the Lectures on Artistid 
 Anatomy is one of the rarest volumes in the 
 world. 
 
 But Clevenger was already roaming in fields 
 far removed from the Chicago Art Institute. 
 He was a student of railways — he was studying 
 those vague and ambiguous injuries to the nerv- 
 ous system, often received in railway accidents. 
 
Books and Essays 173 
 
 in which the anatomical changes in the spinal 
 column are either ahsent, indefinite, or iindemon- 
 strable, but which leave the victim a neurasthenic 
 wreck. The 'railway spine' had been discovered 
 in England by John Eric Eiuchsen, who was 
 born in Copenhagen — and certain Englishmen 
 heartily wished he had remained in his native 
 land, whether there is something rotten in Den- 
 mark or not. But Erichsen matriculated at 
 the University College of London, and eventu- 
 ally became professor in that institution, — where 
 he taught Lister — winning much admiration by 
 his lectures and clinical work. He was president 
 of the College of Surgeons, and of the Royal 
 Medical and Chirurgical Society, and after being 
 surgeon-extraordinary to Queen Victoria, was 
 created a baronet. His Science and Art of 
 Surgery passed thru several editions, and Erich- 
 sen is counted among the makers of modern 
 surgery. 
 
 His Concussion of the Spine made his name a 
 storm-center, as the corporations naturally took 
 the ground that the owners of the railway spine 
 were simply shamming. Herbert W. Page 
 wrote a volume to prove that the railway spine 
 was a mj^th, but the enormous smiis which Eng- 
 lish jm*ies awarded the plaintiffs were exceed- 
 
174 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ingly substantial, and involved the opposing 
 physicians in the bitterest acrimony. Eleven 
 million dollars in damages, within five years, for 
 a new disease, cannot be doled out with a smile. 
 
 The warfare extended across the Atlantic, and 
 in the eighties Spitzka wrote on Spinal Injuries 
 as a Basis of Litigation, and J. J. Putnam and 
 G. L. Walton pointed out the hysterical nature 
 of the malady. Clevenger then attacked the 
 problem ; moderation was never his middle name, 
 and he became Erichsen's warmest advocate. 
 In 1889, the F. A. Davis Company of Phila- 
 delphia, brought out Clevenger's Spinal Con- 
 cussionj 'surgically considered as a cause of 
 spinal injury, and neurologically restricted to a 
 certain symptom group, for which is suggested 
 the designation Erichse^is disease, as one form of 
 the traumatic neuroses,' — this being the first time 
 that concussion of the spine was called Erichsen's 
 disease. 
 
 Clevenger reviewed and analysed the available 
 literature on the subject, and then worked out his 
 own theory that injury to the sympathetic nerve 
 fibrils between the spinal cord and anterior sym- 
 pathetic spinal ganglia accounted for much of^ 
 the phenomena in this traumatic neurosis. 
 
 To find concussion of the spine regarded as a 
 
Books and Essays 175 
 
 clinical entity, and his own name eponymic, was 
 naturally agreeable to Sir John Eric Euiciisen, 
 and he sent Clevengkr this cordial letter: 
 
 Pray accept my best thanks for the copy of your 
 work on Spmal Concussion which I have just received 
 from your publishers. The subject seems to be most 
 admirably and exhaustively treated by you. 
 
 I assure you that I feel much gratified and very 
 highly flattered by having my name appended by you 
 to the group of symptoms — so very characteristic and 
 unmistakable when taken in the concrete — which I be- 
 lieve I was the first to describe, which results from that 
 peculiar form of spinal injury now recognized under 
 the term of 'Spinal Concussion.' 
 
 Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since I 
 first wrote on the subject, and it is a matter of sin- 
 cere gratification to me to find that the views I then 
 entertained, and the opinions I gave utterance to, 
 have in great measure been accepted by such distin- 
 guished neurologists as yourself, Eeb and others. 
 
 Altho the mere phrase, 'spinal concussion,' was 
 provocative of ire, Clevenger aroused a little 
 extra animosity by such cogitations as the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 ^o 
 
 It is sad to reflect, however, that the majority of 
 medical men in our country have never seen a human 
 
176 The Don Quiooote of Psychiatry 
 
 spinal cord and would not recognize one if they did see 
 it. 
 
 Clevenger's Spinal Concussion was the signal 
 for a renewal of the battle: followers rallied to 
 his defence and pronounced his theory the most 
 plausible that had yet appeared, while it was the 
 vociferous contention of his opponents that, 
 Erichsens disease should be named 'blackmailer's 
 disease,' as the litigants were speedily cured upon 
 receipt of damages. 
 
 The spread of periodical literature in the nine- 
 teenth century put an end to the importance of 
 the pamphlet, but 'railway spine' had its pam- 
 phleteer in Dr G. M. Dewey, of Keytesville, 
 Missouri. From his eight-page lampoon we cite 
 these passages: 
 
 A new disease to trouble men 
 
 Has come to light thru Erichsen; 
 
 Wlio ever heard, before his time, 
 
 Of such complaint as 'railway spine'? 
 
 It was the purpose of the Lord 
 
 To save from harm the spinal cord. 
 
 Protection for the cord was made 
 
 Before a railway track was laid. 
 
 Enclosed within a solid case. 
 
 It seemed secure for all the race; 
 
LETTER FR05t JOHN ERIC ERICHSEK 
 
 177 
 
178 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 A bony process on each side, 
 No evil from it could betide; 
 An osseous column from behind 
 In close proximity we find; 
 In front a solid fort we see 
 The bodies of the vertebrae ; 
 To make the cord still more secure, 
 From shock and violence insure. 
 The spine was made of many cones, 
 With cartilage between the bones ; 
 A great success this would have been. 
 But for John Eric Erichsen ; 
 But ever since he wrote his book, 
 The spinal cord is getting shook. 
 And scarce a term of court goes by. 
 That does not have a case to try. 
 The slightest bruise, the merest jar. 
 If gotten on a railway car, 
 Is sure to end in course of time 
 In a concussion of the spine. . . . 
 
 There seems to be an inclination 
 In men to rob a corporation. 
 So common is this thing of late 
 That stealing seems legitimate. . . . 
 The damage by the jury set. 
 Attorneys half the boodle get. . . . 
 No ante, or postmortem sign. 
 Can diagnose a 'railway spine ;' 
 
Boohs and Essays 179 
 
 Tiie microscope is sought in vain 
 The dubious symptoms to explain; 
 Subjective signs, if signs at all — 
 An open door for fraud for all. 
 Away with fairness, truth and skill. 
 While men malinger at their will. 
 What can be done, what can avail, 
 In shock from the pernicious rail? 
 Of antiseptics, none are sure 
 To even make a transient cure; 
 Nerve tonics, very often tried. 
 Failing, have all been laid aside; 
 Neurosthenics without name, 
 Have not relieved a single pain ; 
 The iodides, when in some doubt, 
 Will often help a doctor out; 
 Have not, up to the present time. 
 Relieved a case of 'railway spine;' 
 One remedy that never fails. 
 In shocks from the pernicious rails; 
 In all conditions it is sure 
 To make a quick, a speedy cure; 
 Specifics may be flaunted at. 
 And much of charlatanry smack ; 
 But greenbacks have not failed thus far 
 To heal the direct railway jar. 
 
 Of late there's sprung some Western men 
 Who may eclipse John Erichsen; 
 
180 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Chicago has produced a man 
 Who now stands foremost in the van ; 
 Clevengeu has at last found out 
 The great morbific cause, no doubt; 
 Wliile on the gentle sleeper rocked, 
 The sympathetic nerve gets shocked; 
 He puts this theory in his book. 
 Where all may see it if they look; 
 And every pain that flesh is heir 
 Is put down as a symptom there. 
 The book was writ beyond a doubt 
 To help the rascal plaintiffs out. 
 The writer seems in quite a rage 
 To counteract the views of Page; 
 The only thing he claims as new 
 Is the great sympathetic view. 
 The ganglions spend all their time 
 In getting up a 'railway spine ;' 
 Since this new function they have got, 
 Against the cord they daily plot. 
 These writers on the record go 
 For what they think, not what they know. 
 The cord was safe up to the time 
 John Eric made the 'railway spine;' 
 Now every day some fellows get 
 Their sympathetic nerves upset. 
 And to the law in haste appeal, 
 Where juries will condone the steal. 
 
Books and Essays 181 
 
 The 'Alienist and Neurologist,' for July, 1800, 
 contained Ct-evionoer's Infant Frodujy, the 
 story of Oscar M oore, of Waco, Texas. Oscar 
 was a niidatto, blind from birth, and while still 
 in his cradle he corrected his elder brothers and 
 sisters who stumbled over the multiplication- 
 table. As Brann the Iconoclast also hailed 
 from Waco, little Oscar could not claim to be 
 the only phenomenon that came out of that town, 
 but he was wellworth scientific attention. When 
 he came under Clevenger^s notice in Chicago, he 
 was three years old, and already had a marvelous 
 stock of information — enough to fill a handbook ; 
 whatever he heard he remembered, whether it 
 was the population of American cities, a speech 
 on the tariff, or a prayer in Chinese. He could 
 recite poems in various languages, and could re-, 
 peat an astonishing array of statistics. Clev- 
 ENGER exhibited him in the Central JMusic Hall, 
 and as the sightless colored child stood on the 
 platform in his golden cage, answering question 
 after question which the assembled physicians 
 asked him, he was indeed an enigma. At the 
 request of Henry ]M. Lyman, the professor of, 
 neurology, Clevenger exhibited his prodigy to 
 the students of the Rush Medical College. 
 Gould and Pyle quote Clevenger's Infant 
 
182 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Prodigy in their volume of endless fascination, 
 Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. Unfor- 
 tunately, Oscar did not survive childhood. In 
 October, Clevenger had another article in the 
 'Alienist and Neurologist,' on Heart Disease in 
 Insanity and a Case of Panphobia. 
 
 During this year the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation met at Nashville, Tennessee, and Clev- 
 enger was one of the participants, but was prob- 
 ably more interested in revisiting the scenes of 
 his old army days than in attending the meetings : 
 he found that the barracks which he had used for 
 his recruits had become an hotel, and the fort on 
 the hill was displaced by Fisk University, but 
 when a native spoke to him, Clevenger heard 
 that the Dixie dialect was still unchanged. At 
 the jurisprudence section, Clevenger did some 
 propaganda work by reading a paper on Erich- 
 sens Disease as a Form of the Traumatic 
 Neuroses. His views were tartly attacked by 
 Herbert Judd and Clarke Gapen, but he was 
 amply defended by Harold N. Moyer and 
 James G. Kiernan, while Professor Lydston 
 declared, 'Clevenger's explanation of the path- 
 ology of the varying phenomena of spinal con- 
 cussion is thus far the only rational and intel- 
 ligible one in medical literature.' Clevenger's 
 
Books and Essays 188 
 
 paper appeared as the leading article in both the 
 'Journal of the American Medical Association,' 
 and in the 'Boston Medical and Surgical Jour- 
 nal.' 
 
 But by 1890, Clevenger's research work was 
 over, and he began to write various brief and 
 ephemeral articles for the general medical press ; 
 the 'Medical Standard,' whose editors have al- 
 ways been anonymous, received some of these; 
 his Inebriety Notes ran thru three issues of T. D. 
 Crothehs' 'Quarterly Journal of Inebriety;' he 
 wrote Physics in a Pharmacy Course for the 
 'Western Druggist,' and contributed copiously 
 to the Philadelphia weekly, 'The Times and 
 Register,' which had formerly been conducted by 
 Horatio C. Wood, and was now under the edi- 
 torship of William Francis Waugh. Dr 
 Waugh was a pupil of Samuel David Gross, 
 but developed into an internist instead of a sur- 
 geon; he was a founder of the Medico-Chirur- 
 gical College, and its first professor of medicine ; 
 in an era of therapeutic doubt, Waugh had a 
 positive faith in drugs — sometimes more positive 
 than scientific. He was a forward-looking phy- 
 sician, and one of the best editorial writers in the 
 profession — which is perhaps a half-hearted 
 compliment, since nearly all our editorial writers 
 
184 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 •are utterly execrable. Waugh originated cer- 
 tain intestinal antiseptics and astringents for fer- 
 mentative diarrhea, such as the sulphocarbolate 
 of zinc, that Clevenger applauded as un- 
 equalled, but Clevenger regarded Waugh 's 
 later connexion with the Abbott Alkaloidal 
 Company as unfortunate — for Waugh. Clev- 
 enger and Waugh were kindred spirits, and 
 there was a sympathetic understanding between 
 the two men. 
 
 In Waugh's journal he published his Address 
 to the Chicago Academy of Medicine; it is a 
 compendium of muckraking, and in showing that 
 science and politics make a monstrous combina- 
 tion, Clevenger wandered as far afield as pale- 
 ontology: 'Professor Cope,' he asserted, 'has 
 shown that the official geological surveys are de- 
 bauched by pseudo-scientists who publish great 
 volumes of falsehoods at the government's ex- 
 pense ; and recent exposures have damned official 
 American paleontology for all time in necessitat- 
 ing the rewriting of text-books that assumed the 
 alleged discoveries as true.' This was a slap at 
 Professor Marsh, of Yale, whom, however, he 
 does not name. There are those who say that 
 Othniel Charles Marsh had few peers as a 
 paleontologist, but we need not advance our own 
 
0M^^ ^i^^^^^'-^-^^c^.^,^^. 
 
Books and Essays 185 
 
 opinion, since it has become the fashion to refer 
 all paleontological problems to Heney Fair- 
 field OSBORN. 
 
 This address had been delivered at the organi- 
 zation meeting of the Academy, Ci.evenger })cing 
 one of its founders and its first secretary. How 
 much such a society was desired in Chicago is evi- 
 denced by the fact that the foremost physicians 
 and surgeons of the city became Fellows, and 
 either read papers at the monthly meetings or 
 took part in the discussions. Among its Active 
 Fellows were Nicholas Senn, John B. Mur- 
 phy, John Ridlon, William Augustus Evans, 
 LuDwiG Hektoen, Henry Gradle, W. S. 
 Christopher, Casey A. Wood, Daniel R. 
 Brovter, James G. Kiernan, Henry M. 
 Bannister, E. C. Dudley, G. F. Lydston, 
 Eugene S. Talbot, Arthur Dean Bevan, 
 William Allen Pusey, Hugh T. Patrick, 
 William Francis Waugh, when he became a 
 Chicagoan, and Harriet Alexander, who must 
 have been a learned woman, since Kiernan 
 quoted her so frequently. But altho the Chicago 
 Academy of Medicine officially professed to be 
 modeled after the New^ York Academy of iMedi- 
 cine, within a comparatively few years it ceased 
 to exist. In simple language Truthful James 
 
186 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 of Table Mountain explained what broke up the 
 proceedings of the scientific society upon the 
 Stanislau, but we have never been able to ascer- 
 tain what caused the Chicago Academy of Medis 
 cine to disband — perhaps because Dr Kiernan 
 quoted Dr Harriet too often. 
 
 In 1891, Clevenger continued his miscel- 
 lanea: he wrote for the 'Western Medical Re- 
 porter,' the 'North American Practitioner,' and 
 began Psychological Studies of Physicians for 
 the 'Medical Progress' of Louisville. Number 
 One was a comparison between honest old Paoli 
 and HoLLiSTER whom he described under the 
 name of Dr Oleaginous. Psychological Study 
 Number Two never appeared — but what writer 
 has not promised an editor a series of articles 
 and then failed to write them? The 'Times and 
 Register' of July fourth, contained Clevenger's 
 Softening of the Brain, in which he showed that 
 this omnibus term has no place in scientific 
 nomenclature. Two of his articles appeared in 
 the 'American Naturalist' during this year: The 
 Coming Man, in July, and in November, han- 
 guage and Maoc Milller, in which he criticized 
 certain of the theories of this famous philologist. 
 It was no trouble for Clevenger to criticize 
 anyone. 
 
Boohs and Essays 187 
 
 During 1892, he wrote various notes for 
 'Science,' such as Preliminary Note on Sleep, 
 and the longer Brain and Skull Correlations. 
 To the 'Times and Register' he contributed the 
 Acid Prevention of Cholera, suggesting the 
 acidulation of the lower bowel by galvanism, as 
 the cholera germ thrives in the alkaline intestinal 
 fluids, but is destroyed by acid. Many of the, 
 journals that have been named above, especially 
 Waugh's magazine, were now the beneficiaries 
 of his prolific pen, but most of his contributions 
 were either 'fillers' or re-statements of his former 
 ideas. A brief address before the Evolution 
 Club on Nervous and Mental Asjjects on Vivi- 
 section, showing the value of animal experimen- 
 tation in neurology and psychiatry, appeared in 
 the 'Religio-Philosophical Journal;' a more 
 formal address, before the Chicago Academy of 
 Medicine, on Natural Analogies, was published 
 in the 'American Naturalist.' At the request of 
 Mr Clark Bell he wrote a short autobiograph- 
 ical sketch for the 'INIedico-Legal Journal,' but 
 in spite of the implied compliment, Clevenger 
 had a poor opinion of Clark Bell, Esquire — in 
 which opinion we cheerfully concur. A medico- 
 legal editor who fills his pages with astrology, 
 simply advertises his asininity. 
 
188 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 During 1893, further notes appeared in 'Sci- 
 ence,' and the 'Times and Register' was not for- 
 gotten, but no noteworthy production issued 
 from his pen. The medical press, however, ex- 
 ists on ephemera. 
 
 In 1894, Clevenger's Sleep, Sleeplessness and 
 Hypnotics appeared in the 'Journal of the 
 American Medical Association,' which had not 
 yet commenced its assaults on proprietaries, for 
 this contribution was really a eulogy of chloral- 
 amid. Lehn & Fink promptly put this pane- 
 gyric in pamphlet-form, and mailed copies to 
 physicians all over the country. The article had 
 appeared originally in March, and by November} 
 this firm had distributed twenty-five thousand 
 reprints. So at last Clevenger was a popular 
 medical author. Neglect has now descended 
 upon chloralamid, and under its full-dress name 
 of chloralformamidum it is no longer official, but 
 Clevenger always regarded it as the best of hyp- 
 notics and the safest of sleep-producers. In 
 November of this year, Clevenger's Mysopho- 
 hia, a case report of insane dread of contamina- 
 tion, was published in the 'Western Medical Re- 
 porter.' 
 
 For the next few years, Clevenger's contribu- 
 tions to periodical literature were confined 
 
Books and Essays 189 
 
 largely to the 'Journal of the American Medical 
 Association.' In Conservative Brain Surgery, 
 which was puhlishcd in June, 189.'5, he flayed Dr 
 Lanpheaii, who in Ijcclures on Intracranial 
 Surgery, had claimed impossi})ly brilliant results 
 in operative cerebrology. Emory Lanpiiear 
 may have been shocked at this criticism, but since 
 that time he has been exposed so frequently that 
 he must have acquired immunity to ethical at- 
 tacks. Clevenger's Post-Alcoholiwi appeared 
 in the 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation,' during October. 
 
 The 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation' of February, 1896, published the final 
 version of Clevenger's The Mercurials — a thesis 
 upon which he had been working since his school- 
 days, his preliminary reports having appeared, 
 in the eighties, in the 'Chicago Medical Review,' 
 'Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner,' 
 'Ajnerican Journal of Microscopy,' 'Chicago 
 Druggist,' and 'Galliard's Medical Journal.' 
 Taking as his text, the words of Franklin 
 Bache, 'Of the modus operandi of mercury we 
 know nothing, except that it acts thru the medi- 
 um of the circulation, and that it possesses a 
 peculiar alterative power over the vital functions, 
 which enables it in many cases to subvert diseased 
 
190 The Don Qiiivote of Psychiatry 
 
 actions,' Clevenger proceeded to investigate its 
 microscopy, chemistry, toxicology, physiological 
 action and therapeutics. 
 
 The chief result of these studies was Clev- 
 enger's mechanical explanation of the mercurials 
 in therapeusis. He took the ground that mercury 
 acts mechanically as a deobstruent upon the 
 glands and lesser tubular structures, by virtue 
 of its unstable chemic properties, its volatility 
 and great weight, claiming that all the salts of 
 mercury are reduced to oxides and mercurial 
 globules, exerting their pecuhar effects mainly 
 by their occluding action upon the minute tubules 
 of the body, the syphilitic organism being en- 
 closed by the mercury globules acting similarly 
 to phagocytes in passing the micro-organism to- 
 ward the emunctories. 
 
 Clevengee's experimentation was certainly 
 suggestive, and to no other one subject was he 
 faithful for so extended a period, but contem- 
 porary text-books describe mercury without 
 mentioning Clevenger's researches — and we 
 confess that our acquaintance with the dynamics 
 of hydrargyrum is insufficient to enable us to 
 judge whether the text-books or Clevenger's| 
 researches are at fault. It should be stated that 
 former editions of Horatio C. Wood's standard 
 
Boohs and Essays 191 
 
 Therapeutics carried a foot-note reference to 
 Clevenger's The Mercurials, but even this foot- 
 note has disappeared. According to Clevenger, 
 Professor Wood deleted this foot-note from later 
 editions of his text-book because in the meantime 
 Clevenger had criticized Wood's granular 
 medulla of hydrophobia as an alcohol preserva- 
 tive artefact, and in revenge the angry Wood 
 resolved to advertise Clevenger no more. We 
 trust that this version is not strictly accurate, 
 but it is true that Clevenger could have col- 
 laborated with Whistler in writing the Gentle 
 Art of Making Enemies. 
 
 In the same month that The Mercurials was 
 published, Clevenger contributed Some Mis- 
 leading Medical Misnomers to Edward C. 
 Register's 'Charlotte Medical Journal,' which 
 was almost as worthless a periodical then as it is 
 today. Clevenger's article, however, was a val- 
 uable one, for he inveighed against descriptive 
 naming in medicine, and pleaded for eponymic 
 terms. Explaining that electricians secured pre- 
 cision by avoiding descriptive phrases, and adopt- 
 ing such eponyms as farad, watt, ampere, ohm, 
 faradic, galvanic, franklinic, after the discoverers 
 of these measurements and currents, Clevenger 
 pointed out that if the condition first described 
 
192 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 by Bayle had been named Bayle's disease in- 
 stead of paretic dementia, or general paralysis 
 of the insane, or progressive paresis, much con- 
 fusion would have been avoided, and profession 
 and public would be compelled to learn just what 
 symptoms constitute Bayle's disease instead of 
 guessing at them from the descriptive title. The 
 Basle Anatomical Nomenclature is triumphant 
 today, but we predict — at least we hope — it will 
 be superseded by a nomenclature that adopts, 
 instead of abandoning, eponyms, tho of course 
 there is more excuse for descriptive terms in 
 anatomy than in any of the clinical branches of 
 medicine. 
 
 In May of this year, Clevenger's Treatment 
 of the Insane was read by title in the section of 
 State Medicine at the annual meeting of the 
 American Medical Association, held at Atlanta, 
 Georgia, and appeared in the 'Journal of the 
 American Medical Association,' for Oct6ber. It 
 was a review of the methods of treating the insane 
 in various countries and ages — fourteen long 
 columns of infamies and horrors. 
 
 In January, 1897, the 'Journal of the Ameri- 
 can Medical Association' published Clevengee's 
 Pain and its Therapeusis^ in which he wrote that 
 lactophenin 'is destined largely to supersede the 
 
Boohs and "Essays 103 
 
 entire array of analgesics proper, owing to its 
 non-toxic peculiarities' and other virtues. Ci.ev- 
 enger's prophecies were numerous, but nearly 
 always incorrect — the usual fate of predictions; 
 in spite of his foretokening a gi-eat future for 
 lactophenin, it is now regarded merely as a weak 
 brother of phenacetin. Pain and its Therapeu- 
 sis was Clevenger's last article in the 'Journal 
 of the American Medical Association,' and it 
 represents — with the exception of a few minor 
 reports in unimportant periodicals — his final con- 
 tribution to medical journalism. 
 
 In the following year, 1898, when he was fifty- 
 five years of age, appeared his biggest book — the 
 Medical Junsprudence of Insanity, published in 
 two stately volumes by the Lawyers' Co-opera- 
 tive Publishing Company, of Rochester, New 
 York. Certainly it contains considerable valu- 
 able information on forensic psychiatry, and 
 Clevenger was immensely proud of this 
 achievement, and of course some of his friends — 
 like attorney Luther Laflin JNIills — told him 
 it was the best treatise on the subject in any 
 language, but it has not reached a second edition, 
 and never will, and it did not rank the name of 
 Clevenger with Theodoric Romeyn Beck, 
 Isaac Ray, John Ordronaux, and John James 
 
194 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Reese. In brief, Clevenger^s large Medical 
 Jurisprudence of Insanity is not a landmark in 
 legal medicine. 
 
 Dr Clevenger claimed this work was based 
 on memoranda that he had been gathering for 
 a generation; to collect notes is commendable, 
 but they must be put together so the patches do 
 not show. In the finished statue, the scaffolding 
 should not be seen. Previous writings, quota- 
 tions from others, personal observations, news- 
 paper clippings, bunches of odds and ends, ex- 
 traneous and adventitious comments, and addi- 
 tional knowledge, must be slowly and skilfully 
 moulded into homogeneity. Several of his pas- 
 sages read like hastily-scribbled jottings that 
 have been pulled out of a drawer, instead of well- 
 considered and final phrases. One of the chiefj 
 defects of Clevenger's books is that they are not 
 organic buildings raised anew, but are second- 
 hand structures put together from previous 
 pieces. It is true that the blocks he uses are his 
 own, but when once employed elsewhere they 
 cannot fit so well into future work unless plenty! 
 of cement is applied. In the Medical Jurispru- 
 dence of Insanity, there is a discursiveness and 
 diffuseness all thru the volumes, and we miss 
 the conciseness, the systematized classification. 
 
Books and Essays 195 
 
 and those sonorous sentences that we find with 
 pleasure in Spitzka. 
 
 For example, the lengthy chapter on Treat- 
 ment is suggestive and interesting, but it is so 
 mal-arranged that if we wish to look up a cer- 
 tain line of therapy, or wish to find a list of drugs 
 employed in insanity, we must hunt thru the en- 
 tire chapter ; obviously, it would have been better 
 to discuss the subject in logical order: first, the 
 prophylactic and psychical treatment, then the 
 dietetic and hygienic treatment, finally the medic- 
 inal and surgical treatment. Essays may be 
 lawless, but text-books must follow a system. 
 
 'The insane have more often been harmed than 
 helped by medicines,' is the statement with which 
 Clevenger opens this chapter. It is a dictum 
 that would have aroused opposition in the days 
 when men believed blindly in the materia medica, 
 but today most doctors will not only admit its 
 validity, but will extend its application to the 
 sane also. The modern spirit is the great anti- 
 toxin for tradition. No god at present sits on 
 an uncontested throne, and pedestals that once 
 were overcrowded with idols, now stand unten- 
 anted and unworshipped. Doubt whispers in 
 the ear of the judge, the cleric grows less sure of 
 hell, and physician and public are losing their 
 
196 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 pharmacopeial faith. In other days, when a girl 
 was married, she received as portion of her dowry 
 a big medicine-spoon, and if it was not filled fre- 
 quently enough the good wife imagined she was 
 neglecting her duties, but the bride of today is 
 apt to prefer a phonograph, a tennis-racket or a 
 silver cigarette-case. 
 
 Clevenger's remarks on the bromides, how- 
 ever, — 'the bromides have been used altogether 
 too much; they bring about deterioration of 
 blood, health, and mind,' — are at variance with 
 the convictions of his confreres, for if there is one 
 belief to which the profession still clings, it is 
 bromides in epilepsy — tho even this conviction is 
 being daily assailed by an increasing minority. 
 
 Clevenger's Medical Jurisprudence is a good 
 work for lawyers, as medical matters are dis- 
 cussed in non-technical language, and if they 
 learn a portion of its contents they will be able 
 to embarrass many an insanity expert. Thruout 
 the work we find his usual indignant outcry 
 against politicians. 
 
 Five years later he issued another large work, 
 the Evolution of Man and his Mind, published 
 by the Evolution Publishing Company, which 
 was himself. From this time on, Clevenger 
 was his own publisher. His Evolution of Man 
 
Books and Essays 197 
 
 and his Mind may be considered a popularization 
 of his more technical Comparative Pliysiology 
 and Psychology. On account of its subject-mat- 
 ter it recalls Win wood Reade's Martyrdom of 
 Man, but is much inferior to that masterpiece. 
 The reader who is unfamiliar with evolutionary 
 and liberal literature will gain a varied assort- 
 ment of interesting information by a perusal of 
 Clevenger's volume, as it is a sort of kaleido- 
 scopic review of world-history from the stand- 
 point of a modernist. 
 
 In 1905 he published a small work which he 
 named Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Prac- 
 tice of Medicine. The subjects are arranged in 
 alphabetical order, but without plan, method or 
 sequence. It is a haphazard, heterogeneous jum- 
 ble, and it is regrettable that it should have pro- 
 ceeded from the same hand which turned out the 
 Disadvantages of the JJpnght Position, but such 
 accidents seem liable to occur in an author's life. 
 James Lane Allen, whose Reign of Law and 
 Kentucky Cardinal rank with the best fiction in 
 American literature, penned also the Heroine in 
 Bronze, which has all the defects of the average 
 dime-novel, and few of its virtues ; Jack London, 
 with his strong and splendid Call of the Wild 
 and Martin Eden, was guilty of such inexcusable 
 
198 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 and unmitigated trash as Adventure and the 
 Abysmal Brute; Edith Wharton, with the ex- 
 quisite The Reef and Summer to her credit, lost 
 herself in the mawkish Fruit of the Tree. But 
 the so-called Therapeutics, 31ateria Medica, and 
 Practice of Medicine is not entirely devoid of in- 
 terest, and Clevenger's definitions of medical 
 sectarianism are worth quoting, because they re- 
 veal his detestation of all varieties of obscur- 
 antism in the healing art: 
 
 Christian Science: Homeopathy without sugar pills. 
 
 Eclecticism: An obsolescing offshoot from Thomp- 
 sonianism in which it was taught that minerals from the 
 ground denoted death and should not be used, but plants 
 grew above the ground and indicated life and are alone 
 fit for medicine, in ignorance of minerals forming on 
 the earth's surface and of some plants beneath. Grad- 
 ually many of the silly tenets of eclecticism have been 
 abandoned and regular respectable medicine is mainly 
 taught in its schools, until eclectic differ from regular 
 physicians mostly in name tho materia medica and in- 
 dications for therapeusis are a little antiquated and il- 
 logical. 
 
 Homeopathy: Suggestive therapeutics, or faith cure 
 with sugar pills. False homeopathy ignorantly risks 
 regular medicines, pretending they are homeopathic, 
 particularly alkaloids because they can be used in 
 minute doses. 
 
Boohs and Essays 199 
 
 Osteopathy: Ignorant massage. 
 Physio-Medical: Title of a (jimck system. 
 
 Mechano-therapy, naprapathy, and chiro- 
 praxis were not yet flourishing humbugs, and 
 thus escaped inclusion on the unnecessary roll of 
 medical dcnoniinationalism. 
 
 In 1909, when lie was sixty-six years old, ap- 
 peared his last book, Fun in a Doctor s Life, and 
 with this publication Clevenger's career as an 
 author may be said to end, for his contributions 
 were no longer of sufficient value to be accepted 
 by the better medical periodicals for which he 
 had formerly written, and the material which he 
 furnished in his old age to low-grade journals 
 may be disregarded. 
 
 Fun in a Doctor s Life is an autobiography, 
 but is evidently an offhand work, not intended 
 to rank as a serious production. Events and 
 persons of imjjortance are omitted, while chapters 
 are devoted to incidents of trifling significance. 
 Our readers certainly know that Clevenger was 
 pathologist at Dunning ten years before he was 
 medical superintendent at Kankakee, but Dr 
 Clevenger chooses to relate his experiences at 
 Kankakee fifty pages before he speaks about 
 Dunning. Moreover, the book is loaded with 
 some of the oldest jokes on record. In spite of 
 
200 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 these defects. Fun in a Doctor s Life makes easy, 
 entertaining and interesting reading, and per- 
 sonally we are indebted to it for some data which 
 we could not have secured elsewhere. 
 
 Cleyenger was not a literary craftsman; he 
 never spent time in polishing his phrases. Yet 
 he was a ready writer, and his style, tho seldom 
 powerful and never classic, was often vivacious 
 and at times graphic. His work is not ill- 
 natured, but fault-finding is abundant, and even 
 his technical papers are polemical. He seemed 
 to believe that whatever is, is wrong — which is 
 certainly more honest than believing the reverse. 
 In his writings he rarely boosted himself, but on 
 occasions was apt to be a bit oracular — the com- 
 mon failing of authors. As an example of his 
 satire, the following is characteristic: 
 
 Were typhoid fever to become the basis of damage 
 suits, say against aldermen, for having allowed the city 
 water supply to become polluted, there would arise a 
 flock of experts who would swear away the possibility 
 of typhoid fever ever having existed, and they would 
 claim that what hitherto had been known by that name 
 was really something else, due to alcoholism, syphilis, 
 and indiscretions generally. The typhoid bacillus 
 would be derided, and it could be easily shown that 
 many bacilli had been discredited as causing disease; 
 
Books and Essays 201 
 
 and the poor old fogy who liad defended tlie traditional 
 typhoid would doubt his ability, on escaping from the 
 witness-stand, to diagnose tonsilltis from hemorrlioids. 
 
 At a certain medical meeting, the ubiquitous 
 William Osler placed his hand on Clevenger's 
 shoulder, and smilingly said: 'We write too 
 much.' In reviewing Clevenger^s writings of 
 half a century — from 1859 to 1909 — we agree 
 that for a man who was actively engaged in other 
 pursuits, he published too much. With the ex- 
 ception of his Treatise on Government Survey- 
 ing^ which does not concern us, nearly all his 
 \^aluable work appeared in the decade from 1879 
 to 1889, beginning with Cerebral Topography 
 and concluding with Spinal Concussion, embrac- 
 ing his thirty-sixth to forty-sixth years. The 
 Mercurials J in its final form, appeared in 1896, 
 but as it was based on the experimental w^ork he 
 had done fifteen years previously, and formed the 
 inaugural thesis that he had read to the Chicago 
 Biological Society in 1880, it really belongs to 
 the earlier date. 
 
 It would have been better, instead of publish- 
 ing some of his later works, if Dr Cle^texger had 
 gathered the chief papers of these ten years into 
 
202 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 a book bearing the title, Neurological and Bio- 
 logical Essays. Such a volume, containing the 
 fruits of his mental prime, would occupy an 
 honored place in the library of American Science. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE PHILADELPHIA GROUP 
 
 CLEVENGER'S work naturally brought 
 him into communion with various scien- 
 tists; with some of these his contact was only 
 casual, while with others he formed friendships, 
 fostered by correspondence, that persisted for 
 years. 
 
 A pencilled post-card which Clevenger 
 mailed to his wife during his Philadelphia visit 
 in 1883, gives us a glimpse of his intimacy with 
 several of the illustrious sons of the University 
 of Pennsylvania: 
 
 I reached here yesterday morning quite early and the 
 day was made a very pleasant one for me by Profes- 
 sors Cope, H. C. Wood, Pepper and Mills. I stay 
 at Prof. Cope's house, and went with him to the Phila- 
 delphia Academy of Natural Sciences, before which 
 venerable body I lectured last night. I felt all the hon- 
 ors of the occasion. Today I visit Prof. Leidy and 
 then go to New York. 
 
 That must have been a memorable day which 
 Clevenger spent with Leidy, for the famous 
 
 203 
 
204 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Philadelphian was an intellectual spendthrift 
 who poured out his biologic treasures in profu- 
 sion. Leidy was twenty years older than Clev- 
 ENGER, and it seems that his ancestors — who came 
 from the valley of the Rhine — were neither great 
 robbers nor favorites of princes, for the family 
 did not boast of its heraldry, but worked for a 
 living. Joseph Leidy's father, Philip Leidy, 
 kept a hatter's shop on Third and Vine Streets. 
 The hatter's wife died during Joseph's infancy, 
 and instead of going into strange territory, Mr 
 Leidy promptly married one of his wife's rela- 
 tions. For centuries the stepmother has been 
 a symbol of cruelty and harshness, but Joseph 
 Leidy's stepmother was his chief benefactor. 
 
 A letter written by a visiting relative during 
 Leidy's childhood, describes 'Joe^ sitting on the 
 floor, looking at the sides of an earthworm, 
 stretched upon a board.' The hatter's son was 
 a born scientist — mysterious are the ways of 
 heredity — and in his young days, when more pro- 
 fessional material was not available, he employed 
 barnyard fowls as subjects for dissection. At 
 the age of ten, he filled a small book with draw- 
 ings of shells. 
 
 His stepmother sent him to the Classical 
 Academy conducted by a Methodist clergyman, 
 
The Philadelphia Group 205 
 
 but the embryo biologist often absented himself 
 from the Latin and rlietorie to seek speeimens. 
 The boys of a rival institution sometimes fought 
 with the students of the Classical Academy, and 
 accordingly a colored lad named Cyrus Burris 
 was hired to protect Joseph from 'those rowdy 
 boys' — as the affectionate stepmother called the 
 other boys. Cyrus Burris performed his duties 
 perhaps too faithfully, for not only did he escort 
 his charge to school, but he accompanied him 
 when Leidy remained away from school. On 
 fine days, while his classmates were bending over 
 their books, Joseph and his intelligent and lik- 
 able companion wandered thru the neighboring 
 woods, studying nature. 
 
 When Leidy was sixteen years old, it was time 
 to look around for a means of livelihood, and as 
 he had a talent for drawing, his father thought he 
 ought to be a sign-painter. But Leidy had al- 
 ready passed several stray hours in the whole- 
 sale drug-house of his cousin, Dr Napoleon B. 
 Leidy, and wanted to be an apothecary. His 
 father consented, and in due time Leidy began 
 to make money and might have remained a phar- 
 macist for years, but at this juncture his step- 
 mother interfered. She insisted that the drug- 
 trade was not suitable for Leidy", and urged that 
 
206 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 he prepare himself for the higher calling of medi- 
 cine. 
 
 But Leidy's father stubbornly refused to hear 
 of another profession, saying that the boy was 
 getting a good salary now, and financial returns 
 from medicine were always uncertain. Why, 
 there was Dr So-and-So who had been practising 
 for ten years, and didn't have enough capital to 
 buy a decent hat. So the domestic peace was 
 disturbed by wordy warfare, until victory 
 perched on the stepmother's banner. 
 
 In the autumn of 1840, Leidy became a pupil 
 of Dr James McClintock, a private teacher of 
 anatomy. The father proposed to pay the pre- 
 ceptor's fee in hats, a bargain which was ac- 
 cepted. But it seems the hats didn't fit, for a 
 dispute arose, and Philip Leidy was a mad hat- 
 ter. The following year, young Leidy matricu- 
 lated at the University of Pennsylvania, received 
 his M.D. in 1844, and displayed his sign at 211 
 North Sixth Street. Most doctors are average 
 men, and they scramble greedily for coin, but in 
 every age there have been physicians whom na- 
 ture did not intend to be practitioners: in the 
 seventeenth century, Swammerdam graduated 
 in medicine, but no parental threats could induce 
 him to attend a patient; in the eighteenth cen- 
 
The Philadelphia Group 207 
 
 tury, Hunter Jfiung down his scalpel with an 
 oath when he was obliged to leave his dissection 
 in order to earn 'that damned guinea,' and in the 
 nineteenth century, Haeckkl fixed his office- 
 hours at six in the morning, so patients would 
 not interrupt his investigations. To this unprac- 
 tical group of immortals, Joseph Leidy belongs : 
 he was called to an obstetric case, but before he 
 arrived the baby was born, for Dr Leidy forgot 
 all about the coming event while engrossed over 
 the anatomy of a worm. 
 
 One morning, during his twenty-third year, 
 Leidy sat down to a breakfast that was to make 
 his name a landmark in the history of parasitol- 
 ogy. For in a slice of ham that was served to 
 him, he noticed numerous white specks. Instead 
 of grumbling at the cook, he placed these specks 
 under his microscope, and they proved to be the 
 cysts of the trichina spiralis, which Richard 
 Owen had observed in the human muscle. 
 Leidy^s interrupted breakfast prepared the way 
 for Leuckart's revelation that trichinosis in 
 man is due to eating infected pork. Science is 
 international, and the first step in this triple dis- 
 covery was made hj an Englishman, the second 
 by an American, and the third by a German. 
 
 At the age of twenty-four, Leidy proved tliat 
 
208 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 the fossil horse of America, tho extinct at the 
 time of Columbus, had existed in this country 
 in prehistoric eras. As his doctor's sign was still 
 in his window when he accomplished this feat, it 
 is obvious that he was not too busy with patients. 
 
 The following year, William E. Horner, the 
 frail but brilliant professor of anatomy at the 
 University of Pennsylvania, was advised to un^ 
 dertake a European trip for his health, and he 
 asked Leidy, who was already his prosector, to 
 be his companion — and no coaxing was required 
 to induce this doctor to abandon his practice. 
 
 Two years later, in 1850, George B. Wood, 
 the eminent professor of materia medica, ar- 
 ranged to visit Europe to collect models, casts, 
 and preparations, and again the lovable Leidy 
 was invited to go. During these excursions, 
 Leidy met the leaders of European science: 
 Magendie and Milne-Edwards in France, 
 Owen and Darwin in England, and Johannes 
 MtJLLER in Germany. Altho still in his twen- 
 ties, Leidy had a scientist's reputation, and whenj 
 the modest youth, upon the repeated solicitation 
 of Professor Wood, sent in his card to Muller, 
 the great physiologist came out crying, 'Which 
 is Leidy?' 
 
 In 1851 Leidy composed a work on Flora and 
 
The Philadelphia Group 209 
 
 Fauna Within hiving Animals, in which he es- 
 tablished that the alimentary canal is the natural 
 home of a most diversified animal and vegetable 
 life. Leidy dealt with facts, and rarely in- 
 dulged in speculations, but in this treatise there 
 occurs the following exception: 
 
 The study of the earth's crust teaches us that very 
 many species of plants and animals became extinct at 
 successive periods, while other races originated to oc- 
 cupy their places. Tliis probably was the result, in 
 many cases, of a change in exterior conditions incom- 
 patible with the life of certain species and favorable 
 to the primitive production of others. . . . There ap- 
 pear to be but trifling steps from the oscillating par- 
 ticle of inorganic matter to a bacterium; from this to 
 a vibrio, thence to a monas, and so gradually up to the 
 highest orders of life. . . . 
 
 So here we have a remarkable passage, written, 
 by a youth of twenty-eight, several years before 
 the publication of Origin of Species, briefly but 
 clearly foreshadowing the essentials of Dar- 
 winism. 
 
 In 1852, Leidy was all agog at the prospect 
 of accompanying an expedition to the West to 
 collect fossils, but at the last moment he was 
 obliged to remain home. For the discoverer of 
 
210 The Don Qiiirote of Psychiatry 
 
 Horner's muscle no longer had strength to lec- 
 ture, and Leidy delivered the course. The fol- 
 lowing year Horner's illness passed into death^ 
 and such men as Joseph Henry and Jeffries 
 Wyman worked for Leidy's election to the va- 
 cant chair. Spencer Fullerton Baird, who 
 for many years was a sort of superintendent of 
 American science, wrote to Leidy: 'Do not leave 
 Philadelphia until you have settled the profes- 
 sorship. Do not worry about the fossil bones. 
 They will be sent to you anyhow' — which was 
 true, as Leidy was then the most active paleon- 
 tologist in America. But antagonists arose who 
 accused Leidy of making proselytes to infidelity, 
 and it was asserted that 'he tried to prove that 
 geology overthrows the Mosaic account of crea- 
 tion' — which it certainly does. Was there ever 
 an honest scientist who has not been accused of 
 attempting to subvert the Jewish account of 
 creation? 
 
 Merit is sometimes rewarded, for Leidy ob- 
 tained the professorship. Thus at the age of 
 thirty he became the successor to such historic 
 figures in American anatomy as William 
 Shippen, Jr, Caspar Wistar, John Syng 
 DoRSEY, Philip Syng Physick, and William 
 E. Horner. Moderate as was the salary, Leidy 
 
The Philadelphia Group 211 
 
 was delighted at the prospect of a definite income, 
 for it liberated liiin from the necessity of continu- 
 ing an intolerable practice. But the hatter 
 shook his head, and simply said that 'a first-class 
 sign painter had been spoiled to make a j^oor 
 doctor.' 
 
 For the rest of his life, Leidy taught anatomy 
 for a living, and became the leader of American 
 anatomists, but his heart was in natural history. 
 Altho educated as a physician, he lectured to 
 hosts of medical students on anatomy without 
 ever referring to its application in medicine. In 
 the year in which he entered upon his professor- 
 ship, 1853, he published, not a treatise on my- 
 ology, but that paleontological classic, the 
 Ancient Fauna of Nebraska. He described the 
 attic of the middle ear, and proved the existence 
 of the intermaxillary bone in the human embryo, 
 thus confirming the prophecy of Goethe, but 
 Leidy's discoveries in hmiian anatomy were not 
 significant. His Elementary Treatise on Hu- 
 7nan Anatomy, illustrated by himself, anglicised 
 the terms in the text, relegating the Latin equiva- 
 lents to foot-notes, under the belief that this 
 method would render the subject easier for stu- 
 dents — but the innovation did not popularize the 
 English tongue, and when Gray appeared with 
 
212 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 the names printed directly upon the structures, 
 it became the Gibraltar of text-books. Leidy 
 was now a scientist of wide renown, but it is 
 eminently characteristic of the man that one of 
 the first copies of his book was inscribed 'To 
 Cyrus Burris^ from his old friend, the author.' 
 
 In 1854, the Ray Society published the last of 
 Darwin's four Monographs on the Cirripedes^ 
 and the greatest of biologists refers to Leidy's 
 discoveries, saying, 'owing to Prof. Leidy's dis- 
 covery of eyes in a Balanus, I was led to look 
 for them in the Lepadida.' 
 
 The year 1859 was of importance to Leidy, 
 for upon the appearance of Darwin's Origin of 
 Species, he said he felt 'as tho I had hitherto 
 gi'oped almost in the darkness and all of a sudden 
 a meteor flashed upon the skies.' Asa Gray and 
 Joseph Leidy were the first scientists who wel- 
 comed the theory of evolution to America, and 
 in answering Leidy, Darwin wrote with his 
 usual modesty — and parentheses : 
 
 Most paleontologists (with some few exceptions) en- 
 tirely despise my work ; consequently approbation from 
 you has gratified me much. All the older geologists 
 (with the one exception of Lyell, whom I look at as 
 a host in himself) are even more vehement against the 
 
JOSEPH LEIDY 
 
The Philadelphia Group 213 
 
 modification of species than are even the paleontolo- 
 gists. . . . Your sentence, that you have some inter- 
 esting facts in support of the doctrine of selection, has 
 deliglitcd mc even inoro than fhc rest of your note. 
 
 At the age of forty, liEiDY relinquished his 
 bachelordom to become the husband of Anna 
 Harden. As they had no children of their own, 
 they adopted the daughter of a deceased pro- 
 fessor, and little Alwina Franks brought them 
 much happiness. Nature is an incorrigible 
 blunderer: imbeciles are notoriously fertile, but 
 Joseph Leidy, one of the noblest of men, was 
 sterile. Leidy was not a Christian, but did not 
 marry in order to have religion in his wife's name, 
 for when interrogated on theology, he responded 
 that his views were ably expressed in John 
 Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy. 
 
 For many years Leidy's discoveries were so 
 numerous that no one remembers them all. He 
 knew little, and cared little, for general litera- 
 ture, and poetry to him was only 'rhyming stuff' 
 and a 'roundabout way of expressing ideas,' but 
 as a zoologist he knew everything from a proto- 
 zoan to man. From the sedmient which he 
 squeezed from a piece of moss, he found thirty- 
 eight kinds of rhizopods. A muddy di'op of 
 
214 The Don Quirote of Psychiatry 
 
 water in a neighboring ditch would yield a dis- 
 covery to Leidy. His monumental Fresh 
 Water Rhizopods of North America was created 
 with a microscope that cost fifty dollars. With 
 equal facility he could describe a new-born bark- 
 louse that crawled on a tree, or a huge mastodon 
 that had lain for centuries dead. His researches 
 on the comparative anatomy of the liver are val- 
 uable, and he was the first who experimented in 
 the transplantation of malignant tumors ; his dif- 
 ferentiation of the parasitic amebse, his belief 
 that flies are the transmitters of disease, his loca- 
 tion of a hookworm in a sick cat and suggestion 
 that it might be responsible for pathological con- 
 ditions in the human race, are almost lost in a 
 mass of other discoveries in zoology, helminthol- 
 ogy, and paleontology. 
 
 When Leidy became the founder of vertebrate 
 paleontology in America, Marsh was a lad and 
 Cope an infant, and for a long time Leidy car- 
 ried the science on his shoulders. His Creta- 
 ceous Reptiles of the United States, and Contri- 
 butions to the Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the 
 Western Territories are imperishable master- 
 pieces, and his monograph of 1869, On the Ex- 
 tinct Mammalia of Dakota and Nebraska, is pro- 
 nounced by OsBORN the most important paleon- 
 
The Philadelphia Gnmp 215 
 
 tological work vvliich America has produced, with 
 the possible exception of Cope's Tertiary Verte- 
 hrata. Yet with the exception of his text-book 
 on anatomy and his reports to the Surgeon-Gen- 
 eral, Leidy's writings brought him no pecuniary 
 reward. Ever since money was invented, most 
 of it has been in the wrong hands. Debauchers 
 of our literature, our McCutcheons, Mc- 
 Graths and Dixons, make more from a best- 
 seller Avhich is forgotten within a twelvemonth 
 of publication, than Leidy earned from hundreds 
 of pamphlets and volumes which advanced the 
 boundary-lines of human knowledge. On sev- 
 eral occasions, Leidy attempted to augment his 
 meagre income, but with results that ultimately 
 led him to desist. Fortunes were made in petro- 
 leum ; Leidy speculated in it, until he found him- 
 self minus four thousand dollars. He invested 
 in a silver mine, and lost eight thousand dollars. 
 He purchased stock in a railroad, which from 
 that day ceased paying dividends. 
 
 Clevenger has told the writer of Leidy's ap- 
 proachableness and unaffected humility, and all 
 who knew him testify that rarely has so great a 
 man been so simple. At a time when the name 
 of Joseph Leidy was honored by every scientist 
 
216 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 in America and Europe, he would go, at six in 
 the morning, to the large jfish-market on Twelfth 
 Street, sit behind the stalls, talking and laughing 
 with the men, watching them as they cleaned the 
 fish to see if there was anything of interest to 
 him. Passers-by who noticed this broad-chested, 
 strong-limbed man of two hundred pounds, with 
 his full beard, flowing hair and pensive eyes, 
 must have taken him for a super-fisherman. 
 
 Leidy loved peace, and never made an enemy. 
 So averse was he to belligerency, that some one 
 remarked, 'Leidy is an invertebrate.' His good- 
 ness, gentleness, helpfulness, were proverbial, 
 and he was regarded as the prototype of the 
 faultless man. Perhaps the bitterest words that 
 Leidy ever uttered, were spoken in the winter of 
 his life, to the distinguished Scottish geologist. 
 Sir Archibald Geikie: 
 
 Formerly every fossil bone found in the States came 
 to me, for nobody else cared to study such things. But 
 now Professors Marsh and Cope, with long purses, 
 offer money for what used to come to me for nothing, 
 and in that respect I cannot compete with them. So 
 now, as I get nothing, I have gone back to my micro- 
 scope and my rhizopods and make myself busy and 
 happy with them. 
 
The Philadelphia Group 217 
 
 Leidy received various foreign honors, such 
 as the Lyell Medal from England and the Cuvier 
 Medal from France, and was president of sev- 
 eral scientific associations in America. He 
 served as first president of the Association of 
 American Anatomists, and was succeeded by one 
 of his pupils who resembled him in many respects 
 — Harrison Allen. 
 
 The ancestors of Allen arrived in Philadel- 
 phia with William Penn, but evidently did not 
 accumulate wealth for their descendants, as 
 Harrison Allen was obliged to leave high- 
 school because he lacked funds. Already he was 
 eager for natural history, but the need of wages 
 drove him into a hardware store ; next he worked 
 on a farm, and the nearest he could get to science 
 was by entering the dental ofRce of Dr J. Foster 
 Flagg. During his leisure he read medical 
 books, took courses in the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, where he came under the influence of 
 Leidy, and in his twentieth year received his 
 M.D., just as the Civil War was beginning. 
 
 At first he was resident physician in the Block- 
 ley Hospital of Philadelphia, but during the 
 greater part of the conflict was assigned to hos- 
 pitals in Washingi;on. As there are more than 
 140 references to him in the Medical and Surgical 
 
218 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 History of the War of the BehclUon, he must 
 have been kept busy, but every precious moment 
 that he could spare was spent in the Smithsonian 
 Institution — and here he worked under those 
 makers of American science, Spencer F. Baird 
 and Joseph Henry. 
 
 Allen's earHest publication was a Descrip- 
 tion of New Pteroinne Bats of North Africa, 
 which had been brought over by the explorer 
 Du Chaillu. Allen never deserted these 
 aerial mammals, and wrote over thirty essays on 
 bats, including the classic Monograph on the 
 Bats of North America, which was published by 
 the Smithsonian Institution. In honor of his 
 high-school teacher, Dr Henry McMurtrie, 
 Allen named the Mexican bat, Centurio 
 McMurtrii — this being the highest honor that 
 Allen could bestow. 
 
 But Allen's scientific interests were not lim- 
 ited to bats, as is evident from his Crania from 
 Florida Mounds and Hawaiian Skulls — both of 
 them important contributions to craniology. It 
 was Harrison Allen who dissected and de- 
 scribed that unforgettable freak of nature — the 
 Siamese twins. Among his other writings are 
 the Origin and History of Art-Designs, tracing 
 them to anatomical archetypes, Localization of 
 
The Philadelphia Group 219 
 
 Diseased Action in the Osseous System, On the 
 Uhinoscope and Diseases of the Pharynx, On 
 Pathological Anatomy of Osteom,yelitis, and The 
 Jaw of Moulin-Quignon. His text-book, Out- 
 lines of Comparative Anatomy and Medical 
 Zoology, wjis followed in later years by a System 
 of Human Anatomy — the result of long and 
 faithful travail, and bringing him fame, but leav- 
 ing his pocket empty. 
 
 In his twenty-fourth year Allen was ap- 
 pointed professor in the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and for thirty years he taught in this in- 
 stitution, tho he shifted somewhat from chair to 
 chair. He was devoid of aggi'essiveness, but 
 rose to a leading position in American anatomy 
 and rhino-laryngology. His researches were not 
 of Leidyian scope, but he resembled Leidy in 
 character: pure-hearted and humble, earnest and 
 unpretentious, he labored for science and loved 
 his fellow-men. From the lips of Haerison 
 Allen never fell an unkind word — even about 
 bores. This unusual forbearance on Allen's 
 part is vouched for by so careful an observer as 
 Burt G. Wilder, w^ho further claims that if the 
 devil had been objurgated in his presence, Aj:.len 
 would have answered: 'His satanic majesty has 
 doubtless many sins to answer for, but let us not 
 
220 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 forget his extraordinary ability, activity, and 
 enterprise.' 
 
 Wilder, who was closely attached to Allen, 
 points out that the climax of Allen's useful and 
 honorable career was reached in 1891, for in that 
 year he became professor, for the second time, of 
 comparative anatomy and zoology at the Univer- 
 sity of Pennsylvania, president of the Contem- 
 porary Club of Philadelphia, curator of the 
 Wistar Institute of Anatomy, president of the 
 Anthropometric Society, president of the Asso- 
 ciation of American Anatomists, succeeding 
 Joseph Leidy, and published a dozen papers. 
 
 Clevenger's acquaintance with Allen began 
 at the outset of the former's professional career, 
 when he sent Professor Allen some reprints 
 which were acknowledged in a courteous note : 
 
 I have received your papers, which you were kind 
 enough to send me, on the Sulcus Rolando, the Topog- 
 raphy of the CerebruTn, and the Action of Mercury. I 
 have read these with great interest. I would esteem it 
 a great favor if you would send me your papers that 
 you may hereafter publish. I will heartily reciprocate. 
 
 Clevenger then told Allen of the School of 
 Biology he was founding, and Allen, who seems 
 to have been moved easily to enthusiasm, cried. 
 
The Philadelphia Group 221 
 
 'All hail to Chicago 1 I wish we had more of 
 her spirit here.' But when the Clevengerian 
 School of Biology failed to materialize, and in- 
 stead, the Dunning Asylum sent its stench over 
 the land, Allen became reconciled to the town 
 that his ancestors chose, and wrote to Clev- 
 enger: 'Truly you have an extraordinary state 
 of affairs in Chicago. If we have any feelings of 
 discontent here, how quickly they should disap- 
 pear when the Philadelphia status is compared 
 with the Chicagoan.' 
 
 In Allen's letter to Clevenger, of April, 
 1884, occurs an epigrammatic paragraph which 
 might provoke considerable comment, in defence 
 and in rebuttal : 
 
 The connexion between biology and clinical medicine 
 is a line I am fond of examining. A hospital is to me 
 a cabinet and each patient a specimen. I study medi- 
 cine by the methods I learned in studying natural 
 history — and I believe it is the correct method. 
 
 Two typewritten letters which Allen, as 
 chairman of the executive committee, sent to 
 Clevenger, are worth reproducing, as they af- 
 ford us glimpses into the infancj^ of the now 
 important Association of American Anatomists. 
 The first is dated, December, 1889: 
 
222 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 In September, 1888, at the time of the meeting of 
 the American Congress of Physicians in Washington, an 
 Association of American Anatomists was organized. 
 As Chairman of the Executive Committee of this As- 
 sociation I extend to you a cordial invitation to be 
 present at the next annual meeting in this city. 
 
 It is proposed to meet in the biological department 
 of the University of Pennsylvania, December 26th, 
 27th, and 28th. Prof. Joseph Leidy will be in the 
 Chair. Papers will be read by a number of distin- 
 guished anatomists. 
 
 You are cordially invited to attend these meetings as 
 a guest of the Association, and to read a volunteer 
 paper or exhibit specimens. 
 
 The second of these communications is dated 
 January, 1890: 
 
 At a stated meeting of the Executive Committee 
 of the Association of American Anatomists held De- 
 cember 2Tth, 1889, you were invited to become one of 
 the original members of the Association. If you de- 
 sire to accept this invitation will you kindly send me 
 word to that effect.^ It is due to you to state that 
 the call for the first meeting of the Association was is- 
 sued by Dr A. H. P. Leuf, who was imperfectly in- 
 formed regarding the personnel of the working anato- 
 mists of the country. The Executive Committee is 
 doing all that lies in its power to correct the errors 
 
The Philadelphia Group 223 
 
 whicli wore inseparable from the first plan of or^rani- 
 zation, and earnestly request that you will join with 
 them in directing a movement which it is believed will 
 be of great sei'vice in the cultivation of anatomical sci- 
 ence in America. 
 
 It is proposed to hold an annual meeting of the As- 
 sociation. Every third year this meeting will be held 
 in Washington. All other times it will meet at time 
 and place with the American Association of Natural- 
 ists. 
 
 I herewith enclose a program which may interest you. 
 
 Clevenger's stock of information was sur- 
 prisingly heterogeneous, and Harrison Allen's 
 last letter to Clevenger — at least, the last that 
 has been preserved — contains an interesting tech- 
 nical query, but whether Clevenger evolved the 
 terms himself or found them in the pages of 
 Owen, we do not know. The letter is dated 
 December, 1894: 
 
 I am greatly interested in the pamphlet on Miso- 
 phobia which you were kind enough to send me a short 
 time ago. In it you allude to the 'ulnar fingers, radial 
 fingers, etc' I have been giving some attention of late 
 to the hand and have always been of the opinion that 
 the manus of all mammals is divided into an ulnar and a 
 radial set of fingers (toes). I did not know that any- 
 one else had called attention to it. If not too much 
 
224 The Don Quiccote of Psychiatry 
 
 trouble, will you kindly tell me what induced you to 
 use these terms and where I can find the original de- 
 scription of such classification? 
 
 Of all the societies which Harrison Allen 
 graced by his membership, he was most inti- 
 mately connected with the Academy of Natural 
 Sciences of Philadelphia, sending to it his first 
 essay on bats for publication in its proceedings, 
 and the following year joining it at the instiga- 
 tion of Edward Drinker Cope, who was 
 Allen's senior by only nine months, but already 
 an active worker in science. Cope, like Allen, 
 came of old Philadelphia stock: his great-grand- 
 father, Caleb Cope, was the sturdy Quaker who 
 defended Major Andre from mob violence; his 
 grandfather, Thomas Pim Cope, founded the 
 house of Cope Brothers, celebrated in the early 
 mercantile annals of Philadelphia; his father, 
 Alfred, a man of wealth and intellect, deter- 
 mined to give him an excellent education, tho he 
 must have known that the sons of rich men are 
 often incapable of education. 
 
 But Mr Cope had no trouble with Edward, 
 who literally absorbed knowledge from his cra- 
 dle-days. When seven years of age, Edward 
 was taken by his father on a trip to Boston by 
 
The Philadelphia Group 225 
 
 water, and on the way the boy kept a journal in 
 which he discussed and illustrated the creatures 
 he observed in the sea. At nine, his drawing and 
 description of a caterpillar revealed the develop- 
 ing naturalist. 
 
 Ten years later, Cope was a full-fledged scien- 
 tist, studying reptiles at the Smithsonian Institu- 
 tion, under Spencer F. Baird. Within a few 
 months he returned to Philadelphia, and worked 
 in the Academy of Natural Sciences, cataloging 
 the serpents and describing new species. In the 
 autumn of 1859, when a small green-covered 
 volume revolutionized biology. Cope was still in 
 his teens, but the Academy of Natural Sciences 
 of Philadelphia was already publishing his first 
 scientific paper. On the primary division of the 
 SalamandridcB, with a description of two new 
 species. Writing to his cousin at this time, 
 young Cope referred to his maiden essay, and 
 then casually remarked : 'Nobody in this country 
 knows anything about Salamanders, but Profes- 
 sor Baird and thy humble coz.' 
 
 Before Cope was old enough to vote, he was a 
 veteran of science. He modified systems with 
 nonchalant assurance, and in an amazing com- 
 munication published in his twentieth year, he 
 says: 
 
226 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 . In proposing the name Zaocys ... we are giving 
 expression to an opinion long held by us as to the un- 
 natural association of species in the so-called genus 
 Coryphodon. ... In it we find cylindrical terrestrial 
 species, united with compressed subarboricole species, 
 upon a peculiarity whose value as an index of nature 
 appears to us entirely imaginary. The very nature of 
 the coryphodontian type of dentition, as distinguished 
 from the isodontian and syncranterian, would lead us 
 to infer its inconstancy. 
 
 Cope never studied the cloak and suit business, 
 medicine, or law, as his financial circumstances 
 relieved him from the necessity of adopting a 
 paying profession. But altho deprived of the 
 'splendid spur of poverty,' he toiled ceaselessly 
 in the pursuit of science. Even when he inher- 
 ited more than a quarter of a million dollars, he 
 worked on with unrelenting energy. At twenty- 
 one, he was probably the foremost herpetologist 
 in America. It is not surprising that at the age 
 of twenty-three this phenomenon found himself 
 a victim of overwork. The usual remedy was 
 advised — a trip to Europe. He recuperated by 
 visiting the museums of England, France, Hol- 
 land, Austria, Prussia — everywhere examining 
 reptiles. He looked over Joseph Hyrtl's 
 skeletons of fishes, and was so delighted with the 
 
The Pliiladelpliia Group 227 
 
 professor's preparations that he purehascd them. 
 Cope, however, did not secure these specimens 
 simply to label them and encase them in glass, 
 but with this collection as a basis, he recast the 
 classification of fishes. 
 
 Upon his return to America, Cope, in his twen- 
 ty-fourth year, was appointed professor of com- 
 parative zoology and botany at Haverford Col- 
 lege. Within three years, however, ill-health 
 caused the youthful professor's resignation, and 
 for the following twenty-two years he held no 
 chair. But these years were filled with fruitful 
 investigations which placed Cope in the front 
 rank of paleontologists. As a private explorer, 
 and as vertebrate paleontologist to the United 
 States Geological and Geographical Survey, he 
 roamed thru Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, 
 New Mexico, Montana, Oregon, Texas, — 
 everywhere west of the Missouri — and dead eons 
 unrolled their secrets at his approach, and extinct 
 animals lived again. In the chalky beds of these 
 western states and territories. Cope did a giant's 
 work, and was equally fertile in building up gen- 
 eralizations, and in describing species new to sci- 
 ence. INIany of his bold deductions have not sur- 
 vived the test of time, but the innimierable gen- 
 era which he named, and the thousand unkno^^^l 
 
228 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 species which he brought to light, will always add 
 their testimony to the genius and industry of 
 Edward Drinker Cope. 
 
 Like every scientific worker in the sixties, 
 Cope was influenced by the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion, and was among the first to apply its prin- 
 ciples in his classifications. Cope, however, was 
 rather a Lamarckian than a pure Darwinian, 
 claiming that the 'survival of the fittest' does not 
 explain the 'origin of the fittest,' and in seeking 
 to discover and demonstrate the laws governing 
 the origin of the fittest, he founded the Neo- 
 Lamarckian School in America — and such men 
 as Hyatt and Dall went to this school. 
 
 Among the huge quartos and octavo volumes 
 and endless essays which came from the tireless 
 pen of Cope, may be mentioned Origin of the 
 Fittest, Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, 
 Batrachia of North America, and Vertehrata of 
 Cretaceous Formations of the West. The 
 Royal Geological Society of Great Britain gave 
 him its medal, Heidelberg conferred upon him 
 an honorary Ph.D., and when he accepted the 
 chair of geology and mineralogy at the Univer- 
 sity of Pennsylvania, later including zoology and 
 comparative anatomy, he had long been acknowl- 
 
The Philadelphia Group 229 
 
 edged as one of the greatest men of science that 
 the American continent had produced. 
 
 Unlike Leidy and Harrison Allen, Cope 
 possessed aggressiveness, and he knew how to 
 make and keep enemies. That unique litterateur, 
 Isaac DTsrai^j, wrote an interesting chapter, 
 On the Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 
 He didn't know Cope and Marsh, but when 
 these two professors thought of each other, they 
 were certainly influenced by a bad temper. On 
 occasion. Cope could be as pugnacious as Hux- 
 ley — and between Cope and Huxley there ex- 
 isted more coolness than cordiality. Concerning 
 a fossil which opposed one of his deductions, 
 Cope jestingly remarked, 'I wish you would 
 throw that bone out of the window;' he felt a 
 parent's fondness for his theories, and hesitated 
 to disown them, even when they proved to be 
 misbehaving. An authority on fossils does not 
 necessarily become fossilized, but Cope did not 
 believe in votes for women or negroes, and his 
 tract on The Relation of the Scales to Govern- 
 ment, was distributed by that antiquarian soci- 
 ety, the New York State Association Opposed 
 to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. Cope 
 was a man of exemplary character, and the his- 
 
230 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 tory of nineteenth century science cannot be writ- 
 ten without his name. 
 
 For several years Cope was editor of the 
 'American NaturaHst,' a periodical which experi- 
 enced considerable difficulty with printers' bills, 
 but whose monthly arrival was eagerly awaited 
 by scientific workers. In its few advertising 
 pages could be seen a placid and familiar face, 
 whose reserved but benignant smile overlooked 
 this underlined message: 'Lydia E. Pinkham's 
 Vegetable Compound is a positive cure for all 
 those painful complaints and weaknesses so com- 
 mon to our best female population.' Editor 
 Cope may not have admired the enterprising old 
 lady, but the publishers needed her to help pay 
 the aforesaid bills. It was thru the medium of 
 this magazine that Cope and Clevenger became 
 acquainted; Cle^^nger's contributions to the 
 'American Naturalist' from 1881 to 1892 have 
 already been noticed. In the issue of January, 
 1885, Cope wrote a signed and appreciative re- 
 view of Clevenger's Comparative Physiology 
 and Psychology. 
 
 Clevenger's personal letters to us contain fre- 
 quent references to his Philadelphia group of 
 friends, especially Cope, and we will introduce 
 these reminiscences here: 
 
The Philadelphia Group 281 
 
 In rattling off these letters of transmittal to you I 
 feci they are often carelessly worded, and show propen- 
 sity to both prolixity and repetition of jocularities, and 
 maybe they realize Simt/ka's warning that I was fall- 
 ing into my anccdotagc. 
 
 When I don't have to use care, as in talking to 
 friends, the colloquial garrulity and carelessness is a 
 comfort, and enables things the stilted conventional 
 writing does not. So please overlook blunders of all 
 kinds and let me talk as I used to do to my friends of 
 old in scientific ranks. 
 
 Ed Cope of Philadelphia was one of these. He was 
 professor of natural sciences in the Pennsylvania Uni- 
 versity, and was constantly fishing for chances to push 
 me, and get me near him. He had me appointed pro- 
 fessor of biology in the university, but I foolishly for- 
 feited the chair by thinking the salary of $500 a year 
 too small, as I had a big family and could not see my 
 way clear to go on that sum. My famil}^ many times 
 since then has lived on less, when my rackets with poli- 
 ticians lost me an appointment, but we never know 
 what is in store for us. Provost Pepper promised to 
 confer an A.M. on me, at Cope's solicitation. I was 
 mystified by dela3^s by Peppek, until a friend told me 
 it was the usual thing to give $100 for the degree. I 
 could not spare the $100, and would have felt cheap 
 had I paid anything for it. Cope also came within one 
 vote of getting me the superintendency of the Penn- 
 
232 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 sylvania General Hospital for the Insane. Cope al- 
 ways gave my articles first place in his American 
 Naturalist. 
 
 Cope made three fortunes, and lost two of them, when 
 I begged him to go slow and keep his beautiful home 
 comer on Pine and 21st Street, for his family. One 
 of the twin houses he had stocked with geological speci- 
 mens, mainly fossils. He was a delightful friend in 
 every way. Absolutely without guile or false pride. 
 He was like Leidy in approachableness and unpretend- 
 ing. 
 
 Cope was a brilliant orator, and once in the Tech- 
 nical institute in Boston I heard him and Alexander 
 Agassiz debating about the number of vertebras in a 
 fossil, and the evolutionary question came up. This 
 was in August 1880, and Cope argued on evolutionary 
 lines, while Agassiz was a 'trimmer' like his father; 
 both were eloquent and held attention, but the differ- 
 ence was evident in Cope being absolutely sincere, and 
 Agassiz was untruthful, insincere and a special pleader 
 for religious prejudice. 
 
 Your admiration for Prof. E. D. Cope touched me 
 deeply, for he was a man I loved, and he desired all 
 good things for me. I ought to have many letters 
 from him saved up, but fear that I may have destroyed 
 most of them; if not, I shall be happy to send them to 
 you. 
 
The PhiladdpJda Group 288 
 
 He was plain, unassuming, and us I told you before, 
 eloquent, full of his subject, appreciative of others' 
 knowledge, never jealous, but even praised rivals and 
 those jealous of him, if any excellence in them. Prof. 
 Marsh on the other hand was contemptibly vain, prig- 
 gish, snobbish in dress and manner, always finding fault 
 with Cope. 
 
 Ed Cope was plain Ed, and western in manner, ut- 
 terly without false pride, no airs or assumption of su- 
 periority ever. Tireless worker, he had the house three 
 or four stories next his residence filled from cellar to 
 garret with his findings of fossils, — arranged nearly 
 as could be in eras from lowest to highest. Most of his 
 valuable discoveries were in the Cretaceous of Wyom- 
 ing. It was there he found the eohippus the connection 
 between carnivores and herbivores, a little fox-like ani- 
 mal with ginglymoid joints like those of the modem 
 horse, the 5-toed. He had it mounted in a plaster 
 frame and setting, and explained it to me as we were 
 dining at his house in 1882. 
 
 I remember I accused him of being involved in his 
 previous metaphysical studies, and once in the Open 
 Court we got into a very good-humored discussion of 
 the soul. He had some way of making spirit originate 
 matter, while I was agnostic and held that while it 
 would be comfortable to be sure of this, we always 
 landed where we started in any attempt to explain such 
 things. 
 
234 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 In Philadelphia there was an harmonious coterie 
 made up of Cope, Leidy, Powell, Harrison Allen, 
 and other sincere truth-seekers. 
 
 My trips to Pliiladelpliia were pleasant ones as you 
 may imagine when university professors came to the 
 Colonnade Hotel (where I stopped always) when they 
 read my arrival in the next day's paper, and insisted 
 on my coming to their homes while in town. I much 
 preferred Cope's house and he always chuckled when he 
 got to me first. But I never went there till he came 
 for me, as I did not want to force my welcome. 
 
 Lots of fine chaps in those days. One was the fa- 
 mous head of the United States geological surveys, 
 Major Powell. Another was Harrison Allen, whose 
 letters I sent to you. He was a wholesouled, honest, 
 hard-working practitioner who loved truth for its own 
 sake. He impressed everyone as a sincere gentleman, 
 free from ostentation and probably over-modest. He 
 was inventive, and made able deductions in biological 
 studies. Professors Cope, Leidy, Powell, and I were 
 very fond of him. 
 
 Then there was the great Leidy, smiling, handsome, 
 modest ; chuck full of biologic lore, with his Rhizopods 
 under way. Friends asked him how fishing was when 
 he went to saw-mill dams to net rhizopods. He pub- 
 lished liis big engravings of amebas and their cousins, 
 thru the Smithsonian Institution; guess it must have 
 cost $50,000 to engrave and bind. They can't be had 
 now, but were $10 each at first. 
 
E. D. COPE 
 
 JOSEPH LeCONTE 
 
The PhiladclpJiia Group 235 
 
 Leidy presided at the meeting of the Philadelphia 
 Academy of Natural Sciences when I made my speech 
 about distribution of valves in the veins. I spoke 20 
 minutes, and Cope followed me in a grand compli- 
 mentary address of an hour and a half, beginning: 
 'Here is an instance of the evolutionary doctrine mak- 
 ing simple what was a baffling puzzle to anatomists and 
 physiologists.' He elaborated the matter in connection 
 with his own work, and finally announced that I would 
 have an article on this subject in the January Amer- 
 ican Naturalist, entitled Disadvantages of the Upright 
 Position. 
 
 Cope's correspondence with Clevenger — like 
 Harrison Aelen's — began in October, 1880. 
 That modern convenience, the secretary-stenog- 
 rapher, had not yet been evolved into indispensa- 
 bility, and Cope's letters, whether brief or 
 lengthy, are in his own handwriting: 
 
 Yours with the MS. and the blocks are received. 
 The paper cannot be used before the January or Feb- 
 ruary number, on account of the number of articles 
 on hand ; we will insert as soon as possible. The pub- 
 lishers say they will pay the $6.00 if you will let them 
 take a set of electro copies, as they must have them in 
 case of reprint. How does this strike you? I am 
 getting somewhat shy of asking them to increase their 
 free-list, which is pretty long now, but if you can get 
 
236 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 us a subscriber somewhere among your acquaintances, 
 I will do it with an easier conscience (will do it any- 
 how). 
 
 Scientists do not have to teach anything sub rosa un- 
 less, unfortunately, their bread and butter depends 
 on it. The time is however not far distant when bread 
 and butter can be had without anyone's sacrificing his 
 convictions or even suppressing them. Anyone who con- 
 tributes to this state of things is a public benefactor. 
 Evolution, well and clearly taught, will put an end to 
 ultra-sectarianism and classic absurdities more prompt- 
 ly than anything else. People will take facts in pref- 
 erence to fancies when they can only see them, and it 
 is our privilege and pleasure to try and make them see. 
 There are various fields in which this can be done, em- 
 bryology, physiology and paleontology being the fields 
 of ultimate demonstration; to all of which anatomy is 
 the front door, so to speak. 
 
 In Cope's second letter to Clevenger, dated 
 November, 1880, we are treated to the spectacle 
 of two learned philosophers discussing a 'finan- 
 cial proposition,' involving the sum of six dol- 
 lars: 
 
 Yours received. I do not exactly understand your 
 financial proposition, as its various points do not ap- 
 pear to be entirely consistent. You wish to pay your 
 subscription to the Naturalist ($4. per annum), but 
 
The Philadelphia Group 287 
 
 you wish also to be credited with $6.00 (18 months 
 subscription American Naturalist). Now tliat means 
 that you will take a year or 18 months of the Nat- 
 uralist for use of the cuts, does it not? Explain so 
 that I may know what to say to publishers. 
 
 Your account of the Marsh affair sounds very fa- 
 miliar. M. is a very peculiar man. I constantly have 
 offers from his men to employ with me. Scott, of the 
 Princeton exploring party, has just returned from S 
 years in Heidelberg, tells queer stories of M. and 
 doesn't like him any better than I do. 
 
 Cope, in his communication to Clevenger of 
 May, 1881, asserts his priority over Filhol, and 
 alludes to his altercation with Huxley : 
 
 Your card is received. The points made by Filhol 
 were made by myself mostly ,7 to 3 years ago, in Govern- 
 ment Publications. Some years ago, I had a slight skir- 
 mish with Professor Huxley and since then he has tried 
 the ignoring and silencing process on me with some ef- 
 fect. It depends on American Naturalists whether this 
 shall be effective or not. See April Naturalist, p. 340. 
 
 I send you two papers which contain some of the 
 points I have made — most of them more striking than 
 Filhol's. 
 
 N. B. I find I am out of extras of the papers in 
 question ; so I refer you to the places which you can 
 easily find. Annual Report of the U. S. Geological 
 
238 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Sui-vey, F. V. Hayden, 1872, p. 644 to bottom of 
 647 ; especially p. 645. Final Report, G, M. Wheeler, 
 vol. IV, pt. II (Paleontology of New Mexico) from p. 
 273 to p. 282 where the subject is still more fully set 
 forth (1877). Filhol's publications are all later, 
 and are less conclusive. They are also mainly tech- 
 nical, so the reader has to draw his own conclusions. 
 
 In the early months of 1884, Cope sent the fol- 
 lowing note to Clevenger : 
 
 The directorship of the Pennsylvania Hospital for 
 the Insane, lately vacated by the death of Dr Kirk- 
 bride, is vacant. How would you like to apply for 
 \i? Your Pennsylvania birth might help you. Apply 
 to the board of managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital 
 for the Insane, West Pennsylvania, if you wish to get 
 the place. 
 
 Cope's reference to Clevenger's 'Pennsyl- 
 vania birth,' was merely a geographical error, for 
 surely he was not so provincial as to imagine that 
 all good men must be born in Philadelphia. 
 Cope busied himself in Clevenger's behalf, but 
 Clevenger had the luck of those men who lose 
 by one vote. In the spring of 1893, however, 
 Cope was able to send Clevenger a card of con- 
 gratulations concerning the Kankakee superin- 
 tendency — but he did not forget he was an ed- 
 
The American Naturalist. 
 
 A Popular Illiislralcd Magazine of Natural History and Travel. 
 
 lA\t<n on btulncu coaaccl«<l with lh<- Ahrhicam NArvHALMT iliould It addrtiKd u tha Puttliihfn, McC*LtJk fc 
 Stavilv, liji) Doik Simi. Phll«ilil|>Ms. P«. 
 
 Jioo Pine St., pHiLAorLPHfA, ^yZ.^ i88'A<r 
 fC^t^iy-'y,^.€i^y^^^^//^-2r-£y1^Cy^ ^'^Tr^-^ //AjC aXv^<» <_ 
 
 
 
 C'^'\^/^^\yirt-\/^^ •'V^^J-v-'VC? 
 
 c£o^^^/ 
 
 LETTER FBOM E. D. COPE 
 
 239 
 
240 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 itor. The mind that grappled with the most in- 
 tricate problems in herpetology, ichthyology and 
 mammal og5% could condescend to 'scout for sub- 
 scribers.' Cope wrote: 
 
 Glad to hear of your, appointment. Does the insti- 
 tution take such journals as the Naturalist? We are 
 on the scout for subscribers ! I send you a late screed 
 on primitive man. 
 
 In the foregoing pages, incidental mention has 
 been made of Dr Pepper, but no account of the 
 sons of the university would be complete without 
 his dominating and vigorous personality. Wil- 
 liam Pepper was certainly born in Philadelphia, 
 in 1843 — the same year that Clevenger was born 
 in Florence. Each had a distinguished father, 
 but otherwise their paths diverged. Clevenger's 
 journey was so devious that he himself did not 
 know where he was going, but Pepper went 
 straight to his goal. There was nothing vision- 
 ary about Pepper ; he did not dwell in the clouds, 
 but at 1811 Spruce Street. Current morality, 
 including Newport society, did not revolt him, 
 and instead of attempting to improve the Re- 
 publican Party, he voted for it. He was never 
 a voice crying in the wilderness — he believed in 
 a chorus. He marched in the van of his genera- 
 
The Philadeljjhia Group 241 
 
 tion — but he never stepped aliejid of it. He was 
 a leader — but not a reformer. 
 
 As a practitioner and consultant, as a teacher 
 of clinical medicine, as a research worker, and as 
 an editor and author, Pepper made his mark, but 
 it was as provost of the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania that he became the most celebrated man in 
 Philadelphia. Whoever reads the Reminiscences 
 of a Provost, written by Pepper's predecessor, 
 Charles J. Stille, will see what an impotent, 
 meaningless position it was prior to 1881, but 
 Pepper made it a place of power. He was a 
 strong man whose limitations were his fortune, 
 for he believed Philadelphia was the American 
 paradise, and that the center of that heaven was 
 the University, and that the pivot of the Uni- 
 versity was the provostship. 
 
 With his social standing, his faultless dress, 
 his gracious manner, and the 'Pepper smile' 
 which entered into the traditions of Philadelphia, 
 he moved mountains. The University needed 
 money, and Pepper admitted he could plead for 
 money as a man pleads for his life. He was a 
 magnificent beggar, and no one else unloosened 
 so manj^ Philadelphia purse-strings. jNlen who 
 swore that Pepper would never see a dollar of 
 theirs, succumbed to his suavity, and contributed 
 
242 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 thousands. As the prince of persuasiveness, he 
 had no rivals. Whatever he desired, he obtained 
 — whether it was an ancient Moorish vase from a 
 Mexican collector who vowed he would never 
 part with it, or a new museum from an obdurate 
 city council. He wheedled the best teachers in 
 the country to joining his Faculty at the lowest 
 salaries ; financiers and politicians he met on their 
 own ground, and came away victorious. He 
 could bamboozle people beautifully. 
 
 His plans were so multitudinous that to carry 
 them into effect he was forced to consort with all 
 sorts of individuals, but Pepper was not squeam- 
 ish, and he never hesitated to make use of a man 
 simply because that man happened to be his en- 
 emy. As a matter of fact, Pepper was too busy 
 to waste any time in bickering. As a vertebrate 
 paleontologist, Cope has been ranked with Cu- 
 vier, Owen and Huxley; and such was the suc- 
 cess of Pepper's conciliatory adroitness, that he 
 was compared to those wily cardinals of the sev- 
 enteenth century, Richelieu and Mazarin. 'I 
 am seeking,' confessed Pepper, 'so many favors 
 from so many different people in so many dif- 
 ferent directions, which is all very complicated, 
 I feel like a juggler with many plates spinning, 
 and all must be touched at the right spot.' 
 

 ^ 
 
 ^^f^.^>^/^'^^^^--<-^ ^^ ^^^^-^f-^^^ 
 
 <^ 
 
 y/^. 
 
 '^y^-^ tTT-n^i-t^ 
 
 ^./Cex^-S''^^ 
 
 
 C<.*^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 LETTER FROM WILLIAM PEPPER 
 
 to E. D. Cope, concerning Clevenger's honorary A.M. Sent by Cope to 
 Clevbnger, and containing Cope's signature in the upper right-hand corner 
 
 243 
 
244 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Pepper was ambitious, but his ambition was 
 never personal — it was for his ideal University. 
 When he began to collect contributions for a new 
 undertaking, he headed the subscription-list with 
 a liberal donation from his own pocket — in this 
 W'ay he gave away nearly half a million dollars 
 which he had earned in the practice of his pro- 
 fession. Pepper's administrative duties checked 
 his research-work, but he kept up an enormous 
 consulting practice which took him all over the 
 country. No other physician in America was 
 known to so many conductors. 
 
 Pepper's triumphs were not all gained by 
 smiles and suavity; often he was forced to fight 
 like a titan for his plans. His life was spent in 
 presiding over meetings, and after one of these 
 meetings he uttered these characteristic words: 
 'I gathered up the Faculty into one hand last 
 night and swung it as a stick.' His passion for 
 work was almost pathologic, but the only rem- 
 edy for his rare disease was more work. Unlike 
 Paul La Fargue, he did not believe in the right 
 to be lazy. 
 
 At rare intervals. Pepper experimented with 
 a vacation, but he could not enjoy rest. One 
 summer, while recuperating at Mrs Hearst's 
 home in Pleasanton, he declared: 'It is all very 
 
The Philadelphia Group 245 
 
 well to prate of contentment and y)leasure, but 1 
 am debauched by affairs, and know no peace ex- 
 cept in the midst of full activity.' Pepper was 
 a commander who could set groups of men into 
 motion, and while one group was working for 
 better boulevards and purer water for Philadel- 
 phia, other groups were excavating Babylon, 
 Egypt, Italy, and Nippur, because Pepper so 
 willed it — for his museums. 
 
 It had been Pepper's habit to work early and 
 late, but the time came when he would tire at 
 sundown. Pepper was an oak that bent beneath 
 the long-continued storms of overwork. Every- 
 one could see the premature wrinkles on his brow, 
 but only a few knew that Pepper was falling in 
 his prime. But this self-controlled man did not 
 whimper. 'I did it deliberately,' he declared, 
 'and am not sorry, but must pay the price.' He 
 was the embodiment of Henley's Invictus. 
 
 Even in the closing years. Pepper refused to 
 drink from the cup of indolence. 'If it costs me 
 my life,' he said, 'I will see this thru. Now don't 
 tease me about it ; arguing makes me nervous and 
 lessens my strength. I must go on till the end.' 
 Pepper did not work with any hope of future re- 
 ward, and his ringing words on this subject 
 
246 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 should be nailed on every church-door in 
 Christendom : 
 
 It would make not a stiver of difference if I were to 
 learn sure that death is to be the end-all and the be-all 
 of the business; the work is here; there is value in it. 
 It will help otliers ; we cannot let it alone undone, or 
 we should be more unhappy than as it is. Let us 
 leave teleology alone. 
 
 Pepper had many admirers, but his achieve- 
 ments are his most eloquent eulogists. He cre- 
 ated the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the 
 Free Museum of Science and Art, and when he 
 founded the Philadelphia Commercial Museums, 
 he opened them with an exposition which the 
 President of the United States attended — after 
 a personal interview with this irresistible or- 
 ganizer. As provost, William Pepper estab- 
 lished the following university departments: the 
 Wharton School of Finance and Economy, the 
 Biologic Department, the Department of Philos- 
 ophy, the Veterinary Department, the Training 
 School for Nurses, the Department of Physical 
 Education, the University Library, the Gradu- 
 ate Department for Women, the Department of 
 Hygiene, the Department of Architecture, the 
 Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, the 
 
The Philadelphia Group 247 
 
 William Pepper Laboratory of* Clinical Medi- 
 cine, and the Department of Archeology and 
 Paleontology. Benjamin Franklin laid the 
 corner-stone of this temple, but William Pep- 
 per was its chief builder. 
 
 Pepper's clinical and biographical papers are 
 well-written, and his two addresses on Higher 
 Medical Education — the first, delivered October, 
 187T, and the second, October, 1893 — were im- 
 portant contributions to the subject, and are still 
 valuable for ideas and data, but his most notable 
 literary work is the System of Medicine which 
 appeared, 1885-6, in five massive volumes. It 
 was an imposing undertaking, which could have 
 been carried to completion only by a man like 
 Pepper or Gross — a man of equanimous tem- 
 perament and magnetic personality, with a wide 
 acquaintanceship. The leaders of American 
 medicine contributed to this magnificent System 
 which has now been superseded, but not sur- 
 passed, by that of Osler — and except where 
 Pepper's System has become antiquated, we pre- 
 fer it to Osler's. 
 
 Pepper issued the original prospectus of the 
 work in 1881, and among those to whom he ap- 
 plied was Clevenger, altho Dr Clevexger's di- 
 ploma was then only two years old. Pepper's 
 
248 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry ~ 
 
 first communication to Clevenger is dated No- 
 vember, 1881: 
 
 The accompanying Prospectus will explain itself. I 
 undertook the work with reluctance, but the cordial 
 favor and unanimous cooperation of all whom I have 
 invited to write for it has been very gratifying to me. 
 The complete success of the work is now assured, and 
 much of the material has been allotted; but some very 
 interesting and important chapters are still unas- 
 signed. 
 
 I write now to ask if you will be good enough to un- 
 dertake the preparation of the articles on Alcoholism, 
 Opium Habit, Toxic Neuroses. See page 7. The MS 
 will not be expected before October, 1882, so that ample 
 time exists for the preparation of the articles. 
 
 Pray send me a half-rate night telegram at my cost. 
 
 Ten months later — September, 1882 — Pepper 
 wrote as follows to Clevenger: 
 
 In answer to your request I would state in confi- 
 dence, that as your articles form part of the last vol- 
 ume of the System of Medicine, I can allow you until 
 March 1st, 1883, on or before which time it is essential 
 I should receive them. 
 
 This shows that Clevenger had accepted Pep- 
 per's offer, but desired an extension of time for 
 
WILLIAM PEPPER 
 
The Philadelphia Group 249 
 
 his articles. Then the new time arrived, but 
 Clevenger's manuscripts were not on the way 
 to Philadelphia. In the meanwhile, however, he 
 had seen Pepper, and told him what valuable ma- 
 terial he had on alcoholism. During June, 1883, 
 Pepper wrote to Clevenger: 
 
 After you left I reflected on what you had said about 
 your valuable material on Alcoholism. Would it not 
 suit you better to write that article and the one on 
 Toxic Neuroses from mineral substances? 
 
 This would enable me to get Dr Kane of New York 
 to write up Opium, Chloral, Tea, etc., and he could 
 probably make a very good companion article for 
 yours. If it suits you as well, it will suit me better. 
 Please write me at once. You could have until April 
 1st, 1884, to complete your MSS. 
 
 But it seems Cle^tenger was unwilling to re- 
 linquish any of his topics, for tho he had not done 
 one, he believed he could complete all. In the 
 following month — July, 1883 — Pepper was sup- 
 posed to be abstaining from work at Newport, 
 but evidently he took a supply of postage-stamps 
 with him. Clevenger, who was at Dunning, re- 
 ceived this letter of explanation and congratu- 
 lations : 
 
 That is right. I will give you for Opium and Toxic 
 Neuroses till April 1st, 1884. I am glad you antici- 
 
250 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 pate a trip thru those regions, and hope you add what- 
 ever valuable information you may acquire on these 
 subjects. I congratulate you on being so situated that 
 3^ou can look forward to steady scientific work. The 
 authorities are certainly to be warmly applauded. 
 
 Another spring arrived, but Clevenger's ar- 
 ticles did not, and on the twenty-fifth of May, 
 1884, Pepper sent Cleatenger a note which was 
 more categorical than congratulatory: 
 
 Since our meeting the first volume of our System of 
 Medicine is being pushed rapidly thru the press. I 
 must now know just when to expect the manuscript 
 for the three latter volumes. I write to ask you to 
 favor me by return mail with a line stating exactly 
 what you are preparing for me, when I may count 
 upon the manuscript without fail, and how many pages 
 it will make. 
 
 All this was too definite for Clevenger; 
 harassed with a variety of plans, and wrangling 
 with Mike McDonald's gang, he was in no state 
 of mind to prepare monographs for America's 
 first System of Medicine — and at the eleventh 
 hour he told Pepper so. Pepper may have been 
 annoyed, but he replied with equanimity: 
 
 It would have been easier for me had you notified me 
 of your inability to prepare your articles as soon as 
 
The Philadelphia Group 251 
 
 you became convinced of it. I shall, however, imme- 
 diately secure some successor, tho I am sorry we shall 
 not have you among our list of authors. 
 
 So the final volume appeared, without Clev- 
 enger's contributions, but with gratifying words 
 by William Pepper. In the valedictory pref- 
 ace, he gave the date of publication of each vol- 
 ume, and added these comments : 
 
 In view of the delays inevitable in large and compli- 
 cated literary enterprises, such unusual punctuality re- 
 flects credit alike on the zeal of the contributors and 
 the energy and resources of the publishers. The du- 
 ties of the Editor have been lightened and rendered 
 agreeable by the unvarying courtesy and cordial co- 
 operation of all connected with him in the undertak- 
 ing; and he has been amply rewarded b}' the realiza- 
 tion of his hopes in the favorable reception accorded 
 to the successive volumes by the profesison on both 
 sides of the Atlantic. The plan of the work has been 
 strictly adhered to, and the articles promised have 
 been furnished without exception, altho in a very few 
 cases circumstances required a change in the author- 
 ship. . . . 
 
 In conclusion, the Editor feels that it is a subject of 
 congratulation that thru the combination of so many 
 leading members of the profession it has been rendered 
 possible to present in this work, for the first time, the 
 
252 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 entire subject of practical medicine treated in a man- 
 ner truly representative of the American School. 
 
 In Clevengee's place, Pepper secured the dis- 
 tinguished James Cornelius Wilson, who con- 
 tributed the chapters on Alcoholism, The Opium 
 Habit and Kindred Affections, and Chronic 
 Lead-Poisoning ; these essays do not betray the 
 circumstances of their origin, for tho conceived 
 in haste and brought forth under stress, they are 
 choice in language and rich in scholarship. Sev- 
 eral years later, Clevenger's articles on Alcohol- 
 ism and Morphinism and Other Addictions, ap- 
 peared in the second volume of his Medical 
 Jurisprudence of Insanity, but both in diction 
 and in information, they are less meritorious than 
 Wilson's. 
 
 Clevenger's absence from Pepper's System 
 of Medicine was like staying away from a family 
 reunion, for many of his friends were represented 
 in its five thousand octavo pages : James Nevins 
 Hyde wrote on variola, varicella, and erysipelas ; 
 H. D. Schmidt wrote on dengue and contrib- 
 uted to the diseases of the nervous system; 
 Joseph Leidy wrote a treatise on intestinal 
 worms; Harrison Allen wrote on diseases of 
 the nasal passages; E, C. Dudley wrote on dis- 
 
The Philadelphia Group 258 
 
 placements of the uterus; E. C. Seguin wrote on 
 the general semeiology of the nervous system; 
 and CiTARTJcs K. Mim.s and E. C. Spitzka also 
 contributed generously to the neurological vol- 
 ume. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 FRIENDS IN NEW YORK 
 
 HAD Pepper edited a System of Surgery 
 in the eighties, he would probably have en- 
 listed the services of that rising young surgeon, 
 RoswELL Park. Dr Park was born in Con- 
 necticut, but received his academic education in 
 the Racine College of Wisconsin, and his med- 
 ical training at the Chicago Medical College. 
 When Clevenger matriculated at this institu- 
 tion, Park, altho nine years Clevenger's junior, 
 was already a member of the faculty, in the de- 
 partment of anatomy. Later, he lectured on 
 surgery at the Rush Medical College. 
 
 Clevenger and Roswell Park frequently 
 met at the Chicago Biological Society, of which 
 Park was secretary. One of the mimeographed 
 announcements which Park sent to the members 
 has been preserved: 
 
 The regular meeting of the Biological Society will 
 be held Wednesday, May 5th, 8 p. m. at the Tremont 
 House. Dr P. S. Hayes will report a Case of Exoph- 
 
 254 
 
Friends in New York 2.55 
 
 thalmic Goitre — fatal. The Secretary will exhibit a 
 case of I ho same disease, — and also rc'f)ort three Un- 
 usual Cases of Poisoning, Dr C'i.evkxgeh will report 
 a Case of Poisoning from the P^xtcrnal Use of Cor- 
 rosive Sublimate. The ('ommittee on the Deleterious 
 Action of Glucose as an Adulteration will report. 
 
 In 1883 — the central date of this narrative — 
 Edward Mott Moore, one of the celebrated sur- 
 geons of the day, resigned his chair at the Buf- 
 falo Medical College, which immediately ap- 
 pealed to Moses Gunn — Chicago's surgical over- 
 seer — for a successor. Professor Gunn sug- 
 gested RoswELL Park, then in his thirty-first 
 year, and both Park and the College accepted 
 the offer. However, when the new professor ar- 
 rived in Buffalo, he found this chilly welcome in 
 the pages of the Buffalo Medical Journal: 
 
 Professor Moore's resignation is a loss to the pro- 
 fession of this city as well as to the College. It is but 
 fair to say of liim that he is recognized as the ablest 
 professor of surgery in this country. We learn that 
 Dr RosM'ELL Park of Chicago has been appointed in 
 the place thus vacated. We fail to ascertain, after 
 repeated inquiries in surgical circles, that the new ap- 
 pointee brings to this responsible position any exten- 
 sive experience or reputation. 
 
256 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 In the light of subsequent events, these caus- 
 tic comments are amusing, for Roswell Park 
 became Buffalo's big man, looming like a colos- 
 sus aboA^e his colleagues, as Byron Robinson 
 did at the Toledo Medical College. Besides be- 
 ing president of such professional organizations 
 as the American Surgical Association, and the 
 Medical Society of the State of New York, and 
 director of the New York State Cancer Labora- 
 tory, he was president also of the Philharmonic 
 Society, and — what was more substantial — of the 
 Spencer Lens Company. 
 
 Park was the author of a text-book on Mod- 
 ern Surgery, and in addition to technical con- 
 tributions, he delved into medico-historical fields, 
 writing various essays, and compiling an 
 Epitome of the History of Medicine. As a 
 writer he possessed no special talents, and his 
 medico-historical work is like that of the Boston 
 surgeon, James Gregory Mumford — worth 
 while, but not notable. 
 
 In 1887, Moses Gunn rested from his labors, 
 and the chair of surgery at Rush Medical Col- 
 lege stood empty; but soon it was filled by 
 Charles Theodore Parkes, a man whose 
 boundless enthusiasm for operative surgery was 
 fostered by his unusual physical strength. Pro- 
 
Friends in New York 257 
 
 fessor Parkes was a pioneer investigator of gun- 
 shot wonnds of the intestines. He would anes- 
 thetize dogs, shoot them several times in the belly, 
 then perform laparotomy, followed by closure 
 of the perforations — and 'the number of recov- 
 eries in his animals,' says J. H. Etheridge, 'as- 
 tounded the medical profession, and led to fur- 
 ther experiments in all parts of the world.' Huge 
 of limb and heavy, but carrying himself with the 
 grace of the all-around athlete and sportsman, 
 Parkes moved like a ruddy-faced giant among 
 the diminutive nurses and assistants of his clinic. 
 Death seemed far off from that magnificent 
 physique, but in 1891, several months before he 
 reached his forty-ninth birthday, he was stricken 
 by the most sudden, silent, subtle murderer 
 known to medicine — Pneumonia. 
 
 That same day, Roswell Park received this 
 telegram from Professor Etheridge: 
 
 Parkes died this morning. Can I present your name 
 as his successor? Biggest place in America today. 
 
 It was a critical moment for Roswt^ll Park. 
 Compared with the Rush INIedical College, the 
 medical department of the University of Buffalo 
 was a place of minor importance. Park carried 
 
Br. Roswell Park 
 
 ^e^s teane to announce tkat he ka; accepted the Stjair 
 cf ^ur^ery in ifie T^ea'ical ^epartmerit of the XJ nivefsiiy 
 of "^uffalo, arid cjill concequenily remove to that city 
 during the latter part of ^u^uci 
 
 Cliicngo, ynly, tS3j. 
 
 ^^. 
 
 vk:. 
 
 ROSWELL PARK S ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 of his removal to Buffalo, containing his request for a copy of Clevenger's 
 paper on the thyroid and thjinus. 
 
 258 
 
Friends in New York 2.59 
 
 this telegram around with him, and showed it to 
 certain parties. He said nothing ahout Buf- 
 falo's lesser reputation, but he hinted that unless 
 more adequate equipment and new buildings 
 were forthcoming, he would deem it expedient 
 to answer the telegram in the affirmative. Happy 
 is the man whom an institution fears to lose. 
 Park was assured that his desires would receive 
 prompt attention, and he decided to stay where 
 he was. But Etheridge was not easily balked, 
 and the wires from Chicago to Buffalo waxed hot 
 with his telegrams. But in this instance his per- 
 sistence was of no avail, and his final telegram 
 said: 
 
 My heart is broken. We will have 3'ou in a few 
 years. I never abandoned anything more reluctantly. 
 I love you very much. 
 
 So RoswELL Park remained in Buffalo, and 
 the passing years brought him increasing respect 
 and reputation. When William ^IcKinley 
 was wounded there, all eyes turned to Dr Park ; 
 he became a national figure, and it w^as an un- 
 dying disappointment to him that he was unable, 
 in spite of all his efforts, to save the President's 
 life. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Park's 
 professorship, a banquet was arranged in his 
 
260 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 honor, and the men who attended were ample 
 testimony to the position which Roswell Park 
 had reached, for Dennis and Brewer came from 
 New York, and Crile from Cleveland; Chicago 
 sent Billings and Bevan, and Richardson 
 journeyed from Boston; out of the northwest 
 came Mayo, and from the south, Matas and 
 Welch. 
 
 The present writer claims to be the champion 
 symposiumist of America, having conducted and 
 published symposiimis on humanitarians (1908), 
 euthanasia (1913), sterilization of the unfit 
 (1914), drugs (1916), obstetrical abnormalities 
 (1916), and the medical profession (1917). 
 None of these collections of diverse opinion ex- 
 hibited more dissimilitude than the Symposium 
 on Euthanasia — Shall the state permit science to 
 put a painless end to a hopeless disease? As 
 usual, the question aroused heat and hysteria; 
 most of the physicians proclaimed it their duty 
 to keep life alive, no matter how painful and un- 
 desirable that life is to its possessor, and no mat- 
 ter how persistently and piteously the incurable 
 or deformed sufferer begs for the waters of 
 Lethe. But others came to the defense of 
 euthanasia, arguing that we have no right to force 
 life upon a patient when that life is one con- 
 
Friends in New York 2G1 
 
 tinuous round of agony, and that it is the pro- 
 fession's duty to alleviate pain and not to prolong 
 death-tortures. Among those who took this view 
 was RoswELL Park, whose contribution con- 
 tained the sensational confession that he not only 
 believed in euthanasia, but practised it: 
 
 I know that others have assumed the responsibility, 
 which I have myself taken in more than one case, of pro- 
 ducing euthanasia, when, in the terminal stage of life, 
 a patient was suffering the tortures 'of the damned,' 
 and has pleaded for a method of escape, the pleadings 
 being seconded by the family. Under these circum- 
 stances I think that to administer a lethal dose of mor- 
 phine or chloroform is to 'do as one would be done by.' 
 I have been told by high legal authority that to do 
 this is equivalent, in the eyes of the law, to commit- 
 ting murder. Nevertheless no one need allow his con- 
 science to trouble him on this score. I am positive 
 that it is one of the kindest acts that a medical man 
 can ever perform. 
 
 For this enlightened standpoint, Park was 
 deluged with a shower of abusive epithets, and 
 altho he was a minister's son, he was accused of 
 violating the precepts of religion. Roswell 
 Park invariably side-stepped theology; in his 
 letter to Clevenger, dated July, 1894, he says: 
 
Oft WILLIAM A. HAMMOND 43 Wer.t y,\h Si . New Vork 
 
 CONSULTATldll HOURS fSOU 
 
 l^ ^^ 7^ /lAfl^ ^ 
 
 ^-i ^^ ^^C-^ t^^^^ly^ 
 
 LETTER FROM WILLIAM A. HAMMOND 
 
 262 
 
Friends in New York 263 
 
 I am very much obli/red to you for writing to me as 
 you did about that book. It was one which my FaHic r 
 published not long after I was born ; and, had I not 
 several copies now on hand, I should be desirous of se- 
 curing the one of which you write. As it is, I have no 
 use for it, and can only thank you warmly for your 
 kindness in writing to remind me about it. I am my- 
 self too deep in medicine to delve in theology ; and, 
 whatever else you may see from my pen, you will see 
 nothing that deals with eschatology or anything of that 
 kind. 
 
 I have read and often recommended your book upon 
 the spine, and have wondered many times what had be- 
 come of you, and it has done me good to get your letter. 
 In your many polemics against corruption and abuse 
 in asylums and hospitals, I have watched you with 
 envious eyes, and have wished you success many times 
 when you did not realize it. 
 
 I trust that you may even yet come out on top and 
 maintain, as you always will, the honor and dignity of 
 our profession. 
 
 Among Clevenger's papers we find this 
 hastily-scribbled note, 'Won't you go to Man- 
 hattan Beach this afternoon with me? If so, 
 meet me at the foot of 22nd St., North River, at 
 3 p. m.,' from one of the most interesting per- 
 sonalities of the tune, — William Alexaxdee 
 Hammond. Born in Maryland, and graduating 
 
264 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 in New York, Hammond next spent some 
 months in Philadelphia and Maine, then joined 
 the army where he served for over a decade, re- 
 tiring in his thirty-first year to return to Mary- 
 land as professor of anatomy and physiology in 
 the university. 
 
 But the following year there was war, and 
 Hammond resigned his professorship to re-enter 
 the army. Armies have inflexible rules, and in- 
 flexible rules are invariably stupid. Because 
 Hammond had left the army in 1859, he lost his 
 rank; his eleven years of service did not count, 
 and he was placed at the foot of a roll of inex- 
 perienced assistant surgeons. 
 
 But he was not to remain inconspicuous long. 
 A vigorous Surgeon-General was the crying 
 need of the hour. The nation's medical depart- 
 ment, organized to look after fifteen thousand 
 men, suddenly found itself confronted with the 
 task of taking care of a million. A consultation 
 was held between the Secretary of War, the re- 
 doubtable Edwin McMasters Stanton, and 
 the Sanitary Commission, composed of such dis- 
 tinguished physicians as Cornelius R. Agnew, 
 WoLCOTT Gibes, and William Holme Van 
 BuREN. 'Well,' asked Stanton, 'whom would 
 you suggest?' — which was extraordinary gra- 
 
Friends in New York 265 
 
 ciousness on his part, for this iron-willed man 
 rarely allowed suggestions. The members of the 
 Sanitary Commission glanced thru the list, and 
 Van Buren put his hand on the name of Ham- 
 mond, saying, 'That is the man whom the Sani- 
 tary Commission would like to have. I know 
 him, and served with him, and the profession has 
 confidence in him.' 
 
 Van Buren 's finger toyed with destiny that 
 day, for the surgeon-generalcy has ever been a 
 slippery place. The first who climbed to it, 
 Benjamin Church, slipped into oblivion and 
 disgrace. The second, the famous John Mor- 
 gan, was soon dismissed by Congress, and tho he 
 published a Vindication, and was acquitted by 
 a later court of inquiry, he never recovered from 
 the ignominy. His successor, William Ship- 
 pen, Jr, was also acquitted — but not before he 
 faced serious accusations at court martial. 
 
 Hammond, however, was not an historico- 
 medical student — altho he was so enthusiastic 
 about Servetus that he intended to write a book, 
 burning John Calvin in ink. But the fate of 
 his early predecessors did not deter him from ac- 
 cepting the surgeon-generalship — with the rank 
 of brigadier-general. Hammond was large and 
 loud — when he entered a room, he filled it. He 
 
266 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 looked splendid in his uniform. He began to 
 work at once. He found that the more prev- 
 alent malaria grew, the higher was the price of 
 quinine, so he announced that the Medical De- 
 partment would manufacture its own quinine — 
 and down came the price of quinine. Hammond 
 created the Army Medical Museum, projected 
 that magnificent undertaking, the Medical and 
 Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 
 and suggested the establishment of the Surgeon- 
 General's Library, but here he was balked by 
 Secretary Stanton, who flatly declared such a 
 library unnecessary. 
 
 In fact, Stanton didn't like Hammond — just 
 as Richelieu didn't like Grotius. At every 
 step, Hammond found himself opposed by this 
 grim-lipped statesman whose arbitrary spirit, 
 violent temper and bitter tongue were equalled 
 only by his efficiency, courage and honesty. So 
 these two masterful men clashed, but a surgeon- 
 general was easy game for the autocrat of Amer- 
 ican politics who drove even Lincoln to despair, 
 who came within one vote — ah, how much history 
 has hinged on one vote — of having Johnson im- 
 peached, and who exchanged blows with mighty 
 Sheeman. There seems to have been some- 
 thing mysterious in Hammond's connexion with 
 
Friends in New York 267 
 
 a million horse-blankets — or was it with drug- 
 supplies on which his brother-in-law grew rich? 
 The Secretary of War put his machinery in mo- 
 tion, and the court martial pronounced Ham- 
 mond guilty, deprived him of rank, and dismissed 
 him in disgrace. Whether Hammond was 
 blameless in the matter of these horse-blankets, 
 or whether he really tried tcK indulge a bit in the 
 well-known American game of 'graft,' we can- 
 not venture to say, but it may be conceded that 
 his summary removal was due chiefly to Stan- 
 ton's enmity. 
 
 A weaker man would have succumbed to these 
 'bludgeonings of chance,' but Hammond came 
 to face life in New York. His colleagues be- 
 lieved in him, and he was appointed lecturer in 
 neurology at the College of Physicians and Sur- 
 geons; within a short time he became the first 
 professor of neurology at the Bellevue Hospital 
 Medical College, but resigned, after some years, 
 to accept a similar chaii* at the New York Uni- 
 versity Medical College. He was one of the 
 principal founders, in 1882, of the New York 
 Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, 
 where he continued to teach his specialty with 
 considerable success, and where his son, Graeme 
 
268 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Monroe Hammond, is professor of mental dis- 
 eases until this very day. 
 
 Hammond was not the sort of man to go thru 
 life tamely with a stigma hanging over his head. 
 He besieged the senators until Congress surren- 
 dered to his demand for a review of the court- 
 martial proceedings which had deposed him; he 
 presented a volume of evidence in his defense, 
 and the result of this later inquiry was favorable 
 to Hammond; like the surgeon-generals of the 
 revolutionary period, he was vindicated, being 
 restored to his rank of brigadier-general on the 
 retired list — after fourteen years of disgrace. If 
 this was an act of Justice, then Justice needs the 
 services of an orthopedist, for she is painfully 
 lame. 
 
 Hammond was a voluminous author, and as 
 far back as 1863, his Physiological Memoirs 
 gained him a reputation. Among his numerous 
 volumes are a Treatise on Hygiene, Lectures on 
 Venereal Diseases, Sexual Impotence in the 
 Male, Treatise on Diseases of the Nervous Sys- 
 tem, and exposures of spiritualism and similar 
 maladies. In 1883, both Hammond and 
 Spitzka published a work on Insanity, Spitz- 
 ka's being the superior ; these were the first sys- 
 tematic treatises on insanity published in Amer- 
 
Friends in New York 269 
 
 ica, and Dr Clevenger received an autographed 
 copy of each. In after years Ci.evenger do- 
 nated Hammond's copy to the Atlantic City 
 Medical Library, and presented Spitzka's copy, 
 with copious marginal notes, to the present 
 writer. Had Hammond produced fewer vol- 
 umes, probably more of them would have sur- 
 vived. An author who does not practise birth- 
 control with his literary progeny, dooms most of 
 them to early extinction. 
 
 Of course, the versatile Hammond had his 
 hand in medical journalism. He was the orig- 
 inator and editor of the 'Maryland and Virginia 
 Medical Journal,' and of the quarterly 'Journal 
 of Psychological Medicine and Medical Juris- 
 prudence,' and was one of the founders and ed- 
 itors of the 'New York Medical Journal.' Thus, 
 for an important post-graduate school and an 
 important professional journal. New York is 
 largely indebted to the efforts of William 
 Alexander Hammond. 
 
 Unhappily, Hammond's boundless energies 
 could not be confined by physiological, psycho- 
 logical, and neurological themes. Now and then 
 he would desert these erstwhile favorites in order 
 to woo literature — and instead of keeping these 
 indiscretions hidden, he published them. It is 
 
270 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ixo exaggeration to say that every time Dr Ham- 
 mond became father of a novel, he was guilty of 
 a literary felony. His novels are horrible stuff, 
 whose bad taste lingers on for months, and never 
 entirety disappears. Much bad fiction has come 
 our way, but the three worst novels we ever read 
 were produced by physicians: The Perverts, by 
 Dr William Lee Howard; the Exploits of a 
 Physician-Detective, by Dr George Frank 
 Butler; and Lai, by Dr William Alexander 
 Hammond. 
 
 Hammond had more assurance than modesty 
 in his make-up, and he confidently believed that 
 in time he could solve all medical problems — but 
 he didn't. He was, however, a sagacious inves- 
 tigator, and had he not been endowed with ad- 
 ministrative ability — always a dangerous gift for 
 a scientist — and had he stuck more faithfully to 
 his laboratory, his fame would be more secure. 
 Among Hammond's early work was an inves- 
 tigation of the arrow and ordeal poisons, in col- 
 laboration with Silas Weir Mitchell. Thru- 
 out his career, in carrying on his researches, 
 Hammond experimented uj)on himself. When 
 the oto-ophthalmologist, Daniel Bennett St 
 John Roosa — whose hybrid name is due to his 
 descent from Dutch, French and English set- 
 
^^^fV^SKfoi^ 
 
 X^W^^^^ 
 
 ^^n.yi^^'l'^^^ 
 
Friends in New York 271 
 
 tiers — informed Hammond that tlierc were 
 doubts as to the effects of quinine upon the fun- 
 dus oculi, membrana tympani and auditory 
 nerve, Hammond insisted upon Q.{)n\\n<x, to Pro- 
 fessor Roosa's office and l)eing dosed with all the 
 quinine that his system could tolerate. Oddly 
 enough, in the eighteenth century, there was a 
 William Alexander who may be regarded as 
 one of the founders of pharmacology, for he ex- 
 perimented upon himself with drugs until they 
 very nearly killed him. 
 
 After his vindication, Hammond removed to 
 Washington, where he conducted a sanitarium. 
 He was one of the most conspicuous of contem- 
 porary neurologists, being widely consulted and 
 extensively quoted. He was the first to describe 
 mysophobia, and athetosis is know^n as Ham- 
 mond's disease. All in all, he w^as a type of the 
 successful American. His children were also 
 successful, his son becoming, as we previously 
 mentioned, professor in the post-graduate school, 
 and his daughter becoming the Marquise Clara 
 Lanza. 
 
 Leidy's infatuation with w^orms, Cope's early 
 interest in salamanders, and Harrison Allen's 
 fondness for bats, were matched by Burt Green 
 Wilder's partiality for spiders. At the age of 
 
272 The Don Qvivote of Psychiatry 
 
 fourteen, his study of spiders brought him an 
 encouraging nod from the elder Agassiz. Dur- 
 ing the Civil War, he was surgeon to the Fifty- 
 fifth JNIassachusetts Infantry — the colored regi- 
 ment — but his devotion to spiders did not cease, 
 and while stationed on Folly Island, in South 
 Carolina, he discovered a 'large and handsome 
 spider' — named Nephila Wilderi by McCook — 
 from which, while alive, he reeled 150 yards of 
 yellowish silk, and which gave him a taste of 
 fame. 
 
 But already, other creatures had begun to at- 
 tract his attention: at the age of eighteen, work- 
 ing with Jeffries Wyman, he began to com- 
 pare the skull of men and apes; at twenty, he 
 published his Contributions to the Comparative 
 Myology of the Chimpanzee; and later, under 
 Agassiz, he studied the anatomy of sharks and 
 rays. 
 
 In the autumn of 1867, when Cornell Univer- 
 sity opened its doors, the enlightened Andrew 
 D. White appealed to Asa Gray and Louis 
 Agassiz for a teacher of natural sciences. They 
 recommended Wilder, who accordingly was ap- 
 pointed professor of physiology, vertebrate zo- 
 ology and neurology. His laboratory was in a 
 basement — where tools were later kept — and he 
 
Friends in New York 278 
 
 was his own preparator, assistant, and stenog- 
 rapher, hut he was only twenty-six, and his sci- 
 entific ardor was intense. 
 
 Twenty-five years later, Professor Wilder 
 was the recipient of the Wilder Quarter-Century 
 Book, which was prohahly the first of American 
 Festschrifts. All its articles were written by 
 former pupils who had risen to eminence, for 
 Wilder had trained such men as David Starr 
 Jordan, Leland Ossian Howard, Theobau) 
 Smith, Hermann Michael Biggs, and Simon 
 Henry Gage. 
 
 The first time we saw Professor Wilder, it 
 was under less triumphant circumstances. He 
 was scheduled, at the New York Academy of 
 Medicine, to lecture to the ill-named American 
 Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis on 
 certain phases of the venereal peril. He arrived 
 with his statistics, but found to his consternation 
 that there were women in the audience. Wilder 
 had seen women before — he was the father of 
 Ruth and Mary and Bertha — and the women 
 whom he now saw before him, were, with a few 
 exceptions, either physicians or nurses, but they 
 looked like other women, and to speak of chancre 
 and gonorrhea in their presence, was more than 
 Wilder could do. He made a few attempts, 
 
FROM — 
 
 ittirt G. Wilder, SI. D., S "^ 
 
 PROFESSOR OF * H>^ 
 
 Physiolo^, Comparative Anatomy, and Zoology, § — 
 
 coKNBLL uNivERMTv. $* _::: 
 
 mnca, .V. v., CbVr / 5 'S ?5 I* ^ 
 
 7^ ^ / l4 
 
 ^ = 
 
 5 — 
 
 
 CXy^-^"-^^ 
 
 o- 
 
 POSTAL CARD FROM BURT G. WILDER 
 
 showing his propaganda for the metric system 
 274 
 
Friends in New York 275 
 
 held up his awful statistics in dismay, and sat 
 down. There is no simj)licity to ecpial the un- 
 worldly innocence of an old scientist. While the 
 professor had buried himself in his laboratory 
 at Ithaca, busy with cat's brains, sociology had 
 been advancing, and venereal disease and prosti- 
 tution had become fashionable topics of conversa- 
 tion, indulged in by ladies' clubs and ministers 
 seeking popularity. 
 
 It should not be supposed, however, that 
 Wilder was usually hesitant in expressing his 
 opinions; being a scientist and not a politician, 
 he frequently found it necessary to raise his voice 
 on the unpopular side. During our first year of 
 editorial life, we raised a transient tempest by 
 writing The Negro in American Medicine, in 
 which we claimed that the medical profession of 
 America, instead of enriching anthropology by 
 impartial and objective studies of the negro, was 
 pandering to the brutal prejudices of the mob, 
 and attempting to rival the infamies of a 
 Thomas Dixon. After turning the searchlight 
 on the physician's hypocrisy in this matter, we 
 concluded by declaring that there is a shameful 
 chapter in American medicine, and it is headed: 
 The Negro. The most glorious exception to 
 this rule is Burt Green Wilder. He asserts 
 
276 The Don QuLrote of Psychiatry 
 
 that his army and university experiences have 
 often tempted him to saj^ 'Yes, a white man is 
 as worthy as a colored man — provided he be- 
 haves himself as well.' When that sensation- 
 springing novelist, Mr Owen Wister, seeking 
 to wrap himself in the cloak of popularity, made 
 startling and dishonest comparisons between the 
 skulls of the negro and the ape, Professor 
 Wilder exposed his errors with such facts and 
 persistence that the would-be breeder of race- 
 prejudice — altho he claimed never to have heard 
 of Wilder before — was compelled, much against 
 his inclinations, to modify his statements. 
 Wilder's monograph on The Brain of the Amer- 
 ican Negro, coming from one of the foremost 
 neuro-anatomists of modern times, sounds a 
 death-knell to the white man's conceit, and is a 
 trumpet-call to a capable but downtrodden race. 
 For many years Wilder not only advocated 
 the simplification of neuro-anatomical nomen- 
 clature, but supplied a new nomenclature, so it 
 could be compared with the old. Wilder was 
 always a scholar, and, on most occasions, a gen- 
 tleman, but when he heard the resolution, 'that 
 members of this Association should defer to gen- 
 eral usage,' he gave way to a passionate denun- 
 ciation of that universal commander: 
 
Friends in New York 277 
 
 Of all so-called leaders, the most incupable, blun- 
 dering and danf^crous is General Usage. He stands 
 for thoughtless imitation, the residuum of the ape in 
 humanity; for senseless and indecorous fashions, the 
 caprices of the demi-monde; for sujoersl ition ;i.iid hys- 
 teria, the attributes of the mob; for slang, the language 
 of the street lioodlum and of his deliberate imitator, 
 the college 'sport ;' and finally in science, for the larger 
 part of the current nomenclature of the })rain. As 
 scholarly anatomists it is at once our prerogative and 
 our duty to scrutinize and reflect, and to deal with 
 the language of our science in the same spirit and with 
 the same discrimination that we maintain in regard to 
 the parts of the body and the generalizations concern- 
 ing them. 
 
 The sterilization of defectives, the simplified 
 spelling, the use of chloroform as a lethal agent 
 for condemned animals and criminals, the aboli- 
 tion of fraternities and intercollegiate athletic 
 contests, the removal of the appendix from all 
 young children — these are a few of the reforms 
 which Wilder has advocated with little success. 
 
 At the age of seventy, after forty-two years 
 of splendid service at Cornell, Professor Wilder 
 retired. He is one of the finest representatives 
 of American science, but the man in the street 
 does not know him, and neither does that impos- 
 
278 Tlie Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 ing authority, the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
 whose eleventh edition devotes many columns to 
 some of our loud-mouthed politicans, — who 
 added nothing to the sum of human knowledge, 
 — but contains not even a casual reference to 
 the foremost makers of American medicine — 
 the Jacksons, the Warrens, the Bigelows, 
 Horner, Drake, Nott, Gross, and Marion 
 Sims. But tho the Encyclopedia Britannica 
 knows him not, Wilder has been quoted by an- 
 other British authority — Charles Darwin. It 
 was Thackeray who said that to have your name 
 mentioned by Gibbon was like having it written 
 on the dome of St Peter's, for pilgrims from all 
 the world admire and behold it. Similarly, the 
 student of science may say that to have your 
 name inscribed in the Descent of Man, is to write 
 it down for farthest posterity. 
 
 Clevenger is indebted to Wilder for adding 
 Clevengers fissure to neurological nomencla- 
 ture; these two neurologists became personally 
 acquainted at the Boston meeting of the Amer- 
 ican Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
 ence, where Wilder read three papers on the 
 structure and nomenclature of the brain, with 
 special reference to that of the cat, and Cleven- 
 ger read his plan of the cerebro- spinal nervous 
 
Friends in New York 279 
 
 system. Wii>der, in his October, 1880, letter to 
 Clevenger, discusses the latter's famous Scliool 
 of Biology — which never opened its doors. 
 Wilder devised the correspondence-slip, in 
 1884, and on August sixteenth of that year, 
 wrote to Clevenger: 
 
 I inclose a slip bearing a question, the answer to 
 which may be written on it. For some time past I 
 have felt that much scientific correspondence might be 
 profitably carried on in this *slip-shod' way; what do 
 you think? 
 
 I wish you could attend the coming meeting of the 
 A. A. A. S., and present some paper on the brain as 
 well as discuss mine. 
 
 The slip which Wilder enclosed bore this 
 query: 
 
 Do you still hold your view as to the morphological 
 significance of the cerebellum, especially in view of 
 Spitzka's recent article in Record? The evidence of 
 it does not appear to me either in your paper or in the 
 preparations I have made. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 LETTERS FROM SPITZKA 
 
 SINCE this slip still remains attached to 
 Wilder's note, we do not know whether 
 Clevenger ever answered the question, but it is 
 certain he was interested in Spitzka's view. We 
 now approach the longest-lasting and most im- 
 portant friendship which Clevenger ever 
 formed. Edward Charles Spitzka was born 
 in New York, in the latter part of 1852, and thus 
 was nearly ten years younger than Clevenger. 
 At the age of twenty-one he received his M.D. 
 from New York University, and as his father 
 was a successful jeweler, the young doctor could 
 afford to do post-graduate work at Leipzig and 
 Vienna. At Vienna he came under the influence 
 of the neurologist Meynert, and the author of 
 Diseases of the Fore-Brain never had a better 
 pupil. 
 
 But Theodor Meynert was not the only 
 force that swayed Spitzka in those days. Since 
 the New Yorker was away from home, he had to 
 
 280 
 
Letters from Spitzka 281 
 
 eat in a boarding-house — and there he met her. 
 She was of the homespun variety, capable of 
 making a devoted and durable wife. Of course 
 her name should have been Gretciien, but it 
 happened to be Katiiekine Watzek; however, 
 it was soon changed to Frau Spitzka. So Dr 
 Spitzka returned to New York, carrying in his 
 pocket Meynert's certificate and a marriage-cer- 
 tificate. It was not a happy home-coming. The 
 jeweler thought Mrs Spitzka was not flashy 
 enough to wear his diamonds in society, and in 
 wrath he turned his son out of doors. Hard 
 times followed; Dr Spitzka had been brought 
 up as a scholar, not as a business-man, and had 
 not yet learnt the trick of making money. Once 
 he came into possession of an elephant's head, 
 and worked thruout the night to get the brain 
 out of the sloill, but in the cool of the morning 
 he found to his despair that he did not have a 
 coin for alcohol. He walked the streets in 
 tears, and before he obtained the twenty-five 
 cents, the elephant's brain had spoiled. Eliza- 
 beth Barrett's father never forgave his daugh- 
 ters who married, but a reconciliation occurred 
 between the elder and younger Spitzka. 
 
 The friendship between Clevenger and 
 Spitzka began in 1879, when Clevenger sent 
 
282 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 Spitzka a cordial appreciation of the latter's 
 Architecture and Mechanism of the Brain, which 
 was appearing serially in Professor Jewell's 
 journal. It was certainly a masterly piece of 
 work, and Spitzka was only twenty-seven at the 
 time. Jewell himself broke his usual editorial 
 reserve to praise his brilliant contributor: 
 
 We would no longer defer calling the special atten- 
 tion of our readers to the articles of our talented young 
 contributor, Dr E. C. Spitzka, of New York City. We 
 have no hesitation in saying that, as a whole, they have 
 not been equaled by any series of articles that have 
 appeared on the same subjects, in the whole range of 
 American medical literature. Whether we consider the 
 vast amount of labor they represent, the breadth and 
 accuracy of his information respecting the best liter- 
 ature of his subject, or the talent exhibited for critical 
 interpretation of facts and results, we think our 
 thoughtful readers must acknowledge with us, that 
 their author is entitled to no ordinary commenda- 
 tion. 
 
 Even the abuse — and it was plentiful — which 
 was showered upon Spitzka during his career, 
 was to his credit. For example, J. J. Elwell's 
 fulmination in the Alienist and Neurologist, ex- 
 poses the mental calibre of one class of Spitzka's 
 
Letters from Spitzka 283 
 
 opponents — vacuousness, filled only with rancor- 
 ous prejudice: 
 
 Spitzka is a weak echo of a clasj; of modern crazy 
 German pagans, who arc trying, with what help they 
 can get in America, from such scientific alienists as he, 
 to break down all the safeguards of our ('hristian civi- 
 lization, by destroying if possible all grounds for hu- 
 man responsibility, putting forth the cold vagaries of 
 agnosticism and nihilistic utilitarianism — accepting 
 nothing beyond the reach of uncertain human experi- 
 ment and his own fallible reason — reconciling the ir- 
 reconcilable factors of life and human existence. 
 
 Spitzka rose rapidly to the top of his profes- 
 sion, becoming at an early age, president of the 
 New York Neurological Societ}'-, professor of 
 medical jurisprudence and of the anatomy and 
 physiolog}^ of the nervous system at the New 
 York Post-Graduate School of INIedicine, and — 
 unfortunately for his repose — professor of com- 
 parative anatomy at the Colimibia Veterinary 
 College. This connexion with a veterinary in- 
 stitution gave his enemies a hint: they spread 
 the report that Spitzka was a horse-doctor — and 
 obtuseness and viciousness accomplished the rest. 
 No amount of explaining that Spitzka was sim- 
 ply teaching comparative anatomy — the noble 
 
284 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 science which occupied the best hours of a 
 Hunter, a Huxley, a Haeckel — sufficed to 
 wipe out the stain. In courts of law, where he 
 was called to testify as an expert, he was apt to 
 hear the question, 'But you are a horse-doctor, 
 are you not?' And the idea of a horse-doctor 
 posing as an alienist was sure to bring a know- 
 ing smile to the brutish lips of ignorance. 
 
 Spitzka finally grew tired of denying that he 
 was a veterinarian, and on an unforgettable oc- 
 casion, being irritated by the old question, 'But 
 you are a horse-doctor, are you not?' Spitzka 
 turned upon his tormentor, and answered, 'In 
 the sense that I treat asses who ask me stupid 
 questions, I am.' Thus, Spitzka, who laid no 
 claim to the mantle of a humorist, added a classic 
 joke to the annals of American psychiatry. 
 While Spitzka was being reviled in law-courts 
 as a horse-doctor, he was being cited in the 
 Smithsonian Reports as an outstanding author- 
 ity on cerebral anatomy. But in the quiver of 
 reason there is no arrow sharp enough to pierce 
 the armor of stupidity. To the end of his days, 
 this great scientist was dogged by the title of 
 horse-doctor. 
 
 Whenever Clevenger came to New York, it 
 was an interesting day for himself and Spitzka; 
 
E. C. SPITZKA 
 
 B. G. WILDER 
 
Letters from Spitzha 285 
 
 not often could either of them encounter a com- 
 panion who was willing to sit up all night dis- 
 cussing suhjects in which there was no money. 
 But they were not top-heavy, and did not take 
 themselves too seriously. They mixed section- 
 cutting with relaxation. They enjoyed Coney 
 Island, and all its fakes. They often strolled 
 thru Central Park, visiting the Zoo. They fre- 
 quented the Aquarium, as Spitzka was a great 
 student of fish. They chatted in a summer-gar- 
 den, over their beer and cheese. Once they went 
 to the Bowery Theatre, cheap and tough. The 
 thrilling melodrama dragged on past midnight, 
 and the villain was still pursuing her, when the 
 manager came upon the stage and announced in 
 a sad voice, that the authorities compelled the 
 theatre to close at that hour. Someone in the 
 audience yelled, 'Hurrah for the authorities,' and 
 the two neurologists were much amused. 
 
 As Clevenger was the elder, it was naturally 
 'taken for granted that he would die first, and on 
 one occasion, while standing near an elevated 
 station on Third Avenue, he remarked to 
 Spitzka: 'I don't see why you take brains out 
 occipitally. I think the old method, cutting off 
 the calvarium, is less apt to injure them.' 
 
286 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 'I prefer the occipital method,' said Spitzka, 
 'I do it nicely that way.' 
 
 'But when you take out my brain,' rejoined 
 Clevenger casually, speaking like a true mem- 
 ber of the American Anthropometric Society, 'I 
 want you to do it by ' 
 
 'No,' insisted Spitzka, 'I'll extract it occip- 
 itally,' and then began an argument as to how 
 Spitzka was going to remove Clevenger's en- 
 cephalon, but suddenly seeing the comic side of 
 this discussion, they broke into laughter and ran 
 up the steps to catch an approaching train. 
 
 Friendship is based upon a subtle chemistry, 
 for human beings are swayed by the law of op- 
 posites as surely as is the atom. Clevenger and 
 Spitzka were wholly dissimilar. Clevenger 
 was an unsettled character, impetuous and un- 
 practical, soaring high one day in exultation, and 
 landing the next day in the ditch of depression. 
 Spitzka was more slow-pulsed, and we picture 
 him walking along life's highway, steady, sober, 
 his cane striking bottom every time. Clevenger 
 was always poking his nose in the center of the 
 universe, and appealing to everybody; Spitzka 
 stuck to his section-cutting, and addressed him- 
 self only to specialists. He made no appeals to 
 the public, and only once did he write for the 
 
Letters from Spitzka 287 
 
 general practitioner, and that was when he pub- 
 lished his admirable Manual of Insanity. 
 
 Nevertheless, Spitzka was a voluminous au- 
 thor, and altho most of his writings were tech- 
 nical, there is a splendid swing to his sentences, 
 at times the true Spencerian sweep. Yet it was 
 Clevenger who was the Spencerian; Spitzka 
 preferred Wundt. 
 
 The relationship between Spitzka and Clev- 
 enger was frankly that of teacher and pupil — 
 but the younger man was the teacher. With the 
 possible exception of Spencer and Darwin, no 
 name appeared so frequently in Clevenger's 
 work as the name of Spitzka, but in Spitzka's 
 writings the name of Clevenger is not men- 
 tioned at all, unless we except some letters pub- 
 lished in Science, and the preface to the sec- 
 ond edition of his Manual of Insanity, where he 
 gives Clevenger credit for aid received. 
 
 During his rare visits to Professor Spitzka, 
 Clevenger met a little Spitzka, whose tower- 
 ing ambition in those days was to tear the covers 
 from his father's bulky German periodicals. 
 Burt Wilder called him the 'worthy son of an 
 eminent father,' and at thii'ty Edward Anthony 
 Spitzka became the professor of anatomy at the 
 Jefferson Medical College, and is known to a 
 
288 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 host of students as the American editor of 
 Geay's Anatomy. Yet it was not often that 
 Clevenger was able to ascend the steps of 137 
 East 50th Street — a thousand miles stretch be- 
 tween Chicago and New York. But the two 
 alienists corresponded enthusiastically, especially 
 from 1880 to 1884, and it is our privilege to give 
 some of Spitzka's letters to the world — that is, 
 to that infinitesimal fraction of the world which 
 will read these lines. 
 
 Edwaed Charles Spitzka's first letter to 
 Clevenger, dated the eighth of December, 1879, 
 refers to Spitzka's Architecture and Mechanism 
 of the Brain, but deals largely with that night- 
 mare of authors — typographical errors: 
 
 Your very welcome favor is received. It is very 
 gratifying to know that my article has been of some 
 service to anyone and coming from such a source, the 
 commendation which you are so kind to bestow is of 
 special value. 
 
 The word 'black' should be 'blank' and is so corrected 
 in the reprints of which I will send you one with the 
 next lot that goes out. The line (a) is omitted by the 
 printer; it was present as a straight perpendicular in 
 my original design. 
 
 Your kind offer to furnish me with certain brains is 
 noted; should I get thru my present material I will 
 
Letters from Spitzka 280 
 
 perhaps presume on jour kindness to that extent. At 
 present I have fine brains going to pieces because I 
 have not leisure enough to utilize them properly. And 
 one reason why I deferred tlic continuation of my ar- 
 ticle is that I expect to discover some points which 
 should be introduced but which I prefer to confirm 
 before so doing. 
 
 With the friendliest greetings to yourself as well as 
 to Dr Jewell. 
 
 P. S. There are other typographical errors, some 
 of which I felt sure I had corrected or that were cor- 
 rect in the original proof. 
 
 So this was the opening of a friendship which 
 sometimes flagged, and even wore itself out with 
 the passing years, but nevertheless left pleasant 
 memories. Even Gilbert and Sullivan had 
 their misunderstandings, so let us not be sur- 
 prised that Clevenger and Spitzka finally 
 drifted apart. 
 
 During August, 1880, Clevenger was in New 
 York, staying at the Metropolitan Hotel, and 
 on the twelfth of the month, Spitzka sent him 
 this letter: 
 
 Now that I have a little breathing time, I am going 
 over my collection of brains ready for slicing, and 
 while so doing laid to one side some specimens that may 
 
290 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 be of service to you in your work on the Cornu Am- 
 monis. If you will come tomorrow afternoon, say any 
 time after two and before five (for we want daylight), 
 I will show you things that will make your mouth water ! 
 
 It is so rarely that I find anyone to talk to on this 
 subject, that now that I have found a congenial spirit 
 I find it hard to stop talking, and my diarrhea of 
 words must vent itself on paper. I found that Paca 
 brain, the specimen is something marvelous, and on 
 cutting across an opossum's I find the most clear 
 confirmation of the views which we both hold. 
 
 I had intended keeping back the figures of these 
 relations till the third chapter of the Architecture, but 
 as it will be a year before that comes out, will give you 
 the chance to work up the subject from my specimens. 
 All that I shall want credit for is the remarkable rela- 
 tion in the Paca. I found this two years ago and 
 never published it, but it would be well to incorporate 
 it in your paper. 
 
 So if you can, do not fail to come tomorrow. I have 
 always considered the Cornu Ammonis the great primi- 
 tive gyrus and the key to the hemisphere's homologies. 
 In my first (preliminary) chapter on Architecture and 
 Mechanism there is a figure showing the Cornu Ammonis 
 to be limited to the dorsal aspect of the Corpus Cal- 
 losum in a bat, of which I can demonstrate to you some 
 representative sections. 
 
 Two months later, Spitzka wrote: 
 

 Cyf-V^t^C'^ ''^*1--i 
 
 
 
 LETTER FROM E. C. SPITZKA 
 
 291 
 
292 The Don Quiocote of Psychiatry 
 
 Your kind card received. On condition that it does 
 not interfere with Bannister, I am very willing that 
 you should mention the matter you propose to Dr 
 Jewell. You know I am not very ambitious of formal 
 honors, but I would take hold of the Department of 
 Insanity and make it a feature of the Journal if 
 Jewell sent me the journals on Psychiatry which he 
 receives. I am very much obliged to you for thinking 
 of me. 
 
 I shall have a long article of one hundred pages or 
 so in the January number, which will prove the best 
 of my imperfect contributions; it represents the re- 
 sults of labors carried on for five years, and among 
 other things deals with a matter which may interest 
 you, the relation of convolutional asymmetry of the 
 atypical kind to insanity. 
 
 Can you inform me what stereotyping costs per page 
 in Chicago .f' If not, and you see Jewell, jog him 
 about it, as I asked him the question and have not yet 
 been answered, probably because I have overwhelmed 
 him with correspondence. 
 
 I hope you will continue your anatomical researches ; 
 of course such work is best carried on at leisure and 
 slowly, and the 'Big Thing' which I trust will 
 prove a success, should have its due share of your at- 
 tention. What you like to do, that do; wiUing work 
 always yields the best results. 
 
 How have you been getting on with your fish mu- 
 seum.'' do the specimens look well.? what species have 
 
Letters from Sjntzka 298 
 
 you? Can I do anything for you in the way of cas- 
 ually harpooning a salt water species? Have you 
 caught that 18-foot sturgeon yet? 
 
 By the twenty-ninth of October, Spitzka felt 
 sufficiently familiar with Clevenger to 'pitch in' 
 into him: 
 
 I have received your paper on the Central Nervous 
 System, and perused it with pleasure. It is on the 
 whole a very suggestive and well written paper. 
 
 I regretted to note one very ambiguous feature. In 
 your projection system you put down the external and 
 internal capsule as homologues of the afferent nerves, 
 and the crura as the efferent. Now both are but seg- 
 ments of one and the same continuous tract. If you 
 had considered a part of this entire tract involving 
 both segments as afferent and another as efferent you 
 would have been anatomically and physiologically cor- 
 rect. In fact your first two segments could not be 
 defended even theoretically. I felt bad over it, be- 
 cause the propositions of the paper generally are ex- 
 cellent. 
 
 Your 4th segment is not clear to me. 
 
 Are you certain that you have interpreted Biedsall 
 correctly? 
 
 You know my habit of 'pitching in.' 'Him whom the 
 Lord loveth he chastiseth.' I would not say this if I 
 were not perfectly sure that you would receive the 
 
294 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 criticism in the same spirit in which it was intended by 
 me. 
 
 I trust you will not abandon your work on the Fish's 
 Brain ; there is nothing we regret so much in after 
 years as time thrown away on undertakings once be- 
 gun and not completed. I can sing a song to that tune 
 myself and have learned a lesson. I trust you will 
 resume what I consider will lead to important results 
 after you finish your new matter. 
 
 In his letter of November eighth, Spitzka 
 told Clevenger what he thought of him as a sci- 
 entist : 
 
 As to Drs Jewell and Bannister, I agree with all 
 you say. I have few as firm and disinterested friends 
 in the United States. Dr Jewell is correct in assum- 
 ing that he has been of assistance to me. Without his 
 Journal I might have been crushed by the Asylum and 
 New York Medical Rings, and quite aside from actual 
 support, his word of encouragement, dropped at the 
 right time, has done me more good than all the adula- 
 tion (real and pretended) received since. He has been 
 of greater service to me in pointing out my faults, and 
 I have not had a juster critic. On one occasion he 
 devoted two hours in New York to giving me advice. 
 
 People ask me who Clevenger is, and it may interest 
 you to know my objective opinion, both of yourself and 
 of your article: 'Dr Clevenger is a very enthusias- 
 
% 
 Letters from Spitzka 295 
 
 tic worker, who if his other en^ugemenls will permit 
 him to stick to the researches he has started on, will 
 undoubtedly accomplish good results. His present ar- 
 ticle is too speculative in character to be criticized 
 objectively; it exhibits suggostivoness and ability in 
 its theories however, and these qualities if combined 
 with objective study will place him in the front rank 
 of original workers. 
 
 I still think that your frontal and occipital lobe 
 business stands on the empty air, even with the present 
 corrections, while the facial thalamus theory which 
 can be better defended is not supported by any ob- 
 servations. 
 
 I am getting to be an old stager, and in our future 
 correspondence about such points as you maj^ write 
 about, will gladly put my hints in an available form, 
 so that at least I shall have no occasion for after criti- 
 cism. 
 
 As to tools, I would say that I can take out any bony 
 fish's brain with notliing more to aid me than a com- 
 mon pocket-knife. Your fish must have been too stale ; 
 the brain softens very rapidly after death. Don't get 
 frozen fish. 
 
 Your German is very fair. The concluding clause in 
 English reminds me of Makk Twain's remarks about 
 his fine war map, where he changed the course of the 
 river Rhine because his 'graver' had slipped in wood 
 cutting; he would rather have changed the course of 
 the Atlantic Ocean rather than lose so much work. 
 
296 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 In his confidential letter of November thir- 
 teenth, Spitzka discusses the most important of 
 all subjects — money. The party in 'financial 
 straights' was Professor Jewell, who borrowed 
 a thousand dollars from Clevenger, and could 
 not repay it for years. If Jewell had hunted 
 for advertisements for his Journal as assiduously 
 as he sought for valuable reading-matter, his 
 affairs would have been less precarious. But 
 such is the world in which we live : 
 
 Such matters as you mention are apt to make one 
 feel in reading them as if a sudden discord had taken 
 place in the midst of a symphony. I know from due 
 experience what you mean when you say you ought not 
 to be troubled by business matters. It renders one un- 
 able to concentrate one's self on a scientific subject, 
 to devote that attention to it, which is a conditio sine 
 qua non of good deliberate thinking and writing. It 
 is not the mere loss of cash or its prospective gain 
 that ever depress or elevate the spirits of the right kind 
 of men, but the privations they may cause or the good 
 we can do with it. 
 
 The man who has his whole depending on what he 
 can make from day to day, or whose chances being as 
 yours do on the solvency of some one else, is torn and 
 ag-itated to such an extent as to wish that he were 
 rather at some fixed meaner (?) occupation with a 
 
Letters from Spitzka 297 
 
 regular tho small incoinc, unci lot scientific aspirations 
 go to the — wall ! I have lost my R'st years in fretting 
 on similar grounds, and my irritability, which probably 
 will remain a constitutional feature, was worst at that 
 time, and there it originated. I suppose I was never 
 cut out to become insane, but from my individual ex- 
 periences regarding worry from financial causes, I have 
 obtained a pretty fair idea of how a perfectly sound 
 brain may become unsettled from such causes, 
 
 I am surprised that the party you mention should be 
 in financial straights to the extent of borrowing from 
 a younger man. But I suppose it is a temporary mat- 
 ter, and think it may be connected with the expenses 
 of the Journal. 
 
 May you not yourself be at fault unconsciously in 
 this matter.'^ I have an impression that either of one 
 of the gentlemen wrote me that you had made consid- 
 erable at some business or other, and possibly your 
 debtor does not hesitate to borrow since he has an idea 
 that you can afford to lend, more readily than is the 
 case, and would refrain from borrowing further, if he 
 knew the real state of affairs ! 
 
 I am indebted to you for your efforts, you know how 
 I feel regarding the matter, and I can afford to have it 
 put off. My literary engagements are horrible. I 
 publish a prize essa}^ in the April number, the Archir 
 tecfwe and Meclianism in January, a dictionary of 
 insanity terms (polyglot) thru the year, and probably 
 will get out a book or two. 
 
298 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 .1 have just now two insane murderers to defend. I 
 should be wiDing to withdraw from the cases if I could 
 get an autopsy. Matters financial have been picking 
 up with me, but lately there has been a relapse; ups 
 and downs. 
 
 In his letter of January, 1881, Spitzka gives 
 Clevengee the sort of advice that is needed by 
 a Don Quixote: 
 
 Your letter pleased me very much. I am glad to 
 see you adhering to a certain line of work. I have 
 seen some of my ablest friends the victims of their ver- 
 satility, and I rejoice when one of them sticks to one 
 thing. 
 
 I would advise you to look on your scientific work as 
 a relaxation, and not to lose sight of the practical 
 money-making aspect of life. How are you to get 
 books, instruments, specimens, alcohol and glass, un- 
 less you make the money for them? Your scientific 
 work will not bring you in enough directly to keep you 
 in beer, let alone to starve decently. But it will bring 
 you actual financial gain indirectly. A physician with 
 actual scientific backbone is found out any how, if he 
 has a little savoir faire. That's your policy. Science 
 for amusement, and to give you the consolation that 
 you will advance human knowledge. Medicine to earn 
 the dollars to enable you to prosecute Science. You 
 see, a circulus vitiosus. 
 
Letters from Sjntzka 299 
 
 I sent you a card (of congratulations) in regard to 
 your article in Science. 
 
 Wilder and I are in frequent correspondence. He 
 proposes to submit his paper on cerebral nomencla- 
 ture to me before putting it in print. He adopts my 
 optic and postoptic lobe matter. My best work is yet 
 coming, and I will keep you supplied with the respec- 
 tive papers. 
 
 In his letter of February eighth, Spitzka con- 
 tinues his common-sense exhortations. Inci- 
 dentally, he refers to Clevenger's gynecological 
 friend, Dr Dudley, and to his neurological 
 friends, Drs Wilder, Jewell and Bannister: 
 
 Your welcome favor was received several days since. 
 I cannot venture to give advice, but your plan of get- 
 ting to the starvation point seems to me highly un- 
 practical and unwise. What special profit it can pos- 
 sibly be to you to follow up abstract science for a year 
 and put yourself in a position of inability to pursue it 
 any further, I fail to perceive or comprehend. What 
 earthl}' right you have to (using your own language) 
 'turn upon the masses and ask them what they can 
 give me in return for what I have tried to do for pos- 
 terity,' it is equally difficult to recognize. You might 
 read some portions of Thackeeay relative to the disap- 
 pointed aspirants for literary honors, with a good deal 
 of enduring profit. 
 
300 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 You say correctly that I have 'been thru the mill,' 
 and I think I have been in exactly that state of mind 
 in which I regret to find you agonizing at present — 
 and thank my star that I am out of it, and unless you 
 get out of it thru an exercise of deliberate judgment 
 on your own part, you will be knocked out of it by 
 the rough buffets of fortune. 
 
 You are enough of an experienced man of the world 
 to know that the human race must be taken as it is 
 — not as it should be. Suppose everybody who took 
 up science were to say Hhe world owes me a recom- 
 pense a year from now,' and suppose the claim were 
 admitted, it would be the most effectual bar to progress. 
 Take your own work for example ; so far as published, 
 it contains very little of actual established fact, and a 
 great deal of promised good work for the future. But 
 until that promise is cancelled ( and you cannot do that 
 under several years) it is a mere promise, and the world 
 owes you absolutely nothing for that. 
 
 Now this is very plain and very hard talk, but I 
 have always been plainest and hardest with my friends. 
 I never dissimulate or bandy polite phrases devoid of 
 meaning, except with those I despise or dislike. What 
 I say I think is the unanswerable truth, and I say it 
 at the risk of misconstruction, because the danger in 
 which you travail at present appears to me to require 
 a loud warning. 
 
 As regards practice, you must do exactly as others 
 do, or you may just as well cut your throat or take 
 
Letters from Spitzka 801 
 
 in jour shingle. Your first duty is to family, your 
 next to science, your next to the world at large, and 
 claims upon your time should be exactly in that order: 
 first, Family; second, Science; third. World. 
 
 Dr McBiiiDE has not yet tackled the subject, being 
 engaged in collecting material — so I shall keep your 
 letter till he shall be able to consider its propositions 
 in the light of his own results. You want to get Prof, 
 WiLDEii's papers on the pike's brain. I think you will 
 be able to throttle a good deal said there and at the 
 same time it will show the present state of knowledge 
 on the subject. The most essential thing for you is 
 Fhitsche's work, which you will find mentioned in the 
 literary references of my article or rather letter to 
 you published in Jewell's Joiirnal. 
 
 There is no one else working up the fish's brain that 
 I know of in this country from the same point of view 
 as yourself. One of my pupils interested himself in 
 the general aspects of the subject, but he has not gone 
 into independent research. So far as I know the field 
 is comparatively clear. Above all, hurry up a series 
 of fine well-stained longitudinal and transverse micro- 
 scopic sections of the great hoary Lepidosteus ; you 
 can get him from the Great Lakes and the Ohio. That 
 is the keystone of the subject, and you will find much 
 to publish about it in the way of provisional communi- 
 cation. 
 
 Dr E. C. Dudley called on me yesterday. 
 
 Give my respects to Drs Jewell and Bakxisteb, if 
 
302 The Don QuiTote of Psychiatry 
 
 you meet them, and don't take anything amiss from 
 your friend. 
 
 Spitzka's letter of May eighteenth, contains 
 several interesting observations, including his 
 epigram that versatility is the curse of genius : 
 
 After some silence I take advantage of a lull to write 
 a little more at length on some points. I was reminded 
 of you by every issue of Science, and had to reproach 
 myself for not inserting your letter. I have done so 
 today, sent it in with a few remarks of my own, and 
 by the way pitched into Cope a little. 
 
 Some time ago I read over your papers. I do not 
 wish to be complimentary, but they show that you have 
 all the separate materials for an original investigator, 
 which is saying a great deal nowadays. The great de- 
 sideratum is that these separate materials be prop- 
 erly associated. You have suggestiveness enough for a 
 dozen, and not facts enough for one: is that not the 
 truth ? If it is not so, pardon the liberty I have taken, 
 but it had seemed so to me. 
 
 There is for example your theory of the cerebro- 
 spinal system structure ; it is full of ideas, any one of 
 which would furnish work enough for a single investiga- 
 tor. What have you done to sustain your propositions? 
 Have you made a single series of embryonic prepara- 
 tions, or studied the nerve centers of lower vertebrates, 
 higher molluscs and arthropodes .'' If it is true that 
 
Letters from Spitzka 808 
 
 DtjVAi. of I'aris lius confirinod your theory by actual 
 observations, you have robbed American Science by 
 permitting an outsider to stumble on wliat you had ra- 
 tionally anticipated years ago. 
 
 I write this .in the spirit I know you will accept it in, 
 or else I should leave it unsaid. I say it because I 
 consider the game worth the candle, because I feel con- 
 fident that a little advice will aid in securing good work 
 from a talented source which would otherwise fritter 
 away its time in generalities and that versatility which 
 is the curse of genius, and because I beheve — and if 
 wrong will feci only too glad to be wrong — ^it is needed. 
 
 You may ask what you have done to provoke all this 
 — nothing; the whole subject came to me in a manner 
 altogether independently of any action remotely trace- 
 able to yourself. I got three splendid alligators alive, 
 two of them four feet long, and I propose to have them 
 worked up by one of my pupils under my direction, 
 partly to use them experimentally myself. Looking at 
 them and thinking what a mine of new facts lay con- 
 cealed in the animals for an investigator possessing 
 your quahfications, I was led to denounce the circum- 
 stances which kept you in Chicago and myself in New 
 York. I am sure that it could be better utilized. 
 
 I have a very talented pupil, who is working up a 
 different subject, of less biological import than those 
 you ought to be engaged in. Another has done some 
 work on the cortex, and his name will probably stick 
 to the center which he saw at my office and diligently 
 
304) The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 worked up in the human brain. You could beat it all 
 if you would, only I fear that you have been discour- 
 aged b}' some technical difficulties. Contradict me by 
 letter. 
 
 Among Spitzka's communications to Cleven- 
 GER, we find pages five and six of a letter whose 
 other parts have disappeared; the date is there- 
 fore lost, but we will insert the fragment here, as 
 it deals with the topic discussed in the previous 
 letter — Spitzka's pupils. Each of the pupils 
 mentioned rose to distinction. Graeme Ham- 
 mond we have already met; J. Leonard Corn- 
 ing is remembered as the discoverer of spinal an- 
 esthesia; and T. A. McBride received the dedi- 
 cation of the first edition of Spitzka's Manual 
 of Insanity — 'as a mark of the author's personal 
 esteem, and an humble tribute to his eminent 
 services as a teacher and original investigator in 
 the field of clinical medicine.' In the second edi- 
 tion, the dedication was omitted by the publish- 
 ers, without consulting the author. Spitzka was 
 considerably annoyed, and perhaps McBride's 
 vanity was wounded — but how little it really 
 mattered! Within a short time, McBride be- 
 came a sick man, and thought of nothing except 
 recovering his health: he undertook an ocean- 
 
Letters from Spitzka 805 
 
 voyage, and died on the way, and was buried in 
 the sea. Spitzka wrote: 
 
 I have three very able pupils at work. l)r Graeme 
 Hammond (I^r W. A.. Hammond's son), T)r McBkide, 
 President of Neurological, and Dr J. L. Corning. 
 They arc pupils in the old classical sense of the term, 
 whom it is a relaxation to teach, and I have assigned 
 work according to taste for all of them. Hammond 
 found a new cortical center knocking (indecipherable). 
 McBride will take up the olivary bodies. 
 
 Possibly you may be able to come to New York when 
 your specimens are ready, and review the subject here. 
 Such isolated observations as you make, which are of 
 individual intcrst, I would publish, if I were you, in 
 Science with a figure or two to illustrate, as a provi- 
 sional communication, or in Jewell's Journal. Make 
 it a rule to keep an electrotype of every cut for your 
 systematic treatise. 
 
 At one time Clevenger was so misguided as 
 to imagine he could endure life as a magazine 
 hack. George Gissing's New Grub Street 
 should be better known; in fact, an enlightened 
 State should present a copy to all who are in 
 danger of treading that thorofare. Spitzka, in 
 his letter of July eighteenth, tried to reason with 
 his distracted friend: 
 
306 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 I sincerely regret and sympathize with you concern- 
 ing your discouragement. While I would say nothing 
 to convince you against your bent and inclination for 
 purely biological studies, yet I will take the liberty of 
 offering for your consideration the following points 
 into which you may look before leaping. 1st: In a few 
 years you will have attained a good income — from what 
 I hear of you, you can not fail to reach this desirable 
 end. 2nd: Scientific work is poorly paid and not in 
 equal and constant demand. 3rd: The work to which 
 you propose to devote yourself involves much drudgery, 
 petty quarrels, and leaves you but little time for original 
 labor, less in fact than an engrossing practice would. 
 Of course there is the advantage of seeing periodicals 
 and being in constant communion with the general field 
 of science. 
 
 I own that, egotistically, my preference would be to 
 have you in New York. But I fear you overrate my 
 ability to direct your labors. I am so much engrossed 
 with practical duties this year, and will be more so 
 prospectively, next year, that all I shall be able to do 
 for my pupils will be in the line of suggestion. If I 
 had men who would initiate themselves in technology 
 and work industriously, I could give each of them a no- 
 ble field to work up — I have given away two such fields 
 already, which promise a rich crop — and would rather 
 have one pupil like yourself than a dozen of the aver- 
 age kind to follow up these things. 
 
 I shall make an inquiry of the Editor of Science by 
 
Letters from Spitzka 807, 
 
 letter, as to whether he has a vacancy. I know that 
 he paid a medical student during the winter, and be- 
 lieve the journal is a paying concern. Possibly you 
 could get work on the Nation, and such like, but I 
 fear it would be an awful grind ! You could easily se- 
 cure the correspondcnceship of Dudley's paper, or 
 some other western journal. 
 
 If I do not mistake your nature greatly, you have 
 written your note under the effect of some mood, some 
 disappointment, and you would regret to give up your 
 present independence for the routine drag of a bio- 
 logico-literary hack, on reflection. 
 
 If this is not the case, believe me I shall do all to 
 further your desires in my power, and in this light shall 
 let you know of the result of my inquiry with Michels. 
 
 Evidently Clevenger soon recovered from 
 this aberration, for we hear no more of his desire 
 to don the harness of a hack. It was now Clev- 
 enger's turn to render Spitzka a service; some 
 of the former's relatives were looking for a med- 
 ico-legal expert, and Clevenger recommended 
 Spitzka. The New Yorker w^as anxious for an 
 important case in the West, and in his letter of 
 August fifteenth, in order to impress Cleat:n- 
 ger's relations, he paraded his qualifications by 
 naming the conspicuous cases in which he had 
 
308 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 appeared — a remarkable series for a youth who 
 had not yet reached his twenty-ninth bu'thday: 
 
 I am very glad that everything with your patient is 
 well. Your psychological articles read very well; you 
 ma}^ recollect an infantile game, where an object is con- 
 cealed, and as the seeker gets farther away or nearer 
 to it in his search, the cry is cold, very cold, or hot, 
 very hot. Your first articles were somewhat of the 
 frigid zone, but the recent ones, especially the last, are 
 very hot, and there is a very happy thought concealed 
 in those of the Science series. 
 
 I have been watching your progress with some solici- 
 tude during the past three weeks. You will admit that 
 there was some occasion for it when you recollect that 
 at first you were endeavoring to get a position as a sci- 
 entific hack, then to start an opium home, and now to 
 go into general practice. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for your kind recommenda- 
 tion. I am not conceited, but I should not for a mo- 
 ment admit 's name to be weighed in the balance 
 
 with mine. If you wish to make an impression in my 
 favor, refer your relative or her lawyers to my report 
 in the Radameier case, in the 'St Louis Clinical Record,' 
 (just out). Dr Hazard will send them one if they 
 wish it and mention your name. I shall have a copy 
 sent you. I am ambitious to have some big medico- 
 legal case out West, one that will pay for loss of prac- 
 tice in New York. I have already a degree of notoriety 
 
Letters from Spitzka 809 
 
 there, and those things generally reflect buck to New 
 York. 
 
 If I liavo occasion to call, you may be sure that I 
 sliall stop in Chicago, to hunt up the not inconsiderable 
 circle of friends I have there. You may perhaps men- 
 tion that I have been an expert medical witness in three 
 murder cases, Porcello, Munzberg, and Bigot, one ab- 
 duction case. Walker, one damage suit, Deputy-Haz- 
 zard, two paretic cases, Martin and Goslvng, one cere- 
 bro-spinal sclerosis case of undue influence, Higgins, 
 one case of neglect, Cowley, one malpractice suit, Sayre, 
 and six will cases, Murphy, Leslie, Dickie, Ross, Wal- 
 lace and Riegelmann, and seven minor cases. I have 
 the largest expert practice in New York at present; 
 of the fifteen big cases enumerated, the side which called 
 me was successful in ten, the issue is not decided in 
 three, and three were decided unfavorably : the Gosling 
 case (grossly partisan), the Frank Leslie will case, 
 and the Ross will case, both of which have been ap- 
 pealed. 
 
 Alas for Clevenger's recommendations, and 
 alas for Spitzka's qualifications. The relatives 
 — ^rich in the world's goods, and richer still in 
 ignorance — refused to have anything to do with 
 Spitzka, because they had heard he was a horse- 
 doctor. 
 
 In his letter of September, 1883, Spitzka 
 
310 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 holds up to Clevenger the adage of the rolHng 
 stone : 
 
 Speaking of kicking the gluteal region, \Aould it not 
 be more advisable for you to abandon the kicking busi- 
 ness altogether? You are kicking yourself worse than 
 any one else, and it is a great pity. What warrant 
 have you to change at one sweep the entire political 
 complexion of Cook County? You have naught to do 
 with this fight ; make friends, keep your place, and ac- 
 complish something. You are able to, but not willing 
 to do this — it seems to me. In my experience with 
 mankind, I have had frequent occasion to observ^e per- 
 sons of excellent parts who were always fretting about 
 the little put-backs of life, and letting slip the great 
 opportunity of presenting the unobtrusive, patient and 
 promising labors of which they were capable. Such 
 persons, agitated by alternate fits of industry and dis- 
 affection, rarely illustrated any other adage than that 
 of the 'rolling stone.' Now suppose that you are turned 
 out of the asylum — the worst that can happen — will 
 you not have spent your time more profitably in col- 
 lecting and arranging material for further study than 
 in empty curses? One brain which I took out last sum- 
 mer is now worth to me more than all the polemical 
 work I ever engaged in — unless I call my expert rec- 
 ord a part of the polemical history of my life. 
 
 Now do not believe that I cannot appreciate your 
 feelings and the unpleasant features of your position; 
 
Letters from Spitzka 811 
 
 but the contrast between your expressions of a few 
 months ago and of today is really ludicrous. You do 
 not perhaps owe it to your profession, to science, nor 
 even to your friends to do honor to your great if not 
 last opportunity, but you owe it to yourself and your 
 past. 
 
 Over thirty-five years have passed since the 
 above letter was written, but in the current issues 
 of the Chicago Tribune (December, 1918) we 
 read that conditions are unchanged at Dunning: 
 the same sort of brutal attendants, the same sort 
 of brutal murders ; again we hear of 'a dozen or 
 more recent deaths by violence at the Dunning 
 Insane Asylum.' Harry Varnell may be dead, 
 but Varnellism survives in Cook County. Dr 
 Shobal Vail Clevenger's life-work has ended 
 in — failure. 
 
 In his letter of November ninth, Spitzka 
 quotes another adage for Clevenger's benefit: 
 
 Do you expect to succeed without many failures? 
 Could you not glean from my writings how few satis- 
 factory findings reward our trouble in insanity? 
 
 Your suggestion to drop pathology after so cnthu- 
 siasticall}^ going into it, reminds me of many of the 
 other extreme acts of 3our career. You see things 
 either too rosehued or too dark. One case of syphilitic 
 
312 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 dementia, or paretic dementia far advanced, thoroly 
 analysed, particularly in the basilar tract, would make 
 your reputation. I sincerely trust that you will per- 
 severe. Lack of success is due to lack of skill, experi- 
 ence or knowledge, and the fault is usually with the 
 worker, and not with his material. To give up is hence 
 to argue one's incompetency. Rome was not built in 
 a day, and it is absurd for you to expect within two 
 months to accomplish results which our best minds of 
 ripened experience, and with the best laboratories at 
 their disposal, are still striving after. 
 
 Spitzka's letter of March, 1884, discussing 
 Clevenger's attempt to secure the superinten- 
 dentship of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the 
 Insane, re-introduces us to some of our old ac- 
 quaintances : 
 
 I need not assure you that I will do anything in my 
 power to aid you in accomplishing your purpose. It 
 is indeed not only on your own account that I wish 
 you to succeed, but also on mine, as I would rather have 
 you near at hand than far distant. 
 
 Unfortunately I had a little dispute — in which I 
 happened to be, as I admitted publicly, in the wrong 
 — ^with members of the Kirkbride family, so that it 
 would do you no good if you were to parade my recom- 
 mendation of you before that particular branch of the 
 interests controlling the appointment you are seeking. 
 
Letters from Spitzka 818 
 
 I think you will encounter many difficulties: the 
 position is a high one, and there will be many competi- 
 tors, while as I learned in the course of an unsuccessful 
 application, Pennsylvanians do not care to have an 
 appointment go to any other state. 
 
 Your proper course will be to learn exactly what 
 persons to approach, thru Cope, and to send me the 
 list. I shall then write special letters of recommenda- 
 tion to the more prominent: such as Weir Mitchell 
 and Pepper, who I flatter myself are quite willing 
 to treat any recommendations I may give, thoughtfully. 
 
 Cope and the University are certainly strong back- 
 ing, and if you secure the entire University influence, 
 you can scarcely fail to accomplish your object. I 
 agree with you, that you are not in the very best berth 
 at present, tho you may recollect how anxious and ar- 
 dent you were to secure it. 
 
 Should you succeed in your application, which I 
 heartily wish, do not forget your old friends at Chi- 
 cago, for nothing is more appreciated than thought- 
 fulness of old obligations and loyalty, and nothing dis- 
 liked more than the dropping of persons after they 
 have been utilized. I take the liberty of sajnng this, 
 not because I think you could ever neglect the former, 
 or do the latter wilfully, but because your mercurial 
 spirit (your most malignant foe) might induce you to 
 look only at the thing immediately in hand, to the neg 
 lect of retrospective regards. 
 
 P. S. The man you mentioned in your note is con- 
 
314 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 s.idered a fraud in Pliiladelphia, even by a man he dedi- 
 cated a work to. 
 
 In his letter of July fifth, Spitzka praises and 
 admonishes his friend: 
 
 On reading over your paper again, in the more ac- 
 cessible shape of printed galleys, I must again take 
 reason to express my appreciation of its deep thought- 
 fulness. It is exactly what our journal wanted, and 
 what all such journals should have to vary the dull rou- 
 tine of case accounts and literature lists. I certainly 
 read it with more pleasure than I am ordinarily in a 
 position to express. 
 
 In addition, I reflected thus: What a pity that a 
 man who can sit down and do this, is perpetually fly- 
 ing about the horizon without a fixed object. Why 
 does he not stick to work which he is so well fitted to 
 do, and in which he will accomphsh, perhaps lasting 
 fame, if he adheres to it.'' 
 
 I put three of your letters side by side: one, in 
 which you are willing to barter body and soul to get an 
 asylum position, followed by a second in which you are 
 exuberant as to your prospects of work and results 
 after getting it; the third is one in which you express 
 yourself as impatient to leave it. I could not help 
 thinking of Richard in Dickens' Bleak House. 
 
 I trust you looked upon my refusal to put you in the 
 ridiculous position you were bent on assuming before 
 
Letters from Spitzka 815 
 
 the American Neurological Association with forgive- 
 ness. Read over what you wrote, and imagine how it 
 would have been received, then burn it, and resolve to 
 do no more of this fruitless reform business. You will 
 regret one of these days every moment of your life 
 which was wasted in controversy. Controversy, if in- 
 dulged in too much, leads to an unhappy frame of mind, 
 which does not always remain within the domain of 
 mere unhappiness, but may and often does become 
 pathological. 
 
 Let us soon have something in the line of your last 
 communication, or anything else written in the same 
 vein. 
 
 After 1884, we find no letters until 1890, when 
 Spitzka, as president of the American Neuro- 
 logical Association, urged Cle^^nger to attend 
 the Philadelphia meeting and read a paper. But 
 as there is no reference to a hiatus in the cor- 
 respondence, we must suppose that it had con- 
 tinued, and that the letters were either destroyed, 
 or were lost during Cle^^nger's frequent mov- 
 ings. The last letter in our possession is dated 
 December twelfth, 1897. 
 
 As we write, there lies upon our desk the skull 
 of a monkey which Spitzka gave to Cleyexger 
 in the first year of their friendship. That friend- 
 ship is now ended forever, but the brain-case of 
 
316 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 that Cebus monkey still serves us as a paper- 
 weight. Spitzka never extracted Clevenger's 
 brain, for he has preceded his elder friend to the 
 grave. One after the other, Clevenger's col- 
 leagues became dwellers of the silent city. 
 Spitzka's son, the Edward Anthony of whom 
 we have already spoken, fell heir to the American 
 Anthropometric Society: he examined and de- 
 scribed the brains of many of the notables who 
 have figured in these pages — E. D. Cope, Har- 
 rison Axlen, E. C. Seguin, William Pepper 
 and Joseph Leidy. In the hands of Spitzka's 
 son have Iain the makers of American Science. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE CLOSING YEARS 
 
 AS the years swept on, taking strength and 
 friends from Clevenger, he retired from 
 the turmoil of Chicago to the placidity of Park 
 Ridge — a town about fifteen miles from the 
 whirlpool where he had lived so long. But 
 cruelty invades the village as readily as the clam- 
 orous city. The Clevengers had only to look 
 out of their window to see that final proof of 
 man's brutality — an ill-treated orphan. She had 
 already reached maturity, but as the harsh atti- 
 tude of her foster-parents continued, the Clev- 
 engers invited her to share their cottage. In 
 the autumn of 1910, gastric carcinoma wi'ote the 
 death-certificate of Mrs Cle^^nger — after for- 
 ty-six years of wedded life. A problem now con- 
 fronted the old doctor and his young ward, but 
 they solved it by marrying each other — thus an- 
 ticipating the venerable John Allan Wyeth 
 and the charming Miss Chalifoux. 
 
 317 
 
318 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 . The marriage-institution is man's most dan- 
 gerous invention. It wrecks more lives than al- 
 cohol and ^2iV. Many men, like Edmund Wid- 
 DOWSON in Gissing's The Odd Women, wait 
 thru half a life-time for marriage — and then 
 marry unhappily. The shrewdest cannot avoid 
 its pitfalls. Individuals, artful and astute, who 
 can meet their fellows successfully on the battle- 
 fields of finance, are often unhorsed in their first 
 skirmish with matrimony. Yet Clevenger, the 
 most unsophisticated of men, twice entered the 
 marriage-market with the utmost felicity. The 
 wife of his youth and the wife of his age have 
 been to him an unalloyed blessing. The first 
 Mrs Clevenger we never met, but we can tes- 
 tify that nothing could be more touching than the 
 tender devotion with which the second Mrs Clev- 
 enger guards her old hero. If she is to him only 
 a child, she is also his wife and mother. Clev- 
 enger is a man of many failures, but his married 
 career — beginning in his twenty-first year and 
 extending up to the present — has been eminently 
 successful. 
 
 Clevenger's numerous set-backs could not 
 prevent him from planning anew, as soon as he 
 was settled in Park Ridge — he was not the sort 
 of man who could content himself by raising a 
 
The Closing Years 319 
 
 garden. lie soon started the Park Ridge Vo- 
 cation School — and the prospectus was alhiring. 
 The curricidum of the first year included the es- 
 sentials of typography, telegraphy, surveying, 
 machinery and agriculture. The projector 
 wrote : 
 
 The Illinois Legislature refused to make any provi- 
 sion for public vocation schools, so it remains for in- 
 dividuals to promote this good work until woman suf- 
 frage can direct public funds toward the welfare of the 
 people, instead of in playing politics. 
 
 My school regards teaching as of more importance 
 than buildings, and gradually I am finding superb ma- 
 terial in the boys of Park Ridge. The readiness with 
 which young folks 'pick up' knowledge of practical 
 things, such as wireless telegraphy and mechanism, 
 shows that learning can be made pleasant. Higher 
 mathematics, even, may be taught indirectly when ap- 
 plied usefully, as in triangulating across streams in 
 surveying. Some rudiments of chemistry may be taught 
 young children by attractive demonstrations. 
 
 The listlessness of task-tired boys in higher school- 
 grades changes to enthusiasm in the Vocation School. 
 While the average school is attended reluctantly, the 
 trade-learning rooms hold eager, alert, interested work- 
 ers, who come early to stay long after usual closing 
 time. Only while fresh and interested are my little 
 fellows allowed to work. Everything is voluntary, and 
 
320 The Don Quiccote of Psychiatry 
 
 m}' experience is that they never require urging. By 
 self-elimination, those unsuited drop out, but some of 
 them come back after the play-spasm is over. The 
 older students take pride in teaching the younger, and 
 soon realize they are headed in the right direction for 
 usefulness to themselves, their families and the com- 
 munit3^ 
 
 Pupils considered dull or incapable have brightened 
 into attentive, retentive students under the Vocation 
 System. Snobbery, so rampant in the higher grades 
 of our common schools, is wholly suppressed, and the 
 *dignity of labor' becomes more than a mere phrase. 
 
 My hope is to gradually gather a force of instructed 
 boys who will carry on the good work when I shall have 
 passed away. Some machinery-patents I desire to put 
 in charge of these graduates, to manufacture for the 
 benefit of the school 'not built with hands,' but with 
 brains. 
 
 Instruction first, materials afterward. And it Is 
 history that good results in teaching are often secured 
 with crude instruments. 
 
 Clevenger did not exaggerate the crudeness 
 of his instruments. He located an old press, and 
 with poor type, bad ink, and a raw lad or two, 
 he proceeded to print some circulars, called Dr 
 Clevenger s Comments, which were indeed ter- 
 rible to behold. All who received them must 
 have felt like mildly rebuking their instigator, 
 
The Closing Years 321 
 
 as did RoswELL Park, whose last letter, written 
 shortly before his lamented death — another 
 friend gone! — was as follows: 
 
 It is a long time since I have seen you, and longer 
 than that has elapsed since hearing from you. I have 
 ofte!i read, and taken pleasure in referring medical jur- 
 ists, and otiiers, to your books, especially that on 'liti- 
 gation spine.' 
 
 But I don't know what to make of this badly printed, 
 badly worded, to me, rather unintelligible circular. Is 
 it an invitation to subscribe, or what to do, and with 
 what object.^ I don't want to waste your time, but if 
 it be worth while, give me some clearer notion of what 
 is 'up' or wanted. 
 
 We need say nothing further about the Park 
 Ridge Vocation School except that it caused its 
 founder a few heart-aches, and then went the 
 way of his School of Biology. 
 
 Clevenger was not happy at Park Ridge. He 
 had reached an age when he loved to be autobio- 
 graphical. Nothing would have pleased him bet- 
 ter than to lean back in the rocking-chair on his 
 porch, and talk to some sympathetic visitor of 
 the days when he browsed in Jewell's library, 
 and investigated cerebral pathology, and ap- 
 peared for the defense in the case of the State 
 of Wisconsin versus Emma Herman, and was 
 
322 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 banqueted by the Sheboygan County Medical 
 Society, and helped organize the Chicago Acad- 
 emy of Medicine, and lectured under Leidy's 
 chairmanship at the Philadelphia Academy of 
 Natural Sciences, and dined and argued with 
 Cope, and worked and loafed with Spitzka. 
 
 But no eager disciples came on a pilgrimage 
 to the Sage of Park Ridge. Nor did the natives 
 evince any desire to listen to Clevenger's recol- 
 lections. They were interested in money, not in 
 reminiscences. They served no other god but 
 wealth, and since Dr Clevenger lived in a 
 wooden cottage, while the homeopathic physician 
 possessed a stone house, they naturally inferred 
 that the latter was the better doctor. 
 
 The key-note of Park Ridge is artificiality. 
 Every tree is clipped, every hedge is trimmed — 
 and so are the inhabitants. No birds seem to 
 nest there, and at night we found it difficult to 
 sleep because we missed the pleasant chirp of 
 the cricket and the song of the tree-frogs. Yet 
 Clevenger enjoyed a certain celebrity among 
 Park Ridgians, but this was due neither to the re- 
 searches he had conducted nor the books he had 
 written, but on account of his relationship to 
 music. Altho he himself knew little of quad- 
 ruple counterpoint, he was known thruout Park 
 
The Closing Years 823 
 
 Ridge as the father of Martha Clevenger 
 KiMMiT, the musical leader of the town. To 
 bask in the light of a daughter's accomplish- 
 ments is one of life's supreme joys, but Park 
 Ridge could not hold Clevenger's gifted child; 
 she went West to spread melody thruout Wis- 
 consin — the State in which her father, years be- 
 fore, as a medico-legal expert, effected justice 
 for a less fortunate woman. 
 
 So Clevenger waited in Park Ridge, watch- 
 ing himself sink into obscurity. In his prime, 
 he had his column in such publications as Apple- 
 tons Cyclopedia of American Biography, 
 White's Cyclopedia of National Biography, and 
 Stone's Biography of Eminent American Physi- 
 cians and Surgeons, but now he found himself 
 excluded from even the all-embracing Who's 
 Who. Only at rare intervals he received a cheer- 
 ing word, reminding him of the tune when he 
 amounted to something: a cordial letter from 
 the anatomist Albert Chauncey Eyclesh- 
 ymer, the dean of the medical school of the 
 University of Illinois, asking him to come to 
 lunch for a chat about the old times, or a note 
 from Smith Ely Jelliffe, the present proprie- 
 tor of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Dis- 
 ease, generously referring to him as 'one of the 
 
324 The Don Qtiirote of Psychiatry 
 
 founders of the journal.' But as a rule his box 
 in the post-office was empty, and his visitor's 
 chair unoccupied. 
 
 At times Clevenger looked thru the letters 
 he had received from famous colleagues, and was 
 on the point of burning them. None of his chil- 
 dren had followed scientific pursuits, and when 
 he himself stepped down from life's stage, who 
 would treasure these letters from Harrison 
 Allen and Cope and Spitzka? Certainly no 
 one in Park Ridge. Better burn them in sor- 
 row and reverence than have them thrown away 
 by an indifferent hand. He took them to the 
 fire — then turned back and carefully put them 
 away again. 
 
 He had been a sociable man, a mixer with his 
 fellows. But he could no longer attend meet- 
 ings, and as his earning capacity was at an end, 
 he could not even subscribe for the medical and 
 scientific periodicals which he desired. His 
 meagre pension, supplemented by his wife's re- 
 sourcefulness, sufficed to save him from bodily 
 hunger, but he suffered acutely from intellectual 
 starvation. He must find some one to talk to 
 — and finally decided to return to Chicago. 
 
 So he came back to the teeming city, hoping 
 for companionship and activity. He sent out 
 

 / 
 
The Closing Years 325 
 
 cards, announcing his readiness to receive pa- 
 tients in his specialty, but other neurologists now 
 occupied the field, and no one came to Dr Clev- 
 enger; besides, he had no office, perhaps not 
 even a percussion-hammer. In Chicago, CiiEv- 
 ENGER learnt the old story that a man may be as 
 lonely in a metropolis as in a village. Every 
 day people came to 4321 St Lawrence Avenue 
 — but they knocked at other doors than Cleven- 
 ger's. 
 
 One summer, Clevenger thought of going to 
 Quincy. The state's Old Soldiers' Home is 
 there, and he might meet some of his old com- 
 rades, and above all, B. F. Underavood was liv- 
 ing in Quincy, editing a newspaper. 
 
 When all the world is old, lad. 
 
 And all the trees are brown ; 
 And all the sport is stale, lad. 
 
 And all the wheels run down ; 
 Creep home and take your place there, 
 
 The spent and maimed among; 
 God grant you find one face there 
 
 You loved when all was young. 
 
 So Cleatenger wrote to Friend Underwood: 
 
 In considering the possibility of my wife and I com 
 ing to Quincy to live, an exceedingly pleasant con in 
 
326 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 gency was in meeting you again and renewing our sci- 
 entific discussions of the times of General Trumbull, 
 Prof. Cope, Dr Montgomery, et id. — tho physically, 
 I presume that neither of us are the sprightly kids we 
 were in those days of the 'Open Court.' 
 
 Since the pubhcation of my Evolution, which I think 
 you reviewed, I got out some medical books and one 
 entitled Fun in a Doctor's Life, a copy of which I or- 
 dered sent to you. 
 
 You seem to have liked Quincy and been appreciated 
 there, and if I do come we can have many a chat over 
 past times of both of us, and I know that you have 
 added to your lecturing and writing career there. 
 
 I have only general information of your town, and its 
 soldier home, in the hospital of which I thought of 
 seeking an appointment. 
 
 If not too much trespassing on your time, please tell 
 me something of the cottages on the home grounds ; 
 are they for one family or more each.'' and any other 
 information an old soldier might like to know. Is the 
 administration humane.? 
 
 My wife thinks that it would be better for me to go 
 down there and see for myself. She is quite timid about 
 the projected move, but there are crises in life when 
 decision is necessary. . . . 
 
 I hope to hear from you and see you soon. 
 
 But Friend Underwood never answered 
 Clevenger's letter ; it was returned to its sender 
 
The Closing Years 327 
 
 unopened, and across the envelope was written 
 the word — Deceased. 
 
 Occasionally, Clevenger hunted up some of 
 his acquaintances. During the Christmas sea- 
 son of 1913, he visited his friend William 
 Augustus Evans, who as health commissioner 
 of Chicago, as professor of sanitary science in the 
 medical school of Northwestern University, and 
 as health editor of the Chicago Tribune, has be- 
 come one of the best-known of American hygien- 
 ists. The preceding February, Dr Evans had 
 taken a trip to Denver, and on the way he read 
 Pathfinders in Medicine. He asked Cle^tenger 
 if he ever heard of this book, and Clevenger 
 said that he had not. Thereupon, Dr Evans 
 loaned his copy to Clevenger, who took it home 
 with him. Cle^^nger began to read the volume 
 that night, and for the first time stumbled across 
 the story of Semmelweis. It affected him 
 strangely, for in the fate of this physician he read 
 an epitome of his own thwarted career. Unable 
 to sleep, he read the tale over and over again, 
 alternately swearing and crying. As Semmei-- 
 WEis had been driven from the Viemia hospital, 
 so he too had been cast out, by the powders of 
 darkness, from the hospitals of Dumiing and 
 Kankakee. Across the gulfs of time and space, 
 
328 The Don Quivote of Psychiatry 
 
 Cle^^nger touched hands with Semmeli^^eis. 
 Clea':enger was seventy years of age, but it was 
 not until now, amid indignation and tears, that 
 he found his hero ideal. From that time on, his 
 conversation and correspondence were tinctured 
 with Semmelw^eis. Clevenger wrote to the 
 Semmelw^eis essayist — and thus found his own 
 biographer. When his initial letter arrived, how- 
 ever, we knew nothing about Clevenger, except 
 that we had come across Clevenger s fissure in 
 the oddest of places — in the chapter on Anatom- 
 ical Proper Names and their Origin^ in Croth- 
 ERS and Bice's Elements of Latin. 
 
 Our friendship with Clevenger began on the 
 day that he learnt of the death of his life-long 
 friend, Spitzka. In his letter of January fif- 
 teenth, 1914, replying to our note of acknowl- 
 edgment, Clevenger wrote : 
 
 Your . . , letter came to me today, just as I was 
 grieving over the announced death of my old time friend 
 and fellow student in cerebral anatomy and psychiatry, 
 Dr E. C. Spitzka of New York. He had an immense 
 grasp of those subjects, and we wrote for the Journal 
 of Nervous and Mental Disease during the '80's as 
 well as other scientific and medical journals, many ar- 
 ticles costing us much time, thought and work. 
 
 Of late years we have not seen or corresponded with 
 
The Closing Years 329 
 
 each oMicr, l)iih when I read of liis dcatli liy apoplexy 
 there came the painful cramp at my. heart as wlien 
 during the civil war I looked upon a favorite comrade 
 shot down. It seems as tho our very enjoyments, such 
 as in friendship, were made the means by Nature to 
 increase our sufferings. 
 
 Let US quote a passage from another letter, 
 containing one of his numerous references to his 
 newly-found but much-beloved Semmelweis : 
 
 Here and there if I can find some bright spots in 
 this gruesome story of mine, I shall rejoice in the 
 telling, but sneak-tJiief officials, roystering drunken 
 all-night revels of the worst of Chicago slum-dwellers 
 at the asylum, and the finding out of trusted confiden- 
 tial friends as treacherous, predominate. Full of en- 
 thusiasm, I would instruct ministers and prominent 
 merchants in the atrocities, only to find sermons filled 
 with meaningless platitudes, and that the merchants 
 were in with the grafters and with great amusement 
 disclosed to them my 'fool reform' plans. And I won- 
 dered that I Avas alwaj^s butting stone walls ! 
 
 Lord, Lord, if I had only known as much as I do 
 now, but none of us can be invincible. I did my best 
 and accomplished little. Animosities originating at 
 that period survive among the unscrupulous and those 
 influenced by them. But poor Semmelweis had a simi- 
 lar dose, and must have been astonished as I was at 
 
330 The Don Quirote of Psychiatry 
 
 the bitter injustice of it all. It's the interfering with 
 vested interests that the world does not forgive. 
 
 When we first met Dr Clevenger, in the 
 spring of 1914, we saw a well-preserved, pleas- 
 ant-featured septuagenarian. He proved a de- 
 lightful raconteur, and tho he sometimes re- 
 peated his stories, he invariabty told them well. 
 He walked with a springy step, his eyes were 
 bright and twinkling, and his appearance gave 
 evidence, that in spite of the buffets of the world, 
 some one was taking care of him. In the au- 
 tumn of 1916, after an absence of several months, 
 we again saw Clevenger; mentally he was still 
 alert, but the inroads of age were visible upon 
 him. Upon this occasion we found a new mem- 
 ber in the Clevenger household: Tweety, the 
 sparrow. In its infancy, it had fallen from its 
 nest directly beneath the Clevenger windows, 
 and Mrs Clevenger raised it with much love and 
 many hemp-seeds. Tweety was not kept in a 
 cage, and entirely devoid of fear, it amused it- 
 self thruout the evening by flying from one to 
 the other, looking into Mrs Clevenger's eyes, 
 pecking at the Doctor's beard, nestling under- 
 neath our jacket. In its affection and guile- 
 less innocence, it symbolised the pure-hearted 
 people in whose home it was chirping and fly- 
 
The Closing Years 331 
 
 ing. We like to retain this picture of our dear 
 old Don Quixote, resting peacefully in his com- 
 fortable chair, surrounded by his good wife and 
 tame bird. 
 
 Upon reaching his seventy-fifth birthday, in 
 the spring of 1918, the veteran's pension was in- 
 creased, and the Clevengers moved from the 
 south side to better quarters at 2639 George 
 Street, where they live at present. 
 
 During Clevenger's span of years, neurology 
 and psychiatry made more progress than in all 
 previous periods. These twin sciences grew up 
 in the nineteenth century, and took strides only 
 in the latter half. They are new territory for 
 the scientist, replete with unexplored regions. 
 Ernesto Lugaro's Modern Problems in Psychi- 
 atry refers to several, but there are myriads of 
 others. Clevenger would have solved some of 
 these riddles if he had worked over them long 
 enough, but he was a truant child of neurology, 
 w^andering away and getting lost in other fields, 
 when she was about to whisper him her choicest 
 secrets. Had he been able to follow Spitzka's 
 advice, his achievements in psychiatry would have 
 been greater — but then he would not have been 
 its Don Quixote. 
 
 Since no method has yet been devised by which 
 
332 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 to measure the relative greatness of men, it is 
 unprofitable to discuss whether our country has 
 produced neurologists who equal the French Du- 
 CHENNE, Charcot, or jNIarie; or the German 
 Romberg, Friedreich, or Erb; or the English 
 
 GOWERS, HUGHLINGS JaCKSON, or HORSLEY. 
 
 But this much is indisputable: the labors of 
 American neurologists have materially advanced 
 our knowledge of the science. 
 
 Leaving aside the earlier workers, such as 
 Benjamin Rush, Isaac Ray, James Jackson, 
 and John Kearsley Mitchell, we may men- 
 tion some of the American achievements in this 
 department during the past fifty years: in 1869, 
 George Miller Beard described nervous ex- 
 haustion; in 1872, George Huntington de- 
 scribed hereditary chorea; in 1873, Hammond 
 described athetosis, and Seguin investigated 
 spastic paraplegia; in 1876, Thomas G. Mor- 
 ton described metatarsalgia ; in 1878, Weir 
 Mitchell described red neuralgia; in 1884, 
 MosES Allen Starr showed that small lesions 
 in the lemniscus cause loss of muscular sense in 
 the limbs of the opposite side; in 1885, Spitzka 
 described the marginal tract of the spinal cord, 
 and Sarah J. McNutt showed that the paraly- 
 ses of infants were usually due to hemorrhage 
 
The Closing Years 333 
 
 within the cranium; in 1887, Charles L. Dana 
 investigated the localisation of referred pains, 
 demonstrating the areas of pain of sympathetic 
 origin; in 1890, William F. Milroy described 
 persistent hereditary edema of the legs ; in 1 000, 
 Charles Karsner Mills described unilateral 
 progressive ascending paralysis; in 1904, Henry 
 Hun increased our information concerning 
 myasthenia gravis; in 1907, Ramsay Hunt de- 
 scribed herpetic inflammation of the geniculate 
 ganglia, and Ross Granville Harrison devised 
 a method for directly observing the living and 
 growing nerve; in 1912, Frederick Tilney shed 
 light on the histology of the hypophysis cerebri. 
 Burt G. Wilder's discoveries in cerebral anat- 
 omy, J. J. Putnam's various investigations, 
 A. A. Brill's popularization of Freudism, Wil- 
 liam A. White's and Smith Ely Jelliffe's 
 editorial labors, Flexner's and Noguchi's ex- 
 perimentation in neuro-pathology, and Har"s^y 
 Cushing's neuro-surgical work, are contribu- 
 tions of importance. 
 
 What position does Clevenger occupy in this 
 list? Not as high a place as some of the others, 
 and whoever looks thru the four official volumes 
 of the Institutional Care of the Insane in the 
 United States and Canada j will find onlv inci- 
 
334 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 
 
 dental mention of his connexion with Dunning 
 and Kankakee. But the calm and detached 
 tones in which these stately volumes talk of in- 
 stitutional management, carefully avoiding any 
 reference to political corruption, do not repre- 
 sent the truth of the situation. History cannot 
 always be written without indignation. And it 
 is because Shobal Vail Clevenger has aroused 
 our indignation at atrocities, continued until this 
 very day against the most helpless of human be- 
 ings, that we have passed weightier names by, 
 and have written instead this story of Chicago's 
 shame, thus contributing to medical history a 
 type which we shall ever cherish — the Don 
 Quixote of Psychiatry. 
 
INDEX OF SCIENTISTS 
 
 Agassiz, Alexander, 232 
 AK'issIz, Louis, 51, 232, 272 
 Agnew, Cornelius R., 264 
 Alexander, Harriet, 185 
 Alexander, William, 269 
 Allen, Grant, 145 
 Allen, Harrison, 217-224, 229, 
 
 234, 252, 271, 316, 324 
 Amadei, Giuseppe, 166 
 Andrews, Edmund, 40-1, 46 
 
 Babcock, Robert H., 52 
 Bache, Franklin, 189 
 Baird, Spencer F., 210, 218, 225 
 Bannister, Henry M., 71, 157, 
 
 185, 294, 299, 301 
 Barker, Fordyce, 51 
 Bartholow, Roberts, 157 
 Bastin, Edson S., 164-5 
 Baxter, 81 
 Bayle, 192 
 
 Beard, George M., 155, 168, 332 
 Beck, Theodoric Romeyn, 48, 
 
 49, 193 
 Benedikt, 147 
 Bergen, A. C, 30 
 Bevan, Arthur Dean, 185, 260 
 Biggs, Hermann M., 273 
 Billings, Frank, 260 
 Billings, John Shaw, 51 
 Brainard, Daniel, 34-5, 49 
 Brewer, George E., 260 
 Brill, A. A., 333 
 
 Brewer, Daniel R., 88, 150, 167, 
 
 185 
 liutler, George F., 270 
 Byford, William Heath, 42-3, 
 
 46, 123 
 
 Charcot, J. M., 332 
 
 Chiarugi, 74 
 
 Christopher, W. S., 185 
 
 Church, Benjamin, 265 
 
 Clark, Daniel, 47 
 
 Cope, Edward Drinker, 109, 
 138, 151, 203, 214-16, 224- 
 240, 242, 271, 302, 313, 316, 
 322, 324, 326 
 
 Corning, J. L., 304-5 
 
 Cramer, Frank, 162 
 
 Crile, George W., 260 
 
 Crothers, T. D., 183 
 
 Curtis, Lester, 46, 152 
 
 Cushing, Harvey, 333 
 
 Cuvier, Georges, 242 
 
 Dall, 228 
 
 Dana, Charles L., 131, 333 
 
 Dan forth, L N., 52 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 128, 139, 153, 
 
 170, 208, 212, 278, 287 
 Davis, Nathan Smith, 46, 47-55, 
 
 59, 150, 157, 168 
 Dean, Chapman V., 120 
 Dejerine, Jules, 112 
 Dennis, F. S., 260 
 
 335 
 
336 
 
 Index of Scientists 
 
 Dewey, G. M., 176 
 Dewey, Richard, 107-9 
 Dickinson, Frances, 25 
 Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 75 
 Donaldson, H. H., 112 
 Dorsey, John Syng, 210 
 Drake, Daniel, 278 
 Duchenne, G. B. A., 332 
 Dudley, Emilius C, 148-150, 
 
 185, 252, 299, 307 
 Duval, 303 
 
 Earl, Pliny, 75 
 
 Eberle, John, 13 
 
 Eberth, Carl, 52 
 
 Ecker, 146 
 
 Ehrenberg, 163 
 
 Elliott, George T., 51 
 
 Elwell, J. J., 282 
 
 Emmet, Thomas Addis, 42, 150 
 
 Erb, Wilhelm Heinrich, 175, 
 
 332 
 Erichsen, John Eric, 173-180 
 Esquirol, J. E. D., 75, 82 
 Etheridge, J. H., 257-8 
 Evans, John, 49 
 Evans, William Augustus, 185, 
 
 327 
 Eycleshymer, A. C, 323 
 
 Fantus, Bernard, 126 
 
 Fenger, Christian, 149 
 
 Filhol, 237-8 
 
 Fitz, Reginald Heber, 33, 155 
 
 Flagg, J. Foster, 217 
 
 Flexner, S., 333 
 
 Flint, Austin, 51 
 
 Forel, 112 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 247 
 
 Friedreich, N., 332 
 
 Gage, Simon H., 273 
 Gapen, Clarke, 182 
 Garrison, H. D., 164 
 Gegenbaur, Carl, 87 
 Geikie, Archibald, 216 
 Gibney, Virgil P., 157 
 Gibbs, Wolcott, 264 
 Girard, Alfred C, 109-110, 122 
 Goethe, 211 
 
 Gould, George Milbry, 181 
 Gowers, William R., 332 
 Gradle, Henry, 43, 185 
 Gray, Asa, 212, 272 
 Gray, Henry, 36, 288 
 Gray, Langdon Carter, 157 
 Griesinger, Wilhelm, 75 
 Gross, Samuel David, 183, 247, 
 
 278 
 Gunn, Moses, 255 
 
 Haeckel, Ernst, 168, 207 
 Hamilton, Allan McLane, 102 
 Hammond, Graeme M., 267, 
 
 304-5 
 Hammond, William Alexander, 
 
 46, 131, 152, 263-271, 305, 
 
 332 
 Harrison, Ross G., 333 
 Hatfield, Marcus P., 46 
 Hayden, F. V., 238 
 Hayes, P. S., 254 
 Hebra, Ferdinand, 30 
 Hektoen, Ludwig, 185 
 Helmholtz, Hermann, 139 
 Henry, Joseph, 25, 210, 218 
 Hill, Gardner, 75 
 Hippocrates, 54 
 Holden, Luther, 30 
 Hollister, John H., 39-40, 186 
 Horner, William E., 208,210,278 
 
Index of Scientists 
 
 387 
 
 Horsley, Victor, 332 
 Howard, Iceland O., 273 
 Howard, William Lcc, 270 
 Howe, Delia K., «3, 77-80, 111 
 Hughrs, Charles Ilaniilton, 1(5.5 
 Hun, Henry, 333 
 Hunter, John, 207 
 Huntington, George, 332 
 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 229, 
 
 237, 242 
 Hyatt, Alpheus, 228 
 Hyde, James Nevins, 150, 157, 
 
 252 
 HyrtI, Joseph, 226 
 
 Isham, Ralph N., 39 
 
 Jackson, James, 332 
 
 Jackson, Reeves, 128 
 
 Jelliffe, S. E., 323, 333 
 
 Jevons, 163 
 
 Jewell, James Stewart, 44-6, 
 57, 87, 132, 146, 148, 152, 
 157, 168, 282, 289, 294, 296, 
 299, 301, 321 
 
 Johnson, Hosmer Allen, 46 
 
 Jones, Samuel J., 44 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, 273 
 
 Judd, Herbert, 182 
 
 Kahlbaum, Karl, 62 
 
 Kiernan, James George, 61-2, 
 
 76-77, 101, 157, 182, 185 
 Kirkbride, T. S., 238, 312 
 Koch, Robert, 153-4 
 Koller, Charles, 75 
 Krohn, W. O., 126 
 
 Lanphear, Emory, 189 ^ 
 
 LeConte, Joseph, 162 w 
 
 lA-U\y, Joseph, 47, 152, 203-17, 
 
 219, 220, 222, 229, 232, 234, 
 
 252, 316, 322 
 Lfiickart, Rudolf, 207 
 Lrnf, A. H. P., 222 
 lx)l)dell, Effie L., Ill, 120-1, 
 
 126 
 Lombroso, Cesar e, 147 
 Lugaro, Ernesto, 331 
 Lydston, George Frank, 182, 
 
 186 
 Lyell, Charles, 212 
 I>yman, Henry M., 88, 181 
 
 McBride, T. A., 157, 301, 304-5 
 McClintock, James, 206 
 McMurtrie, Henry, 218 
 McNutt, Sarah J., 332 
 McWilliams, Samuel Anderson, 
 
 126-7 
 Madigan, M. J., 165 
 Magendie, Francois, 208 
 Marie, Pierre, 332 
 Marsh, Othniel Charles, 184, 
 
 214, 216, 229, 233, 237 
 Matas, R., 260 
 Mayo, 260 
 Merriman, H. P., 46 
 Meyer, Adolf, 112 
 Meynert, Theodor, 280-1 
 Michels, John, 137, 156, 307 
 Mills, Charles K., 203, 253, 333 
 Milne-Edwards, 208 
 Milroy, AVilliam F., 333 
 Mitchell, John K., 332 
 MitcheU, Silas Weir, 146, 157, 
 
 270, 313, 332 
 Montgomery, Edmund, 138- 
 
 140, 326 
 .Moore, Edward Mott, 255 
 
338 
 
 Index of Scientists 
 
 Morgan, John, 50, 265 
 Morton, Thomas G., 332 
 Morton, William J., 131-2, 168 
 Moyer, Harold N., 182 
 Mumford, James Gregory, 256 
 Miiller, Johannes, 208 
 Murphy, John B., 149, 185 
 
 Nott, Josiah Clark, 18, 152,278 
 Noguchi, H., 333 
 
 Ordronaux, John, 193 
 
 Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 185, 
 
 214 
 Osier, William, 201, 247 
 Oswald, Felix L., 138 
 Owen, Richard, 139, 207-8, 223, 
 
 Page, Herbert W., 173, 180 
 
 Paoli, 88, 186 
 
 Park, Roswell, 36, 152, 254- 
 
 263, 321 
 Parkes, Charles Theodore, 256-7 
 Parkinson, James, 48 
 Patrick, Hugh T., 185 
 Pepper, William, 203, 231, 240- 
 
 254, 313, 316 
 Physick, Philip Syng, 50, 210 
 Pinel, Philippe, 74, 118 
 Pitcher, Zina, 41 
 Powell, J. W., 234 
 Pusey, William Allen, 185 
 Putnam, J. J., 174, 333 
 Pyle, Walter L., 181 
 
 Quine, William E., 36, 81, 128 
 
 Ray, Isaac, 100, 193, 332 
 Rea, Robert Laughlin, 37-9, 
 59 
 
 Reade, Winwood, 197 
 Reese, John James, 193 
 Register, Edward C, 191 
 Reil, Johann Christian, 75 
 Richardson, Maurice H., 260 
 Ridlon, John, 185 
 Robinson, Byron, 126, 256 
 Rockwell, A. D., 155 
 Rokitansky, Carl, 30, 40 
 Roler, E. O. F., 43 
 Roosa, D. B. S., J., 270-1 
 Romberg, Moritz H., 332 
 Rush, Benjamin, 18, 50, 332 
 
 Sachs, Bernard, 168 
 Sachs, Theodore B., 124 
 Santee, Harris E., 126 
 Schmidt, H. D., 152-4, 252 
 Schneider, Albert, 126 
 Seguin, Edouard, 51 
 Seguin, E. C, 152, 253, 316 
 Semmelweis, Ignaz Philipp, 30, 
 
 327, 329 
 Senn, Nicholas, 185 
 Servetus, Michael, 265 
 Shippen, Jr., William, 210, 265 
 Sims, J. Marion, 42, 51, 278 
 Skoda, Josef, 30 
 
 Smith, Nathan, 47 
 Smith, Theobald, 273 
 Spencer, Herbert, 170, 287 
 Spitzka, Edward Anthony, 287, 
 
 316 
 Spitzka, Edward Charles, 112, 
 152, 155, 157, 174, 195, 231, 
 253, 268, 279-316, 322, 324, 
 
 328, 331-2 
 
 Spray, John Campbell, 59-62 
 Starr, M. A., 332 
 Swammerdam, Jan, 206 
 
Index of Scientists 
 
 339 
 
 Tait, Lawson, 43 
 Talbot, Eugene S., 185 
 Thacher, James, 50 
 Tilney, F., 333 
 Tonnini, Silvio, lfi6 
 Tulpius, Nicholas, 39 
 
 Van Buren, W, H., 2G4-5 
 
 Walton, G. L., 174 
 Ward, Lester F., 138 
 Waterhouse, Benjamin, 60 
 Waugh, William Francis, 128, 
 
 183-5 
 Welch, W. H., 260 
 
 Willie, W. A., 333 
 
 Wiedershcim, 163 
 
 Wilder, Burt Green, 146, 157, 
 
 219, 271-80, 287, 299, 301, 
 
 333 
 Wilson, James Cornelius, 252 
 Wistar, Caspar, 210 
 Wood, Casey A., 185 
 Wood, George B., 208 
 Wood, Horatio C, 130, 190-1, 
 
 203 
 Wyeth, John A., 316 
 Wyman, Jeffries, 210, 272 
 
 Zoethout, William D., 126 
 
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