We have briefly noticed in our Current Literature Department an article
by Friedenwald in the Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin,
calling attention to the fact that the discovery of the stomach tube should
be properly credited to one of our early American physicians, Dr. P. S. Physick,
and not to Jukes and Bush, the English practitioners, to whom the honor of
its invention has been assigned. It appears clear from this publication that
Dr. Physick had employed the method for years when he published his first
article on the subject in the Eclectic Repertory, Vol.
III, p. 110, October 1812, under the title of "An Account of a New Mode of
Extracting the Poisonous Substances from the Stomach." In a later issue of
the same journal Dr. Physick makes a correction to do justice to Dr. Alexander
Monro, Jr., of Edinburgh, to whom he magnanimously surrenders the credit of
the invention because the latter had mentioned its possibility in a thesis
published in 1797, to which Dr. Physick's attention had been called since
the publication of his article. The fact is, however, as shown by the article,
Dr. Monro never utilized the suggestion, and Dr. Physick conceived the idea
independently and had tubes made for the purpose as early as 1803, and in
his lectures to students, as shown by several communications from former students,
was in the habit of recommending the method at that early date. In those days
the medical and scientific world did not look to America for important inventions,
and it was easy for the English inventors to get the honor as against Dr.
Physick. Credit was given to the former, though little attention seems to
have been paid to the matter. Dr. Friedenwald's article does justice to this
early American pioneer of medicine.