CHAPTER XII.
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
THE settlement at Chillicothe, the first in the county, suffered little from sickness during the first five or six years, but in 1801 a violent epidemic arose, after which the city suffered more or less in the summer and autumn of every year. Such was the statement of Dr. Peachy Harrison, the early medical historian of the county, in the proceedings of the Medical Convention of Ohio, in 1842. After that, for many years, the settlers of the county, and in particular those that made their homes in the rich river bottoms, were terribly afflicted with fevers and racked with chills. John McLandburgh, a pioneer merchant, wrote from Chillicothe to his wife in Philadelphia, in December, 1802: "The people in the country are not as sickly as last year, but in the town it is as bad as ever. Finley and wife have been very ill. Joseph Tiffin has lost his wife and has been sick himself. Dr. Scott has been lying apparently at the point of death all the fall. Mrs. Kirkpatrick has lost two children. Mrs. Patton died a few weeks after her son." In a later communication : "Joseph Tiffin is still sick and is thought dangerous. This is a very sickly country, and will continue so, let them say what they will. This has been as hard a winter as I have ever seen. Last Thursday the frost was so intense as to congeal wine. I saw it in Mr. McFarland's store." In 1821 McLandburgh himself died of the fevers, which at times were so malignant as to resemble yellow fever in their symptoms and fatality. Indeed, it is claimed that yellow fever, with the accompaniment of black vomit, afflicted the French settlement of Gallipolis soon after its establishment. Though this is denied by some investigators, the disease was sufficiently like yellow fever for the unfortunate people who died.
The fever was so continuous, so frightful in its effects, that it is remarkable that the settlers were heroic enough to remain in Ohio. They stayed partly through grim determination, partly through the natural indisposition to move backward, partly through love of the beautiful country, and largely through hope that is said to spring
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eternal, doubtless with accuracy, for it was necessary for it to spring eternally in the breasts of the pioneers, to cheer them in their toil and suffering.
A realistic picture of the situation is given by Isaac J. Finley and Rufus Putnam in their "Pioneer Record" of Ross county: "Rich and productive as these lands were, there was a terrible drawback to their attraction in the shape of chills and fevers. So prevalent was this disease that not a cabin or a family escaped for a single year; and it often happened that there would not be a single well member to furnish drink to the others. In such cases buckets would be filled in the morning by those most able and placed in some accessible place so that when the shakes came on each could help himself or herself. Had there been any seemingly possible way of getting back to the old settlements from which these adventurers had come, most, if not all, would have left the rich Scioto bottoms with their shakes and fevers, but so it was, there were no railroads or canals, or even wagon roads, on which they could convey their disheartened skeletons back to their old homesteads with their pure springs and health-restoring associations. At the time of the year when a tedious land or water trip could be made, there were enough of each family sick to prevent any preparatory arrangements for such a return ; while in winter there were even more obstacles in the way than the sickness of summer. Thus held not only by the charms of the scenery and the productiveness of the soil, but by the sterner realities of shakes and burning fever, few came that ever returned, and every year brought new neighbors."
These fevers are described at some length by Dr. Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati, in his great work on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, published in 1850. They were called by various names, autumnal, bilious, intermittent, remittent, congestive, miasmatic, malarial, marsh, malignant, chill fever, ague, fever'n 'ague, dumb ague--and Dr. Drake himself preferred to call them autumnal fevers. He was disposed to ascribe their origin to what he called a "vegeto-animalcular cause," meaning that the people were infected by organisms that were bred in decaying vegetation, and he pointed out that the disease could not be caused by gases, which should have an immediate effect, but must be clue to some organism that had a regular period of incubation, because people were not taken with the fevers until some time after the date of supposed infection. This he stated, not in this language, which is more in the line of modern expression, but to the same effect, demonstrating a remarkable insight into the operations of nature. It is believed now that the malarial infection, whatever its original source, is spread by mosquitoes, but this the doctors and sufferers did not suspect, and if they had, it would have done them little good, so numerous were the insect pests, and so expensive would have been any
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adequate attempt to suppress them. At a time when people were exterminating bears, panthers, and vast forests, there was no time to make war on such small and ubiquitous things as mosquitoes.
In combating the fever and chills the doctors depended on Peruvian bark, quinine and calomel in heroic doses. Generally the unfortunate victim was first bled, then large doses of calomel were given, and the patient was cautioned to abstain from any acid food or he might lose his teeth, and the calomel was followed by quinine. Dr. Drake reported a case in Southern practice where a patient was given calomel for malarial fever in increasing doses until he took several ounces a day, and in a short time an entire pound of the drug was put in him. The fate of the unfortunate creature is not mentioned. Another patient was given six hundred grains of compound of aloes, rhubarb and calomel in equal quantities for six days consecutively. There were other remedies. Dr. Joshua Martin, of Xenia, knew of a case where the chills were permanently cured in a small boy by standing him on his head at the access of the fit. "In many cases," said Drake, "the recurrence has been arrested by means which acted entirely on the imagination and feelings. Of this kind are very loathsome potions, which the patients have swallowed with disgust, and different charms or incantations, which rouse powerful emotions that change the innervation and destroy the habit of recurrence." There were some very remarkable cases of recurrence of the disease in various forms. A man on Deer creek was subject to monthly attacks of vertigo and loss of consciousness. When medicine had checked this, the trouble soon returned with intervals of twenty-one days, and afterward for five years with periods of sixteen days.
The chills and fever, while not so immediately fatal in ordinary years as yellow fever, from which Ohio was fortunately spared, was worse in its effects. If a man recovered from yellow fever, he was none the worse for it, sometimes better ; but the victim of fever and chills often suffered all the rest of his life with neuralgia, liver or spleen disease, dyspepsia or diarrhoea. At times, however, the malarial fever assumed a malignant form, and it was certain death unless the doctor was near at hand, and happened to be able to check the paroxysms.
It was this disease, common in every part of Ohio, that the pioneer doctors had to contend with. They battled nobly, some of them falling victims to their antagonist, and it cannot be doubted that they performed a great work in alleviating the sufferings of humanity, and encouraging the pioneers in the work of overcoming the evils of a new country. In time, with drainage and extensive cultivation of the soil, the dangerous conditions passed away, and Chillicothe and Ross county are now as healthy as any of those older regions to which,
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the settlers longed to return in the days when they were shaking with ague.
There were some deaths in Ross county during the great cholera epidemic of 1832-33. Again in the summers of 1847, 1848 and 1849 there were a number of cases and some deaths. In August, 1849, on the estate of Mr. Renick, in Pickaway county, seventy-two men on a Saturday night indulged freely in watermelons and whiskey, and by Tuesday night thirty-three of them had died, but there seems to have been no similar instance in Ross county.
The list of pioneer doctors of Chillicothe, as given by Dr. Samuel Mc McAdow to the authors of the "Pioneer Record," in 1871, is as foIlows : Samuel McAdow, Edward Tiffin, Joseph Scott, John Edminston. 1803, Samuel Monett, Crocker & Kennedy, Buel, Pinkerton, Adam Hays, Atkinson, Wills. To these might be added Doctors John Dunn, Alexander Brown, John McClernand, Dr. Forsythe and Patterson, all practicing in Ross comity in 1804, along the northern part and over in Pickaway county. They were country doctors.
Dr. Adam Hays, named above, was the first health officer of Chillicothe, being appointed by Mayor Levin Belt in 1821. His duties were to collect and publish every week all deaths, with age, color, and complaint. All doctors were required to make reports to him. Dr. Crane, in July, 1802, specially advertised his ability to cure fever and ague.
The first physician at Chillicothe, and consequently in Ross county, as a settler, it appears, was Dr. Samuel McAdow, a native of Maryland, September 23, 1772, and the ninth child of a Scotch deacon who came to America before the Revolution. Samuel received an excellent classical education at Cokesburg college in Maryland, studied medicine under Dr. Archer of Maryland and Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, and came west in 1793 to practice upon the people of Bourbon county, Ky. There he married within a year a sister of the Howes, noted pioneer preachers, and became interested in the Finley project. of building up Massie's new town on the Scioto. He came with a party of Bourbon county people to view the place selected by Massie, in the fall of 1796, and liking the place, he moved into the wilderness with his wife and babies in the following spring. He soon had plenty to do, and if he had not been a man of remarkable strength and powers of endurance he must have yielded to the fatigues of ministering to the sick if not to the attacks of disease upon himself. In 1802 he and George Renick and Nathan Gregg rode horseback to Baltimore to purchase a stock of drugs for the equipment of a drugstore, accompanying George Renick and Nathan Gregg, whose mission was to buy a drygoods stock. Their purchases were shipped over the mountains by wagon or pack horse to the upper Ohio or Monongahela, and thence down the Ohio river and up the Scioto by boats propelled with oars or poles. The doctor's brief change of climate developed a severe case of the fever while he was
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in Baltimore, but he was soon able to start back, carrying with him the indispensable traveler's supply of Peruvian bark, to keep off the chills and fever. Dr. McAdow did his duty in every relation of life. Like Dr. Tiffin and Dr. McDowell and Dr. Carey Trimble, he was a devout Methodist, and was one of the founders of the church society at Chillicothe. When war came in 1812 he offered his service to his country with patriotic devotion, and served in the Detroit and Malden campaign with General McArthur's regiment, having much ghastly work to do with the wounded, who were many, and becoming a prisoner of war at the surrender of Detroit. When this worthy pioneer died in 1849, he left a son, Dr. Samuel Mc Adow, Jr., to take his place in the profession. The junior McAdow was born at Chillicothe, August 4, 1806, a day famous for an eclipse of the sun. He married a daughter of John Kirkpatrick, one of the Finley party of pioneers, and practiced medicine for many years from 1827. Like his father he was a Methodist, and was a licensed preacher in the church.
Dr. Edward Tiffin, of whom much is said in other connections, for he was the most eminent of the early physicians of Ohio who made their mark in other fields of endeavor, came with Thomas Worthington early in 1798. e had studied medicine in his native land of England, and at Philadelphia, and was experienced in ministering to ailing humanity in the lower Shenandoah valley when he came into the forests with his gentle wife, "the conscientious and heavenly-minded" Mary Worthington. He practiced medicine for many years, and filled with honor all sorts of offices, from clerk for a justice to governor of the State, working wisely at all times for the good of his community and the State. After the death of his first wife he married Mary Porter, by whom he had several children, the descend-ants of whom are respected citizens of Ohio. His only son, Edward Parker Tiffin, was educated for the medical profession, but his career was sadly cut short ,by death from a railroad accident as he was returning from a tour of Europe in 1853.
Dr. William McDowell was another of the earliest settlers, but he did not begin the practice until about 1816, devoting himself at first to business as a merchant. While trading he gave his leisure moments to the reading of medicine, and when he went to Philadelphia to buy goods he also sat under the droppings of that sanctuary of Esculapius, the Jefferson medical college. He was regarded as an excellent physician, and prospered.
Dr. William Fullerton was one of a family quite prominent in Chillicothe affairs in their day, the descendants of a Humphrey Fullerton who fought in the battle of the Boyne with Orange colors. A Humphrey Fullerton came to Pennsylvania and was the first judge at Chambersburg. His son, Humphrey, moved with his family to Chillicothe in 1804, and became a considerable land owner and the
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second clerk of the courts. When Mexico was encouraging American colonies in Texas he went there to view the country, and on his return was in a steamboat explosion that caused his death, sometime later, in 1830. Dr. William Fullerton, his son, was born near Chambersburg in November, 1802, and was educated at the Chillicothe academy and the University of Ohio. He read medicine under Dr. Pinkerton and attended lectures at Transylvania university, at Lexington, Ky. He practiced from 1825 until the latter part of his well-spent life, which came to a close July 19, 1875. He was highly esteemed as a professional man, and in politics he was an ardent Federalist and in after years an abolitionist.
Dr. Joseph Scott, who was enrolled at an early date among the Chillicothe doctors, was born at Shippensburg, Pa., about 1779, a younger brother of Dr. John Scott, who was a surgeon with General Wayne in his campaign of 1794-95, and was a man of such worth and prominence that General Harrison gave his name to his only surviving son, who was the father of President Benjamin Harrison. Dr. Scott advertised in the Gazette, in March, 1802, that he had "removed his medical shop to the house formerly occupied by Joseph Tiffin as a tavern." Soon after coming to Chillicothe, Dr. Joseph Scott married a niece of Gen. Samuel Finley, who died about 1810, after which Scott removed to Frankfort, Ky., where he married Lucy, sister of Dr. James Webb. Returning to Chillicothe about 1822, Scott was joined by his brother-in-law, Dr. Webb, in 1825, and they practiced for a while in partnership. But Scott seemed to be more attracted by Kentucky, and he went back there in 1827 and died at Lexington about 1848. He was an able physician, and was a man of considerable financial ability. Some land he bought of Henry Massie is now known as Scott's addition to Chillicothe.
Dr. James Webb, born in Fayette county, Ky., about 1797, son of Capt. Isaac Webb, a Revolutionary soldier, was educated at Transylvania university. e was a boy soldier in the war of 1812, and grew up to be a fine type of the Southern gentleman, but with decided opinions in regard to the evils of whiskey drinking and slaveholding. As has been noted he came to Chillicothe in 1825. He married Maria Cook, daughter of Judge Isaac Cook, of Chillicothe, and made his home in the old Woodbridge house, corner of Paint and Second street, now the site of the Ross County bank building. They had three children when, in 1833, hearing that his parents in Kentucky were in danger on account of the cholera that was then ravaging the west, Dr. Webb went to their home. On the way he was himself taken with the disease, and though he managed to get to his destination, it was only to witness the death of his parents and his sister, the wife of Dr. Scott. e was taken to Lexington, but before his wife could reach him, he passed away. Such were the dreadful experiences in many families during the tragical years of cholera.
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The youngest child of Dr. Webb was given the name of Lucy, and in later years, after she had been educated in Miss Baskerville's school and at Delaware, and in the Wesleyan college at Cincinnati, she married a young man whose character in earnestness and strength matched her own--Rutherford Birchard Hayes. She encouraged him in being an honest lawyer, a self-sacrificing soldier, an unselfish patriot, and when it fell to her to perform the social duties of the wife of the president of the United States, she was quite equal to the task, and the tenderness and purity of character that she revealed won for her the love of a great nation.
Dr. John Edmiston, another of the pioneers, was also a druggist. His advertisement, in 1803, "respectfully informs the publick," that he has at his apothecary's shop a fine lot of red and yellow bark, camphor, bitter ingredients, blue vitriol, sugar of lead, arsenic, red precipitate, court plaister, liquorice ball, antimony, sugar candy, arnotto, cream of tartar, Anderson's pills, essence of peppermint, Godfrey's cordial, British oil, Bateman's drops and best lancets.
The first drugstore in Chillicothe, it is said, was kept by Dr. Amasa Delano, afterward by his younger brother, Ira Delano. Dr. A. D. Sproat, the founder of "Sproat's" came here on October 21, 1818.
Dr. Lewis William Foulke was an eminent practitioner and citizen from 1836. He was born at Carlisle, Pa., in August, 1809, the son of Dr. George D. Foulke. He was educated at Dickinson college and the Medical university of Maryland, and after a brief practice in his native state came to Chillicothe. A year later he married Elizabeth, daughter of John McCoy, the pioneer merchant. Their only child became the wife of Dr. Gustavus Scott Franklin, born at Chillicothe in 1837, for several years in the medical service of the United States navy, and for many years a physician at Chillicothe. Dr. Foulke was honored in 1843 with the degree of master of arts by Dickinson college. He was a faithful supporter of the Episcopal church, the first president of the Ross County National bank and of the Ohio Insurance company, and his work remains in the school system of the city.
Dr. William Waddle, for many years the leading physician of Chillicothe, was the son of John Waddle, whose father emigrated to western Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1783. John Waddle came to Ross county in 1800, and married Nancy Mann, of Kentucky, daughter of Col. William Mann, of that state. William was born at Chillicothe September 19, 1811, received his literary education at the Chillicothe academy and Ohio university and in 1834 began the reading of medicine under Dr. Fullerton. In 1836 he was graduated at the Jefferson medical college, Philadelphia, and a year later he began his practice at his native town. In 1845 he married a daughter of John McCoy, one of the pioneer merchants. In addi-
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tion to his medical work Dr. Waddle was a publicspirited citizen, served many years as trustee of Ohio university, and in 1868-94 was a trustee of the Athens and Columbus lunatic asylums. Dr. Waddle died August 23, 1896. He was also one of the original movers in the formation of the public library at Chillicothe, and the city park, in which latter work Maj. Wm. Poland was prominent. His son, Dr. Edward F. Waddle, was associated with him in the practice from 1888.
Dr. Jefferson B. Scearce, who was a partner of Dr. Waddle for more than twenty-five years, is yet living in Chillicothe, the oldest physician of the city in years of practice. e was graduated at Jefferson medical college in 1858, and began his practice in 1864. His eminent ability and many years of devotion to his profession give him a place of high honor among Ross county citizens.
Dr. Cyrus Trimble, one of the noted Trimble family of Highland county, brother of Allen and William A. Trimble, came to Chillicothe to practice about 1820, but died two years later in one of the epidemics of malignant malarial fever, in 1822. His nephew, Dr. Carey A. Trimble, son of Governor Allen Trimble, born at Hillsboro in 1813, was for many years a prominent physician and citizen of Ross county, and so conspicuous in politics that he was elected to Congress in 1858 and 1860.
Dr. Vethake, who had qualified himself for the profession at his former home in New York, came to Chillicothe in 1818, married a sister of Colonel Brush, and being a man of considerable culture was prominent in social as well as professional matters until his return to New York about eight years later. Dr. David Wills, a native of Pennsylvania, and one of a noted pioneer family, removed to Ross county in 1823, and had a large practice. In 1834-37 his partner in medical work was Dr. John K. Finley, a son of Gen. Samuel Finley, but Dr. Finley, at the end of that time, removed to Pittsburg. Dr. Wills was in the practice at Chillicothe until his removal to Zanesville in 1862.
Dr. Arthur Watts, who came to Chillicothe in 1825, was the son of a gentleman who came to have large land holdings and considerable wealth, which Dr. Watts inherited. e married Eleanor, daughter of Governor Worthington, and his home was one of the centers of social life.
Dr. Isaac Hays, of Carlisle, Pa., a surgeon in the war of 1812, practiced at Chillicothe about 1815-24, and afterward returned to Pennsylvania. Dr. John J. Moore, a Virginian, who began his practice in Alabama, was in the profession at Chillicothe from 1833 until his death in 1871 and had high standing. His son, Dr. William E. Moore, born at Chillicothe in 1845, and a graduate of the Ohio medical college, has been in the practice here since 1872.
Dr. Jonathan Miesse, born at Reading, Pa., in 1817, and gradu-
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ated at the Pennsylvania medical college in 1846, began the practice at Chillicothe in 1838, having prepared himself before receiving a degree, under preceptors. He practiced in Ross county for more than forty years, and was a highly esteemed and popular physician. His son, Dr. B. F. Miesse, was born at Delaware in 1841, and when the civil war began was yet a student, graduating at the Ohio university in June, 1861. Afterward he received his medical training at Ohio medical college and Bellevue Hospital college, and during the period of hostilities he was assistant surgeon of the One Hundred and Forty-ninth regiment, Ohio National Guards.
Dr. John Coates, born in Fayette county, Pa., in 1791, came to Ohio with his parents in childhood, and he was educated at Athens college, founding there a cultured manhood that made him one of the most valued citizens of Ross county for many years. He made his home at Chillicothe after he began practice, and continued his residence there until his death in 1865, at the age of seventy-five years.
Dr. Z. W. Zanders, the first German physician at Chillicothe, was born at Munich, Germany, and came to Ross county about 1839. After practicing hero until 1858 he removed to St. Louis, where he died. He was a highly educated man, and in addition to his professional work, in which he was highly successful, he was associate editor of the first German paper at Chillicothe, established about 1848. It is said that he came to America as the result of the outcome of a duel fought when he was a court physician.
Dr. Karl Rominger, another prominent German physician, was a native of Wittenberg and a graduate of Tubingen. Coming to America about 1845 he located at Chillicothe and practiced his profession until about 1865, when he accepted the position of geologist at the University of Michigan. Afterward becoming state geologist, he won recognition as one of the leaders in that field of science. Dr. Rominger is yet living at Ann Arbor, at the age of eighty years.
Dr. Frederick H. Rehwinkle, a native of Celle, Hanover, born in June, 1825, and educated for the medical profession in Germany, came to America in 1849, and after practicing at Cincinnati and in the South located at Chillicothe in 1850. In 1855 he was graduated in a dental college at Baltimore, and after that he practiced dentistry at Chillicothe, gaining a national reputation in that profession. He was president of the American Dental association in 1878. He was also prominent in freemasonry, holding the rank of grand commander of the Knights Templar of Ohio in 1888. For some time, during the rebellion, he was captain of Company E, Thirty-seventh regiment. His wife was Mary K., daughter of D. K. Jones, of Chillicothe.
Dr. Franz K. Faller, another German physician, was a graduate of the University of Heidelberg, and one of the men active in the
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revolution of 1848, who were compelled to seek refuge in America. He practiced at Chillicothe until his death in 1871.
Dr. Benjamin Owen Carpenter was in the practice at Bainbridge for several years prior to 1834, when he removed to Chillicothe and became the editor and proprietor of the Scioto Gazette. A year later he resumed the duties of his profession. He was president of the Ross county medical society and of the Scioto Valley medical association and one of the leading physicians of the county. He died in the time of the Harrison--Tyler administration.
Dr. W. C. Williams, born in Hardy county, Va., about 1824, came to Chillicothe after the civil war and practiced medicine for several years, with the exception of a few years spent in Missouri. He was elected mayor of Chillicothe in the spring of 1873, and died a month after receiving this mark of distinction.
Dr. C. W. Handy, prominent in the profession at Chillicothe in the 1820's and 1830's, removed to Washington, D. C., where he died.
Dr. Hamilton, who practiced for many years at South Salem, came to Ross county from Pennsylvania in 1839. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson medical college. He was one of the leading men of South Salem for many years, and aided materially in building up the academy at that town.
The first resident doctors at Bourneville were Thompson and Morton, the latter beginning his public services there as a school teacher. The next to engage in the practice there were Drs. A. Y. Hull and J. M. Baird, the former acquiring considerable fame by his part in bringing to justice the murderers of Edwards. Dr. Baird afterward removed to Chillicothe. Among the later physicians there should at least be named Dr. A. L. Chenoweth, one of fifteen children of the pioneer, Absalom Chenoweth, of Pee Pee township. He had received his education and begun his practice in Waverly, when the war began, and he went to the front as captain of a company he had helped to organize. He served with credit from Paducah to New Orleans, and for some months acted as surgeon of his regiment.
At Bainbridge Doctors Carpenter, Davis, Green, Quin, Shepherd and Morrow were among the early practitioners.
At Kingston the first doctor was Edward Ostrander, who settled in 1813, and soon made inroads upon the country practice of Dr. Scott. He was followed in that location within the next twenty years by Drs. Hunter, Prettyman and Curl.
In 1833 the Medical Society of the Scioto Valley was organized at Chillicothe, with G. S. B. Hempstead, of Portsmouth, as president. William Fullerton, of Chillicothe, was secretary; William Blackstone, of Waverly, was treasurer, and B. O. Carpenter and C. J. Ward, of Chillicothe, E. B. Olds and J. B. Finley, of Circleville, and John S. Prettyman, of Kingston, were censors. This organization was continued for a few years, and in 1848 the Ross
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County Medical society was formed, with Dr. David Wills as its first president; Drs. Drummond and Carey A. Trimble, vice presidents; Dr. J. W. Morris, secretary, and Dr. Latta, treasurer.
The present medical society of Ross county was organized by a meeting of physicians at the office of Dr. G. S. Franklin, April 6, 1876. The original members who signed the constitution that day were S. W. Foulke, Gustavus S. Franklin, C. M. Wilson, R. B. Hall, of Chillicothe ; William Latta, R. Galbraith, E. J. Galbraith, J. M. Leslie, of Frankfort ; John M. Cox, of South Salem ; J. B. F. Morgan, of Clarksburg; A. L. Chenoweth and Willard A. Hall, of Bourneville; George Freeman, of Richmond Dale. The first officers elected were Dr. William Latta, president ; R. B. Hall, vice president; E. J. Galbraith, treasurer, G. S. Franklin, secretary. The organization has been kept up ever since, much to the promotion of social fellowship, scientific advancement and the high standing of the profession in Ross county.
The present board of health of Chillicothe was organized under the state law immediately following the passage of a city ordinance for that purpose, on May 24, 1888. The first meeting of the board was held June 27, 1888, with the following membership : Mayor David Smart, president ex-officio, R. R. Freeman, Dr. E. F. Waddle, Rev. R. G. Lewis, M. H. Watt, George E. Manley, and W. J. Atwell. Charles A. Malone was secretary. The board has continued in existence since then, the present membership being Mayor Wallace D. Yaple, president ; F. C. Betsch, Charles Hermann, William Burgoon, Henry Hamm, W. P. Bowers, William Ringwald. The secretary is James I. Boulger, and Dr. W. S. Scott is health officer. The first health officer of the city was Dr. T. S. Barnes. The first sanitary officer was Frank Hanks and the present incumbent is George Hamm.