Gilbertus Anglicus.
by Henry Ebenezer Handerson.
EXPLANATORY FOREWORD
In the summer of 1916 the librarian of the Cleveland Medical Library received a ma.n.u.script from Dr. Henry E. Handerson with the request that it be filed for reference in the archives of the library. The librarian at once recognized the value of the paper and referred it to the editorial board of the Cleveland Medical Journal, who sought the privilege of publishing it. Dr. Handerson"s consent was secured and the article was set in type. However, when the time came for its publication the author was reluctant to have it appear since he was unable then to read the proof, and because he felt that the material present might not be suitable for publication in a clinical journal.
To those who knew him, this painstaking attention to detail and desire for accuracy presents itself as a familiar characteristic. Though actual publication was postponed, the type forms were held, and when the Cleveland Medical Journal suspended publication, its editorial board informed the Council of the Cleveland Medical Library a.s.sociation of the valuable material which it had been unable to give to the medical world. In the meantime Dr. Handerson"s death had occurred, but the Council obtained the generous consent of the author"s family to make this posthumous publication. It is hoped that those who read will bear this fact in mind and will be lenient in the consideration of typographical errors, of which the author was so fearful.
The Cleveland Medical Library a.s.sociation feels that it is fortunate in being enabled to present to its members and to others of the profession this work of Dr. Handerson"s and to create from his own labors a memorial to him who was once its president.
SAMUEL W. KELLEY.
CLYDE L. c.u.mMER.
Committee on Publication.
BIOGRAPHY
HENRY EBENEZER HANDERSON
Owing to Dr. Handerson"s modesty, even we who were for years a.s.sociated with him in medical college, in organization, and professional work, knew but little of him. He would much rather discuss some fact or theory of medical science or some ancient worthy of the profession than his own life. Seeing this tall venerable gentleman, sedate in manner and philosophical in mind, presiding over the Cuyahoga County Medical Society or the Cleveland Medical Library a.s.sociation, few of the members ever pictured him as a fiery, youthful Confederate officer, leading a charge at a run up-hill over fallen logs and brush, sounding the "Rebel yell," leaping a hedge and alighting in a ten-foot ditch among Federal troopers who surrendered to him and his comrades. Yet this is history. We could perhaps more easily have recognized him even though in a military prison-pen, on finding him dispelling the tedium by teaching his fellow prisoners Latin and Greek, or perusing a precious volume of Herodotus.
Henry Ebenezer Handerson was born on March 21, 1837, here in Cuyahoga county, in the township of Orange, near the point now known as "Handerson"s Cross-Roads," on the Chagrin river. His mother"s maiden name was Catharine Potts. His father was Thomas Handerson, son of Ira Handerson. The family immigrated to Ohio from Columbia county, New York, in 1834. Thos. Handerson died as the result of an accident in 1839, leaving the widow with five children, the eldest thirteen years of age, to support. Henry and a sister were adopted by an uncle, Lewis Handerson, a druggist, of Cleveland. In spite of a sickly childhood the boy went to school a part of the time and at the age of fourteen was sent to a boarding school, Sanger Hall, at New-Hartford, Oneida county, New York. Henry"s poor health compelled him to withdraw from school. No one at that time would have predicted that the delicate youth would live to be the sage of four score years and one. With his foster father and family he moved to Beersheba Springs, Grundy county, Tennessee.
In 1854, in good health, the boy returned to Cleveland, prepared for college, and entered Hobart College, Geneva, New York, where he graduated as A.B. in 1858. Returning to Tennessee, he occupied himself for about a year with surveying land and in other work and then became private tutor in the family of Mr. Washington Compton on a cotton plantation near Alexandria, Louisiana. There he remained a year or more, then in the autumn of 1860 matriculated in the Medical Department of the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University), where he studied through the winter, and also heard much of the political oratory of that exciting period.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, followed by the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion, found young Handerson again employed as tutor, this time in the family of General G. Mason Graham, a veteran of the Mexican war.
With his friends and acquaintances, Handerson joined a company of "homeguards" consisting mostly of planters and their sons, formed for the purpose of maintaining "order among the negroes and other suspicious characters of the vicinity."
Many years afterward Dr. Handerson wrote, in a narrative for his family, concerning this period of his life: "Without any disposition to violent partisanship, I had favored the party of which the standard-bearers were Bell and Everett and the battle cry "The Const.i.tution and the Union," and I had grieved sincerely over the defeat by the Radicals of the North, aided by the "fire-eaters" of the South."
And again: "Born and educated in the North, I did not share in any degree the fears of the Southerners over the election to the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln. I could not but think the action of the seceding States unwise and dangerous to their future prosperity. On the other hand, this action had already been taken, and without any prospect of its revocation. Indeed, in the present frame of mind of the North, any steps toward recession seemed likely to precipitate the very evils which the secession of the states had been designed to antic.i.p.ate. I believed slavery a disadvantage to the South, but no sin, and, in any event, an inst.i.tution for which the Southerners of the present day were not responsible. An inheritance from their fore-fathers, properly administered, it was by no means an unmitigated evil, and it was one, moreover, in which the North but a few years before had shared. All my interests, present and future, apparently lay in the South and with Southerners, and if the seceding States, in one of which I resided, chose deliberately to try the experiment of self-government, I felt quite willing to give them such aid as lay in my feeble power. When I add to this that I was 24 years of age, and naturally affected largely by the ideas, the enthusiasm and the excitement of my surroundings, it is easy to understand to what conclusions I was led."
So on June 17, 1861, he volunteered in the Stafford Guards under Capt.
(afterward Brigadier General) L.A. Stafford. The Guards became company B of the 9th Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers, Confederate States of America, Colonel (later Brigadier General) "d.i.c.k" Taylor (son of "Old Zach," the President of the U.S.), in command. During the year that followed until the close of the war, Handerson experienced the adventures and trials of a soldier"s life. He knew picket, scouting, and skirmishing duty, the bivouac, the attack and defense in battle formation, the charge, the retreat, hunger and thirst, the wearisome march in heat and dust, in cold, in rain, through swamps and stony wildernesses. He was shot through the hat and clothing and once through the muscles of the shoulder and neck within half inch of the carotid artery, lay in a hospital, and had secondary hemorrhage. At another time he survived weeks of typhoid fever.
He was successively private soldier and accountant for his company, quarter-master, 2nd Lieutenant of the line, Captain of the line, and finally Adjutant General of the 2nd Louisiana Brigade, A. N. Va., under Lee and Jackson, with rank of Major. On May 4, 1864, Adjutant General Handerson was taken prisoner, and from May 17th until August 20th he was imprisoned at Fort Delaware in the Delaware river. He was then confined in a stockade enclosure on the beach between Forts Wagner and Gregg on Morris Island, until about the end of October, when he was transferred to Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah river, and in March, 1865, back to Fort Delaware. In April, after Lee"s surrender, many of the prisoners were liberated on taking the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. But Handerson did not consider his allegiance to the Southern Confederacy ended until after the capture of President Davis, and it was not until June 17, 1865, that he signed the oath of allegiance and was liberated in Philadelphia.
Since that time, with that spirit of tolerance and openness to truth which characterized the man, he has said, "in the triumph of the Union, the war ended as it should have ended."
Mr. Handerson then resumed his medical studies, this time in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, Medical Department of Columbia University, taking the degree of M.D. in 1867. Hobart College conferred the A.M. in 1868. On October 16, 1872, he married Juliet Alice Root, who died leaving him a daughter.
February 25, 1878, Dr. Handerson read before the Medical Society of the County of New York an article ent.i.tled, "The School of Salernum, an Historical Sketch of Mediaeval Medicine." This essay attracted wide attention to his scholarly attainments and love of laborious research.
For example, Professor Edward Schaer of the chair of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, of Neumunster-Zurich, p.r.o.nounces this pamphlet "a valuable gift ... a remarkable addition to other historical materials ... in connection with the history of pharmacy and of pharmaceutical drugs"; that he found in it "a great deal of information which will be sought for in vain in many even renowned literary works."
Dr. Handerson practiced medicine in New York City, from 1867 to 1885, removing to Cleveland in 1885.
On June 12, 1888, he married Clara Corlett of Cleveland.
Then in 1889 appeared the American edition of the "History of Medicine and the Medical Profession, by Joh. Hermann Baas, M.D.," which was translated, revised and enlarged by Dr. Handerson, to whom, in the words of Dr. Baas, "we are indebted for considerable amplification, particularly in the section on English and American medicine, with which he was, of course, better acquainted than the author, and for numerous corrections." ... As a matter of fact, the learning and judgment, and the conscientious industry of the translator and American editor of this work are evident throughout the book.
Concerning Dr. Handerson"s writings, Dr. Fielding H. Garrison writes (Medical Pickwick, March, 1915, P. 118): "The earliest of Dr.
Handerson"s papers recorded in the Index Medicus is "An unusual case of intussusception" (1880). Most of his other medical papers, few in number, have dealt with the sanitation, vital statistics, diseases and medical history of Cleveland, and have the accuracy which characterizes slow and careful work. This is especially true of his historical essays of which that on "The School of Salernum" (1883) is a solid piece of original investigation, worthy to be placed beside such things as Holmes on h.o.m.oeopathy, Weir Mitch.e.l.l on instrumental precision, or Kelly on American gynecology.
"To the cognoscenti, Dr. Handerson"s translation of "Baas" History of Medicine" (1889) is known as "Handerson"s Book." He modestly describes himself as its "editor," but he is more than that. As the witty and effective translator of a witty and effective work, he has added sections in brackets on English and American history which are based on original investigation and of permanent value to all future historians. Handerson"s Baas is thus more complete and valuable than the Rhinelander"s original text."
As listed in the Index Medicus, the publications and writings of Dr.
Handerson appear as follows:
An unusual case of intussusception. Medical Record, 1880, xviii, 698.
The School of Salernum. An historical sketch of mediaeval medicine. 1883.
Outlines of the history of medicine (Baas). Translated, and in conjunction with the author, revised and enlarged, 1887.
Clinical history of a case of abdominal cancer. Cleveland Medical Gazette, 1891-2, vii, 315-321.
The Sanitary topography of Cleveland. Cleveland Medical Gazette, 1895-6, xi, 651-659.
Cleveland in the Census Reports. Cleveland Medical Gazette, 1896-7, xii, 257-264.
The earliest contribution to medical literature in the United States. Ja.n.u.s, 1899, p. 540.
A review of the Vital Statistics of Cleveland during the last decennium. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1902, i, 71-76.
Epidemics of typhoid fever in Cleveland. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1904, iii, 208-210.
The mortality statistics of the twelfth census. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1905, iv, 425-431.
Co-operative sanitation. Ohio Medical Journal, 1905, i, 278-281.
The medical code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1908, vii, 72-75.
Carcinoma in high life. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1908, vii, 472-476.
Medical Cleveland in the nineteenth (19th) Century. Cleveland Medical Journal, 1909, viii, 59, 146, 208.
Gilbert of England and his "Compendium Medicine." Medical Pickwick, 1915, i, 118-120.
Dr. Handerson was Professor of Hygiene and Sanitary Science in the Medical Department of the University of Wooster, 1894-96, and the same in the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons (Medical Department of Ohio Wesleyan University), 1896 to 1907, and filled that chair with eminent ability. Thus it came about that the ex-Confederate officer taught sanitary science in a college standing upon ground donated by the survivors of an organization of abolitionists.
Dr. Handerson was a member of the Cuyahoga County Medical Society, and its President in 1895; also a member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, of the Ohio State Medical Society, and of the American Medical a.s.sociation. He was one of the founders and an active worker in the Cleveland Medical Library a.s.sociation and its President from 1896 to 1902.