Biographic memorial of Dr. Charles N. Hewitt

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Minnesota Historical Society.
Vol. XV. Plate XV.

BIOGRAPHIC MEMORIAL OF DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT.*

BY WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL.

On the seventh day of July, 1910, it pleased the Lord of
Life and Death to call from this world the soul of Dr. Charles
Nathanael Hewitt.

The assertion is ventured that no one citizen of Minnesota
has devoted himself more zealously to her welfare or conferred
greater benefits on her people than he. If Minnesota shall pro-
pose to perpetuate the memory of men who have rendered great
public service and furnished models on which her young men
may pattern their lives, let her place among the statues she
rears in the Capitol that of this citizen.

Such distinction may rightly be claimed for the man who
organized the Public Health Service of Minnesota, and in the
course of a quarter century's administration of that service
brought it to a high state of efficiency, saved thousands of
lives, and prevented an amount of sickness and suffering be-
yond estimation.

To record the services of such citizens and preserve the
memory of them for a posterity which may be more appre-
ciative of their value than the passing generation, is a worthy
and proper function of this Society. The following contribu-
tion is accordingly submitted.

Charles Nathanael Hewitt was born in Vergennes, Vermont,
June 3, 1836. Among his ancestors are many notable names.
His parents moved to Potsdam, St. Lawrence county. New
York, in his early childhood. For his college preparation he
was sent to the old and still famous Academy of Cheshire, Con-
necticut. From there he passed to Hobart College, Geneva,
New York, by which he was graduated Bachelor of Arts at the

♦Read at the monthly meeting- of the Executive Council, November
9, 1914.

670 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

age of twenty. Because his heart was in the subject of medi-
cine he did not aspire to academic honors, preferring to hold
the position of demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical De-
partment of the College. He was accorded the same position
in the Medical College at Albany, New York, from which he
received his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1857. His father
was a physician, and the devotion of the son to that profes-
sion was evident from boyhood.

Engaging in practice with his preceptor in Geneva, New
York, he had barely become established before a call came to a
new and unexpected sphere of medical practice. After the
pitiful disaster of Bull Run in 1861 came President Lincoln's
call for a great volunteer army to be enlisted for a term of
three years.

General Charles B. Stuart, a distinguished civil engineer,
and then Chief Engineer of the United States Navy, conceived
the idea of raising a regiment of engineer troops, foreseeing the
need there would be for such a corps in case of a great and
protracted war. The War Department readily issued the nec-
essary orders. In the course of a single month the companies
were filled from central and western New York and northern
Pennsylvania. The commissioned and non-commissioned offi-
cers were largely civil engineers, some of them of long expe-
rience and wide reputation. The rendezvous was at Elmira,
New York, in August, 1861.

Dr. Hewitt's preceptor, a physician of more than local emi-
nence, was appointed surgeon of the new regiment; but ad-
vanced age and developing infirmity soon disqualified him for
active service, and he was obliged to resign before his first
campaign was well begun. From the beginning the adminis-
trative duties had fallen on the assistant surgeon, Dr. Hewitt,
who at once succeeded him as regimental surgeon.

It is necessary here to make some account of the peculiar
organization of this regiment. When the time came for the
muster-in of the engineer volunteers, it was discovered that
there was no provision of law for the enlistment of such troops.
In expectation that Congress would as soon as possible ratify
the action of the War Department in prematurely authorizing

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 671

such enlistment, the whole body, officers and men, cheerfully-
acquiesced in being mustered in as infantry. The regiment
accordingly took the number 50 of New York infantry volun-
teers. It was not till after the close of the Peninsular Cam-
paign that the expected Act of Congress was passed. As en-
acted it provided for the organization of volunteer engineer
troops in regiments of twelve companies, each composed of 150
officers and enlisted men, having the pay and standing in all
respects of engineers of the regular army.

Like the artillery regiments as then organized, this regi-
ment was chiefly an administrative unit. Each company, like
each battery of artillery, was equipped for independent move-
ment and service. Soon after the passage of the Act referred
to, the regiment was recruited to its full strength of 1,800 offi-
cers and men. The habitual distribution of the command was
as follows : regimental headquarters and one company at Wash-
ington, D. C, in charge of the engineer depot and construction
shops; two companies at the headquarters of the Army of the
Potomac ; and battalions of two or three companies at the head-
quarters of different army corps. '

The division and scattering of the command imposed on the
medical staff duties far greater than those falling on those of
infantry regiments. It outnumbered those brigades which had
seen two or more campaigns. Major Hewitt proved himself
equal to every duty and emergency. Riding from camp to
camp, he saw that his assistant surgeons and stewards were
provided with needed appliances and supplies, and that they
were attending to their duties. Dr. Letterman, Hooker's med-
ical director, paid him the high compliment of saying, ''He is
the best regimental surgeon in the Army of the Potomac." In
the last years of the war he was chief surgeon of the Engineer
Brigade of the Army of the Potomac, consisting of the 50th
and 15th New York engineer regiments and the Regular En-
gineer Battalion. This position made a large addition to ad-
ministrative duties. Details of his activities in the successive
campaigns must be left to a biographer, but some leading char-
acteristics may properly be noted.

672 MINNESOTA fitSTORtCAL SOCIeTY COLLECTIONS.

Major Hewitt had the qualifications essential to an expert
surgeon, profound knowledge of anatomy, keen perception of
the immediate problem, and extraordinary deftness of hand.
But he was as conservative as he was expert, saving to the pa-
tient every member and organ which could be of use. He em-
ployed every means of antisepsis known at the time. He used
to say that he would rather keep patients who had undergone
severe operations under a tree in the field than expose them
to the gangrene of the best general hospital in Washington or
any other city. For his sick he trusted more to rest, fresh air,
and good food, than to his medicine chests. The only com-
plaint his men made was that he would not ''doctor" enough.
Many a man who came to sick call in fear of a ''spell" of sick-
ness went back to his company a new man after a couple of days
of rest and good feeding. Intoxicants he prescribed very rare-
ly, finding other stimulants effective enough and more benign.
It ought to be added that the irrepressible joviality of the Chief
Surgeon was perhaps the best of his remedies. Yet nobody
could, when necessary, trim down a shirk or malingerer more
effectually than this genial doctor.

Sanitation was his enthusiasm. To prevent disease among
his men was ever more in his mind than the cure of the sick.
His eye was ever on the general location and police of the
camps, but particularly on the commissary departments and the
company cooks.

The writer well remembers a certain occasion when his effi-
ciency in sanitation was displayed in a notable way. A de-
tachment of the regiment under command of the lieutenant
colonel was in camp in the late summer of 1864 near the mid-
dle of the long line fronting Petersburg. Typhoid suddenly
broke out and was decimating the companies. The command-
ing officer sent for Major Hewitt, who next day rode into camp.
After a half hour's inspection he made his report and recom-
mendation. In another half hour that camp ground was cleared
of everything moveable upon it. The ground was thoroughly
swept or scraped, the drainage was made perfect, new sinks
were dug, and new sources of water were opened. The cooks
and commissary men got their orders toward more cleanly

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 673

handling and preparation of food. Then the camp was re-
established. Typhoid disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
Major Hewitt deserved the commission of Brevet Lieutenant
Colonel which came to him near the time of his muster-out with
his regiment early in July, 1865.

His old clients at Geneva, N. Y., welcomed Dr. Hewitt on
his return, and a promising career re-opened there ; but corre-
spondence with a college friend and brother physician roused
an interest in Minnesota, and the opportunity to succeed to an
established practice brought him to Red Wing soon after the
close of the war.

A few years now passed devoted to extending his medical
practice and the establishment of a home, modest, but so charm-
ing that no calls to larger spheres for the employment of his
professional gifts ever tempted him to exchange it. It is safe
to assert that had he moved to either of the * ' Twin Cities, ' ' he
would have won great distinction in surgery and enjoyed an
ample income. He married in 1869 Miss Helen Hawley, a wife
who more than fulfilled all the dreams of a young man's fancy.

Dr. Hewitt was not the man to be content with the ca-
reer of a village doctor, however worthy that might be. As
already suggested, he was inspired with the noble aspirations
of preventive medicine, A diligent reader of the current liter-
ature of medicine, he had observed the operation of a law of
Massachusetts passed in 1869 to establish a State Board of
Health, and the similar action of California two years later. A
bill drafted by him on the model of the Massachusetts Act,
passed by the legislature on March 4, 1872, put Minnesota third
on a distinguished roll.

This was not the first legislation in the State related to pub-
lic health, but it was the first effective action. The *'Code of
1857" had provided for municipal boards of health consisting
of justices of the peace "in every precinct," trustees of vil-
lages, and aldermen of cities. Such boards were authorized to
appoint health officers, to abate nuisances, and to quarantine
smallpox.

In the general statutes of 1866 we find substantially the
same provisions, with the exception that towu supervisors are
boards of health.

43 - - - "

g74 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

It was natural that these isolated boards of laymen should
act, if at all, in a purely perfunctory manner. There could be
little voluntary co-operation, and there was no central author-
ity which could require united action.

The Act of 1872 provided for a central State Board of seven
physicians, with the following duties:

1. To put themselves in communication with the local
boards of health and with public institutions.

2. To take cognizance of the interests of health and life
among the citizens generally.

3. To make sanitary investigations, especially of epidemics.

4. To study the sources of disease and the effects of locali-
ties, employments and circumstances on public health.

5. To devise a scheme for vital statistics.

6. To act as an advisory board to the State in all hygienic
and medical matters.

7. To have charge of quarantine.

8. To enact and enforce measures necessary to the public
health.

The Act further provided for a Secretary to perform and
superintend the work prescribed, and to discharge such other
duties as the Board might require; and it fixed his salary at
$250 a year, payable quarterly.

The able and highly reputable physicians appointed to the
board elected Dr. Hewitt their secretary. It was understood
of course that he would give only spare time from his profes-
sional work.

It is obviously impossible within the limits of the present
article even to catalogue the numerous activities of so enthu-
siastic and versatile an official. Certain groups of them may be
noted and remarked upon.

The attention of the Board was naturally at once directed
to putting itself into communication with local boards of health
as required by the law. This was not difficult in cities and
villages, but from rural towns there was almost no response.
Upon representations to the legislature of 1873, that body en-
acted a law requiring town boards to elect annually a town
board of health, one member to be a ph^si(?ian and town health

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 675

officer. These elected boards of health may have been an im-
provement, but there were no penalties to oblige them to con-
form to regulations of the State Board. It was not till 1881
that a heavy fine was laid on any local board or member there-
of for refusing to obey the reasonable directions of the State
Board of Health.

These efforts toward providing a machinery for promoting
public health culminated in an act of the legislature of 1883,
entitled *' Health Code. '' It enlarged the powers of local boards
and gave the State Board still larger powers of regulation.
Heavy penalties were attached to neglect of duty by local
boards or members. This act was so drastic that some of its
provisions were, in a later year, mitigated. It was found im-
practicable to compel local health officers to make thorough
sanitary inspections of their towns, villages, or cities, as the
case might be, and to report in writing both to the local and
state boards. Prompt repeated and effectual vaccination of all
children had to be given up, in the face of a violent if absurd
opposition.

The Act of 1885 receded from the plan of having town
boards elect the town board of health, and revived the old plan
of making the town board itself the board of health. It was
not required that there should be a physician on the board, but
that the board should employ a physician when they should
deem it necessary, or when required to do so by the state board
of health. . ' iT^

Otherwise the act of 1883 has not been materially changed,
unless in the provision that there must be at least one physician
on the board of health. If no town supervisor is a physician,
the board of health must elect one.

The local boards of health, thus co-ordinated with and reg-
ulated by the state board, furnished a state-wide agency for
checking the spread of epidemics, for preventing the pollution
of waters, for the collection of vital statistics, and diffusing
among the people information relating to health.

Without waiting for the perfection or indeed any consid-
erable improvement in the mechanism for preserving public
health, the state board, led by the executive secretary, began a

676 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL. SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

warfare against epidemic and infectious diseases. Before its
creation the law for quarantine of smallpox had but occasionally-
been put into effect. Measures were at once taken for more
effective isolation of outbreaks. Scarlatina was soon added to
the list of infectious diseases to be isolated; then typhoid fever,
and later diphtheria. The last named furnished a most strik-
ing illustration of the effect of isolation accompanied with im-
proved medication and nursing. The number of reported
deaths from diphtheria in 1882 was 1,607 ; in 1887, 788, a reduc-
tion of nearly one-half ; and in 1895 the figure was 466, a little
more than one-fourth the deaths thirteen years before. In
those years the population of Minnesota had doubled. It took
Dr. Hewitt some years to convince his medical brethren gen-
erally that diphtheria was infectious.

As might be presumed, Dr. Hewitt was alert to welcome
every new development in his profession. He accepted at once
the statement of Kirchhoff, that whether the bacillus of Koch
was truly the cause of Asiatic cholera or not, it was the part of
enlightened physicians to act as if it were. He was fully pre-
pared for the invasion of that disease which appeared in some
of our seaports in 1890, but happily there was no invasion into
Minnesota and the appropriation made by the legislature for
repelling it was not used.

He was not content with the new learning in regard to the
employment of serums in infectious cases as represented in the
journals. To get the essentials of that he went to Paris in the
spring of 1890 and put himself under the instruction of Pasteur.
His studies were in diphtheria, tuberculosis, and rabies, but his
main object was to acquire the method of Pasteur.

The cure of diseases was a solemn duty, which Dr. Hewitt
shared with the members of his profession; the prevention of
diseases was for him a holy crusade, in which the physicians of
the day were not over eager to follow him. The great public,
inheriting the belief that disease is inevitable and the day of
each one's death appointed, had little faith in the proposals of
preventive medicine. His first essay was towards the introduc-
tion of efficient ventilation in public institutions and in school-
houses. It cannot be doubted that his inspection and recom-

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 677

mendations had much to do with experiments which were more
or less satisfactory. For dwelling houses he insisted that no
ventilating apparatus could equal the open fireplace. He la-
bored vigorously to introduce earth closets for disposing of
human excreta where sewers did not exist.

The continued though abated prevalence of typhoid led Dr.
Hewitt to examine the water supply of various localities. The
results were such as to convince him that an immediate and
extensive examination of water supplies generally was de-
manded. In 1877 he began a sanitary water survey of the
state. In the next years he made, and had made, chemical
analyses of thousands of samples from lakes, rivers, and wells,
in all the settled parts of the state. Later bacteriological exam-
inations were added. How many cities and villages were moved
to install water supply systems is not known, but the number
was large. Thousands of people were constrained to disuse
wells, which had been erroneously believed to yield health-
ful waters but in fact were unfit for human use.

It was not till 1885 that the legislature could be moved to
enact a law to prevent the pollution of rivers and sources of
water supply. This act gave the state board of health general
supervision of sources of water supply for towns, villages and
cities, and required reports from local authorities, water boards
in particular, to the state board.

The passage of this important law was recommended and
urged by Governor Hubbard, who, more than any other of the
state executives of the time, appreciated the services of the
State Board of Health and its working secretary. In the same
year was passed the act conferring on the board power to quar-
antine domestic animals attacked with epidemic diseases. This
duty was later and properly devolved on a special * * State Live
Stock Sanitary Board," but for some years useful service was
rendered under the supervision of Dr. Hewitt. His faithful
execution of this law aroused an opposition which at length
contributed to his disadvantage.

Mention may here be made of another statute of 1885, em-
powering the state board of health to regulate offensive trades
and employments upon application from parties aggrieved after

678 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

public hearing. An item well-deserving mention is the investi-
gation made in his laboratory into illuminating oils, particu-
larly petroleum distillates. The result was the establishment of
state inspection, which immediately shut unsafe kerosene out
of Minnesota.

He was the pioneer in exposing the adulteration of foods
and condiments.

The untiring industry of Dr. Hewitt in prevention of dis-
ease has no better illustration than that of smallpox. He shared
the belief of his profession that effective vaccination, repeated
at proper intervals, was a perfect prophylaxis against that fear-
ful scourge. In every possible way, and on all occasions, he ad-
vocated vaccination. The best obtainable virus was distributed
from his office. Dissatisfied at length with that furnished by
the trade, he established near Red Wing a vaccine farm. There
he produced in liberal quantity virus which he knew to be, and
which was proved to be efficacious.

It was found that we had to deal in Minnesota not only with
cases originating in the state, but in very many instances with
imported cases. To check the immigration of persons having
the disease, or who might be expected to have it, Dr. Hewitt
established in 1879 a system of interstate notification which
made it possible to quarantine such persons if they crossed the
state lines. Later he prevailed on the U. S. Marine Hospital
Service in New York to give him notice of immigrants bound to
Minnesota who were likely to bring the infection. A similar
courtesy was obtained from Canadian authorities. In the
years 1894-95, forty notifications were received from New York,
seven from Canada, and two from other sea ports, covering 464
persons who had been exposed to infection. A large number
of these were intercepted and examined.

Dr. Hewitt had a cause still dearer to his heart than either
the cure or the immediate prevention of disease. He was an
apostle of the * * art of good living, ' ' which he gave, as another
name for hygiene. Individuals acting alone could of course
practice this art, but they would do more and better for them-
selves when stimulated by the contagion of community interest.
Hygiene was to him above all a social concern. Perhaps the

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 679

best of all his efforts went to arousing general public interest
in health conservation. He wrote, he lectured, he personally
exhorted, and sought the co-operation of physicians, clergy, and
teachers. He addressed many meetings and conventions of
teachers, showing them how to teach hygiene in schools. He
called sanitary conferences at St. Paul, Minneapolis, Northfield,
Rochester, and other places, which were largely attended.
Some of the addresses published in the reports of the board are
well worth republication.

On none of these occasions did Dr. Hewitt fail to emphasize
his central doctrine, that it is the duty of every community to
promote health. The promotion of health, he would say, is
''as obligatory upon communities of civilized men as upon in-
dividuals." He cherished a dream of virtually organizing the
whole state into a health association. He was fond of quoting
Franklin's sentiment, ''Public health is public wealth." In one
of his early reports he asserted that one fifth of the deaths and
one-fourth of the sickness in Minnesota were preventable.

As a means of spreading needed information primarily
among local health boards, and through them to the general
public, he began in 1885 the publication of a monthly periodical
entitled "Public Health in Minnesota." This he not only
edited, but wrote large parts of it. Soon after he took the office
of secretary, he began the publication of "Circulars of Informa-
tion," regarding infectious diseases. The circulars on small-
pox, scarlatina, diphtheria, and rabies, were widely distributed
and must have done much to quiet fears and direct proper
action.

In his whole laborious campaign of education there was
nothing into which he threw himself with greater ardor than
into his instruction as non-resident professor of public health in
the University of Minnesota. Beginning in 1873, for more than
twenty years he gave an annual course of lectures to entering
classes or the whole student body. There was some variation
in his subjects ; but the program of 1877 may serve to indicate
their scope.

1. Health and hygiene, public and private.

2. Disease ; causes and prevention.

680 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

3. Poverty and pauperism.

4. To young men.

5. Crime and criminals.

6. Hygiene and education.

7. Hygiene of the home.

8. Success in life.

It was in that year that he began the physical examination
of the students. The University authorities, indifferent to this
innovation, gave no support, and after two or three years it
was abandoned.

Two years before the creation of the State Board of Health,
a bureau of statistics had been established in the office of the
Secretary of State, the Assistant Secretary of State being ex
officio commissioner of statistics. Provision was made for the
collection of vital statistics. Some tables of these had been
published, but no one had put them to any use. Dr. Hewitt
immediately made a study of the tables, and interpreted their
lessons. In 1876 he published a ''Study of Vital Statistics of
10,000 Persons, ' ' which set some persons to thinking and ought
to have set a great many more.

He found the system of collecting vital statistics so imper-
fect and inefficient that he soon proposed that the matter of
vital statistics be , transferred to the State Board of Health.
After more than a decade of patient waiting and importunity,
that transfer was made. From that time, 1891, the vital statis-
tics of Minnesota have been increasing in value, and under the
present administration they rank high among those of sister
states. It was Dr. Hewitt's merit to have organized them in
right lines.

The labors thus mentioned were verily labors of love. For
the first five years of service. Dr. Hewitt received the sum of
$250 salary each year. Next for a like term he was paid $500
a year. The salary was then raised to $1,000 for the next four
years. Not till 1886 was he paid enough for the support of his
family, and then only enough, $2,500. In 1894 an increase to
$3,500 made it possible for him to move the office of the State
Board to St. Paul and virtually to retire from private practice.
He was not long to enjoy that relief.

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 681

We have considered things which were done. It may be
that the future will admire this noble public man the more for
the things he would have liked to do; things which could not
then be done, partly because the time was not ripe for them, and
partly because strength failed. Among these unfilled aspira-
tions were :

1. To have local health boards and health officers paid
enough to secure efficiency. In 1896 he reported that more
than half the physicians serving as health officers of the state
had no pay at all, and of those who did receive salaries the
larger number did not receive over $20 each. The highest city
salary was but $2,000, and that in only two cities.

2. To have town supervisors elected one at a time for three
years, instead of three at a time for one year. When the whole
town board, as frequently happened, went out of office, all their
successors had to be apprised of their duties as a board of
health. Mention has been made of an attempt to remedy this
evil by having the town board elect the board of health. This
duty was so ill performed, when performed at all, that a return
was made to the old form of having the town board itself act as '
the town board of health. Year after year Dr. Hewitt pleaded
with legislatures to arrange town elections so that there would
always be a majority of the board holding over. It did not
please the legislature to take this perfectly reasonable step
till 1905.

3. To have the State establish a hospital for inebriates.
This proposition was made in his first report, and was repeated
from year to year until, the legislature of 1875 took action for
the erection of buildings for that purpose at Rochester. As is
known, the extraordinary pressure for larger accommodations
for increasing numbers of insane, induced the legislature later
to divert the institution to that purpose. The inebriate asylum,
which Dr. Hewitt so much desired, was opened in the year 1912.
It is therefore mentioned here as one of the projects which this
many-sided man had at heart, but did not live to see. The sub-
ject of intemperance was one on which he thought intensely.
He regarded it as an inheritance of centuries, which could not
be abolished by any sudden act of legislation. It might take

682 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

generations to raise up a body of people so truly temperate and
abstinent that the liquor seller's occupation would be gone.
For the meantime he preached the reasonable gospel of temper-
ance and practiced it. His lecture on temperance to the Uni-
versity students explained the evil effects of intoxicants on
body and mind in forceful but not extravagant terms. He
believed that habitual drunkenness was a disease akin to insan-
ity, and therefore held to the conviction that it ought to be
treated in institutions where proper restrictive and curative
means and surroundings could be provided.

4. To have a Pasteur hospital for the treatment of rabies
established under the management of the State Board of Health.
On his return from his studies in Paris in 1891 he represented
that a beginning might be made at a cost of $1,000 a year. It
was many years after Dr. Hewitt 's retirement from public serv-
ice that this highly necessary work was taken up.

5. To have township nurses employed to care for epidemic
cases. This recommendation was repeated in successive reports
to no purpose. The time was not ripe, and probably it is not
yet ripe.

6. To compel the vaccination of the whole population, and
to exclude children not vaccinated from public schools. At the
present time vaccination is not yet generally compulsory, and
only in times of epidemic smallpox can children not vaccinated
be excluded from public schools.

7. To have physical examination of all children and youth
attending public schools begun and ultimately everywhere con-
ducted. In the years 1877 to 1880 he personally examined 465
students of the University, the records of which may be found
in the eighth report of the State Board of Health, for the years
1879-1880.

8. During the twenty years in which he held the position
of non-resident professor of Public Health in the University of
Minnesota, it was his hope that a Department or College of
Public Health might be organized and developed, in which
health officers might be trained for the prevention of disease.
He was comparatively indifferent to the development of a med-
ical department of the traditional kind, in which men are

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 683

trained to cure disease. Still he was loyal to his profession, and
in the days when the academic work of the University was be-
ing patiently built up, before the University resources were
adequate to the establishment of a medical college equipped
for complete instruction, he suggested the organization of a
faculty which should simply hold examinations and grant med-
ical degrees to such as should pass them. This faculty acted as
a State Medical Examining Board, and it passed upon the
diplomas of all physicians in practice at that time in the state.
This organization was made and remained in existence until the
University, by absorbing a local medical college, was ready in
1888 to offer instruction. Dr. Hewitt declined a professorship
in the enlarged medical college, because of the hope that he
might see a department of Public Health opened, in which his
talent could be best used and his highest ambition . gratified.
His dream has not been fulfilled, and long years may pass be-
fore an enlightened public, appreciating his splendid idea, will
demand this establishment of a college of public health. His
lectures on public health were probably the first delivered in an
American college.

9. To have a complete sanitary inspection of the State,
followed by annual sanitary inspection, with reports to the
State Board. Of this it may be said that it was a mere project
thrown out to call attention and awaken an interest which in
the course of time might ripen into actual undertakings. The
idea of a general sanitary survey is probably not yet deemed
feasible or desirable by any large number of persons.

During these long years of service, contending against pub-
lic ignorance, professional indifference, and legislative par-
simony, the doctor's enthusiasm was constantly warmed by in-
dications of appreciation. His efficiency in the handling of
epidemics compelled the admiration of his profession and the
approval of the general public. Teachers were grateful to him
for his labors toward the sanitation of school buildings. He
was cheered by the co-operation of the clergy and of many hon-
orable women, whose aid he publicly acknowledged.

His work and writings became known in the neighboring
states, and later throughout the country. In 1887 he was Pres-

684 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

ident of the American Public Health Association, an organiza-
tion he had helped to form and build up. His reputation se-
cured to him an associate membership in the Society of Health
Officers of England and the Societe d 'Hygiene of France. In
1891 he attended the International Congress of Medicine and
Demography, held in London, and contributed to the discus-
sions. Canadian health authorities respected his acquirements
and efficiency, and were ready to co-operate with him. His Col-
lege gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

After a quarter century of devoted service to his State, that
service came to an abrupt termination. Dr. Hewitt had never
needed to ask for reappointment to membership of the State
Board of Health, nor to re-elections as its executive secretary.
He had kept the office absolutely clear of political complica-
tions. At work in his office on a certain afternoon in January
in 1897, word came to him that the Governor had omitted his
name from the list of appointments to membership of the State
Board. It was the work of a few minutes for him to gather up
the few articles belonging to him personally and say a word of
parting to his faithful assistants. In his last report, for the
preceding year (1896), in a concluding paragraph he expressed,
as follows, the feelings of the hour.

The best of my life and effort have gone into this work. I have
spared neither time, labor, nor thought, to make it what it ought to be.
Such as it is, the record is made and closed. I resume tomorrow the
active practice of my profession with the sincere wish that the public
health service of Minnesota may maintain and advance the position
which it has won among the similar organizations in other states. I
am still more anxious that it continue to serve the whole people of
Minnesota in the future as in the past.

This removal from the Board came as an absolute surprise.
If there had been machinations for it, no one had revealed them
to him. Never had he been so full of enthusiasm for his great
work, nor more hopeful of increasing usefulness. To find his
career as a sanitarian and guardian of the public health of a
state thus instantly cut short without warning, was a stunning
blow. He left the office and never entered it again, nor held
any communication with the State Board of Health or its offi-
cers. His was not the philosophy to look upon this decapitation

DR. CHARLES N. HEWITT. 685

as one of the things likely to happen to any man in the service
of the public, holding office at the pleasure of a state executive
elected by a political party. At some time even such an office
as his would be needed in a political propaganda. It will prob-
ably be consented to by all, that one who had labored so faith-
fully and deserved so well the approval of the public had a cer-
tain right to suggest the time and manner of retirement, even
when informed that retirement would be inevitable. The writer
does not hesitate to say that the action of Governor Clough was
simply brutal.

The doctor of course in time recovered from the effects of
this relegation to private life. He resumed his private practice
at Red Wing, welcomed by a body of old clients. His profes-
sional brothers came to him for information and counsel. His
home, with its great elms, its vines, and his garden, occupied
much of his time. He had long been a busy writer of reports,
opinions, essays, editorials, and addresses. He now planned to
use this talent in writing out a history of medicine. He had
long held the opinion that the great physicians of antiquity
whose names have come down to us, while ignorant of anatomy,
still possessed arts of diagnosis and healing which moderns have
to rediscover. For this purpose he spent some winters at the na-
tional capital, where the resources of the Library of Congress
were avaUable and freely granted. One winter he spent in
Paris. This work he did not live to complete.

Dr. Hewitt had a great capacity for friendship. He cher-
ished to the end the attachments which his college fraternity,
the Alpha Delta Phi, had established. Educated in school and
college under Episcopalian influences, he maintained his mem-
bership in that church throughout life. It is well worth while
to note a characteristic contribution to the work of his parish.
He had a notable musical gift, Avhich was shared by his own
children. He organized and for many years taught a choir of
boys; and he taught them much more than music, — courtesy,
and honor, and reverence. The memory of those lessons is still
dear to many of ' ' the old choir boys. ' '

Along with all his engagements he carried on the primary
education of his children, and taught as no schoolmaster can be

686 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.

expected to do. He discovered that an immense amount of time
was wasted in schools, that the real learning by children was
got in a little time and in separate moments of attention.
Thirty years ago or more he declared that half of the time of
public school children might be given to what was later known
as manual training, while still as good progress would be made
in the usual school studies.

The life of this noble man, devoted citizen, and sincere Chris-
tian, ended after a short illness on July 7, 1910, at the age of
seventy-four years. His body was cremated, and the ashes were
deposited at his boyhood home in Potsdam, New York. It will
be long before Minnesota shall look upon his like again.

14

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