Chapter 17 cont. DR. E. S. BARROWS WRITES. "In compliance with your reqest as the first and oldest physician of Scott county, Iowa, I will proceed to say something of the medical profession from the early part of 1836 to an indefinite period, traveling toward 1860.  If I say too much relating ot self, it will be from a matter of necessity, for I alone, the first year and a half, represented the profession west of the Mississippi for 100 miles north and south and 3,000 miles west.  Therefore be it observed I should not have anything to talk about but territory, without people or doctors, and nothing at all, leaving out myself as one person answering to make up my quota of the social aggregate forming the early history of that domain now enclosed by  lines giving bounds to Scott county. "Whoever esseys to narrate past events of the world will find that no nation can be found which was so rude that it was neither blessed nor cursed, as the case might be, with a profession proposing to deal with the ailings of the body, originally emanating directly from that other class of pretenders who assume to care more particularly for ailments of the soul.  All through the course of human destiny both professions seem to have formed an essential element of the cultivated and the uncultivated, the civilized and the uncivilized, going to make up the human aggregate.  Health and duration of life may be considered the result of intelligent action, and as there is a general desire to preserve the one and prolong the other beyond the accidents of time and place, it seems but reasonable that the early settlers of Scott county should have encouraged a profession which assumes to give the community the benefits of the accumulated medical skill of all the preceding ages.  And who should have been the first to demonstrate the fact that such wisdom was at hand, and ready for business? "With becoming modesty (if not becoming it is at least consistent with the pretentions of that class of professional men who deal mostly with the hidden secrets of human ills), that first doctor, the first between Dubuque and Burlington, located at Rockingham early in 1836, is the writer of this article. "In the autumn of 1836 the first physician who drew a lancet on a prostrate patient was located at Rockingham, and the patient was Antoine LeClaire, of Davenport, who was seriously ill with inflammatory rheumatism.  His physician was Dr. Bardwell, of Stephenson, now Rock Island, a reputable physician and politician from Indiana, who subsequently located and successfully pursued the practice of medicine in the northeast corner of Buffalo township.  After two years' residence he sought more room and a better field for work, at Marion, Linn county, Iowa, where, after a few years, he died lamented.  I was called in council with Dr. Bardwell, November 15, 1836, and hastened to Mr. LeClaire's residence, located where the freight depot now stands.  Found the doctor present, waiting a little impatiently, and received a formal introduction.  Dr. Bardwell expressed a desire to proceed to business, for he had engagements elsewhere, 'not however, professional,' he said, 'as you may see by these articles' (simultaneously raising with each hand a light shoe from both side pockets of his coat); 'there is going to be a dance tonight and I have the honor of being a manager.' "The engagement referred to was a formal celebration of the opening of the first hotel which Davenport was ever favored with, or perhaps that other word, cursed, would be as appropriate, since the locality soon became known as 'Brimstone-Corner.'  Old settlers whose dates go back to that period, when that name is mentioned do not become comfused as to the whereabouts of the locality.  If the mind of a patriot of the Missouri war loses its serenity when he communes with himself, and perhaps fights over the battles of that day, when the first and last drill of the Scott county volunteers paraded on the commons, between the new hotel and the river, the glory achieved then and there will fade into a conviction that this was a new country and the less said by way of apology for that peculiar manner by which we formed new friendships out of very raw material the better it will be, even for 'Brimstone-Corner.'  The building is occupied at present as Steffen's headquarters for lime, cement, sewer pipe, etc. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L