James Thacher and his influence on American medicine / Henry R. Viets.

  • Henry Viets
Date:
[1949]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: James Thacher and his influence on American medicine / Henry R. Viets. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stantly prepared for active and hazardous service. Much to Thacher’s pleasure he was asked to be¬ come the surgeon to Scammell’s corps, thus indicat¬ ing the high respect that the officers of the line had for this young doctor. He accepted at once and with Scammell’s light infantry, in the autumn of 1781, he marched to Trenton and then to Philadelphia on the way to Yorktown. The main body of the army left Annapolis by boat, sailed down Chesapeake Bay into Hampton Roads and landed on Septem¬ ber 22, about twelve miles from Yorktown. Within a week they had moved up to within a mile of the town. On the way he passed through Williamsburg and saw the public buildings and the college. Al¬ though the buildings were splendid the water, from the doctor’s viewpoint, was “extremely brackish and disagreeable.” Then Colonel Scammell was sur¬ prised and captured, but his corps continued in ac¬ tion. Violent battles, under the general command of Washington, with Steuben, La Fayette and Rochambeau as aides, were fought in October in the field. Thacher, too, had to fight against weak¬ ness and fever, which had attacked many of the troops from New England. He then witnessed the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and gave a detailed account of the celebrated event. Being a mounted officer he was able to move around and see almost everything that was happening, and he took ad¬ vantage of this in describing what actually took place on the field. The troops then returned to West Point, where they encamped again at Highlands and spent the winter. Thacher seems to have kept himself in ex¬ cellent health, for he could only report in Decem¬ ber, 1781, that he had a mild attack of inflamma¬ tory rheumatism but otherwise had no illness dur¬ ing the seven years of military service. In the Spring of 1782 he was busy again with smallpox inocula¬ tions, and by April 5 he had completed this aspect of his work. He then took a furlough, with his friend Eustis, back to his home in Barnstable. In the latter part of May he returned to the camp on the Hudson and there, except for a few trips around the country and one expedition to Phila¬ delphia, he remained until he was mustered out of the service on January 1, 1783, and his diary ends at this point, with the following words: “This day I close my military career, and quit forever the toils and vicissitudes incident to the storms of war. To my military companions I bid a final adieu, and hope to enjoy in future the bless¬ ings which attend a virtuous course of domestic life. I retire with honorable testimonials, from very re¬ spectable authority, of my punctuality and faith¬ ful performance of duty in the various situations which I have been called to occupy, and with a heart fraught with grateful recollections of the kindness and affectionate intercourse which I have experienced from my superiors, and from my nu¬ merous companions and associates. While I con¬ gratulate my country on the momentous event by which we are about to be elevated to the rank of an Independent Nation, most cordially do I proffer my sympathy for the many lives of inestimable value which have been sacrificed during this ever memorable contest.” The Post-War Period Home from the War in the summer of 1783, Thacher, then twenty-nine years of age, began to think of settling down to his practice, interrupted since the summer of 1775 when the young patriot of twenty-one hurried to Cambridge to join Wash¬ ington’s army lest the War end before he could become a surgeon’s mate. Eight years and more was to pass before he could establish himself as a practitioner. The winter of 1783-1784 seems to have been a period of “terminal leave,” filled in, no doubt, by a pleasant interlude of courting Susan¬ nah Hayward of Bridgewater, a town twenty-five miles to the northwest of Plymouth, whom he was to marry in 1785. One hopes, too, that he paid his respects to Abner Hersey, his eccentric teacher, still in practice in Barnstable. Hersey was to die a few years later at the age of sixty-five, an old man for his day, long worn out by his hard rounds, no doubt made none easier when his young, effi¬ cient apprentice left him after five years of training in the fateful July of 1775. At all events, it was not until March, 1784, that Thacher, well qualified for his time by his good training and extensive war experience, left Barn¬ stable and began his long period of practice in Plymouth. He was to remain for sixty years in the town he loved so well, forty of them as the leading physician of the county and the last twenty, when health partially failed, as a biographer, an anti¬ quarian, farmer, horticulturist, and historian. From 1810 to 1835, nine books were written by Thacher, published in sixteen editions before his death in
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