doctors at lincoln's bedside

[Linda Anderson]

(02-14-2015 11:48 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Linda Anderson is our Seward expert... There were at least several others, I believe, over the course of Seward's treatment, but Linda is much better on the Seward subject than anyone I know.

Thank you, Laurie. I checked Fanny's diary and she mentions the doctors in attendance on assassination night. There was also Dr. Thomas Gunning, the dentist who designed Seward's mouth splint. There may have been other physicians as well who attended Seward during his recovery.The descriptions are from Sensitivity and Civil War: The Collected Diaries and Papers, 1858-1866, of Frances Adeline (Fanny) Seward by Patricia Carley Johnson.

Dr. T. S. Verdi - "was a Washington homeopath who was employed as the Sewards' family physician."
Dr. Joseph K. Barnes - Surgeon General
Dr. Basil Norris - "was promoted to Major and Surgeon, April 16, 1862."
Dr. William Monroe Nottson [sic] (Dr. Norris's assistant)- Dr. Notson "entered the Union Army as an Assistant Surgeon in 1862."
Dr. John Wilson - promoted to Surgeon in in the Volunteer Army in Dec . 1862 "and in August 1863 he was made a Lieut. Colonel and Medical Inspector."
Dr. William Whelan - Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy Department.
Dr. White - Unidentified

"But for Surgeon-General Joseph Barnes, an prominent allopathic surgeon who came to assist in Seward's treatment, the incident nearly turned into a professional disaster as the American Medical Association (AMA) seriously considered censuring him for consulting with a quack, which they deemed Verdi to be. The AMA stopped short of this step only due to fear of public condemnation."

A Century of Homeopaths: Their Influence on Medicine and Health By Jonathan Davidson

https://books.google.com/books?id=SvG7BA...es&f=false

Here's an interesting letter to the editor of the New York Times, June 29, 1865.

"Much surprise has been occasioned by a statement, under the telegraphic head of the 27th, that in the late convention of the American Medical Association, held in Boston, Surgeon-General BARNES was held to account, and narrowly escaped expulsion, for 'unprofessional conduct in consulting with, an irregular practitioner in the case of the SEWARDS.' In other words, the Surgeon-General was denounced for acting as a gentleman and a man of sense. The 'charges' were based upon the following paragraph, published from a letter written by Dr. VERDI, Mr. SEWARD's family physician, shortly after the occurrence of that terrible assault:

"'Surgeon-Gen. BARNES, Drs. NORRIS, U.S.A., and WILSON, Medical Inspector, were sent to my assistance, and I must say to their honor, that their energies united with mine only to save and relieve the victims, and not one descended to that petty professional pique or ill-conceived pride of many practitioners in reference to associating with a medical gentleman of a different school of Therapeutics. Our intercourse, professional and social, has been mutually courteous; we met on the same field inspired by the same ambition, to work together for the name end.'

"In the convention the Surgeon-General was censured for meeting Dr. VERDI in that arena of woe and alarm, without protesting against his presence, without ordering him out of the room, nay without forgetting the national calamity, the momentous and perilous condition of several members of that unfortunate family, to descend to professional intolerance and bigotry, and make an issue of discord with the Doctor himself who, after all, was the regular family physician, at his post, faithful in the discharge of his duties."

http://www.nytimes.com/1865/07/09/news/p...rance.html

[Linda Anderson]

Fanny Seward did not think highly of Dr. Verdi, to say the least.

June 17, 1865
"This evening Eliza [family servant] told me something of Verdi's brutal treatment of her son's wife whom he attended at her first confinement - he behaved very ill - very ignorantly in treatment, & was so cruel as to curse her in all her pain. How detestable he grows!..."

[STS Lincolnite]

Linda, how did Dr. Verdi gain his position as Seward's "family doctor"?

I found this image of Dr. Verdi.

[BettyO]

Dr Verdi sounds like an ogre! I'm surprised that the Seward family would have him....

[STS Lincolnite]

Here is some more info on Dr. Verdi.

http://sueyounghistories.com/archives/20...omeopathy/

[Eva Elisabeth]

(02-14-2015 02:58 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  [quote='L Verge' pid='44008' dateline='1423932532']
Linda Anderson is our Seward expert... There were at least several others, I believe, over the course of Seward's treatment, but Linda is much better on the Seward subject than anyone I know.

(02-14-2015 02:58 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Dr. T. S. Verdi - "was a Washington homeopath who was employed as the Sewards' family physician."

I've several times now read about homoeopatic doctors and patients receiving homoeopathic therapy back in those days. I wonder how accurately these terms are used, i.e. does it refer to real homoeopathy or to allopathic treatment with natural remedies?

Since I've often heard people (incorrectly) using the term "homoeopathy" for any treatment with natural remedies, thus also the allopathic way, here the difference goes:

Homoeopathy is a system created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann. He claimed that "like cures like" (similia similibus curentur). A substance (miasm) that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people (a bit like vaccination). Furthermore dilution increases potency, and the dilution goes well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain in the remedy. Thus it lacks biological plausibility and scientific evidence and is contraversal.
Such as using chamomile for disinfectant purposes or against gastroimtestinal issues is allopathic treatment with a natural remedy ("allos" means "different") as pharmacological agent in the common way.

Back to my question - was it really homoeopathy or rather allopathic treatment with natural remedies people were treated with?

[Linda Anderson]

(02-14-2015 07:00 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  Linda, how did Dr. Verdi gain his position as Seward's "family doctor"?

I found this image of Dr. Verdi.

I don't know how Dr. Verdi came to be employed by the Seward family, Scott, but he was the family physician for almost three years before the assassination attempt. This is from the NYT article.

"Dr. VERDI has been the physician of that distinguished family for nearly three years. We recollect his saving the life of Gen. SEWARD two years ago, when brought from the camp to Washington, with life fast ebbing away under a most formidable attack of dysentery. Dr. VERDI was also required at Auburn when the same gentleman was low in typhoid fever; and we well remember his successful treatment of the fractured elbow-joint of Assistant Secretary SEWARD last Fall."

[SpruceCreekHawk]

Thank you so much for the Seward information. It stood to reason, with so many casualties, that some not in attendance on President Lincoln would have treated the numerous wounded at the Seward home. The circumstances oddly summon to my mind January 13, 1982 when first responders were scrambling with both the Air Florida crash and the Metro accident.

[LincolnToddFan]

(02-14-2015 06:38 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Fanny Seward did not think highly of Dr. Verdi, to say the least.

June 17, 1865
"This evening Eliza [family servant] told me something of Verdi's brutal treatment of her son's wife whom he attended at her first confinement - he behaved very ill - very ignorantly in treatment, & was so cruel as to curse her in all her pain. How detestable he grows!..."

He verbally abused a woman in labor?! Lovely. I agree with Betty, he sounds like a monster.

SpruceCreekHawk,

Not sure if I've ever asked before but who is the woman in your avatar? She is truly stunning!

[RJNorton]

Hi Toia. I agree, and Gene asked about this last fall - please go here for the answer.

[LincolnToddFan]

Roger-what an amazing memory...I knew someone asked about her on this Forum...much thanks!

[Jim Garrett]

I understand that NBC Nightly News anchor was also at Lincoln's deathbed.

[Tom Brown]

I was hoping to get some help from some of the experts on this blog! I am from Milford, Ohio home of Dr. Charles Gatch. In every and any historic publication they list Dr. Gatch as the first physician to reach Lincoln. I cannot find any proof. He passed away in 1870 with no public testimony and the next we hear of him is in the 1908 article in which his brother makes many outrageous and false claims. The only hint of his participation is the George Alfred Townsend book, "The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth" in which he mentions a C. D. Gatch in the death room. Any other morsel besides the Townsend mention or his brother Oliver's false narrative?

[RJNorton]

Hi Tom. I do not know if this will help or not, but there is some information on Find A Grave.

Possibly the two folks who wrote that page have more information. You might want to contact them. Contact information is here.

[J. Beckert]

I can't speak for the experts, but I do remember this man's name coming up within the last few years and the story (I think) that I read was that his family was attempting to auction off his watch (a very large pocket watch - size 20) that was touted as being in the death room when Lincoln passed. I did a quick search, but couldn't find the article I'd read.