Interview with Dr. Eugene Connor

CAROYLN : This is Carolyn Crabtree I'm in the home of Dr. Eugene Conner in Louisville, Kentucky, interviewing him for the McDowell House Project. The date is November the 11th, Veterans Day, 2009. Dr. Conner, thank you so much for doing this interview with us, with me.

EUGENE CONNER: You're welcome.

CRABTREE: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your connection to the McDowell House.

CONNER: Well, I guess--

CC: Get it started again. OK.

EC: Now we're running?

CC: Dr. McConn- Dr. Conner, tell me a little bit about yourself and the McDowell House, your connection there.

EC: Well, since I taught history here and in Philadelphia, medical history here and in Philadelphia, so when I came here I hadn't been here very long and they 1:00invited me to be a member of the board at the McDowell House. And I guess now I'm about the only one that hasn't died. The oldest one, anyway.

CC: I interviewed Dr. Courtenay, I believe.

EC: Yeah, yeah he's--

CC: He's been on there quite awhile, too.

EC: Yeah, uh-huh.

CC: And Jim Thomas.

EC: Jim Thomas, yep.

CC: How did you find out about the McDowell House? How did you become interested in it?

EC: Oh, I knew about it from reading about McDowell. I've known about McDowell since 40, 50 years ago, before I even came here.

CC: And you came here from where?

EC: Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. Actually, I came here from where the University had sent me. I crossed the wall, so-called, to Philadelphia 2:00General Hospital. I came here from there.

CC: So did you come here as a medical doctor or as a teacher of history?

EC: I came here as the professor of anesthesiology at the medical school.

CC: At Louisville?

EC: Yeah.

CC: OK.

EC: I had been a teacher at Penn, a medical teacher.

CC: So did you actually practice medicine--

EC: Yes, ma'am.

CC: --in Louisville too?

EC: I sure did. At the Methodist hospital and at the general hospital.

CC: All right. As an anesthesiologist?

EC: Right!

CC: OK. What is mainly your role as a board member there? I know that some of the board members are more interested in furnishings, some are interested in the building, some are interested in the history--

EC: Well, I've been interested in, mostly in McDowell himself and what he did 3:00there, and we are concerned officially with the maintenance of the house and what it represents, and I guess that's about the focus I've had is the house and the doctor himself. He's a fabulous fellow.

CC: Tell me why you feel that way. Is he more important than other doctors would have been during that time period?

EC: Damn right.

CC: Why do you feel that way?

EC: Here he is, in a remote area, in a sparsely settled part of our country, where he is the best known physician. In fact, he really was, he was the best 4:00known physician in this part of the country. People came from Ohio to see him, they came from Tennessee to see him, from Western Virginia to see him.

CC: Really?

EC: Yeah, we have records of it. Or we know who he, we don't have any records; he didn't keep any. But we know from correspondence that he took care of patients from Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, 'cause there was no West Virginia then. And I guess he, he may have taken care of people further east, I don't know for sure. But he was well known, and the reason he's so important, he had the courage to open the peritoneal cavity in somebody, in a patient, and they lived 5:00'cause he didn't rummage around. He knew exactly what he was going to do and got in there and did it and got out. And he was in a remote area of the country where he didn't go circulate a whole lot after he got back from Edinburgh. He didn't go too many places, I guess, so he wasn't contaminated by big cities.

CC: What about big cities would have contaminated him?

EC: His hands.

CC: Oh, I see. You mean physically contaminated.

EC: Hell yes!

CC: I didn't know if you meant that or--

EC: Oh no, no.

CC: --as a doctor. Give him different ideas that probably wouldn't have .

EC: No, he was here, and there was nobody to ask. Nobody. He had been in 6:00Philadelphia and maybe he discussed the possibility, well I know that they said something about it: that you don't do it. You can't do it. He figured out you can do it.

CC: Do you believe he was the kind of man that would have taken that as a challenge? Or do you believe he just did his work?

EC: He just did his work. He saw what needed to be done and did it. And he didn't have to ask anybody.

CC: How do you, what do you believe made him so famous in other parts of the country, that people would come here? How would they hear about him?

EC: Well, I suspect that mostly word of mouth. And you wonder how from Danville, Kentucky you get word of mouth to go very far, but everybody in the legislature 7:00knew who he was 'cause his father was in the legislature. His father had been governor. In fact he came here from Virginia to be governor. So everybody knew the family very well, you know, they knew about him, and they knew he had been to Edinburgh to go to medical school, which there weren't too many of them here that had done that. In fact, that's an interesting question. I don't remember if there were any in this area that had ever been to school, some of them, that practiced medicine. You didn't have to go to school to practice medicine.

CC: Now the doctors who came to get him to take him down to Green County to examine Jane Todd Crawford, where would they have been trained? Do we know 8:00anything about them? Why would--?

EC: Yeah, but off the top of my head I can't tell you anything about them. There were at least three that knew that he was a good surgeon. See, Kentucky still has a very high incidence of bladder and renal stones, and he had done a lot of extractions of stones from the bladder, and so he was well known as a surgeon. And his mortality rate was so low that they didn't know how he did it. But I think the reason his mortality rate was low he knew what he was going to do and he went in there and did it and got out.

CC: Now was this a period of time when hygiene was something that really all the 9:00doctors used when they did surgery? Or did he just happen to be one who did this?

EC: No, this is 1809, and the concept of contamination was not yet thought about. And so he was just, he had clean hands and he, I guess it's his personal hygiene. He washed his hands often; I don't know that he did, but I presume that he did.

CC: Well one account says that he actually cleaned the organs before he put them back into her body some way.

EC: That's a bunch of crap.

CC: OK.

EC: Bunch of crap.

CC: OK.

EC: That's people talking, they don't know anything about operating, they don't anything about surgery, and they just think it sounds nice.

CC: OK.

EC: Didn't know such a damn thing.

CC: All right.

EC: He wouldn't have done that at all. Nobody would.

CC: Can you tell us anything about the surgery he did on James K. Polk?

EC: Well all he did was cut a hole in the bladder and take the bladder stone out.

CC: OK. Did he come up from Tennessee?

EC: That's right.

CC: Was he already a president at the time, or had he run for president or anything or was he just--?

EC: Oh, no, no. 1809?

CC: I don't remember the dates of when he was president.

EC: No, no. He hadn't been president yet. He was a long way from president. He was a young man. I can't remember how old he was. I think he was 17 or 18.

CC: OK.

EC: He needed--a stone in the bladder is a very bad, annoying, painful 11:00condition. And people would submit to almost anything.

CC: Now you said Kentucky still has quite a few problems with that.

EC: Yeah they do.

CC: Why is that do you think?

EC: I think it's just the water we drink, and there's probably not the same incidence of bladder and renal stones as in 1809, but certainly it's a pretty high incidence. It has to do with diet and drinking habits, water. Whether you drink water or not. Of course a lot of people knew that you didn't drink water. That's the reason whiskey's so good. No, they knew that water was a source of 12:00infection, of sickness, they didn't know infection.

CC: Cholera and other things?

EC: Well cholera didn't come to the United States until 1812, I think. So cholera wasn't a threat.

CC: Really?

EC: Wasn't even an understanding.

CC: Hmm-- What do you admire most about him? Have you studied his life and his relationship with other people? What do you admire the most about him other than his surgery?

EC: Well, he was apparently a very good teacher. He would tell people, write it out and send them a letter if they wanted to know something about ovarian tumors or pelvic problems. He'd write it out. He was a good writer and a good teacher, 13:00and I'm sure some of them went to see him just to inquire or to watch him.

CC: So it appears that he had the personality of a man who was more interested in just helping people and doing his work than becoming a famous physician.

EC: Oh he didn't care about fame, not one bit. I doubt if he even knew it, because it wasn't something that was of any interest to him, I don't believe. And the people there; he was famous all around Danville and probably Kentucky and even into Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee. But it didn't mean anything to him, 14:00it wasn't something that he strove for. He just happened to be there and be good.

CC: How do you feel like he would be treated today as a physician by other physicians and by people in general?

EC: Well, apparently he was a personable gentleman, very well-mannered and everything. And people would admire him, and if they knew somebody who had been relieved of their bladder stone by him, why they would certainly from that patient learn how much he was thought of.

CC: Was he also just a general physician?

EC: Oh certainly! Certainly! He took care of all kinds of things.

CC: So he took care of all sorts of things.

EC: Vaccinated people. He was an early vaccinator in Danville.

CC: For what? Smallpox?

EC: Yeah, against smallpox. Yeah.

CC: You never hear of those type of things about him.

EC: Well, that's too bad.

CC: I know!

EC: People don't read.

CC: Are there any good books that you feel like are really good books about him that have been written?

EC: Yeah, there's only one...and it'll take me a minute to think who it was written by. Take me longer than that, I think. It was written, oh gosh, in the '40s I guess, 1840s. I can't think of who wrote it now. I'll go downstairs and get it in a minute.

CC: No, that's OK. I was just wondering because it seems like a lot of the books 16:00that you see about him are, well, like there's one out by a local, Dr. Grider, I believe. Maybe his was on Isaac Shelby.

EC: Mr Grider. He was a pharmacist.

CC: Uh-huh. Not sure if he wrote about McDowell, now that I think about it. It may have been Shelby, but I don't know I just don't--

EC: He wrote about Shelby.

CC: --seem to run across books that give the whole life and perspective of Dr. McDowell the way--

EC: Well, there's really only one that's very reliable. I'll go get it so I can tell you who wrote it. But a lot of people have said what he did, and they don't have any idea what he did. They take it from somebody else who didn't know what 17:00he did, or how he did it, or why it was important. There's a lot of misinformation about Dr., you know, not about him himself, 'cause there's a really good biography of him, if people would read it! Many of them don't.

CC: Mmhmm.

EC: You know, "what do you think about so and so?" Hell, they'll tell you, and they don't have one iota of information that's reliable. It's just somebody told them.

CC: Like Daniel Boone.

EC: Yeah, same crap.

CC: Religion, then truth.

EC: Same crap. Yeah, can't believe anything what they say about Boone, except he died in Missouri.

CC: And his body's been moved back to Kentucky, and he probably hates the whole idea.

EC: Oh yeah. I think that was very unkind and disrespectful myself.

CC: Dr. Courtenay was telling me that, this has nothing to do with why we're here, but people were trying to get Benjamin Logan moved back to Stanford from where he is buried near Shelbyville. And so he really told them to leave him alone.

EC: Dr. Courtenay is very well informed.

CC: I had a good interview with him; I enjoyed that.

EC: He's a great fellow. He went to the University of Pennsylvania to medical school.

CC: Oh really?

EC: Yes indeed. That was the best medical school in the country when he went there. And still pretty damn good, despite what Harvard thinks.

CC: Now the school here--

EC: I didn't go to Harvard, either.

CC: --the school here in Louisville, now this is another story I'm not sure if 19:00it's true or not, maybe you can clear it up for me. Dr. Goldsmith, who helped or assisted Dr. McDowell at times there in Danville--

EC: Yes. Alban Gilpin Smith.

CC: Yes.

EC: Or Goldsmith, when he got to New York.

CC: Now is it true that he started the medical school here in Louisville? That was my understanding.

EC: No, I don't think so.

CC: That he attended Transylvania--

EC: Yeah.

CC: And that there was some sort of--

EC: He got the first charter for the medical school here. A medical school here. And so in that sense he did start the medical school in Louisville.

CC: Is that what is now the University of Louisville medical school? Or is that something different?

EC: Yes, as near as you can tell. Yeah. See, there were at least five or six 20:00medical schools here. Six counting the black one.

CC: In Louisville?

EC: Yes indeed, at one time. And the University of Louisville medical school, which was known first as the Louisville Medical College was the name of it when it was chartered, and they absorbed some of the other schools, and some of the other schools absorbed schools, so eventually it came down to just one: the University, well, the Louisville Medical Institute or the University of Louisville Medical School.

CC: Now how long have you been teaching here? Are you still teaching here?

EC: Oh, yeah, I give lectures, but not to the medical school very often. But I still give lectures, invited lectures and stuff. But I've been here since 1950, 21:00I think, yeah, I think that's right. Damn, it's been so long!

CC: Well, my husband has a relative who graduated from the school here.

EC: Uh-huh.

CC: He was a medical doctor down in Campbellsville.

EC: Uh-huh.

CC: Bill Shepherd. His family was connected in here with Louisville. Also his family were ministers, Methodist ministers. But he's practiced; he was an anesthesiologist down there and a general p, general practitioner.

EC: Yeah, yeah.

CC: He always felt that this was one of the best schools you could go to in the nation here.

EC: Well, let me ask you this--

CC: But he graduated there.

EC: Yeah, how many schools had he been to? How many schools had he visited? See, I've visited most of the medical schools in the United States.

CC: What makes some better than others?

EC: Oh, I think in McDowell's day it was who had the clinical facilities. The reason this school here, the Louisville Medical Institute, gained so much fame was because it had the general hospital here, which they were responsible for caring the patients there, for the care of the patients there. You could start a medical school anywhere you want, in the backyard if you wanted. And if you got people fool enough to come to the classes that was all that was necessary.

CC: Is that what was different about Edinburgh versus some other place that 23:00McDowell would have gone?

EC: Well Edinburgh was a chartered university in Scotland. They had a medical department or medical school that was first-rate. And they also had clinical facilities. The physicians that taught there, their patients the students could look at and examine. And there was a small hospital there; hospitals weren't that common in that day. Most I guess the first hospital in America of any importance was the Pennsylvania hospital started by the Quakers in Philadelphia. And that was mostly to take care of indigents that had no place to stay and 24:00people who were psychotic.

CC: Really?

EC: Yeah, that was the two primary purposes.

CC: Was that the primary, were those the primary purposes of any hospital during that time?

EC: Well, they took care of indigents certainly. And many of them that they had, if they were indigent, if they took care of them, they'd get well and they'd stay there and work. So it was important to the hospital that some of these people did stay there and work. I don't know what they got paid or if they got paid.

CC: Were most of these hospitals, like Edinburgh, for example, were they that was a university, but was it connected with any kind of church or religion or--? I mean, I know we have many Catholic hospitals and Methodist hospitals and 25:00Presbyterian and various things now. Were most of them started that way?

EC: Well, I guess the Pennsylvania hospital, if you consider the Quakers a religion, which it indeed is. It was started, but it was by public subscription; people gave money to it. Not Quakers entirely, or exclusively.

CC: Why would McDowell not have gone to that particular hospital since it was so much closer than going to Scotland?

EC: Well, it didn't have a medical school attached to it.

CC: Oh it didn't?

EC: No indeed. The University of Pennsylvania was not attached to the Pennsylvania hospital.

CC: Oh, OK. So that was what was really important--

EC: And it still isn't if you ask them!

CC: So it was very important to him to go to a school where they had the clinical possibility?

EC: Yeah, I believe that's, he was a bright man, and he wanted to be educated not only in science of medicine, but in clinical care of patients. That's the reason he went to Edinburgh I believe, because they emphasize clinical care.

CC: Now I realize it was not as important to have a degree when you came away from that school, but do you believe that he actually intended to have a degree when he came here and just didn't stay long enough to get it or--?

EC: I doubt that he cared one iota whether he had a degree or not. And most of the patients that he had or that would've known about him didn't care whether he 27:00had one or not. And he did, I don't know whether he graduated or not, or whether he had a diploma, he didn't need one. I've been reviewed doctors who practiced here; they didn't have a diploma when I first came here, and they practiced.

CC: Really?

EC: Oh yeah, yeah.

CC: That was allowed here?

EC: It was, certainly. When I came here, there were people 50 years old or had been practicing 50 years, and I, through the medical society, medical community, I got to know some of them and talk with them and visit them. I went down in the country here a lot of places to see these people and interview them.

CC: Where did they get their training, most of them?

EC: Locally. From the local doctor.

CC: Working with another doctor?

EC: Yeah, uh-huh.

CC: Apprenticeship type of work?

EC: Yeah, apprenticeship, yep. Whatever you call it. That's the best training there is.

CC: I agree with you there.

EC: And our internship is an apprenticeship of sorts. Our residency training is an apprenticeship of sorts.

CC: I guess I hadn't thought of it that way, but it is, isn't it?

EC: Yeah, it sure is.

CC: Now there was some question, there've been some questions about his father, Dr. McDowell's father, Samuel McDowell, that he wasn't as interested in McDowell going to medical school. But have you ever read anything that indicated that? Because I find it hard to believe, I find that, from what I read about his 29:00father, he would've been a man who would've been pleased for his son to be a doctor.

EC: Well, trying to figure out what the McDowell family wanted and expected of their most famous son is awful hard to tell. There's been so much hooey written and published and people read that and they think, "This is the last word." Well it's not; it's an imaginary last word.

CC: Well they use the fact that he didn't send him the money to finish.

EC: Hell they didn't have any money!

CC: Well he seemed to be a wealthy man, but it was always tied up in land, those kind of things.

EC: Well, yeah. Are you going to go sell 10 acres today for cash? No. You can't 30:00do it today. He had lots of land; he'd taken land in payment.

CC: Right, right.

EC: But converting that to money to go to Philadelphia, that's hard to do. I think Dr. McDowell himself as a student probably made his own way at that time. In 1809? Sure, he could've made his living. He could've practiced medicine when he went to Philadelphia.

CC: Was there ever, were there ever any other members of his family before that would've encouraged him to want to go into medicine?

EC: I don't know.

CC: This was just something that came out of him?

EC: His interest, yeah, as near as I know. Now, maybe there's other information, 31:00but I don't, I'm not aware of it. He was, I think he was mostly self-motivated. Nobody had to tell him what to do or where to go to school, or go to school. He was apparently taught first the elements, reading, writing, arithmetic, by an itinerant teacher that the father knew. But then if you had a person that came and was known in the local community as a teacher, well, you didn't ask him for a certificate--he didn't have any!

CC: Well Danville was a little different in that, that they went out and 32:00requested certain people to come and be tutors for their children. Dr. Fry, and some of these other men.

EC: Yeah, well they would go to get a tutor.

CC: They would get--

EC: They'd go to Cincinnati, or Richmond, or whatever. But they would rely on other people's say-so that this tutor knew what he was talking about.

CC: Mmhmm.

EC: I guess some of them got misinformation, but

CC: Well, they seem to have come, a lot of these people in Danville came from the same area of Virginia. They came from Rockbridge County, most of them. Dr. McDowell and his, I mean, Samuel McDowell and his family. The only ones I've 33:00found that seem like, the Caldwells and various ones came from there. And they had certain teachers that they brought with them or went back to get to come to Danville.

EC: If they could persuade them to come.

CC: Mmhmm. That seemed to be a very important thing for those people: educating their children, including the girls; seemed to be well-educated. Dr. McDowell's sisters--

EC: Yeah, both could read and write.

CC:--seemed to be well-educated girls.

EC: Yeah, reading and writing and doing arithmetic was an education. And of course you didn't bother to teach the girls that, 'cause they were supposed to cook. Yeah.

CC: They had to run homes and things like that, though.

EC: Yeah, that's right. So they learned, they taught themselves to add and subtract. Have you ever read any old recipes?

CC: Oh yes.

EC: Well God dern, you know then, you know how much you put in there? A pinch. Two pinches, two pinches, or one pinch. Well hell, I don't know what a pinch is.

CC: I do.

EC: Yeah, so do I; I've seen my mother do it!

CC: What other things do you want to tell us about Dr. McDowell on this tape? What I'm trying to do is, what I would like to do is get rid of all the traditional stuff that really we don't know for sure, and get down and find out what we really know about him. You know, what's true versus what's tradition. Are there any other traditions about him that you feel like need to be examined 35:00a little bit, that aren't true? All this controversy, for example, after the surgery.

EC: Well that was generated by the people in Great Britain who didn't believe some hick somewhere in America could do this. They didn't believe him.

CC: How long did it take really before they started to believe him?

EC: I don't really know, but it was long enough that it's to their discredit, because other people in America went and saw him operate and talked with him and stayed with him--stayed in his house! So the Americans treated him, I think, as he should've been treated. He was not disparaged at all, that I know of, by 36:00Americans. Because all the people knew him; they knew his father, and he came here as governor from Virginia, appointed governor, well he was sent down here to be governor.

CC: Judge.

EC: So, I think he -- I don't know whether he saw that he needed to be a surgeon, that there was a great need for it. I don't know; I really don't. And I'm not sure that he ever declared that he was needed there; he wanted to go to medical school, so he went to Philadelphia, the best medical school in America. 37:00In fact, there was, well, there were a lot of schools that weren't schools that said they were. They had charters from the state. The schools here 3 or 4 of them were chartered, but they weren't really much a school.

CC: What about the one at Transylvania University? What kind of reputation did it have?

EC: Well, partly, it was a good school because it was the only one. There was none other, and it was the first. The people that started it, two doctors, two physicians, they were medical graduates from Edinburgh.

CC: Really?

EC: Yes indeed. And then Samuel Brown came along, and he was a graduate of 38:00Edinburgh. But Ephraim McDowell didn't have anything to do with the school in Lexington.

CC: Do you know why?

EC: Too far away.

CC: Oh really?

EC: How many days are you going to ride on horseback to get from Lexington to Danville? It'd take a whole damn day, and you'd be tired when you got there!

CC: So he never did teach there?

EC: No indeed, that we know of.

CC: Or give lectures or anything that we know of?

EC: Oh, he taught at Transyl--at his home. He had apprentices.

CC: Yes, I know, but he did not give lectures at Transylvania or anything like that?

EC: Oh no, no. That I know of, no. And I doubt very much if he did, no matter who says so.

CC: Now there's also this story that is probably false, too, but I want to see what you think, about people standing outside while he was doing the surgery waiting to hang him if she died.

EC: That's absolutely apocryphal crap.

CC: OK.

EC: And I can't tell you anything else more emphatic, 'cause you couldn't spell it. But I think that's just unadulterated crap, because he was so well respected, there was nobody going to be-- And how many people knew he was going to operate Jane Todd Crawford? Did they just saw her on the horse and coming up to see him? Well that's no reason to assume that he's going to be, she's going 40:00to be operated on.

CC: Now does the fact that that tumor got so large tell you anything about the doctors down there and their skills? Down in Green Country?

EC: I don't know how big it was, really.

CC: Well it weighed 22 pounds, apparently.

EC: Yeah, that's fairly sized, if they weighed it right.

CC: Well, that's true.

EC: And I don't know who weighed it.

CC: The way I understand it was done, now, you know more about it than I do, he weighed it when he drained it. Dr. McDowell had someone weigh it when he drained it, or something.

EC: He weighed it before he drained it.

CC: Oh did he?

EC: Oh I'm sure, 'cause otherwise he wouldn't know how much it weighed, 'cause the capsule didn't weigh very much; it's what was in it: the fluid.

CC: Right.

EC: See, water has a very high, specific weight.

CC: I know.

EC: You get fluid in it, and it's going to be increasing weight. But, he knew the size of the tumor, and he even devised--I'm not sure that's right, but he examined her standing up so he knew where it was.

CC: That's why I find it confusing that they would've thought that she was pregnant, because a tumor just is nothing like a baby, is it?

EC: Oh, don't fool yourself!

CC: Well, I've had the same surgery done--

EC: OK.

CC:--when I was 20--

EC: Uh-huh.

CC:--and I had cysts on both ovaries.

EC: Uh-huh.

CC: And at first they did tell me I was pregnant, which I couldn't have been, 'cause I was--

EC: Well.

CC: But, you would think, of course, maybe they didn't have it in that day and time, but in this day and time you could tell instantly because there would be no heartbeat and that kind of thing. Right? Would there be a difference in it?

EC: Yeah, but I don't think they thought to listen to a mass in the belly except if they were convinced it was a fetus. And usually the mother would tell you whether it had a heartbeat or not; you didn't have to listen for it.

CC: Well, do you have anything else you'd like to tell about this or any other thoughts on all of this?

EC: No, except that I think the reason he was successful was he was in an isolated community, he washed his hands, and he was not contaminated by other activities as far dissection is concerned. If you dissect a lot, you can't get your hands clean. We can today, but they didn't even scrub them with a brush. Clean hands were clean hands that had been washed with soap, and if you've used homemade soap some of it soaps good and some of it doesn't. I sure in hell, I've been whipped two or three times and sent back out to the pump because I didn't wash my hands. Well I know I did! I used the ball of soap that was homemade. 44:00That's what we had outside.

CC: Where was your home?

EC: Oh, my home was in, I was born and raised in Baltimore, but I lived the summers in Newark, Delaware. All over the place. Both my mother and my dad were Delawareans.

CC: And what made you become interested in medicine?

EC: Well, I was interested in, see I cleaned all the animals that I shot, and we ate everything. And so my dad would tell me what was this and what was that and something else, 'cause he knew from somebody telling him. And I got interested in anatomy, in comparative anatomy, when I was in college, and I was interested 45:00in medicine 'cause I liked physiology. I like physiology and anatomy; I wasn't particularly red hot. Everyone wants to be a surgeon; I didn't care about that, 'cause I knew how you did surgery. I'd seen enough of it done, so I was interested in the patients and the care of the patients. I guess that's what I went to medical school for. And I learned from patients, of course.

CC: And you went to the school in Pennsylvania?

EC: No, I went to the University of Maryland to medical school.

CC: Did you?

EC: Uh-huh, yes ma'am. In Baltimore. Then I went in the army after my 46:00internship, and then after we got back and I finished, I did a residency one year in Baltimore at the University of Maryland. Then I went to Penn, and we went there for one year and stayed nine.

CC: OK.

EC: And I left Penn when they called me down here to look at this. I decided I'd take a chance on it, and I've been glad ever since. It's been a great move for us, to come here, 'cause Philadelphia's a hell of a rough place now; it was bad enough then. And here, people were, I think they were more sociable, certainly. 47:00And maybe it's just the people I met casually, people here were much better mannered and more interested in the individual, in you, than in what you're doing or who you belong to. In Philadelphia, if you didn't belong to somebody important, why, there wasn't any sense in fooling with you. That's the truth!

CC: I can believe you.

EC: Damn right.

CC: I'm from the South.

EC: Yeah, that's right.

CC: I see a big difference in the attitude of the people, it seems to me, further North. And Kentucky's kind of--

EC: In between.

CC: Southern and in between.

EC: I think Kentucky customs and mannerisms are a very good blend of both North 48:00and South, and it works out very nicely, I think--a lot better than one or the other!

CC: Probably so.

EC: Well, they wouldn't agree with you, but-- I can't think of anything else to say.

CC: Well let me just touch on something else just a minute then before we finish. I had thought about this while we were talking. Your activities on the board--

EC: Yeah.

CC: --for McDowell House. Tell us a little about that.

EC: One thing that stands out in my mind I was appointed chairman of a committee to raise funds, I don't know how long ago, and we did raise considerable money. 49:00And I didn't know anything about raising money, and I didn't like to do it, but I had a lot of friends, physicians, former students that were physicians, and so we gathered quite a bit of money for the McDowell House. And it helped out a lot, and I think it's still helping.

CC: Good.

EC: But you see the state medical society, to their credit, they were supporting the McDowell House. They didn't have anybody there full-time, and the local physicians kind of kept their fingers on it and made sure that it didn't tumble down, but the state medical society didn't have any great wealth. And, so, I 50:00think first of all the local people were the ones that kept it alive, then the PWA--

CC: WPA.

EC: WPA.

CC: Mmhmm.

EC: Whatever the hell the difference was, they were both giving out money, and--it was the WPA. When they, and I don't remember off the top of my head how much money they gave, but that was a great help, and it was judiciously, as near as I can tell, it was judiciously used to repair the property and ultimately to maintain it to some extent. The local people recognized, the local physicians and some in Lexington in the state medical society recognized that this needed 51:00to be kept. Well hell, one time it was going to be sold and taken to Chicago.

CC: The house?

EC: Yes, indeed! The whole damn kit 'n caboodle.

CC: Why would it have been taken there?

EC: 'Cause some son of a bitch that had enough money wanted it there--

CC: Oh.

EC:--for the World's Fair or something.

CC: Really?

EC: Yeah, and then they would've left it there and they'd have burned it down or something. It was crazy. Absolutely crazy.

CC: That house has quite a history.

EC: Oh yeah it does.

CC: And I didn't know, there are a lot of things I've learned doing these interviews about that house.

EC: I expect so. But the business of wanting to buy the house and move it to Chicago? I just can't believe anybody's that conceited. But, course there's all kinds of so-and-sos going around, and this guy had enough money to buy it, or he 52:00thought he did. Fortunately the people, the local people that were looking after it or taking care of it didn't like that idea. Fortunately.

CC: Right.

EC: See, there's not been a lot of strength exercised by the state medical society except to first of all buy it and keep it.

CC: That was quite a bit, though.

EC: Well heck yeah, because otherwise it might've been torn down.

CC: From the condition it looked like it was in, it wouldn't be standing today.

EC: Well, no, but I've been all over that house where you can't walk, you know, 53:00in the eves and everything, but it was a well-built house. And fortunately the WPA came along and could put the roof on; it was leaking and everything. And they repaired the plaster walls. I don't know how extensive the preparation repair of them was, but I would bet they had to damn near rebuild that house. Certainly inside, and some outside.

CC: Now are you still in a role of raising money for the building, for the house?

EC: Yes, the Women's Auxiliary of the state medical society raises funds every year for the McDowell House. And we get some given to us--how much is given and 54:00how much is given by the medical society, what percent it is, I don't know. My guess is we get the most money for support of the house from the state medical society.

CC: So it's still very active in the protection of it?

EC: Yes, yes indeed. There's a few of the old guys who'd haunt you if something happened to that house! Yeah, it was really a very important thing that these few physicians thought that ought to be salvaged.

CC: Now how do you keep the younger physicians aware of the importance of that? How do you keep them interested so that when the people who have been supporting 55:00it are gone there will still be people who will care about it?

EC: It's very difficult, because in today's world the physician has to work every day or he can't make a living. And in, when this was started, say, in 1840, a doctor didn't have to work but one day a week almost, you know, depending on where he was and who he had. He might get a small flock of sheep in October for something he'd done in the previous three years or one year, or whatever, but he didn't know how much money he was going to have at the end of 56:00the year. And to have these physicians say, "Look, we've got to salvage that place, save it," that was a pretty big step.

CC: Mmhmm.

EC: And they deserve a lot of credit for that, 'cause it got other people interested in it, see, other than local people. And, 'course--focusing really on Ephraim McDowell is what helped. You know, that's what made it possible to get the house, or save the house, was McDowell himself. You know, talking about professor or him.

CC: When a young man goes to medical school today is he taught about Dr. McDowell and the history of what he did?

EC: If I have a chance to, I teach them. When I use to give the lectures in 57:00medical history there was a whole session on McDowell, 'cause see he not only diagnosed the tumors or tumor in the pelvis and extracted it surgically, that started out the whole surgical business of opening the peritoneum. It demonstrated you could do it and the patient survive, which was very important.

CC: I remember reading about a Dr. Wise, I believe, who was from Sweden, maybe, or Switzerland, who started the whole process of hygiene when you worked with a patient, and it was very interesting to me. It was like one man made such a 58:00difference in the whole medical field; the way they saw things, you know, washing their hands and taking care of your, hygiene of your patients.

EC: I'm not acquainted with his name.

CC: So is, and Dr. McDowell would be equivalent in the area of surgery, I guess, to that. One man could make that much difference.

EC: Oh, by all means, yes.

CC: Well did doctors start at that point to realize that they did have to use good hygiene when they did surgery, or was that part of it, of his influence at all?

EC: Well, whoever went there and watched him work. Now he didn't do six cases a week, or six in one day like they do today. He probably did, oh, well I don't know, I once counted it up, figured it out. He'd go a whole year and not do but 59:00one case.

CC: One surgery?

EC: Yeah, one surgery for tumor of the ovary. He would do, as I said awhile back, he was most famous for extracting calculi, or stones from the bladder, and so he was well known as an operator, as a surgeon, but mostly what he did was take stones out of the bladder. And then he got so good at taking ovaries out or tumors of the ovary he became, I don't know, but I think he about that time was cutting down on how much surgery he was doing on the bladder, 'cause he didn't have time enough.

CC: Now did her surgery, if she had been able to have any, was she, would she 60:00have been able to have children after she had that surgery or did he--?

EC: Yeah!

CC: He just removed the tumor and that was it?

EC: Well as near as we know, yes. And the one ovary was already non-functional, the one that was a tumor, so she probably still could've conceived, I don't know. How old was she? Can't remember that either. I'm getting to the age that I have to review all this.

CC: Oh, me too. Well I certainly do thank you for giving me your time today and for doing this for me.

EC: Thank you for coming, for asking me.

CC: I appreciate it very much.

EC: He was a truly great man. We don't have too many of them, and as near as I know he never promoted himself. He was no.

CC: That says a lot, doesn't it?

EC: Yeah, and in today's world that's a rare bird. I think he was a gentleman and he had read a lot and he went and he knew he had to have an education, so he went where education-- Scotsmen knew that Edinburgh was the center of education, and his father knew that, so that's the reason he went, I'm sure. None of them had been there had come back until I guess until Ephraim went and came back; I don't know of anybody in Danville that had been to Scotland, but there probably 62:00was. You know, there's a lot of family and commercial intercourse across the ocean.

CC: Now there were some other doctors there. Dr. Hunt, Dr. Polk, and some other doctors there at various times, but I'm not sure if they were contemporaries of Dr. McDowell or not. But one of the questions that came up before was that, who would've encouraged him to go there unless it was someone who had gone there? But that's not necessarily true, is it? I mean, anyone who knew the reputation of the school could've encouraged him.

EC: No, I don't think he needed any encouragement to go there. There was written 63:00word about the school at Edinburgh, and the clinical training that was available there, not sponsored by the school, but associated there in the community, in the medical community. So I think he knew what he was looking for, and he went and looked for it. And it's really absolutely amazing, 'cause in Philadelphia, which was where medical teaching started in 1765 in America, they had a hospital there, the Pennsylvania hospital, which is still there--the same damn building! It's still there, yes indeed it is. And it's got the same entrance still.

CC: Really?

EC: It's not used except for formal occasions. And one each side of the iron stairway there's wisteria, which was planted by Dr. Caspar Wistar, for whom the plant is named, and it's along each side of the doorway.

CC: Was he one of the first doctors there?

EC: One of the first. Yeah, that's easy enough. One of the first. I'm just trying to think. Yeah, he was, he was one of the first; he wasn't the first. But Caspar Wistar was an anatomist and a surgeon and a fabulous teacher apparently. He could give you a lecture right walking in off of the street; he could give 65:00you a sensible, very well-thought-out lecture. And not too many people can do that. He was fabulous, Wistar was. I guess it's, they pronounced it "Wister."

CC: What nationality was that name?

EC: I think it was, I think it was British; I'm not sure. Damn. Some things you forget fast. I've forgotten a hell of a lot in 80-some years. I'll be 88 in December.

CC: Really?

EC: Yep.

CC: Would never believe it.

EC: Thank you. But some of the things disappear from your recall.

CC: Some of the things probably are better off to be able to forget, too.

EC: Yeah, that's right.

CC: Well thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead and--

EC: You're quite welcome. Turn 'er off.