Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Jeremiah Gilbert

Jeremiah Gilbert was the son of Dr. William Gilbert, the first physician to practice in Fulton County, and the nephew of Dr. Joshua Gilbert, another famous doctor of those days.  Speaking of his father, Jeremiah said:

"He went about on horseback carrying his medicines and equipment in his saddlebags. There was a long lane in front of our house and one day we saw a man walking in the lane toward the house and holding himself with his hands as he came.  He was a drinking man and a fighting man. Somebody had cut him across his abdomen and his entrails had fallen out. He pushed them back in, and, holding himself with his hands, had walked a mile and a half.  As he came up he said to my father, "I want you to sew me up.' My father laid a saddle blanket on the grass under a tree and laid the man on it.  Then he said to me. 'Jerry, get a pan of warm water.' I went to the kitchen, got the pan of warm water and brought it to him. He washed the man off, sewed up the wound and called a man to bring a cart used for hauling manure and put some straw in it.  Then the wounded man was put in the cart and sent home. We had no anaesthetics then and doctors had to work without them, but people could stand more in those days than they do now."

Source: Official History of Fulton County by Walter G. Cooper
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