It is indeed an Unalloyed pleasure to have the privilege of appearing before the Hamilton Library Association this evening to turn back to the period when I first became a resident of Cumberland County. Although forty years have elapsed since that period, and fifteen years have passed since I removed from your midst, I am sincere when I state that nowhere else have I made and retained better and warmer friends than those I left in the Cumberland Valley. There is something in your charming landscape. In your beautiful scenery and in your romantic history embalmed "In Old Bellaire" and its setting that must be the secret you have in retaining the affection and esteem of those who have been residents in your midst.
The period from 1867 to 1907, coming so soon after the gigantic struggle for the preservation of the Union—at its beginning, forms a transition period which in its course and development is one of, if not the most interesting period in our history. Its social, political, scientific and especially its medical aspects and adjuncts with which we are more particularly concerned on this occasion have been greater than the sum of those taking place in all previous historical periods. Before this time medicine was still very largely based on methods which were metaphysical in character. Authority rather than verification was still largely dominant in its domain. Inductions based on insufficient facts, or formed on misinterpretations were still held and accepted to a considerable extent. Old time traditions and institutions had been rudely overthrown during this period and every growing and developing phase of knowledge partook of reconstruction and change. Science is a universal living whole and its divisions cannot be dissociated and dissevered apart and independent from others. Thus when heat, light, electricity and other domains advanced, their concrete embodiments were appropriated and adapted by medical science.
The thermometer for recording human temperature at the bedside was still a novelty in the Cumberland Valley in 1867-8. Even humorous designations and comparisons were made by the laity to whom its use seemed so incongruous. The world very largely overlooks the fact that medicine is a growing and developing department of knowledge. Hypodermic medication about the same time was still a novelty and its undeveloped state sometimes brought it into startling notoriety, if it did not lead to its disadvantage.
Auscultation, percussion and the application of physical methods of diagnosis were just being applied. Reliance was still largely placed on the vital sign and Phenomena. To elicit a new collection of signs by the aided senses with instruments of precision, seemed a marvelous advance to both patient and physician. The lancet, which had once been so familiar to our elders, had now became unpopular and had very largely fallen into disuse. The mercurial preparations were now largely disappearing from use but reminders and reminiscences of their potency were still frequently rehearsed. Inquiries from patients about the advisability of drinking water, were echoes of a past condition of affairs, but as the years sped by these inquiries were seldom heard. The method of Lister had just been announced but it was years before it permeated the profession as a whole. Just as antiseptic measures advanced so antiphlogistic methods declined. This period also saw the beginning of improved methods and measures in the application of remedies to the human economy. Chemistry had lent her aid in this direction. With its assistance and that of the microscope the growing domain of Biology was wrested in name and reality from empiricism to whose questionable claims it had thus far been relegated.
These are but several of the impulses which coming about forty years ago served as it were to give the medical profession a new awakening and rejuvenation. The men of the past did their duty as they saw it with unflinching courage and fortitude. We are the heirs of the past and while to as a wider horizon may have opened, we must never forget that we are indebted to the brave pioneers of every age who have blazed the way for us. But if much is given, much is also expected and it also behooves us to do our full duty which if well done more cannot be expected.
Our story begins at eleven o'clock in the morning on July 17, 1866, when 24 Cumberland County physicians arrived at the Court House in Carlisle. This was the largest gathering of physicians in the county up to that time and, in addition to seven doctors from Carlisle, included practitioners from Shippensburg, Newville, Mechanicsburg, New Cumberland, West Fairview, and a number of other smaller points in the county.