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Every young physician found in him a practical friend and wise councillor. Dr. Widney is a prophet and a seer. His great work, "Race Life of the Aryan Peoples," is an authority wherever the English language is read. Dr. Widney has a charming home in the suburbs on a street that bears the euphoneous name of Marmion Way. The doctor is a profound lover of nature. His library windows command a beautiful view of the Sierra Madre Mountains. While he was away from home a church was built that cut off this view. This gave him great distress. He immediately, at his own expense, had the church torn down and rebuilt in another location. Today, as evening approaches, the doctor can sit in his library and feast his eyes and his soul on the fascinating shades and colors of the cañons, crags and peaks of our delectable mountains. Dr. Joseph Kurtz was another stalwart figure in Los Angeles thirty-five years ago. He drove a good horse, rode in an excellent "buggy," and was always followed by his favorite bulldog. The doctor was then as ever considerate of the young physician. He was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Medical College (now U. C.), and has been a most efficient teacher there ever since.

April 8th, 1910, on the instructor's register at the college there was this entry:

"Joseph Kurtz
Good-bye to all."

For on that day this forceful teacher, beloved by all, retired from the work. The younger physician who comes to Los Angeles from the East and from the North and the South should read these pages and by so doing he will gain a well merited respect for those who did the pioneer work.

A history of medicine in Southern California would be incomplete without the mention of Dr. Francis L. Haynes, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, who on account of his health left a large practice in Philadelphia and came to Los Angeles in 1887. He was a genuine APOSTLE OF ASEPTIC SURGERY. For ten years he did brilliant work for the poor as well as the rich, and then death's hand was laid upon him. His surgical work attracted the favorable attention of the profession of the whole coast. He was indeed a genius.

Los Angeles is becoming an educational center. Its climate, fertility of soil, beauty of scenery and commercial prosperity are drawing a population that demands the best. In medicine there is an abundance of clinical material, and a large corps of excellent instructors, yet there must be, in addition, a scientific spirit that will overshadow the commercial spirit if the worthy college is to be developed. It is the hope that this modest little work will do something toward quickening the conscience and pointing the way.

Los Angeles, June, 1910.

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THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Compiled by GEORGE H. KRESS, B.S., M.D.,

Associate Editor of the Southern California Practitioner.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL HISTORY.

LANDMARKS IN CALIFORNIA HISTORY.

In order to have some landmarks for the discussion of facts to be later considered it may not be amiss to present a brief summary of a few of the important events in the history of California.1

California has fulfilled in unexpected ways the romantic fancies that were inspired by its name. When the great Cortez sent out his expeditions to explore the northwest coast of America he was fired with the hope of finding another and richer Mexico. What he did find was the bare and forbidding coast of Lower California. In derision, or perhaps with the hope. of reanimating the flagging courage of his men he gave the desolate land the name of California. It was already the name of romance. Montalvo, in his fanciful tale of "Sergas de Esplandian," published in 1510, tells that "on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very near to the terrestrial paradise, which was peopled with black women without any men among them because they were accustomed to live after the fashion of Amazons. Their arms were all of gold, and so were the caparisons of the wild beasts they rode after having tamed them, for in all the island there is no other metal." So, in bitter jest at the contrast between his hopes and reality, Cortez christened the new land, and in due time California astonished the world with its stores of gold and the marvelous fertility of its soil.

The State of California is peculiar in its physical conditions as well as in its history. It stretches for 700 miles along the western coast of the continent, from the latitude of Cape Cod to the latitude of Charleston, S. C. On all that stretch there are few good harbors, yet the central harbor of San Francisco is one of the largest and finest in the world. The State is walled off from the rest of the continent by the range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, running parallel to the coast 7,000 to 15,000 feet high. This configuration produces such modifications of climate that for the 600 miles from San Diego to Redding there is a substantial likeness of climate along north and south line. Snow and ice are practically unknown outside the mountain regions, rains fall in Winter and not in Summer, and fruits of the temperate and sub-tropical lands reach a high development.

The history of California is naturally divided into three eras-the Spanish, the Mexican and the American. The settlement of Upper California was begun under the Franciscan friars and the Spanish Government in 1769.

The missions of California were established by the Franciscans, who were given exclusive control of Lower California in 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled. Later the Dominicans supplanted the Franciscans in the peninsula, when the latter withdrew to Upper California, where they built missions and prospered until Mexico became independent of Spain in 1822. This change in governmental control was fatal to the Franciscans and their religious institutions, and they lost ground from year to year, until 1840, when they

were obliged to disband and the missions were broken up. These establishments are still regarded with great interest as monuments of the devotion and zeal of their founders in the spread of their religion. Some of the mission buildings have fallen into ruin, some have passed out of the possession of the padres and several are still used as places of worship. The names of some of these missions, with dates of establishment, are as follows:

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The Spanish era was that of mission government, the ecclesiastical overshadowing the civil government, but in later years gradually losing its hold. Mexico achieved its independence in 1822 and governed California as a Mexican Territory; the civil arm was strengthened; the missions were stripped of their authority and their lands given to settlers. The American period begins with the hoisting of the American flag at Monterey on the breaking out of the war with Mexico in 1846, followed by the discovery of gold in 1848, the rush of immigration, the admission of the State in 1850 and a rapid development of material resources. The Spanish and Mexican eras were pastoral in their character, the wealth of the inhabitants consisting largely in their herds of horses and cattle. Hides and tallow were the principal exports. In the American era mining was at first the great pursuit, and the product of gold rose rapidly to about $66,000,000 a year. The placers were then largely exhausted, and the gold product soon declined to a secondary interest. The great productiveness of the soil had meanwhile attracted the attention of the men who had come only to make a fortune and return to their homes, and the agricultural interests grew rapidly, until at the taking of the census of 1900 the farm products were reported at a total of $131,690,606. The gold product in the same year was $15,730,000, or a little under the average of the production of the past forty years.

A few of the interesting events in California's history are here enumerated: 1534 Fortuna Ximenes discovers the peninsula of California. 1535-Cortez lands at La Paz (May 3); attempts to establish a colony; names the country California.

1542-Cabrillo discovers Upper California.

1569-Drake lands near Point Reyes; names the country New Albion. 1769-Padre Junipero Serra and Gaspar de Portola found the first mission and permanent settlement of Upper California at San Diego. San Francisco Bay discovered by Portola.

1769-1822-Foundation of missions and presidios from San Diego to

Sonoma.

1811-Russians establish stations at Fort Ross.

1822 California passes from the control of Spain to Mexico.

1834-Mission government abolished. Indians freed and major part of lands and stock divided among those theretofore subject to the missions. First printing press brought to California.

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