high hilltop, or see again those oak trees growing along the steep hillsides, upon which we bumped our noses while coasting in winter.

OLD SCHOOL NO. I.

We always thought the reason it was called old No. I was because it was the first large schoolhouse built in the town. We have lately learned it was so designated from the number of the school district, there having been two districts, the northern called No. 1, and the southern, No. 2. District No. 2, however, built the first large brick schoolhouse in the state of Iowa. It was 40x45 feet and two stories in height. It was torn down after the present First Ward school building was completed beside old No. 2. Muscatine also has the honor of having had the first graded school system in Iowa. It was a primitive sort of grading when compared to its present perfected system.

The year following the destruction of old No. I schoolhouse, we found a school home in the upper stories of St. Clair's pop factory, on Fourth street, a square east of the court house. Whenever I see people drinking pop, I think of the black refuse drainage flowing away from that old pop factory building. I think Mr. St. Clair was very glad when his year's contract with the school board had expired, for we never got back there again. We were given about three months' extra vacation until the new building was ready for occupancy. The top of the hill had been graded off and the present Third Ward building was built upon the site of "Old Number One."

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

THE FIRST PHYSICIANS ENDURED HARDSHIPS AND WERE POORLY PAID-PILLS AND QUININE COMPOSED THE PIONEER DOCTOR'S PHARMACOEPIA-PLACED GREAT RELIANCE ON THE LANCET AND BLED HIS PATIENT WITH OR WITHOUT PROVOCATION SOME OF THE FIRST PHYSICIANS PRACTICING IN THE COUNTY.

The pioneers of the healing art in Muscatine county were the guardians of a widely dispersed population. Aside from their professional duties, they contributed their full share to the material development of a newly opened country. Some were men of culture, who had gained their medical education in college. Others were of limited educational attainments, whose professional knowledge had been acquired in the offices of established practitioners of more or less ability in the sections from which they emigrated. Of either class almost without exception, they were practical men of great force of character who gave cheerful and efficacious assistance to the suffering, daily journeying on horseback scores of miles, over a country almost destitute of roads and encountering swollen, unbridged streams, without waterproof garments or other now common protection against the elements. Out of necessity the pioneer physician developed rare quickness of perception and self-reliance. A specialist was then unknown, and the physician was called upon to treat every phase of bodily ailment, serving as physician, surgeon, oculist and dentist. His books were few and there were no practitioners of more ability than himself with whom he might consult. His medicines were simple and carried on his person and every preparation of pill or solution was the work of his own hands.

During the summer and autumn of 1837 cases of bilious remitting fever occurred, which readily yielded to treatment. The winter following several cases of bilious pneumonia demanded prompt atttendance and special vigilance in the observance of changes indicative of greater danger. These were the diseases and the principal ones which called for medical help up to the year 1849. Since that year, or from that period, the summer and autumnal fevers ceased to be epidemical and pneumonia became less frequent. It may be well to mention here that the fevers of 1849 after the third or fourth day assumed a typhoid character, the remission hardly observable, and the nervous depression occasioning great anxiety.

It was probably Dr. Rush of Philadelphia,—a great name up to about 1825 -who said the lancet was a "sheet anchor" in all inflammatory diseases, so it might have been said of quinine, as used in remittent and intermittent fevers,

Vol. I-23

in both the Mississippi and Missouri valleys from 1830 up to 1850. During that period 120,000 square miles west of the Mississippi and north of St. Louis became populated and all of it more or less malarious. In some of these years the demand for quinine was so great that the supply in the American market became exhausted. "Sappington's pills" were indirectly the power which worked steamboats up the river from 1835 to 1843. They were verily, the "sheet anchor," not only aboard boats but in many households. Dr. Sappington was a regular allopathic physician of considerable ability residing up the Missouri river, who thought it would be a benefaction to the new civilization of the west to prepare quinine ready to be taken in the form of pills. Boxes of his pills contained four dozen each and the pellets two grains each. The direction on the box was to take from two to twenty as the urgency of the case seemed to require, without reference to the stage of the paroxysm.

PIONEER PHYSICIANS.

Dr. Eli Reynolds practiced medicine in this county for about fifty-six years. He was a native of Indiana, came here in 1835 and laid out the extinct town of Geneva, then a few miles above Bloomington, and was the first representative in the Belmont legislature from this section. While in the legislature, he fought vigorously in the effort to have the county seat located at Geneva, but failed only after numerous petitions were sent from Muscatine, protesting against Dr. Reynolds' measure. The bill, however, had passed the legislature and needed but the signature of the governor to make it a law. Governor Dodge failed to approve the bill and Bloomington was retained as the county seat. Dr. Reynolds resided in Geneva about twelve years, and for some time lived at Fairport and at Moscow. He died at the home of S. R. Drury, at Drury's Landing, May 10, 1873.

Dr. Charles Drury came to Muscatine county in 1836, and in company with a man by the name of Webster laid out the town of Moscow. In 1841 he commenced the study of medicine in the office of his uncle, Dr. Eli Reynolds, and when admitted to the practice formed a partnership with Reynolds, which continued until 1844, when he removed to Illinois. He returned to Muscatine county in 1851 and continued in the practice of his profession with success. was a man of sterling integrity and sound judgment. As a physician and citizen he was held in the highest esteem. His death occurred February 11, 1891.

One of the first physicians in Muscatine was Dr. McKee, who was somewhat of a character. At the time of his arrival almost every one had ague, which brought him considerable practice. He lived in a little house on the then high hill, where he "kept batch."

In October, 1839, Dr. Benjamin Weed came to this city, then Bloomington, with his family, consisting of his wife and son, Dr. James Weed, and a daughter, Miss E. A. Weed. The Doctor secured a log cabin on the south side of Second street between Chestnut and Pine and commenced practicing medicine, in which he was successful. In 1849 Dr. James Weed owned a fine herd of Devon cattle, and Weed park is a magnificent benefaction of his to the city.