Hospital History and Medical Practice in My Small Town

About the Book

The idea to write about some of my practice experiences, and at the same time point out some of the changes in medicine which were taking place during all of those years, came to me in September 2001, shortly after I received an invitation to speak at the dedication ceremonies for a recently completed, large addition to the modern Eaton Rapids Medical Center. Because I had been deeply involved with its founding and early operations, and had treated patients there during the first 26 years of its existence, I was asked to speak for five to seven minutes about the early years of the hospital, ------ years when it was known as Eaton Rapids Community Hospital. As I was thinking about what to say, I realized that the time allotted for my speech would not allow me to even begin to adequately present the subject. Here then, in these pages, are recorded some of the many things I would have liked to have told my audience in that speech. It is my story of the hospitals and medicine in my hometown, presented truthfully, accurately, and in some detail.

In August of 1946 I chose Eaton Rapids to be the town in which I would establish my medical practice and rear my family. Although it was my intent to stay for only two or three years, and then take a residency in general surgery somewhere in order to become a board certified surgical specialist, my wife and I became so deeply and pleasantly involved with its people and its hospital that we stayed until I retired from practice 38 years later.

For an overview of the early medical history of Eaton Rapids I am indebted to one of my earliest patients, W. Scott Munn, who researched the history of the area, and wrote about it in his book, THE ONLY EATON RAPIDS ON EARTH. Munn's book was apparently self-published. It contains no mention of a copyright, and there is no ISBN Number in the book. There is merely a statement on the backside of the title page that it had been printed by Edwards Brothers, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan. No publication date is given, but the author dated his autograph in my copy of the book on 8/2/52.

About the Author

Dr. Albert H. Meinke, Jr. was born on September 26, 1919 in Detroit, Michigan, where he attended the public schools, and graduated in 1937 with honors from Thomas M. Cooley High School. He then attended Albion College in Albion, Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in June 1941. He received his Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in October 1943. That unusual time of year for a graduation came about because the United States had formally entered World War II on December 7, 1941, and the university promptly adopted an accelerated medical curriculum with three full semesters of classes each calendar year. Immediately after graduation from medical school he began a nine-month rotating internship at Edward W. Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan. A few days before the internship was finished, on July 29, 1944, he married Edmere L. Bondesen of Detroit. The next few days were spent in Lansing finishing up hospital clinical records, and on August 2, 1944 he entered active duty in the Army of the United States as a First Lieutenant in the Medical Corps.

After going through an extensive training course for new medical officers at the Army Medical Field Service School at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, he was assigned to the Army School of Tropical Medicine at Moore General Hospital in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where he studied tropical diseases, and also served as a ward officer in the hospital. His patients were soldiers suffering with tropical diseases contracted in the South Pacific, and this led him to believe that he would be treating such tropical diseases later on in his tour of duty.

After this initial training was finished, he was surprised to find that the Army, in its great wisdom, assigned him as a Battalion Surgeon in the U.S. Tenth Mountain Division, --- the only division of ski troops in the entire U. S. armed forces. In this capacity he served front line infantrymen through the Division's entire combat period in Italy, and remained in the Division until it was deactivated in the late fall of 1945.

In late August of 1946, Dr. Meinke moved to Eaton Rapids, Michigan to take over the medical practice of another physician who had been a missionary doctor in Africa and had been recalled during the War to serve Eaton Rapids, because at that time all of the town's able-bodied, practicing physicians were away, serving in the armed forces.

In 1984, at the age of sixty-five, Dr. Meinke retired, and moved with his wife to Kewadin, Michigan into a home on the shore of Torch Lake. There he wrote the book MOUNTAIN TROOPS AND MEDICS, which tells the story of his wartime experiences in the Ski Troops. The book was well received, and is now in its second printing.

Table of Contents and Excerpts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• AUTHOR'S PREFACE
• CHAPTER I EATON RAPIDS
• CHAPTER II STIMSON HOSPITAL
• CHAPTER III MY ARRIVAL IN TOWN
• CHAPTER IV MY FIRST OFFICE
• CHAPTER V MY PRACTICE BEGINS
• CHAPTER VI THE BIG SNOW AND FLOOD
• CHAPTER VII SWITCH TO GROUP PRACTICE
• CHAPTER VIII EARLY CHANGES
• IN MEDICAL PRACTICE
• CHAPTER IX STIMSON HOSPITAL CONDEMNED
• CHAPTER X THE BIRTH OF A NEW HOSPITAL
• CHAPTER XI THE TRANSITION
• CHAPTER XII EATON RAPIDS
• COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
• CHAPTER XIII REGULATOR PROBLEMS
• CHAPTER XIV MEDICAL INSURANCE
• CHAPTER XV EATON RAPIDS MEDICAL CLINIC
• CHAPTER XVI OBSTETRIC SERVICES
• CHAPTER XVII ANESTHESIA
• CHAPTER XVIII EMERGENCY SERVICES
• CHAPTER XIX THE CORONER SYSTEM
• CHAPTER XX HOUSECALL ADVENTURES
  • A Dermatology Lesson
  • Goose Attack
  • Redecorating Anyone?
  • Bogged Down
  • A Birth in "Squalor City"
  • A Problem in Logistics
  • The Tale of a Crazy Woman
  • CHAPTER XXI OFFICE STORIES
  • Dermatology to the Rescue
  • Cookies Anyone?
  • An Imagined Catastrophe
  • Success Through Procrastination
  • Tattoo Tale No. 1
  • Tattoo Tale No. 2
  • Tattoo Tale No. 3
• CHAPTER XXII EMERGENCY ROOM STORIES
  • Sudden Anaphylaxis
  • Chinese Water Torture
  • Severe Burns
  • Lacerated Ear
  • Death of a Child
  • Endotracheal Intubation
  • The Tale of Mister Lucky
  • Those Damn Cows!!!!
  • Shell Fragments???
  • Quick Draw?
  • Is he dead yet?
• CHAPTER XXIII HOSPITAL INPATIENT STORIES
  • The Tub Bath
  • Liquid Appendectomy
  • Acute Myocardial Infarction
  • Refrigeration Anesthesia
  • A Strange Case of FUO
  • Chiropractor Referrals
  • Odors in Medical Practice
• CHAPTER XXIV FOREIGN BODY STORIES
  • A Surgical Tool
  • Buckshot, Glass and Other Things
  • The Lost Penny
  • The Swallowed Chain
  • Another Case Not Appendicitis
  • Foreign Bodies in the Ears and Nose
  • A Record for a Foreign Body?
• APPENDIX A by Edward B. McRee

CHAPTER XXIII
HOSPITAL INPATIENT STORIES

Actually there wasn't much humor connected with my treatment of hospital inpatients. In this chapter I have placed the few special inpatient incidents that I recall that I think are worth remembering.

The Tub Bath

In Stimson Hospital, in order to minimize the possibility of infection, it was routine, when time allowed, to require each mother-to-be to take a bath before entering the labor room. Many maternity patients bathed at home before coming in, and those who could be depended upon to be reasonably clean were excused from this requirement. The policy was actually aimed at the unwashed, of which, I am sorry to say, there were more than a few.

One day one of my obstetrical patients arrived in early labor. Bernice took her into the hospital's big bathroom, which was located not far from the nurses' station, to have her take a bath before being admitted to the labor room. Both of them were in there for a long time, and when Bernice finally came out she was laughing. She said that she had a hard time getting the patient to take the bath. After she had run about three inches of warm water into the tub, she told the patient to get in. "I can't go in there," the woman cried, "I'll drown!"