A village doctor and medicine’s enlightenment.

In 1799 George Washington was bled for a sore throat. His friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, claimed aggressive bleeding saved many patients from certain death in the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever pandemic. Yet, a century earlier Antonie van Leeuwenhoek had written the Royal Society about microscopic ‘animalcules’ in everything from lake water to the crud between his toes. Finally scores of articles about bacteria began to appear in medical journals during the second quarter of the 1800s. It would be 1878 before germ theory became the main topic of an AMA meeting held in Buffalo, NY. Why did it take so long; and how did nineteenth century village doctors deal with pandemics of cholera, smallpox and typhoid at a time when anesthesia, antisepsis, the Civil War, and germs were transforming basic medicine theory?

The 1885 obituary for village doctor Jabez Allen MD described Dr. Allen as an “old resident and prominent physician of our village” with a large practice “seldom exceeded by a country physician.” He “possessed in a very marked degree the confidence of his numerous patients. His devotion to the welfare of those under his care could scarcely have been surpassed and his generosity in other matters was well known to all his friends.” Dr. Allen “was highly respected by his medical brethren in both city and country” yet remained devoted to his adopted East Aurora, NY.

Bloodletting and Germs is a historical novel written as Dr. Allen’s memoir. Citing over 400 sources, it is true to the events of Dr. Allen’s life and to the medical enlightenment of the nineteenth century. Married to an abolitionist wife, his story covers the fugitive slave act, Confederates soldiers dying in Northern prison camps, Union soldiers returning from Civil War battles, and the emerging commerce of upstate New York. Dr. Allen deals with the contagions of his day, including cholera sapping life from the daughter of President Millard Fillmore. Allen is elected President of the Erie County Medical Society and participates in the 1878 AMA meeting where organized medicine confronts the scientific foundation for germs.

Dr. Allen teaches us about managing the unknown as a small-town hero. His doctoring, and his life, put humanity’s face on a period of profound scientific and social transformation.