Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1027

ROTHROCK lOOS ROWAN started in on his life work in Mifflin County, settling down to a general practice in McVey- town where he continued almost to the day of his death, on September 9, 1894. Two years after coming to McVeytown, in 1837, the doctor married Phoebe Brinton, daughter of Joseph and Jane Trimble, of Con- cord, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and had three children, two daughters, Ann Amanda and Mary and one son, Dr. Joseph Trimble Rothrock, who rendered great service, not only in medical but also in scientific work. Dr. Rothrock was in the habit of sending his cases of incipient tuberculosis to the "Coal- ings," as the coal hearths were called, where the charcoal was burned. Anyone who has seen the most primitive of cabins occupied by the charcoal burners, can readily see that it must have been the life in the open air far more than the smoke of the smoldering char- coal that effected the cure. Built either round or square at their base and with the roof running to a single point, like an Indian wig- wam, they were constructed of a layer of logs covered over with leaves and dirt as a thatch . with one side left open for the huge stone fire- place and with a door resting up against an- other side. Within, a crude platform served as bed; there were table and chairs, but no windows and the only other articles of furni- ture were the cooking utensils and the tools of the occupants. An excellent shelter they made for snakes, too, and the custom of the wood choppers was to leave a toad in the cabin when they left. If on their return the little tenant was at home it was a good sign, but if he was not to be seen a careful search was next in order to get rid of the snake that had killed it. It can readily be seen that patients sent to such sanitoria were apt to take the fresh air cure most faithfully and many cures were the re- sult, though they were in those days generally supposed to be due to some particular virtue of the smoke from the burning pits. Of magnificent health and unusual muscular strength, he worked with a persistance and energy that would have killed or broken down the average individual. And this life he con- tinued to lead, until death called him as he was nearing his eighty-ninth year. A most devout member of his chosen church (the Presbyterian) it was remarkable to see how so busy a man found time to attend regularly. He was a member of the State Medical So- ciety, holding the position of first vice-presi- dent of this latter organization in 1878. Addison M. Rothrock. Row, Elhanon Winchester (1833-1900). Elhanon W. Row, surgeon, was born in Orange County, Virginia, on November 8, 1833, and after a common school education, taught in a school in Alexandria, Virginia. He read medicine under Dr. David Pannill, of Orange County, then entered the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1858, settling in his native county. At the beginning of the Civil War he joined the Orange Rangers as a private, but was soon commissioned surgeon of the Fourteenth Virginia Cavalry, a position he filled until the surrender at Appomattox. In 1883-84 he was a member of the State Legislature and did noble work in procuring the passage of the act creating the Medical Examining Board. In 1888, as the well earned reward for his work in the Legislature, he was elected presi- dent of the Medical Society of Virginia, and the following year was made an honorary mem- ber of the society. Returning home after the war, he settled at his county-seat, where he continued to prac- tise until his health failed. The writer was intimately acquainted with Dr. Row and can give testimony as to his real work as a friend, a citizen and a physician. He married about 1880, a Miss Newman of Orange County, and an only daughter sur- vived him, his wife and two infant children dying some years before his own decease. For the last two years of his life he was in failing health and unable to do much work. In May, 1900, his strength gave way entirely and on the twenty-third of that month, he rested from his labors. He was not a writer; his only contributions to medical literature that we are aware of is his address as president of the State Society, entitled: "Medical Reform," "Transactions of the Medical Society of Virginia," 1889, and a paper, "Case of Bowel Obstruction, Pro- found Shock, Death," ibid., 1899. Robert M. Slaughter. Trans. Med. Soc. of Virginia, 1900. Rowan, Walter Hawthorne (1875-1917). Walter Hawthorne Rowan, a leading south- ern hygienist and sanitarian, was born in Wes- son, Mississippi in 1875, son of James A. Rowan, M. D. He graduated at the University of Tennessee and received his M. D. at Mem- phis Medical College in 1902; he studied medi- cine, also at Rush Medical College and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. He began his public health work as a field worker for the Rockefeller Foundation Com-