Medicine in Early BIngham County
Early doctoring, and the the illustrious Dr. Mote
10/14/20269 min read
Above, Dr. Patrie with his new car to make house calls for the County.
In late nineteenth century Idaho, anyone could claim to be a doctor and advertise his business. Not until the century's end was any government oversight enacted. Bingham County sported some questionable physicians in those early days, men with questionable bedside manner by today's standards considering some of their public actions. Dr. O'Callaghan, for instance, well into his cups and upset, fired a shot at the Keeney House innkeeper in 1880. That was a precursor to a more serious action five years later. Then, a patient was accusing him of giving him medicine that made him act irrationally. The sheriff was brought in and both parties escalated their complaints until some nights later, O'Callaghan was in his office drinking and heard an intruder, suspected it was the patient and shot him dead through the window. It wasn't the patient. O'Callaghan received a death sentence that was commuted to life, then was aroled after ten years with the stipulation he never come back to Idaho.
Not to be outdone, Pocatello Dr. Rooker shot his negro porter dead, thinking he had stolen from him after a forced eviction. He was exonerated of murder on the grounds of self-defense.
Medical care at the time might be provided by university-trained doctors, self-taught practitioners, midwives, or outright charlatans. They advertised aggressively, guaranteed cures for all diseases without fear of recourse by government regulators. But once Idaho achieved statehood in 1890, the legislature moved to tighten up laws that allowed anyone to call themselves a doctor—but perhaps the legislation was not tight enough. Dr. Lester T. Mitchell, practicing at Idaho Falls (which was still in Bingham County) was appointed as County Coroner and head of the Board of Pharmacy. Like O'Callaghan, he had his irascible moments, pistol whipping a man in the street in 1891 and stabbing the manager of the Central Drug Store in 1895.
Mitchell was still practicing in Idaho Falls in 1897 when he was charged with not having a medical license. New legislation had put in question medical degrees the state had once accepted and doctors were expected to prove their expertise on a new test. Mitchell claimed to have a diploma from Old King's College in London, but the medical board said they had been in communication with King's College and no record of him attending existed. Mitchell would appeal.
Not until 1919 would Idaho have a Board of Medical Examiners. New practitioners had to graduate from reputable, accredited institutions. This move joined similar actions across the nation and were inspired by a far-reaching academic report made by Graham Flexner in 1910. His landmark paper condemned the quality of American medical education and he graded institutions by their efforts and results. A quarter century after his work, the number of medical schools had halved to 76, and only a few were proprietary—institutions that you just had to pay to get into with few questions asked. A uniformity of standards and entrance requirements arose. Earlier, only two medical schools had required a college degree, most required no college attendance, and some didn't even require high school graduation. One medical official had once called the profession "filled with recruits, deficient...in abilities or acquirements...too often indolent and averse to bodily exertion...too stupid for the Bar...too immoral for the Pulpit."
Dentists and eye doctors regularly stopped in Blackfoot to practice for a day or two, setting up shop in a hotel. Doctors were somewhat less itinerant, though they flitted from town to town, perhaps unable to establish enough trade to achieve their monetary goals. Dr. Behle was practicing in Blackfoot in 1890, and when the Indian Agency doctor was absent took care of 42 Native pupils who were suffering from scarlet fever. Behle presented a $650 bill to the County for the indigent care he had provided in 1892—roughly twenty-five thousand dollars adjusted to today's money; not such a bad take. Dr. Frank Mitchell, a lifelong Idahoan from Weiser, put up his shingle in Blackfoot in 1903, and welcomed a partner, Dr. T. A. Snook, just a year after.
Dr. Monroe, a Wisconsinite, was working Blackfoot in 1898, as was Dr. Cooper. Monroe, in the spirit of capitalism's supply-and-demand, touted that he was cutting his pharmacy rates from a dollar to write a prescription to half of that. He no doubt hoped he would sell more medicines at his store as a result.
Dr. J.H. Murray, from Montana, joined Monroe in early 1899. Monroe had served as a doctor in Cuba at the battle of San Juan and specialized in "diseases of the eye, ear, throat and female troubles." He later relocated to Custer where his wife gave birth to triplets, all boys, and then moving to Buhl. Monroe was arrested in 1910 at his new office there for selling alcohol—the new laws passed in the frenzy of pre-Prohibition allowed doctors to dispense alcohol medicinally, a notion with multiple interpretations by patient, doctor and lawman. The law essentially turned the doctor's office and pharmacy into a liquor store. Monroe would be sued for performing a 'miscarriage' against a woman's will in Twin Falls in 1923, but was found not guilty.
Blackfoot's Dr. Frank Mitchell had faced a similar charge in 1908 in Blackfoot, when his young patient, a Rigby school teacher seeking an abortion, died under his care. He was charged but released, while those who arranged the procedure—friends seeking to help her, the father simply wishing his responsibilities away—were hounded, prosecuted, and jailed. Mitchell had graduated from Barnes Medical College Graduate, an institution that would be excoriated by Flexner because they accepted students who hadn't even graduated high school. The school also got failing marks in all other rating categories. He called it "feeble and without promise." A lifelong Weiser resident, he had relocate to Blackfoot in 1903, joining forces with Dr. Snook.
Blackfoot's Dr. Cooper would also face the long arm of the law. He was arrested for practicing without a license in late 1900—just months after facing the same charge and being fined fifty dollars. His second offense yielded a thirty day jail sentence and a $150 fine. He appealed and was released on bond, was practicing again within two months. In 1905, he was back in jail yet again for practicing without a license., but was eventually found not guilty at a Supreme Court appearance—the recently enacted law regarding licensing had been declared unconstitutional on a technicality. Cooper returned to practice in Blackfoot in 1906.
Dr. W.E. Patrie joined the doctor parade in 1899. He was the son of Washington's Secretary of State and obtained his instruction at the Ensworth Institute, a school which Flexner, in his extensive study, lambasted, calling its laboratories weak, clinical facilities wholly inadequate, and categorizing it as low-tier proprietary commercial school that should be eliminated. Patrie moved around a lot—to Silver City, to Boise, then to Nome, Alaska toward the end of the Gold Rush there. He went on to Puget Sound, then to Mackay to work as a mining company physician, before becoming Bingham County's official physician in 1906. (the attached photo shows him with his new car, used to make house calls through the County) Unlike most of his predecessors, he was here to stay, keeping his office open in Blackfoot until 1947.
The outlying areas of the county, opened up by the Carey Act irrigation projects and settled by dry farming dreamers, drew doctors, too. In March 1911, Dr. J.H. Jones had closed on a deal for a lot in the townsite of the newly formed village of Sterling, his wife intending to start a millinery in the building to be used for his practice. His stint didn't last long, the building repossessed in August 1912 and placed on a sheriff's sale. He and his wife were in Roberts just two years later before both were committed to the Insane Asylum. In 1915, Mrs. Jones' brother, from Iowa, offered to take both back to his home where he would place the doctor in an institution and take care of her privately. Authorities, convinced of that plan, permitted them to leave the asylum to prepare for the move.
But they absconded, and were reported missing, unseen for a week. They were believed to be "demented through the use of some drug"—cocaine, it was later revealed. The couple was found in a Dubois hotel with bullet holes through their temples, a .32 caliber revolved in Dr. Jones' hand.
Taber had its own doctor, too. Dr. Evans wore several hats, filing on land roughly where the Taber labor camp still stands and managing the Taber Mercantile. He was practicing medicine in early 1916 in that area before moving to Blackfoot 1918, Sugar City in 1919, and buying twenty acres on the Reservation south of Ferry Butte.
Dr. C.E. Bryant, an Ohioan, showed up in Pingree about that time, after thirty years of practice in Oklahoma and Colorado fancying the idea of becoming a farmer out west. He was well known for his bold relocation, earlier in his career, from Ohio to Oklahoma—unhappy with real estate values in Cleveland, he dismantled his fifteen room house and sent it on the train to Muskogee to be reassembled.
In Blackfoot, new doctors kept showing up. Dr. Halsey in 1910, taking Dr. Jacobs' practice. Halsey was a graduate of Rush Medical College—which Flexner would extol as a premier teaching institution. Five doctors were then in business in Blackfoot, a town with a 2200 population (the County's population was about ten times that). Halsey would stay just a year, leaving to practice in a lumber camp in Wisconsin.
With minimal government oversight and the vast communicational gaps at the time, just about anyone could move about the country freely and claim fraudulently to have medical credentials. J.O. Mote, a doctor that settled in Sterling in 1916, leasing the hotel there, knew this, having 'practiced' medicine in Utah and several midwest states for thirty years before settling in Sterling.
Mote had advertised himself in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1884 as a graduate of New York's American Medical and Surgical Institute in New York—not truly a school at all but "a private commercial/itinerant medical practice or treatment facility run by physicians traveling to local hotels for consultations" as a commercial enterprise. He gained notoriety there just months into his practice, exposed by the janitor at Keokuk, another college Mote had attended (Keokuk would be closed under intense pressure from AMA in 1908). The janitor, well acquainted with Mote, "wondered how a student could so quickly gain his profession." The local newspaper described him as a "young man of erect carriage, a high forehead, black moustache and short side whiskers." He wore a pepper and salt coat, his demeanor convincing enough to cheat the Council Bluffs newspaper of it of advertising fees before he hurriedly left town.
Mote moved on to Fort Scott, Kansas where he advertised permanent cures for cancers, piles, fistulas, and tumors "without using the knife or caustics." After just a few days he left town, again shorting the local newspaper of their advertising fees. Mote also left without paying his landlord or his bootblack. The newspaper editor noted that he took the editor's overcoat.
He fled to in Illinois in 1886, claiming he not only had graduated from Keokuk but Rush Medical College (Rush would be considered a premier facility by Flexner). The Monmouth sheriff checked up on Mote's claim and found his Keokuk credentials revoked. Just days later, in Peoria, he had a run-in with the law again—this time while posing as "Dr. Foxworthy", an alias he would use again. He was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses and jumping a board bill.
The saga of Mote and his encounters with the law continued in Joplin, Missouri, in 1899, where he was arraigned for practicing medicine without a license. He plead guilty and was fined $50, left town for his next adventure—this time in Utah., where he was arrested in Provo with his 'wife' after jumping a hotel bill for their three day stay. In Provo, Mote had introduced himself to the County Physician using his old alias, J.O. Foxworthy, from Iowa. The County official, after speaking with Mote-Foxworthy and swallowing the story hat he was in fact a doctor, escorted Mote to the Reynolds House.
It soon turned out, upon investigation, that he was already staying at the Hotel Roberts—as Dr. Mote, though he had been introducing himself on the street as Dr. Sheldon. Mote-Foxworthy-Sheldon and his consort, upon being discovered, left the city, hiring a team and buggy and heading to American Fork, where he promptly stiffed the local hostelry. When all this news reached the Provo Sheriff, he went to Pleasant Grove where he found Mote holed up in the city's finest hotel, the Merrihew House.
Mote was arrested but "Mrs. Mote" was let free. Mote claimed she was not his wife at all but a "Mrs. Hartzel" from Brigham City, whose husband was in the hospital at Ogden. Mote had known her in Iowa and she had "frozen on" to him—he was "anxious to get rid of her." The newspaper described the woman as nattily dressed, tall and blonde and about 32 years of age, somewhat younger than Mote, who was described as wearing a threadbare-coat. Mote claimed he had practiced medicine in Salt Lake as early as 1884, though that statement might be skewed a bit—he appears in a 1891 newspaper clipping, hinting he might set up practice, finding the city favorable. Mote escaped custody just a day after being jailed, was spotted spending the night in Lehi, then heading north on the train.
He must have been heading to Reno, as he was assaulted there in 1907—presumably for good reason, given his past. His next stop was Gentile Valley in southeast Idaho, where he was charged in 1915 with bad check writing. He moved north to Bingham County shortly after. Suffering from tuberculosis of the bone, he underwent surgery.
In May of 1916 he was doctoring in Sterling, Idaho and also practicing in Springfield from the Lakeside Hotel, as well. He eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1919 and was buried at the Springfield cemetery—Mrs. Mote then moved his remains to Blackfoot, and took up medical practice herself. She would continue to serve as a doctor, presumably without any credentials, in the Sterling area for the next five years.
