VOL. III.

EDITORIAL COMMENT

ANOTHER CASE OF AMNESIA. Recently the Denver County Medical Society appointed a committee to investigate the actions of the State Board in carrying out the provisions of the new medical law. The report was submitted at the regular meeting held on January 16th, adopted and ordered to be published

in COLORADO MEDICINE.

Being stricken, however, with an acute attack of amnesia the committee lost its

No. 2

Society are doing things, too. They claim to have brought one violator to his knees in abject apology, with a vow not to repeat the offense in the future, and are on the scent of others whom they expect to bring to terms. The Board believes more good can be accomplished by quietly adjusting these unethical matters without publicity-we don't but are willing to concede everyone's right to his own opinion until he has had time to demonstrate its correctness or fallacy.

good in time of storm landed in the sanctum of The Colorado Medical Journal. After reading the above report in the above journal the Weld County Medical Society voted to send a delegation (by invitation) to the next meeting of the Denver County Medical Society, to be held on February 20th, where they hope to be able to explain their position and place themselves in a fair light before the profession of the State. There will be something doing at that meeting.

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR, ETC.

Our State Examining Board is just now doing excellent work in enforcing our medical law relating to the practice of medicine.

Several pretenders without license have recently been made to realize that there was such a thing as law and that they could not carelessly tamper with diseases of which they were entirely ignorant. Two institutes have been closed and more will follow. Keep it up.

It might be well to mention also that the censors of the Denver County Medical

COLLEGE.

On January 26th the above college faculty met and enjoyed an elaborate dinner at the Hotel Savoy, after which they proceeded to reelect the officers who have served since the founding of the consolidated school. About the only faculty change was the election of Dr. Wm. C. Bane to the chair of Otology, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. John Foster.

COUNTY HOSPITAL APPOINTMENTS.

In making appointments on the staff of the Denver County Hospital for the ensuing year our commissioners evidently overlooked one item. If a committee was appointed on PRESS AND PUBLICITY it would save an immense amount of individual effort, for it is not always convenient to stop work and call up the reporters, neither is it always convenient for them to come to the hospital. We should have all modern conveniences, where everything else is strictly up to date.

OUR ADVERTISERS.

Watch our advertising list grow, and by the way, when in need of anything in their line give them a trial. They are all reliable and ethical and deserve your patronage. Mention COLORADO MEDICINE when writing. We want to give value received for every inch of advertising inserted and will accept none but reliable and ethical firms.

ORIGINAL PAPERS

EARLY DAYS IN THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN COLORADO. By HENLY W. ALLEN, M. D., Boulder. My subject takes us back to the year 1858-known as the "Pike's Peak or Bust" period of the early gold seeker. But I shall be content to begin with 1864. The years before this since '58 had seen a wild rush to the west, without any distinct notion on the part of the mob composing the throng, as to what the west offered, or what preparation should be made for such a journey. Reference will often be made to myself on account of my connection, more or less, with much of the practice of medicine in Colorado, and especially in Boulder county. This may look like egotism, but without it many an hiatus would occur in my narrative. About the middle of November, 1864, with my family, I arrived in Denver, having come overland by wagon, all the way from Outegamie county, Wisconsin, consuming in transit the intervening time since about the middle of August of the same year. While that overland trip may appear foreign to my subject, yet I can assure you there were incidents therein encountered one will not witness to-day on the same journey by rail. Do not forget it is a long way by wagon from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Dubuque, Iowa. The journey across Iowa to Council Bluffs

during the September rains can never be The Iowa mud has without incident.

staying qualities one could never guess, without personal contact under just these

conditions. But once in the Missouri river town, the paramount problem was how to cross the plains, stretching westward from Omaha more than five hundred miles across a desert waste, infested by hostile Indians. A military permit was required before trains were allowed to venture into this beleagured territory.

Two months I camped with my family on the river between Council Bluffs and Omaha, waiting for a company large enough to secure permission from the military authorities to proceed through this hostile alliance of redskins, extending from Omaha to Denver. Freight trains carrying men and freight only were continually going and coming. But where women and children were concerned far greater precautions were taken, both in the number of men in the train and the condition of their defensive armament. Our delay was principally on this account and to secure teams in the best possible condition for so long a journey. Every day news came to us of the slaughter and mutilation of whites along the road, at the stage stations, and even in sight of our soldiers camped at convenient points. along the line of travel. The Hungate family had just been murdered, only a few miles out of Denver. Their mutilated bodies, exposed on Larimer street, were viewed by the terrorized and infuriated inhabitants of Denver as an illustration of their fate if they should be caught by these red devils outside the town. O'Fallon's Bluff, the Wisconsin ranch, Julesburg, North Platte, Fort Kearney, Plum Creek and many other places along the Platte river, as well as the whole length of the Republican river were baptized in blood. The terrible Ogalalla Sioux, the Apaches, the Cheyennes, and many other tribes of hostile Indians were stealing

stock, murdering roadhouse keepers, straggling immigrants or any unprotected whites they might chance to meet. So the whole west, from Missouri to the Rocky Mountains and from the British possessions on the north to Old Mexico on the south, was in a state of terror. If any of you remember those days you will recall that the government was compelled to send the mail around by water to California and thence overland to Denver -and this continued for more than three months. After troops could be drawn from the fighting line in the Civil War they were stationed along the great thoroughfares to the west. These soldiers, assisted by the Colorado First, Second, Third, and Colonel Chivington's regiment, and our Captain Tyler's company of volunteer cavalry, at last opened the lines of travel to the states-as all the east was then called. It was in such turbulent times the Colorado pioneer fought his way to this Rocky Mountain country. It required sand, and plenty of it, to brace up against such a proposition.

In the light of these conditions, not only is the pioneer, who conquered these difficulties and forged this country out of a bleak, sandy, cactus-covered desert, worthy of remembrance, but those members of our profession who paved the way for what we have to-day are certainly entitled to our everlasting gratitude. Even if they did not do so much laboratory work, they certainly demonstrated what a plucky doctor can do under very adverse surroundings. Men in those days were not judged, either in the profession or out of it, wholly by Dr. Osler's standard of worth in this world. It was necessary to success then, as it always will be, that a man have not only brains, but sand, and sufficient initiative to carve out his own fortune without a pull.

But I have left that mule train behind in my enthusiasm over the chase. In our company on this memorable trip there

were no women or children except my wife and her three babies-the youngest of whom was the kid, who is now Dr. O. J. Allen, and is practicing medicine at Bellevue, Idaho. Every night during this journey to Denver the wagons of our train were corralled in the form of a circle around my family, for protection against a possible attack at any moment, which we were always looking for. A picket was kept out for the double purpose of keeping our stock in hand and guarding against a surprise by our friends the red skins.

Did you ever hear a coyote howl when on his native heath? Well if you never did my effort to describe such a scene will be lost on you. But I will venture to say in passing that one coyote can render the night more hideous than ten thousand Comanche Indians joined in one general war whoop. Admitting this to be true, suppose at dead of night, when the whole camp is wrapped in profound slumber, a pack of fifty or more coyotes should stealthily surround the camp, not more than one hundred feet away, and all at once the whole pack should start in together in one prolonged, jerky, heartrending screech! Such a scene has made the hair on my head stand on end more than once, and I believe would chill the blood of the bravest heart. I will never forget one little incident that happened while we were on the Julesburg cutoff. In some way the wagon in which my family was became detached from the train so that we were entirely out of sight on that boundless expanse of prairie, with an excellent chance of being scalped, all alone by ourselves. There is no poetry in such an experience—and very little hope if attacked by hostile Indians. It should be remembered while we were thus alone on the prairie sixty miles out of Denver the famous battle of Sand Creek was being fought by Colonel Chivington and his gallant troops only a few miles away,

to the southeast of us. That 27th day of November, 1864, was made memorable all over the land. A few government officials, of the P. E. Cooper stripe, who had never seen a redskin waving a woman's scalp, freshly lifted from her head, branded this transaction as a massacre, but those who looked on the Hungate family, as they were lying in the streets of Denver, had good reason to think differently. People will have to see Indian atrocities before they will be able to judge correctly what punishment fits the case. Those who have met General Curtis, Colonel Chivington, or our own large-hearted Captain Dave Nichols, and the many brave boys from Boulder county who took part in that fight, can never be persuaded for a moment that such men as we know them to have been could have been implicated in a wanton massacre, such as this battle is said to have been. Not only was the Indian war in progress, and general unrest everywhere, but the character of the many immigrants constituting the population of Denver, and so far as that goes, all of this Rocky Mountain region, was somewhat peculiar, to say the least.. Ex-rebels from the South, many criminals, and adventurers from every quarter of the globe, gamblers, thieves, lawyers, preachers and doctors, all were represented in Colorado. Colorado. All classes appeared alike. They all dressed alike. All classes were met alike in the mines, on freight wagons, in saloons, at church on Sunday, if there happened to be such a gathering, on the stage coach, or tramping along the highway. While we had a pretended form of law the court of final appeal, too often, was a six-shooter, which nearly everyone carried in those days. As late as the building of the old Colorado Central, only a few years ago, perhaps some of you remember the kidnaping of Judge Wilber Stone, who was taken from a train on that road while on his way to hold district court in Boulder. All have

heard of the wild and woolly west, but it remains for those who were then here to fully appreciate then existing conditions. Certainly that was altogether a different state of society from what we have today. The fixed population of Denver was then approximately 3,500. Of course, it being the center of traffic for all this western country, there was always a great crowd of transients going and coming. Much of what I have so far said may appear foreign to the subject in hand. It seems to me, however, to be, as the lawyers say, a part of the "res jesta." For this reason, then, even at the risk of appearing prolix, I have said this much.

Coming to the practitioners of medicine in those early days, and their personnel, I may say in a general way, there were very few doctors at that time in Colorado at least in proportion to other lines of professional men. Among these was Governor John Evans. I presume we all know he was at one time a member of our profession. He remained always in sympathy with us-even long after he left the chair of obstetrics in the Rush Medical College, Chicago, and moved to Evanston. Our Dr. King, now superannuated, Drs. Buckingham, Steadman, Treat, McClelland, Elsner, Smith, and a number of others whose names I do not just now recall, were in Denver. At Black Hawk and Central City were Dr. Reed, the Indian missionary, with his little drug store, and band of Ute Indians always in evidence about his place. Dr. Lincoln was just across the street from him. Dr. H. W. Allen was there conducting a drug store and practicing medicine. Drs. Judd and Toll were further up the gulch above Gregory Point. I must not forget to say that that winter Harper Orahood conducted a drug store next to me in the same block. Henry M. Teller was mining and practicing law in Central City. In Golden City, then the capital of the territory, Dr. Kelly was