George Ensign Bushnell

Background

George Ensign Bushnell was born on September 10, 1853 in Worcester, Massachusetts, a descendant of Francis Bushnell, a Connecticut pioneer, was the son of the Rev. George Bushnell by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Blake.

Education

George attended Beloit College for one year, entered Yale as a sophomore, and graduated in 1876 in the class with President Hadley. As undergraduates these two young men distinguished themselves by their linguistic attainments and were the only two undergraduates of the class to study Sanskrit. In 1880 Bushnell received his M. D from the Yale Medical School.

Career

Pulmonary symptoms developed a few months later while George Bushnell was serving as an interne in the German Hospital, New York City, but he regarded them lightly, and in February 1881 was made first lieutenant and assistant surgeon in the United States army.

During the next few years he received a series of appointments of various army posts in the middle west and obtained a wide experience. At the time of the Spanish-American War he worked in the surgeon-general's office, but the strain provoked a recrudescence of his pulmonary symptoms and he passed a six-months' sick leave under the care of Dr. Charles L. Minor at Asheville, N. C. Later he was cared for by C. E. Edson of Denver, and from these two physicians he learned the value of rest in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis.

From 1904 until 1917 Bushnell was commanding officer of the army tuberculosis hospital at Fort Bayard, N. Mex. There he had extensive experience and an unusual measure of success in treating the disease.

During his years at Fort Bayard, he kept abreast of medical literature, reading widely in all the foreign journals, and he even conducted classes in medical German for his officers.

The local tuberculosis boards during the war examined 3, 288, 699 men, of whom 23, 991, or 0. 73 per cent, were rejected. Bushnell's activity at this time was so strenuous that by the end of 1918 his health had again broken and he was forced to turn his work over to others.

In 1922-23 he was professor of military science and tactics in the Harvard Medical School. He spent his last years on his farm at Bedford, Massachussets, but was taken suddenly ill in California whither he had gone for his health, and finally succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis, at the age of seventy, after a life-long fight.

Achievements

• Bushnell's greatest services were rendered during the World War. George Ensign Bushnell introduced measures for rapid examination of large numbers of men and did much to quell the popular alarm concerning the high incidence of tuberculosis in the army. He established a school of diagnosis to train officers in the rapid detection of tuberculosis, and at the end of a year had turned out 450 examiners. He introduced at this hospital for the army’s tuberculous patients the system of treatment of which Trudeau was the pioneer in this country. In his tour of nearly fourteen years at Fort Bayard, he not only made of tile hospital grounds a beautiful oasis in a desert, but also a place of hope and cure for his patients and himself became one of the country’s foremost authorities on this protean disease.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A study in the epidemiolgy of tuberculosis: with especial reference to tuberculosis of the tropics and of the negro race

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • A Study in the Epidemiology of Tuberculosis with Especial Reference to Tuberculosis of the Tropics a

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • A study in the epidemiology of tuberculosis with especial reference to tuberculosis of the tropics and of the Negro race. The Pre-Kochian Era; Modern Era; Tuberculized Races; Non-tuberculized Races; Modes of Infection; Pathology; Diagnosis; etc

Views

George Bushnell made the surroundings of the patients extremely attractive but maintained vigorous discipline for which he became widely known. His views concerning tuberculosis were at the time new and in part original. He maintained that in adults active tuberculosis was caused by infection from within. He minimized the value of the tuberculin test as a diagnostic measure and was a strong advocate of moderate eating and drinking for those afflicted. He attempted to introduce the Carton diet, but his judgment on this point proved less sound than in his other measures.   He made the surroundings of the patients extremely attractive but maintained vigorous discipline for which he became widely known. His views concerning tuberculosis were at the time new and in part original.

He maintained that in adults active tuberculosis was caused by infection from within. He minimized the value of the tuberculin test as a diagnostic measure and was a strong advocate of moderate eating and drinking for those afflicted. He attempted to introduce the Carton diet, but his judgment on this point proved less sound than in his other measures.

Connections

George Ensign Bushnell was married twice; on August 22, 1881, to Adra Vergilia Holmes, who died in 1896; and on December 24, 1902 to Ethel Maitland Barnard.

Father:

George Bushnell

Mother:

Mary Elizabeth Blake

1st wife:

Adra Vergilia Holmes

collaborator:

Dr. Joseph H. Pratt

2nd wife:

Ethel Maitland Barnard Bushnell

1873–1957

ancestor:

Francis Bushnell

associate:

Dr. Charles L. Minor

associate:

C. E. Edson