The Beginnings of Medical Practice in New Haven Colony

From the standpoint of present-day medical knowledge the story of medicine in the early colonial period is not an attractive one. The ridiculous treatment and the absurd remedies accorded the sick in that day seem valueless now. Nevertheless, the meager accounts that tell us of the medical life of that period are inspiring. One reads of the endeavors and contentions of these earnest medical pioneers with an admiration that is akin to reverence. The incessant physical struggles that their environment demanded and their firm spiritual contention for righteous living, produced in them a fortitude of body and mind that we, their descendants, may properly revere. It is my purpose to consider the beginnings of medical practice in New Haven Colony, to deal with our first physicians and to review the medical life of their time. Of necessity I shall limit my inquiry to the period from the establishment of the Colony in 1639 to the beginning of the next century. When we consider the changes in medical practice in our own time, changes brought about not only by newer and more effectual methods of treatment, but also by such agencies as the telephone, the automobile, and the development of the modern hospital, it is difficult for us to form an accurate picture of medical life even half a century ago. Scientific discovery and invention are making such tremendous changes in our entire life today, that the wonders of yesterday become commonplace, and each new complexity further obscures our vision of those who have gone before. How extremely difficult it is for us to think of the tiny settlement on the Quinnipiac meadows with its one hundred and thirty families, and how hard to picture the seventeenth-century physician making his daily rounds. The settlement of New Haven from its inception was a compact, thriving community. It comprised among its inhabitants people who were wealthy and educated. Although Bacon in Atwater's History says that "New Haven Colony managed to be born and pass some years of its life without the help of any doctor of its own.