Flora, Fauna, and Physicians

Flora, Fauna In the last century frontier naturalists extracting arrowheads as well

In the first half of the 19th century, medical education was deeply rooted in the natural sciences. Botany, zoology, and their related disciplines were basic to preparation for the practice of medicine. As a result, the typical military or civilian expedition westward, from the early 1800s to about 1890, listed in its complement a medical doctor capable of cataloging a conifer as well as extracting an arrowhead.

Certainly not all early 19th-century naturalists were physicians. The soldierexplorer John C. Frémont was considered by many to be a gifted, naturalist. Lt. William H. Emory, an engineer during the Mexican War, first described the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) and brought it to the attention of the scientific world. The English-born botanist and ornithologist Thomas Nuttall served for 10 years as curator of the Harvard Botanical Gardens, and traveled through most of Canada and the United States pursuing his studies in botany and ornithology.

A very early, though sketchy, account of an Army expedition with a double-duty doctor is that of the trek of Captain Zebulon Montgomery Pike in 1807. In the group was Dr. John Robinson, who was constantly observing botanical and zoological specimens. However, Dr. Robinson proved a disappointment to Captain Pike (whose memorial is the Colorado peak), for he failed to maintain an adequate field journal and specimen collection.

The doctor-naturalists who followed, accompanying numerous Army probes into the American West, were more meticulous. While not one of the earliest, Dr. Edgar Alexander Mearns was certainly one of the most productive. During his Army career, Mearns was twice assigned to duty in Arizona. He was first stationed at Fort Verde in 1884, where, for four years, he served as post surgeon and made frequent trips into the field to collect specimens. After tours of duty in the Midwest and

and Physicians

more often than not were experts in as cataloging conifers East, Mearns, now a captain, was assigned to the Mexican-United States International Boundary Commission as medical officer from 1891 to 1894. This afforded him the opportunity to conduct field studies of the country between El Paso, Texas, and the Pacific.

The period proved one of the most productive of his career, with nearly 30,000 specimens collected. Before Dr. Mearns' death in 1916, he had published extensively and added thousands of bio logical specimens to the national inven tory. The dramatically marked Mearns' quail named in his honor is an appropriate memorial.

One of the more remarkable docu ments concerning the exploration of the Southwest was published in Washington, D. C., in 1853. It is titled Report of an Expedition Down the Zuni and the Colora do Rivers in 1851. The expedition, headed by Capt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves of the Army Topographic Engineers, had as its surgeon and naturalist S. W. Woodhouse. It was on this expedition that Dr. Woodhouse wrote a, detailed description and named the Abert squirrel after It. James W. Abert of the Topographic Engineers.

While the identification and naming of a species of squirrel may have been exciting for a naturalist, it lacked the drama of being bitten by a rattlesnake. That incident occurred on Wednesday morning, September 17, 1851, near the pueblo of Zuni, a few miles east of the present Ari zona border. In the field to collect some bird specimens, Dr. Woodhouse almost stepped on the rattler. Observing that the snake was a fine specimen, Woodhouse placed the barrel of his rifle on the snake's head and picked up the reptile for his collection. However, the snake managed to turn its head and bury its fangs in the index finger of the doctor's left hand. Woodhouse at once used the cut-and-suck method on the snakebite and followed this with a tourniquet applied to the fin ger. In camp, he washed the wound with ammonia. But all this failed to slow the

flow of pain and poison. More experienced members of the expedition then recommended the "western method" of snakebite therapy.

Dr. Woodhouse willingly took heroic measures. He first consumed a half-pint of whiskey and a little ammonia, continuing to suck the wound. He then polished off what remained of a quart of brandy and, ever the scientist, duly reported that he became intoxicated and remained so for about five hours. For the next several days, Dr. Woodhouse applied tincture of iodine and poultices to the wound and ate only rice.

As the party moved west across north ern Arizona, Dr. Woodhouse resumed his duties as surgeon and naturalist using only his right hand. After a period dur ing which he carried his wounded hand in a sling, the good doctor completely recovered.

One of the normally dry washes that Interstate 40 crosses a few miles west of Holbrook, in northern Arizona, is named Möllhausen Wash. It is a modest memorial to the German naturalist, artist, and writer Heinrich Balduin Möllhausen, who served as illustrator in the Pacific Railroad Survey headed by Lt. Amiel W. Whipple.

The Whipple party left Zuni, New Mex ico, on November 28, 1853, and crossed the Colorado River into California on Feb ruary 28, 1854. One of the men whom Möllhausen met on the Whipple expedi tion was the young Army surgeon and naturalist Caleb Burwell Rowan Kennerly: The two men became friends and collabo rators, with Kennerly as naturalist and Möllhausen as artist.

When the Whipple expedition left Zuni it headed west, along a route very close to that of I-40 today. Kennerly's field notes tell of huge, well-formed cottonwood trees near the Little Colorado River and some mallard and teal ducks. Beaver and porcupine, he noted, were in plentiful supply. As Kennerly wrote his journal en tries, Möllhausen drew the animals, birds, trees, and grasses. When the expedition reached the base of the San Francisco Peaks, near present-day Flagstaff, large herds of antelope were sighted, and in the dense forest that covered the mountains, Abert squirrels and bighorn sheep were seen. On Mount Sitgreaves, snow-covered at the time, tracks of grizzly bears were found everywhere. Taking a southwest course, the Whipple party dropped into the cedars and finally the grassland of Chino Valley, north of today's Prescott. On this leg of the journey the party ate well, for numerous black tailed deer, as yet unaware of man as a predator, stood and stared as the strangers crossed the land. West of Walnut Creek, the men trekked through Aztec Pass, which led them down the Bill Williams River and to the Colorado. Dr. Kennerly's journal contains glowing reports of the many specimens of fish, reptiles, and big horn sheep found along the Bill Williams and Colorado rivers, The Whipple expedition disbanded in Los Angeles, and Lieutenant Whipple reported the route feasible for a trans continental railroad. Möllhausen's fine drawings were reproduced in a 12-volume report of the expedition and again in a German-language edition published by Möllhausen himself, which later still was translated into English in London.

While space allows mention of only a few of the many doctor naturalists, who probed the frontier, the colorful, prolific, legendary Lt. Elliott Coues cannot be overlooked. The delicate Arizona white-tailed deer, known in the wildlife world as the Coues deer, was named for him by yet another surgeon-naturalist, Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock.

In 1862, after earning a master's degree, Coues enrolled as a medical cadet and in an urgent wartime schedule graduated, a year later as a medical doctor. A common Army policy at the time was to send young, inexperienced medical officers to isolated frontier posts. The practice proved a blessing to young Coues. His orders were to travel to Santa Fe, where General Carleton was to determine his assignment.

When Lieutenant Coues arrived in the New Mexico capital, he was assigned to the newly established Fort Whipple in Arizona, near Prescott, as medical officer and naturalist. He joined a military column a few miles south of Albuquerque which left the west bank of the Rio Grande on June 16, 1864, and arrived at Fort Whipple 43 days later. On three different occasions they were attacked by Indians, but this never deterred Dr. Coues from constant side trips to collect specimens.

A large variety of zoological specimens were collected and ultimately sent to the Smithsonian Institution. In one wagon, Dr. Coues kept a five gallon keg of alcohol in which he placed the various reptiles he collected. Some of the soldiers, detecting the odor of alcohol, filled their canteens from the keg and were joyfully celebrating their windfall when Coues brought the keg to their party and removed the top. In the keg were pickled snakes of various kinds, lizards, frogs, toads, and salamanders. It would have been an ideal time for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to pass out pledge cards.

Coues's tour of duty at Whipple lasted only 15 months. In spite of Indian hostilities, Coues spent much time in the field engrossed in study and collecting. He traveled for miles in every direction; Bill Williams Mountain and the Verde Valley were favorite areas. In the newly established capital of Prescott he advertised in the newspaper, offering to tend to the surgical needs of the community. But by early in 1866, he was back in Washington, D. C., well on his way to becoming the foremost American ornithologist.