Uncle Doctor

By Alice Askins, Education Coordinator at Rose Hill Mansion

Robert Swan’s youngest brother Frederick wrote a history of the Swan family in the 1890s.  In it, he talks about their Uncle Daniel, or, as they called him, “Uncle Doctor:”

 [H]e made choice of the profession of medicine, and studied with Dr. John Brooks, then the resident physician of Medford.  . . . Early in his practice, his attention was directed to the system of medical practice known as homeopathy and it won his approval.

Daniel Swan

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine created in 1796 by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), based on a doctrine of like cures like.  Hahnemann believed that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people.  Older practitioners had proposed this idea.  Around 400 BC, Hippocrates prescribed a small dose of mandrake root to treat mania, because mandrake produces mania in large doses.  In the 1500s, Paracelsus stated that small doses of “what makes a man ill also cures him.”   The same assumption encouraged people to treat the bite of a rabid dog by placing hair from the dog in the bite wound.   (One can only assume that not all of the offending dogs were rabid, or people would have noticed that this never helped.)

Hahnemann believed that diseases were caused by “miasms,” or “infectious principles.” He thought there were three of  miasms and each were associated with specific diseases.  His hardest-working miasm was psora (Greek for “itch”).  According to Hahnemann, Psora was related to itching, and caused other ills like epilepsy, cancer, jaundice, deafness, and cataracts.  Conventional medicine, Hahnemann thought, merely suppressed symptoms, and drove the miasm deeper to create more serious ailments.  

While Hahnemann believed in treatments that produced disease-like effects, he also found that undiluted doses intensified patient symptoms, sometimes dangerously.  He decided that the remedies should be weaker.  His remedies were made by copiously diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, then striking the mixture repeatedly against something with a little give to it – Hahnemann used a striking board of wood, stuffed with horsehair and covered with leather.  He believed that the striking activated the “vital energy” of the diluted substance and made it stronger.  In fact, he usually diluted remedies well past the point where any molecules of the original substances remained in them.

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Homeopathy, which enjoyed a certain resurgence in the late 20^th century, uses animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances in its remedies. Examples include arsenic oxide, table salt, bushmaster snake venom, opium, and thyroid hormone. Homeopaths also use treatments made from diseased products – blood, tissue, and fecal, urinary, and respiratory discharges.  

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, mainstream doctors were bleeding and purging patients. They administered such complex mixtures as Venice treacle, made from 64 ingredients including opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh.  These treatments often worsened symptoms and sometimes killed patients.  Hahnemann offered a simpler, gentler regimen.  During the early 1800s homeopathy grew increasingly popular for its apparent success in treating people during epidemics.  Homeopathic hospitals often had lower death rates than conventional hospitals, where treatments were ineffective and often harmful.  Though less harmful homeopathic treatments were equally ineffective (except, perhaps, for the placebo effect).

What might have drawn Daniel Swan to homeopathy?  One thought is that he had a fair amount to do with his experience traditional doctors when he was a boy.  He was lame for most of his life and Frederick wrote that Daniel’s problems started when he was 11.  According to Daniel’s sister Hannah, his

. . . lameness was caused by a white swelling, which came on his right knee some weeks after he had the small pox with the rest of the children in 1792 – by inoculation . . . Daniel’s white swelling continued to increase and he was sent to Tewksbury for medical attendance of Dr. Kittridge and boarded with Mr. Baird a farmer in Tewksbury . . . while with him . . . [Daniel] sat on a pile of wet boards and took a cold which brought on a fever and he became delirious and hardly slept for a week.  Dr. Kittridge said he must have some sleep and ordered a teaspoonful of laudanum to be given to him and if that did not put him to sleep to give him a full tablespoonful, and if that had no effect to give him half a teacup full.  [Laudanum is an extract of opium mixed with alcohol, containing about 10% powdered opium by weight.]  This was all given him before he fell asleep but after the last was given he fell asleep and slept 22 hours.  The family became alarmed and called for Dr. Kittridge.  He told them not to be concerned [,] that it was all right, but when he came the next morning, his first question was: “is he alive.”  [Daniel] soon awoke . . . and soon got well . . . Sometime after, he was sliding on some ice . . . and hit his leg several inches below the lame knee and had a bad cut . . . which was some weeks in healing  . . . Not long after this . . . he slipped and fell backwards and put the lame knee out of joint.  It caused a bad swelling and more lameness, both of which became permanent and from which he never recovered.  For many years he had to walk with a crutch, which he was not able to dispense with until the year before he went to Harvard College, 1799[,] when he was able to walk with a cane which he has never been able to dispense with.  . . .

With such a history, it is not surprising that Daniel was interested in medicine and why he liked the idea of a system that used tiny doses of remedies.  Like other homeopathic physicians, he would have found his success rates at least as good as those of traditional doctors of the time. Even in the 19^th century, mainstream doctors disapproved of homeopathy, but “though many physicians differed with him theoretically, they all accorded to him conscientious convictions and great skill in his profession.”

New York City Draft Riots

By Alice Askins, Site Manager of Rose Hill 

In July of 1863, Congress created a military draft and New York City men rioted in protest.

Most of the rioters were working-class Irishmen.  They were angry about several things:  they resented being required to go to war; they resented that wealthier men could pay a $300 fee and hire a substitute for the army; they feared having to compete with freed slaves for jobs; and they were aggrieved because black Americans (who were not considered citizens) were not subject to the draft.  The draft protest soon turned into an ugly race riot.  The police were overwhelmed.

President Lincoln sent several militia and volunteer regiments to control the city.  Unfortunately the soldiers did not arrive until the third day of violence, when mobs had looted and destroyed fifty public buildings, churches, and houses.  Rioters especially targeted black peoples' homes and the properties of abolitionists.  Nobody knows the numbers for sure, but at least 100 African Americans were murdered, and at least two thousand people were injured.  The rioting started on Monday, July 13, and was finally put down by the arriving troops on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here in Fayette, Robert Swan wrote to his father Benjamin  in New York on July 27, 1863, about the draft. 

The Draft has taken place in Auburn Cayuga Co. for this District & quite a number of my neighbors have been drawn, vz Mr. Faster & his hired man, two of Mrs Stacey’s sons, William & George, one of James Rogers sons, & one of the Kimes boys & both of Mr Noyes hired men.  There was no disturbance all was quiet down at Auburn.  At Seneca Falls they were beginning to be very noisy & they sent for the Sheriff & his posse who went down & soon made order and good feeling.  The Draft in Ontario Co at Canandaigua takes place for the Town of Seneca. . .they have a good military force stationed at Canandaigua to repress any disorder that may arrise & which ought to have been the case in the City of N. Y.  No one on this farm was Drafted.

Benjamin Lincoln Swan, ca. 1863

Robert Sawn

It is difficult to decide exactly what Robert thought about the Civil War, from what he said about it in a letter to his brother Edward in February of 1861:

. . . I think the South has committed wrong and is doing all she can, yes more than all the Rabid Abolitionists, to free their slaves and to improve themselves. . .  Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated on the 4^th of March next and then we will see what they will do.  Already the Northern rodes and cities are being benefitted by the insane and suicidal policy of the Seceding States, poor and starving, making war upon the Federal Government is all nonsense and it really makes me vexed to see Northern men go on and make such fools of themselves about the South. . . [Southerners] are not honest or they would have like men stated their grievances and taken a constitutional mode of redress.  No it is the slave trade. . . they are after, and that the border states know and will never, no never permit. . .

 The best interpretation might be that Robert saw faults on both sides of a complicated issue, and that he assumed that Edward would follow his thinking even if he (Robert) did not explain himself with careful clarity.

From Lake to Table (Fish Dinner from Catch to Table)

By Karen Osburn, Archivist

I was very young when I learned not all the food my family ate came from a store.  My maternal grandfather had operated a small farm before I was born and by the time I arrived on the scene he still kept a few chickens around.  I was the type of child who was fascinated by any 4 legged or 2 winged animal and I loved going to visit Grandpa Henry.  I knew eggs came from those chickens not the grocery store. 

Later, I learned corn, tomatoes, lettuce, beans and squash were grown in our garden, along with some other vegetables I distinctly did not enjoy.  I even got to visit a barn full of sheep and later pigs.  I discovered that you should not bother the sow (female pig) and piglets unless you were able to outrun the pig and the rest of the children who helped you tease her.

Still, the best part of my fresh food experience involved fish.  My father and his father were hobby fisherman.  They loved spending the day by the water, any body of water, and casting in a line with the hope that some large (or medium size) denizen of the deep would deem their bait worthy of a taste.  If the bobber dipped below the surface the battle was on!  Since they fished exclusively fresh water the hook could hold any number of surprises; largemouth bass, small mouth bass, muskellunge, pike, pickerel, bullhead, trout, perch, black bass, rock bass, sunfish, carp or even eel.  Every strike was an adventure for a 6 year old. 

As my family was Roman Catholic and I grew up in the days of no meat Fridays, fresh fish was our alternative.  If there was no fish in the refrigerator we were forced to eat the dreaded creamed canned salmon on potatoes or worse…EGGS!  To this day I seldom eat eggs unless I am out at a restaurant for breakfast.  I became a fish connoisseur early knowing that I favored the fish with fewer bones over the ones with many.  Fish lightly floured and sprinkled with salt and pepper then fried in hot butter was a highly prized luxury for me.  Some of my favorite fish were smelt.  Small finger length fish that could quickly cleaned and prepared. 

With all fish, once the catch is on the hook, in a net or in the boat the next step to a fish dinner is cleaning.  This is where I balked.  I had often watched my dad scale and clean various types of fish, but when he wanted me to help, oh no!  Dad’s explanation was pretty clear.  My mom had cut her finger and if I wanted smelt instead of eggs this Friday I had best sit myself down and toughen up.  Sigh, I wanted smelt so I sat and gulped.  My dad, who often couldn’t figure out how to deal with the 3 women in his house, had an inspired moment using this “food preparation event” to teach me about fish anatomy.  Since you catch smelt in the spring around spawning time it was the perfect time to teach me how to tell a male fish from a female based on their insides.  Before I knew it the cleaning was over, fish were ready for Friday dinner, and I learned something!

So what, you ask, does this story have to do with the Finger Lakes or even the Historical Society?  The answer is multi-faceted.  First Seneca Lake is called the “Lake Trout Capital of the World” and each year the Lake Trout Derby is held on Memorial Day weekend.  Second, most of the fishing my father and I did years ago was in the Finger Lakes, mainly Hemlock and Canadice.  However, from time to time we did manage to go to some of the other Finger Lakes like Honeoye, Seneca, Canadaiqua, Otisco, and Conesus.   I loved them all and considerd myself very fortunate to be able to live in this beautiful spot.  Finally, one of the stories concerning Rose Hill involves a muskellunge (often called a “Muskie”), which Robert Swan bought while in Geneva and brought home for their cook to prepare.  A letter about the meal states the fish was very large, the cook served the fish boiled and nobody cared for it very much.

Well, of course they didn’t!  Muskellunge is a game fish that can grow upward of 50 inches and weigh 30 or more pounds.  It has some “y” shaped bones that need to be removed before cooking, unless you want to take a very long time to pick over your meal.  The fact that the fish grows so large means you should clean any visible fat off it to enhance the flavor and discard the pollutants which collect in the fat.  Of course the cook probably looked at the fish and thought “what will I do with this thing?”  Still, I can’t imagine serving it boiled.  I checked the internet for Muskie recipes and found recommendations for pan frying, baking, grilling and poaching, but not boiling.

I had the opportunity to cook a “Muskie” once and lightly floured it then cooked it with a sprinkle of salt and pepper in hot butter.  It was “WONDERFUL” even though I had to watch extremely carefully for bones.

I think it really is sad that so many children today don’t understand where our food originates.  I doubt many of them have been chased by pigs, ridden a tractor with their father to plow the garden or had the chance to learn about the internal organs of fish while sitting by the sink cleaning smelt.  The Swan children of Rose Hill knew who produced their food and how it arrived on the table.  Many times when I give a tour at Rose Hill and mention the muskellunge I hear, “What is that?”  Thanks to my childhood, I can tell our visitors.

Miss Trout