University of Virginia Library

DOCTORS AND DISEASES

DR. THOMAS BATES ANDERSON

Dr. Thomas Bates Anderson was born of Caroline parentage
at "Pleasant Level," in Hanover county, January 14, 1792. He
received his preparatory training in Humanity Hall Academy,
in Hanover, and, in 1809, entered the medical department of the
University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in
1811. After two years' study in the Philadelphia Lyceum of
Sciences and Medicine, and one year in the office of the famous
Dr. Berkeley, he located at Jericho, Caroline county, Va., making
his home in the home of Mr. John McLaughlin on the North
Anna river. He married the daughter of Mr. McLaughlin on
September 18, 1815, and purchased a farm from one Mr. Guiney
at Landau, in the upper part of Caroline, about three or four
miles from the eastern border of Spotsylvania, and settled here,
where he lived and practiced medicine for over fifty years.
Harriett McLaughlin, his wife, was a granddaughter of Vivian
Minor, of "Springfield" in Caroline, and a grandniece of Major
John Minor of "Topping Castle." (For Minor genealogy see
elsewhere in this volume.)

Dr. Anderson was intimately associated with Mr. Burbage
Coleman, founder of the famous Concord Academy in Caroline,
of which see chapter on Education and Educators. The Rev.
James D. Coleman, son of Burbage Coleman, wrote a beautiful
tribute to Dr. Anderson soon after his death, which was published
in "Brief Biographies of Virginia Physicians" by Dr. L. B.
Anderson, of Norfolk, Va. This volume was published in
Richmond in 1889 by the Southern Clinic Press, and a copy is now
in possession of Dr. Herman B. Anderson, Noel, Hanover county,
Va.

The diary of Dr. Anderson sheds much light on the early
history of Caroline, both political and religious. Many allusions
are made to the efforts put forth to revive "true and undefiled
religion," in Caroline and adjoining counties. The Fork Church
in Hanover was an old Colonial Church (Episcopal) which, after
the disestablishment, was possessed and used as a preaching place
by all denominations. Here Dr. Anderson heard Rev. Mr.
Meade, afterward Bishop; Bishop Moore, Rev. Messrs. Boggs,
Rowzie, Andrew Broaddus, I., Kirkpatrick, and Rush, the last three
of whom Dr. Anderson characterized as the finest orators he had
ever heard.

The diary relates that Mr. Thomas Nelson, after he
united with the Baptists, preached at Fork Church on one
occasion in the presence of his brother "Billy" Nelson, a
rather morose, cynical and bitter-natured person. As the two
brothers rode homeward the preacher said, "I felt so cold and
inanimate today that I couldn't half preach," to which "Billy"
replied, "No, and by — you never could half preach." Among
other references in Dr. Anderson's diary to religious matters are
the following:

"* * *  A very bitter religious controversy between Mr.
William Guiney, of the Christian Church, and Mr. Stith, of the
Methodist Church, has ended. Guiney is a man of much learning,
fluency, sarcasm and wit. He closed the controversy with the
following lines:

Dr. Anderson cared for a territory embracing four counties

and which since has given ample practice to more than a score
of physicians. He rarely saw his patients oftener than every
third day during the "sickly season" and many were unable to
secure his service at all except through prescriptions based on a
report of the case by a careful observer, and by the character of
the prevailing epidemic.

He carried a large and varied assortment of medicines in his
saddle-bags, but his patients frequently had to send to his office
for such as he could not dispense at their homes. These office
calls were made in the early morning hours because for many
years he never reached home until very late at night. He would,
nevertheless, rise early, and it is said that he frequently compounded
medicines for a dozen cases by sunrise. During the
spring and early summer the prevalent bilious disorders were
treated by an active purgation with calomel and jalap, fifteen
grains of the former and twenty-five or thirty of the latter being
the usual dosage for adults. The patient was not permitted to
use any intoxicating beverage the next day, nor any food save
corn meal gruel. On the second day he drank a julep, ate breakfast,
and went to work. During the summer the bilious fevers
and dysenteries so prevalent were treated with a mercurial purge
and salts. For the bilious fevers, calomel, ipecac and nitrate
of potash, with an occasional bleeding, were relied upon to produce
an intermission, which was embraced as a favourable
opportunity to administer Peruvian bark freely.

Dr. Anderson says, "The winter diseases were generally of an
active inflammatory character. Nearly all pulmonary troubles
were located in the pleura. There was great heat, headache,
pains in the muscles and joints and side, and a hard, bounding
pulse. Bleeding would make the pulse soft and compressible,
whereupon the pain would cease, a free perspiration would appear,
and the patient usually needed nothing more to complete the
cure. But in the winter of 1814 the disease assumed a different
character and the inflammation, in pulmonary troubles, was no
longer located in the pleura, but in the pulmonary tissue proper.
The intensity of the pain, the difficulty of breathing, the apparent
volume of the pulse would seem to indicate bleeding; but the
great debility and rapid prostration which followed blood-letting
or purging would clearly contradict this method of treatment.
The pulse, apparently full, was easily compressible, and was
what might be called a gaseous pulse, and a resort to the lancet

was almost uniformly fatal. My plan was to give an emetic of
tartrate antimony, then a mercurial purge, followed by James'
powder, seneka and nitrate of potash with free blistering. If the
circulation was feeble I gave whiskey freely, and, occasionally
camphor and serpentaria were used with happy effect. Occasionally
the pulmonary oppression became very great, the breathing
short and laboured, the pulse feeble and frequent, or what Dr.
Rush would call a typhoid pulse. I tried many modes of treatment
in these cases without avail. Stimulants produced no
impression whatever. I then determined upon a course of
treatment as follows: Pulvis antimorialis, grs. 2; opium, gr. ½;
calomel, gr. ½; to be given every two or four hours, and the
whole thorax, except a narrow space on each side of the spine,
to be enveloped in a blistering plaster. Spirits of nitre was given
while the blister was drawing. This plan was usually successful."

"In 1819 a fever appeared in Caroline of an obstinate character.
It was called nervous fever, typhus fever, &c., but I think it might
with more propriety be called typhoid bilious fever. The symptoms
varied much. In some cases the nervous system was seriously
affected, in others but very little; the pulse in some cases was
full, in others small and frequent; in some instances the skin
was moist, in others dry; some were costive, others were affected
with diarrhoea; in some the mind was clear, in others there was
wild delirium. The tongue was read and dry, sometimes cracked,
and the teeth, gums and fauces coated with dark sordes. It
lasted from fourteen to thirty days, and sometimes longer, and
prevailed in Caroline through 1820-1824."

Among the many Caroline families treated for this malady,
during this period, were the Buckners, Catletts, Lomaxes, Dixons,
Conways and Chandlers, and the Motleys, Tylers and Thorntons
on the Mattaponi. The treatment used by Dr. Anderson was
small doses of calomel and opium, spirits of nitre, camphor and
blisters. In advanced cases, when the fever had declined, he
says he "used whiskey, Peruvian bark, serpentaria, chamomile,
&c."

Dr. Anderson was not a slave to the medical routine of the
times, but, on the contrary, he made many startling innovations
and departures. It is said that he freely used cold drinks and
crushed ice in fevers many years before he saw such treatment
recommended in any medical work. Especially effective was the
use of crushed ice in the treatment of the congestive chills which

frequently appeared along the Mattaponi. In these cases the
skin would be bathed in sweat, the extremities cold, the pulse
feeble, the breathing short and hurried, the heart quick and
feeble, and the thirst insatiable, while consciousness remained.
Instead of stimulants, which only increased the internal fires,
Dr. Anderson gave crushed ice until the sweat dried, extremities
became warm, pulse reappeared, and reaction was established.
The record is that he never lost a congestive fever patient unless
the collapse was so profound as to incapacitate for swallowing.

In bilious fevers Dr. Anderson prescribed watermelon juice
and buttermilk as the sole article of diet. An amusing incident
in his experience is told by his son, Dr. L. B. Anderson, in "Brief
Biographies of Virginia Physicians." While visiting a patient
in the home of Judge Stanard, an elderly gentleman of convivial
habits, who was also a guest of the Judge, asked Dr. Anderson
to prescribe for a swelling in his feet and legs. The Doctor,
believing that at best he could only relieve a man possessed of
such habits, prescribed a compound jalap powder every other
night for three nights, whereupon the gentleman responded,
"I can't take it, sir; I can't take it." After a pause the Doctor
said, "Well, Sir, what is your objection to taking what I
prescribe?" To which the gentleman made reply, "Sir, when
I was a boy my mother thought I needed some medicine, and
sent me to Dr. Bankhead for a prescription. He wrote my mother
to give me a dose of jalap. She weighed it out and tried to put
it in a tablespoon but it could not hold it. She then put it in
my grandmother's ladle, but before she had put enough honey
in to mix, it ran over and then she mixed it in a plate, and I ate
it as one would eat milk and mush." After a pause, as if in deep
thought, the Doctor asked, "Will you be kind enough to tell me,
sir; what effect it had on you." "Why, sir," responded the
gouty gentleman, "it acted for eight consecutive days and night,
and has been acting off and on ever since, and I have sworn never
to take another grain of jalap as long as I live." Amid great
laughter the Doctor withdrew his prescription, and expressed his
entire approval of the oath.

Among the physicians with whom Dr. Anderson was associated
in the practice of medicine, during the earlier years of his career
were Doctors Berkeley, Honeyman (father and son), Lewis,
Holliday, Curtis, Morris, Carmichael, Browne, Durrett, Meux,
Wolford, Coleman, Pendleton, Sheppard, Minor, and French.

Among those with whom he was associated in his later life may
be mentioned Doctors Urquhart, Gravatt, Glassel, Benjamin
Anderson, Thornton, Scott, Morris, Tyler, Taylor, Pendleton,
George Carmichael, Waller, DeJarnette, Smith, Nicholas, Terrell,
Rowzie, Fleming, Swann and Flippo.

Dr. J. A. Flippo attended Dr. Anderson in his last illness.
He died on May 3, 1872, aged eighty years, and on May 5, was
laid to rest in the old burying ground of "Topping Castle." The
study of medicine seems to have had a peculiar fascination for
both paternal and maternal branches of the Anderson family.
He had a son, Dr. L. B. Anderson, who was born in Caroline and
who practiced in Norfolk many years, a grandson; Dr. Herman
B. Anderson, of Hanover county; two brothers, Dr. John M.
Anderson who settled in Texas, and Dr. Horace F. Anderson who
settled in Tennessee; three nephews, Dr. Monroe W. Anderson,
of Clarkesville, Ky., Dr. Zebulon M. P. Anderson, of Texas, and
Dr. Clopton Anderson, of Tennessee. The following were among
his cousins who followed the profession of medicine: Doctors
Archibald Anderson, Benjamin Anderson, Matthew T. Anderson,
Matt. Archy Anderson, John B. Anderson (of Louisa) and
A. W. Clopton and John G. Trevilian, of Richmond.