A memoir written by a doctor who practiced from the mid to late 1800s until the 1930s in America. He describes medical practice in the country as it was when he began, and how it changed through the years.

Arthur E. Hertzler is very thorough in his descriptions. There is a dry sense of humor here, so dry you might miss it if you aren't careful; reminds me of Mark Twain. It is interesting to read of medicine as it was practiced in the 1800s and then in the 1930s. Doctor Hertzler has a fine sense of history. He confesses that much of his practice was ineffective in a scientific way, the best he could do in most cases was diagnose and make the patient comfortable because there was so little known about the causes of disease, or how to cure it.

This is not a book of anecdotes, so much as a history of the practice in general, and the country practice in specific. I found much of his attitude to be bitter and harsh. Think Dr. House on the prairie in the 1800s. Sadly, I think this is a natural consequence of his profession and dealing with so many silly people on a regular basis. This author reflects all the prejudices of his times, and in fact, I quit reading the book when he came to describe the treatment of "women's problems." I am not up for that much instruction of past attitudes at this time.

Some will enjoy this book, especially if they have a medical background or an interest in first person narratives of history. It is amusing at times and the author has some great philosophical points to make. He writes in a clinical, and detached way and his sentences can be convoluted and descriptive. If one is familiar with reading writing of this era, it will help. I loved the few illustrations in the book. ( )

To sum it up, this book might be called an anecdotal history of medicine as practiced in the rural west of the United States from the mid-1800's through 1938. But it is so much more.

In The Horse and Buggy Doctor, Dr. Hertzler tells the story of his life in rural Kansas. From his youthful yearnings to become a doctor, to his studies at home and abroad, and of his practice, where he spent hours on the road in his buggy responding to calls, of the trials of building his hospital and running it for 30 years, of his relationships with his patients, and many stories of his cases, including several operations that he did on himself.

The whole book was interesting; two sections I found particularly fascinating. The years of his study in Berlin, where he spent countless hours in the dissecting room, making him such a good anatomist and skillful surgeon. He describes his professors, their teaching methods, and his relationship with them. Also the section about kitchen surgery, with descriptions of many incidents in those years. Imagine how this one ends: a lady with a 50 pound tumor; she could not lie down. And imagine how this one begins, for it ends with there were no birds in the tree.

His was a hard youth and a hard life, but it didn't feel as though he was trying to feel sorry for himself here, rather it came across more along the lines of 'this is just how it was; these are the things that happened; and this is how its turned out'. One can't help but feel sorry for the child that endured what he did, but thankful for the man's contribution to medicine, his industrious tenacity and skill probably born from his early bitterness. Although he wrote this sentence regarding a patient, I believe that it sums up Dr. Hertzler's own life: ..it may be that in adversity the finest traits in all of us are developed. Talk as we will, it is intensive labor coupled with grief that builds character.

Dr. Arthur E. Hertzler was an amazing man and a dichotomy in so many ways:

Raised in Kansas, Arthur grew up poor, gangly, hungry and discouraged, amidst pitiful surroundings and rustic speech. His father was persuaded by a meddling church member to forbid his education: (At his undergraduate graduation, June 18, 1890:) The principal, being familiar with my struggles, was most kind to me, reciting some of my original achievements in mathematics; and, knowing the needlessness of my struggles, he said a number of things only he and my father understood. … On the way home my father said ... He realized then that the church which had engendered in him the fear that education was pernicious was a bad church. I could have told him that ten years earlier. Had I had those four years to live over again the bitterness which attended them would have been obviated. … The scars our souls receive in our childhood remain in our subconscious selves and all our philosophy and learning will not eradicate them. Unbidden they rise to the surface at the most inopportune times to haunt us the remainder of our lives.

Yet he pursued education with a tenacity and ended up studying under some great professors in Berlin, where his efforts and work were recognized for what they were: No American teacher ever showed me the many favors that many of these German professors did, me a poor scared foreign kid. To them there was no nationality, just somebody who seemed anxious to learn. That was enough. . . . At the end Waldeyer offered me an assistantship in anatomy and Virchow urged me to abandon the idea of becoming a surgeon and to stick to my researches. “A man with ideas should not waste his time treating the sick. At best, sometime the patient will die. Truth is eternal,” was his admonition.
Yet he returns to Kansas.

One nitpick: the book ended abruptly, as if he'd just stopped writing in mid-chapter. I thought the telling of such a life story could have been better wrapped-up. Also, although I had no problem with it, reading through the lens of a slice of history told as it really was, the sensitivities of some modern readers may be bothered by the animal studies and by some references to particular troublesome women, which he apologizes for writing about in a “cynical manner”.

The foreward in my copy was written by Milburn Stone, Gunsmoke's “Doc”, who, in his childhood, knew Dr. Hertzler. Further information about Arthur E. Hertzler found online: Dr. Hertzler's case books and other papers are maintained at the History of Medicine Library and Museum at the University of Kansas Medical Center. The Kansas Historical Society website says: The Hertzler Research Foundation, Agnes Hertzler memorial Clinic, Kansas Health Museum, and Halstead Hospital stand today as legacies of this outstanding Kansas country doctor.

Full of pithy down-home wit, masking a brilliant mind which was recognized in Berlin for what it was, but utilized back in Kansas for the good of his own kind, and mankind - this was a wonderful memoir. ( )

An interesting look at the practice of medicine in 'the good old days'. Dr. Hertzler showed little sympathy for women who were ill if they hadn't produced several children, and spends much time explaining that these women were simply neurotic. ( )

Here is my memory of this book, which may or may not be accurate: When the author was practicing medicine in the 1890's, he figured that he could help about two thirds of his patients; he could do nothing for about one third of them. And (I'm not sure exactly where I got this idea - from him or from other sources) of the patients that he thought he could help, in fact he was helping only half of them. So the reality was that he could help only one third of his patients and couldn't do a thing for two thirds of them. It makes me very glad that I live now instead of then.