Dr. Charles S. Tripler
Go here for a copy of the
"Handbook for the Military Surgeon,"
by Dr. Tripler
Handbook for the military surgeon
Information from Rutkow: History of Medicine, p. 44
On June 26,
1920, the Department Hospital, Territory of Hawaii, was redesignated
Tripler Army Hospital in honor of Charles Stuart Tripler, Brig. Gen.
MD.,
U.S. Army Medical Department.
It may seem unusual
to honor a man who's career seemed outwardly uneventful. During his
lifetime he was never publicly recognized for his contributions to
military medicine.
This 19th century
medical department officer, veteran of three wars and author of one of
the most widely read manuals in Army medical history, the "Manual of the
Medical Officer of the Army of the United States," has left a legacy of
his works that still serve as an inspiration to the current operations
at Tripler.
It was only after his
death, following repeated petitions friends and
Tripler's wife
that President Andrew Johnson promoted Tripler to a brigadier general.
The orders, signed by Johnson, on March 7, 1867, gave the date-of-rank
as March 13, 1865. Charles Stuart Tripler was born Jan. 19, 1806, in New
York City. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in
New York in 1827 and served in the city's Bellevue Hospital. He entered
the Army at West Point, New York, and received a commission as an
assistant surgeon in 1830.
rmy medical practice
of the time was crude and rudimentary. There was no system to remove the
wounded from the field of battle at the time and sanitation measures
were ineffective. But due to Tripler's perseverance, many of these
hazards were corrected.
In 1835, Tripler saw
his first combat action in the Florida Seminole War. After three years
in Florida, he was sent to Detroit Barracks, Mich., where he married
Eunice Hunt on March 2, 1841. In 1846, Tripler, then an Army surgeon,
was made medical director of a regular troop division during Gen.
Winfield Scott's advance against Mexico City in the Mexican War. He was
reassigned to New Orleans in 1848.
Four years later, he
accompanied troops to the West Coast via Panama on a harrowing journey
in which he cared for men plagued with cholera, malaria and dysentery.
Upon returning East for Duty at Newport Barracks, KY., in 1858, Tripler
wrote and published his famous "Manual of the Medical Officer of the
Army of the United States."
Prior to publication
of his manual, the pages of another Tripler-authored book rolled off the
presses of the printing firm of Wrightson and Company, New York City,
and received a drab brown cover stamped in gold lettering.
This manual was to
become the bible of countless thousands of medical officers who followed
Tripler by standardizing the physical requirements for Army recruits. He
may have never known it, but his publications were widely read by a
majority of the Army physicians of that era.
In 1861, Tripler
wrote, "Handbook for the
Military Surgeon," with Dr. George C. Blackman.
He received $350 for the first 750
copies of the manual from the War Department. He intended to revise the
book but failed to have the original copyrighted before he died.
Tripler's two manuals
may have seemed inconspicuous at first, but he was attempting to
standardize many of the Army's medical practices.
Also in 1860, at the
beginning of the Civil War, Tripler became the first medical director of
the Army of the Potomac. He was with Union General McClellan during the
bloody peninsular campaign, ending with a series of Battles of the Seven
Days before Richmond. While Confederate General Robert E. Lee still
controlled the South's capital, Tripler was ordered to Detroit as chief
surgeon of the Department of the Lakes.
Tripler died Oct. 20,
1866, in Cincinnati, and was buried with military honors in Detroit. His
grave was later marked by a monument erected by subscription from
Medical Corps officers.
________________
CHARLES STUART TRIPLER*
Medical Corps
(19 January 1806-20 October 1866)
CHARLES STUART TRIPLER (January
19, 1806-October 20, 1866), Brevet Brigadier General, U. S. Army, a
distinguished member of the medical corps, was born on the "Bowery" in
New York City. His father, whose name has not come down to us, was a
merchant of English decent. His mother was a daughter of Hugh Stuart,
formerly governor of Bermuda. On account of reverses in his father’s
business Charles was apprenticed while still a small boy, to an
apothecary, Dr. Stephen Brown, who was also a graduate in medicine. He
was given a good practical education in his off hours and in 1823 began
the study of medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons where he
was graduated in 1827. Then followed a period of service as resident
physician at Bellevue Hospital, during which he went through an epidemic
of smallpox and contracted the disease himself. About this time he was
offered a position with the East India Company, but, with an eye already
upon the army medical service, he declined. He went instead to West
Point where he entered the family of Surgeon Walter V. Wheaton,
assisting him,. in his post duties and in some private practice. He made
many friends among the officers of the garrison and, being a keen
student, was permitted to take the courses in mathematics and languages
with the cadet classes. While thus engaged he obtained permission to
take the examination for the medical service and was commissioned as an
assistant surgeon on October 30, 1830. His first stations were Houlton
and Eastport in Maine on the New Brunswick border. Then, after a period
of field duty in the Red River country of Louisiana, he went to Baton
Rouge Barracks for station. Following the outbreak of the Seminole War
in December 1835, he was sent to Florida early in the following year
where for three years he saw much field duty against the elusive Indians
of that state.
In 1839 he was. sent to duty at
Buffalo Barracks, N. Y., and in January 1840 to Detroit Barracks, Mich.
Here on March 2, 1841, he was married to Eunice Hunt, daughter of
Captain Thomas Hunt, a former army officer, but at this time serving as
Register of the Land Office in Detroit. He was still at Detroit
______________________________
Charles Stuart Tripler*
Medical Corps
(19 January 1806-20 October 1866)
CHARLES STUART TRIPLER (January 19, 1806-October
20, 1866), Brevet Brigadier General, U. S. Army, a distinguished member
of the medical corps, was born on the "Bowery" in New York City. His
father, whose name has not come down to us, was a merchant of English
decent. His mother was a daughter of Hugh Stuart, formerly governor of
Bermuda. On account of reverses in his father’s business Charles was
apprenticed while still a small boy, to an apothecary, Dr. Stephen
Brown, who was also a graduate in medicine. He was given a good
practical education in his off hours and in 1823 began the study of
medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons where he was
graduated in 1827. Then followed a period of service as resident
physician at Bellevue Hospital, during which he went through an epidemic
of smallpox and contracted the disease himself. About this time he was
offered a position with the East India Company, but, with an eye already
upon the army medical service, he declined. He went instead to West
Point where he entered the family of Surgeon Walter V. Wheaton,
assisting him,. in his post duties and in some private practice. He made
many friends among the officers of the garrison and, being a keen
student, was permitted to take the courses in mathematics and languages
with the cadet classes. While thus engaged he obtained permission to
take the examination for the medical service and was commissioned as an
assistant surgeon on October 30, 1830. His first stations were Houlton
and Eastport in Maine on the New Brunswick border. Then, after a period
of field duty in the Red River country of Louisiana, he went to Baton
Rouge Barracks for station. Following the outbreak of the Seminole War
in December 1835, he was sent to Florida early in the following year
where for three years he saw much field duty against the elusive Indians
of that state.
In 1839 he was. sent to duty at Buffalo Barracks, N. Y., and in
January 1840 to Detroit Barracks, Mich. Here on March 2, 1841, he was
married to Eunice Hunt, daughter of Captain Thomas Hunt, a former army
officer, but at this time serving as Register of the Land Office in
Detroit. He was still at Detroit
when, in May 1846, the Mexican War began on the Rio Grande. He
accompanied the Detroit garrison under Colonel Bennett Riley to Newport
Barracks, Ky., and thence by way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to
New Orleans. The army of General Scott was assembled at Lobos Island,
sixty miles south of Tampico, Mexico, in the latter part of February
1847, and early in March effected a landing at Sacrificios, near Vera
Cruz, and laid siege to that city, which capitulated near the end of the
month. In the organization of the army, Tripler, who had been advanced
to the grade of surgeon on July 7, 1838, was assigned as medical
director of General Twigg’s division of regular troops. In that capacity
he participated in the battles incident, to the march to Mexico
City—Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and
Chapultepec. General Twigg in his reports speaks in ‘high praise of the
devoted service of Tripler and his assistants during these battles.
Tripler, however, in reporting upon the health of the army from Puebla,
under date of July 6, 1847, cites the factors which were responsible for
the scourge of fevers, diarrhoeas, and dysentery which had struck the
troops. He gave first place to the inferior physical stamina of the men
who had been recruited for the war, with the influences of climate,
uncleanliness, deficiencies in clothing and shelter, and the use of
native foods as important though secondary factors.
Upon the capture of Mexico City on September 14, each division
established its own hospital which operated until December, when Tripler
was assigned by the newly appointed Medical Director Satterlee to the
duty of organizing and operating a general hospital for the army. For
this purpose he was given the Bishop’s palace, the Governor's palace,
the Iturbide palace, the Inquisition, the College of Mines, and the
convent of Santa Isabella. Much difficulty was experienced in its
operation on account of the wide dispersion of the buildings, the
shortage of medical officers, and the inferior quality of the personnel
obtainable for the service of the hospital. On the whole, its
administration by Tripler was decidedly creditable.
March 5, 1848, brought the armistice, and in April the patients from
the general hospitals in Mexico City and Puebla were sent to Jalapa
under charge of Tripler and Surgeon P. H. Craig, and in May they were
transferred to New Orleans under the care of Craig.
The war ended, Tripler returned to his post at Detroit Barracks,
where he served until 1850, when the post was abandoned and he was
transferred to Fort Gratiot, Michigan, near the outlet of Lake Huron.
Shortly before leaving Detroit he was sent as a delegate by the Michigan
State Medical Society to the annual meeting of the American Medical
Association in Cincinnati in May 1850. Surgeon General Lawson took
advantage of the opportunity and appointed him to represent the Medical
Department of the Army at the meeting. This was the first occasion when
the army was represented at the meetings of the national society.
In June 1852 he was ordered to New York to accompany troops to the
west coast by way of Panama. The trip across the isthmus was by boat up
the Chagres river as far as possible and then on overland march to the
City of Panama. Cholera, malaria, diarrhoea, and dysentery caused
terrific morbidity and many deaths. Tripler, the only medical attendant,
had an experience passing anything that he had ever before gone through.
It was not until two years later that the Panama railroad was put
through.
In California he served two years in San Francisco where he engaged
in, a flourishing private practice which helped in those boom days of
extortionate prices. Two more years at Benicia Barracks and he returned
east by way of Panama to join his wife and family whom he had left in
Detroit. In April 1856 he took station at Newport Barracks, Ky., across
the Ohio from Cincinnati. This post was at the time the recruit depot
for all the western country. The issues which later brought on the Civil
War were already agitating the country and the garrison at Newport was
divided as was the country at large. Every interest and sentiment drew
Tripler toward the Northern cause. With rumors of strife in the air and
haying in mind the experience of the Mexican War, he prepared his
Manual of the Medical Officer of the Army of the United States,
published in Cincinnati in 1858. Apparently the first of a projected
series, this volume is devoted entirely to the subject of recruiting,
the physical requirements, and the physical examination of the recruit.
Immediately upon its appearance Tripler’s book was accepted throughout
the army as the authoritative last word on recruit requirements. This
effect was heightened when in 1866 a second edition was issued from the
Government Printing Office. In 1884 an Epitome of Tripler’s Manual,
edited by Major Charles R. Greenleaf, was published as a Government
document.
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