The biographies of Texas' 19th Century medical doctors reveal much more than medical history; they chronicle the lives of men whose influence in Texas extended far beyond their medical practices. Here, in Early Texas Physicians are the biographies of nineteen men who played vital roles not only in the medical health of Texans but in the political and social development of the state. Following an informative introductory essay on the practice of medicine among the thinly scattered, agrarian and rural populations of frontier Texas, seventeen of Texas' influential 21st Century doctors and surgeons of The Texas Surgical Society contribute their research into the lives of these 19th Century doctors and surgeons. Essays on John S. "Rip" Ford, George C. Cupples, Frank Paschal, and Anson Jones, are just a sampling of what can be found in Early Texas Physicians. During the era when epidemic diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, and typhoid ravaged the populations and when people sought far more from their doctors than mere formal training and medical degrees, the book provides a fascinating view of Texas history. Medical science has made enormous advances but, as T. R. Fehrenbach states in his introduction, "we may have lost something, too."

Texas Surgical Society