John Rauch

September 4, 1828 (age 65)

Lebanon, Pennsylvania, United States

In 1850 he moved to Iowa, where he joined the newly organized state medical society and the next year published in its Proceedings a "Report on the Medical and Economical Botany of Iowa. " In 1852 he was the society's first delegate to the American Medical Association. From his young manhood he was both public spirited and scientific. He interested himself in the condition of river boatmen and secured the establishment of marine hospitals at Galena and Burlington. In 1855-56 he worked with Louis Agassiz and made a natural history collection, consisting mainly of fish, from the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In 1856 he aided in securing the passage of a bill providing for a geological survey of Iowa. He was professor of materia medica in Rush Medical College, Chicago, 1857-58; and was a founder (1859) of the Chicago College of Pharmacy, and its first professor of materia medica. He served as a surgeon throughout the Civil War, being mustered out of service in 1865. He and his work are mentioned several times in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. After the war he returned to Chicago and in 1867 helped to reorganize the Board of Health, upon which he served until 1873. During this period he cared for the sanitation of the burned city and the welfare of the 112, 000 persons rendered homeless by the great fire of 1871, and effected a notable diminution in the city's mortality. He also wrote much on sanitary matters, including eight volumes of Board of Health Reports, and special reports on the Chicago River, public parks, drainage, and the sanitary history of Chicago. In 1870 he visited Venezuela in the interest of mine sanitation and there made valuable collections, which, with several of his unpublished writings, were destroyed in the great fire the following year. He helped found the American Public Health Association and was its treasurer in 1872 and its president in 1876. When the Illinois State Board of Health was organized, in 1877, Rauch was made its first president and, as such, he had to superintend the administration of the Medical Practice Act, passed at the same session of the legislature. He rapidly reduced the number of non-graduate practitioners in the state, and by setting a requirement for pre-medical education and a four-year course in medical college as qualifications for licensure in Illinois, he was influential in forcing medical colleges all over the country to raise their standards and amplify their courses. He continued on the State Board of Health until 1891, taking a great interest in all public health matters and writing upon many, including quarantine against yellow fever. In 1892 he assisted in the establishment of a quarantine station for cholera cases and suspects, in view of a threatened invasion of the country by that disease. In 1893, broken in health, he returned to his boyhood home in Pennsylvania, but he served actively in connection with the board of awards of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. The following year he undertook the editorship of the public health department of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and made a nation-wide study of the prevalence and control of smallpox, published as "The Smallpox Situation in the United States, " in the Journal the week after his death. He was found dead in his bed, at Lebanon, on March 24, 1894.

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Public Parks: Their Effects Upon the Moral, Physical and Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of Large Cities; With Special Reference to the City of Chicago

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Preliminary Report to the Illinois State Board of Health: Water Supplies of Illinois and the Pollution of Its Streams (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Preliminary Report to the Illinois State Boa...)

The Sanitary Problems of Chicago: Past and Present (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from The Sanitary Problems of Chicago: Past and P...)

Excerpt from The Sanitary Problems of Chicago: Past and Present IT is interesting to notice how little the elements of mere beauty of loca tion, or healthfulness of surroundings, as things worthy to be considered, enter into the locating of towns which, in the usual growth of business and population, become large cities. Facilities for primitive trade and barter are the elements which generally first determine the sites of future cities. Careful selection of a site with reference to the wants of a large population from the necessities of the case cannot be made, and in many instances where it was supposed all the conditions obtained, failures have occurred. The sanitary problems that subsequently arise unite the necessity of accept ing its deficiencies in regard to water supply, to soil, to atmosphere, to loca tion and topography, with that of applying such artificial remedies and modifications as may be appropriate and practicable. Marsh, in his work on Man and Nature, says, The inﬂuence of man in changing the climate and the physical condition of a country needs no argument to substantiate it. Withdraw man, and you remove the disturber of all laws. People must be awakened to the necessity of restoring the disturbed harmonies of nature, where well-balanced inﬂuences are so pro pitious to all her organic offspring 5 of repaying to our great mother the debt which the prodigality and thriftlessness of former generations have imposed upon their successors, thus fulfilling the command of religion and of practi cal wisdom, to use this world as not abusing it. He further says, I am satisfied that we can become the architects of our own abiding place, as it is well known how the mode of our physical, moral, and intellectual being is affected by the character of the home Providence has appointed, and we have fashioned for our own material habitation. Such is undoubtedly the case, and it becomes our duty as far as possible to restore this harmony which is destroyed by the accumulation of human beings. The collection of many people in a small space, no matter for what purpose, is unnatural and artificial and it is therefore necessary, in order to prevent the ill effects of such accumulations, to resort to artificial means of neutralizing the disturbing agencies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Public parks

(Public parks: their effects upon the moral, physical and ...)

Report on Medical Education, Medical Colleges and the Regulation of the Practice of Medicine in the United States and Canada, 1765-1889...

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John Henry Rauch Edit Profile

physician publicist

Background

John Henry Rauch was born on September 4, 1828 at Lebanon, Pennsylvania, the son of Bernard Rauch, who was of German ancestry, and his wife, Jane Brown, of Scotch-Irish descent.

Education

He attended Lebanon Academy, commenced the study of medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. John W. Gloninger, and graduated from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1849. He wrote his graduation thesis upon Convalaria polygonatum, thus early showing his love for botany and materia medica.

Career

In 1850 he moved to Iowa, where he joined the newly organized state medical society and the next year published in its Proceedings a "Report on the Medical and Economical Botany of Iowa. "

In 1852 he was the society's first delegate to the American Medical Association. From his young manhood he was both public spirited and scientific. He interested himself in the condition of river boatmen and secured the establishment of marine hospitals at Galena and Burlington.

In 1855-56 he worked with Louis Agassiz and made a natural history collection, consisting mainly of fish, from the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In 1856 he aided in securing the passage of a bill providing for a geological survey of Iowa.

He was professor of materia medica in Rush Medical College, Chicago, 1857-58; and was a founder (1859) of the Chicago College of Pharmacy, and its first professor of materia medica.

He served as a surgeon throughout the Civil War, being mustered out of service in 1865. He and his work are mentioned several times in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. After the war he returned to Chicago and in 1867 helped to reorganize the Board of Health, upon which he served until 1873.

During this period he cared for the sanitation of the burned city and the welfare of the 112, 000 persons rendered homeless by the great fire of 1871, and effected a notable diminution in the city's mortality. He also wrote much on sanitary matters, including eight volumes of Board of Health Reports, and special reports on the Chicago River, public parks, drainage, and the sanitary history of Chicago. In 1870 he visited Venezuela in the interest of mine sanitation and there made valuable collections, which, with several of his unpublished writings, were destroyed in the great fire the following year. He helped found the American Public Health Association and was its treasurer in 1872 and its president in 1876.

When the Illinois State Board of Health was organized, in 1877, Rauch was made its first president and, as such, he had to superintend the administration of the Medical Practice Act, passed at the same session of the legislature. He rapidly reduced the number of non-graduate practitioners in the state, and by setting a requirement for pre-medical education and a four-year course in medical college as qualifications for licensure in Illinois, he was influential in forcing medical colleges all over the country to raise their standards and amplify their courses.

He continued on the State Board of Health until 1891, taking a great interest in all public health matters and writing upon many, including quarantine against yellow fever. In 1892 he assisted in the establishment of a quarantine station for cholera cases and suspects, in view of a threatened invasion of the country by that disease.

In 1893, broken in health, he returned to his boyhood home in Pennsylvania, but he served actively in connection with the board of awards of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. The following year he undertook the editorship of the public health department of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and made a nation-wide study of the prevalence and control of smallpox, published as "The Smallpox Situation in the United States, " in the Journal the week after his death. He was found dead in his bed, at Lebanon, on March 24, 1894.

Achievements

His most notable contribution to medicine in the United States was his share in the promotion of higher medical education. His interest in everything relating to the American Medical Association was intense. His earlier writings on medicine and hygiene, though not of great present worth, show the workings of a keen and active mind applied in a scientific manner. The last twenty years of his life saw the rise of antiseptic surgery, bacteriology, and modern hygiene. He accepted and applied them, helped to secure their recognition in medicine, and did much to guide and accelerate the revolution which their acceptance made inevitable.