That Time John Dodge Died in Mobile

Recently one of my Google Alerts coughed up an interesting article. The piece was a brief notice about the unmarked grave of John Lewis Dodge [1893-1916], who has an unfortunate connection with Mobile. Because he was a professional baseball player in 1912 and 1913, the Society for American Baseball Research had paid for a marker at the plot in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, which was installed early in December 2021. 

Some sources say Dodge was born in Tennessee in 1889, but the 1900 U.S. Census has him as seven years old and living with his family in Bolivar, Mississippi. His father, born in Louisville, was a physician who moved to Bolivar to set up his practice and met his mother Fannie. The census also lists a two year-old sister, Mary. 

Fannie developed tuberculosis, and despite the family's move to Arizona she died in 1902. John's father died two years later, back in Mississippi, apparently from an overdose of chloroform he was using to self-medicate his headaches. What happened to John Jr. and Mary in the following few years is unknown, but by 1909 John was playing professional baseball in a minor league in Arkansas. 

Over the next four seasons with various teams he batted well and played even better on defense at third and second bases and shortstop. Late in the 1912 season he was called up by the Philadelphia Phillies and made his major league debut on August 29. Even though he played in only 30 games, he managed to demonstrate his defensive skills in a number of  plays noted by newspaper accounts.

Dodge was traded to the Cincinnati Reds on June 3, 1913, three games into the season and played his final game for them on October 5. His offense improved in the 94 games, but his defensive skills deteriorated--he made 27 errors at third base. During his major league career Dodge had a .215 batting average, made 90 hits, had four homers and 48 runs batted in, and scored 38 runs. 

New management of the Reds sold Dodge's contract to a Louisville Class AA team, at the time the highest level of minor league play. Perhaps the Reds wanted a more consistent player. His defense and hitting improved, but apparently not enough; he was traded down to the Nashville Class A team on July 27 of the 1914 season.

Among Dodge's teammates was pitcher Tom Rogers; the two would have a fateful reunion of sorts in 1916. In the 1915 season Dodge started off hitting well, but soon tapered off as pitchers figured him out. He was released by the Nashville team and then played winter ball in New Orleans.

For the 1916 season Dodge signed with the Mobile Sea Gulls, where he probably felt he had a final chance to move back upward toward the majors. He was hitting well after 39 games, but then came a home contest against his former team, the Nashville Volunteers, on June 18. 

In the seventh inning Dodge was hit with a fastball above his left eye. The Nashville pitcher was his friend and former teammate, Tom Rogers. At first the injury was not considered serious, but as a precaution Dodge was carried off the field and taken to the Inge-Bondurant Sanitarium, a private Mobile hospital. His condition worsened overnight and by the next morning Dodge was comatose. He died early that evening of internal hemorrhaging in the brain. 

His only survivors were his sister Mary Elizabeth and a grandmother in Memphis. On August 15 Mobile and the Chattanooga Lookouts played an exhibition game that raised $1500 for Mary. The sister later married, had two daughters and died in Connecticut in 1975. 

Dodge has been described as the first professional baseball player killed by a game pitch. In 1920 a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, Ray Chapman became the first major league player to die in this way. These two men are certainly the best documented cases, although there may have been others in the early days of the game.  

I am indebted to the article on Dodge written by Chris Betsch at the Society for American Baseball Research site and the entry on Dodge at BaseballReference.com You can find much more information there. 

A general history that covers 1877-1973 is Robert Obojski's 1975 book, Bush League: A History of Minor League Baseball. 

Dodge playing for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1913

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Baseball Reference

Dodge's new marker in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, KY

Source: WDRB.com 

The private Mobile hospital where Dodge was taken after his injury. 

Mobile and a "Mission of Fear"

I recently read this book which has resided on my shelves for many years and discovered that much of it is set in and around Mobile, Alabama. Let's investigate. 

George Harmon Coxe [1901-1984] was a prolific author of fiction in various genres--detective tales, mysteries, thrillers. He published 63 novels and dozens of stories between 1932 and 1975. Around 1922 he began work for various newspapers and published a few stories in the pulps. He won a Grand Master designation from the Mystery Writers of America in 1964. 

Mission of Fear was published in 1963. The novel is a "stand-alone", i.e. not one of Coxe's series works. Marion and John Hayden are living the happy married life in suburbia when a stranger appears with bad news: Marion's first husband Ted Corbin did not die in a plane crash as reported. That makes Marion a bigamist and liable for return of the rather large life insurance payout.

After a bit of detective work John figures he has located Corbin in Mobile. Hayden's trip to the city and the area occupies pages 96-142. He has a window seat on the flight from Atlanta to Mobile and observes the landscape as the plane descends. "The land beneath the wingtip seem gently rolling now, with cultivated areas interspersed with stands of pine. For the past few minutes they had flown over one river after another, each seemingly flowing southward toward the gulf or bay, but he was hazy about his geography in that area and he could only identify those which were shown on the airline map--the Alabama first, the Tensaw, the Mobile." 

Coxe also describes Hayden's drive from the airport into the city as he passes more and more development, a large shopping center, increasing traffic. He finally reaches his new motel a few blocks beyond Government Street. Other landmarks are mentioned such as Conti Street, and Hayden makes a couple of trips through the Bankhead Tunnel. One area also noted is Bayou La Batre. 

Corbin lives across the Bay in Fairview, apparently a stand-in for Fairhope. Why this name is changed but not others is a mystery. There is a Fairview in Alabama, but it's much further north in Cullman County. A significant portion of the Alabama section of the book is set in "Fairview". It also includes a description of the drive from Mobile to New Orleans when Hayden & Corbin decide to fly out of the Big Easy instead of Mobile. Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach and Pass Christian all are mentioned. 

I've found no connection to Alabama in Coxe's biographical information online, but he did work for a newspaper in Florida at one point during his journalism career. Coxe has two other Alabama connections by way of films adapted from his work. The 1936 film Murder with Pictures was based on Coxe's first novel published the previous year. The female lead is Birmingham native Gail Patrick; I've written several blog posts about her life and career. Here's Flash Casey is a 1938 film based on Coxe's story "Return Engagement" first published in the March 1934 issue of the legendary Black Mask magazine. That film starred Boots Mallory, who grew up in Mobile. 

This novel is a fun read; Coxe was a writer who kept the story moving and created interesting characters. This title is the first thing by him I've read; I'll have to seek out more. Author James Reasoner has written an appreciation of Coxe that's available here. 

Who Was Davis Roberts?

I recently watched the Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame film In A Lonely Place for the umpteenth time and noticed something that turned out to have an Alabama connection. Early in the 1950 movie Bogart is leaving a Los Angeles  police station just after dawn. He passes a florist shop where a young black man is hosing down the sidewalk before the store opens. Bogart has an exchange with him, and this time I thought the young actor looked familiar. 

So I looked the film up on the Internet Movie Database and there he was, "Flower Shop Employee" played by Davis Roberts in an uncredited role. I looked him up on Wikipedia and found--wait for it--he was born in Mobile, Alabama. His name at birth was Robert Alphonse Davis and the date was March 7, 1917. 

Davis was given the same name as his father; see below for more information on the elder Robert. The family appears in Mobile in the 1920 U.S. Census. Father Robert is 23 years old, a year older than his wife Clara May. Children listed were Robert Jr, age 2, Margret 1, and baby Clarice. By the 1930 census the family had moved to Chattanooga. Father Robert was not listed but more children were included: Robert (13), Marguerite (11), Clarice (10), Charles (7) and Warner (4). That last child was the only Tennessee native listed, so I presume the family moved from Mobile about 1926.

Sometime after 1930 the family moved again, this time to Chicago. The 1940 census only has Robert Jr., Charles, Marguerite and Clarice listed in the household. The mother and Warner are not included. According to one source, Davis graduated from Phillips High School in Chicago, where he edited the newspaper. Then he attended the University of Chicago and began performing with local theater groups. 

After serving in World War II and reaching the rank of first lieutenant, Davis made his way to Hollywood. He studied at the Actors' Lab Workshop there and in 1947 had his first film appearance, credited as Robert A. Davis, in The Long Night. Until the mid-1950's he made various uncredited appearances and some as Robert or Robert A. Davis. His name change must have occurred at that point. 

From 1947 until 1993 Roberts compiled a total of 134 acting credits, 50 of them in films. He also made two appearances in small roles on Broadway. That's why he seemed familiar in the Bogart movie; I've no doubt seen Roberts in some of those many roles.

Some of his films include Knock on Any Door (another Bogart), The Great White Hope, Sweet Bird of Youth, Westworld, and The Chase. He played "Farm Hand with Hoe" in God's Little Acre, "Maitre D" in The Killers, Dr. Elmo Adams in Hotel (a significant role I definitely remember). and Warner in The Demon Seed. 

Roberts had a similar variety of roles on television, beginning with an appearance in The Amos 'n Andy Show in 1951. Some of the shows included Peter Gunn, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, Mission Impossible, Kolchak, All in the Family, Dallas, and St. Elsewhere. One well-remembered role was Doc Carter in three episodes of Sanford and Son. Roberts specialized in bringing dignity to whatever part he played. You can see the full film and television list at the Internet Movie Database. 

Another aspect of Roberts' career involved work with various organizations and efforts often related to blacks in film and television. On August 13, 1967, he and a few other members of the NAACP Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch presented the first annual Image Awards to recognize significant work by blacks in film, television, music, literature, etc. A national broadcast of the awards ceremony began in 1994, and the 51st presentation took place on February 22, 2020. 

Roberts also served several terms on the Western Advisory Board of the Actors' Equity Association, which represented theatrical performers. He co-chaired the committee that secured a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for controversial singer and actor Paul Robeson.  

Davis Roberts' career was significant enough that obituaries appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. 

A few more comments are  below. 

Roberts in "The Money Machine" episode of Mission Impossible first broadcast 29 October 1967

Source: Wikipedia

Davis' World War II draft card

Source: Ancestry.com 

This World War I draft registration card for Robert Alphonse Davis,  Davis Roberts' father, gives us some interesting information. The elder Davis registered on June 5, 1917, just a few months after his son Robert Jr. was born. The father's birthday was October 20, 1894. The family lived at 22 Persimmon Street, and he worked for the Mobile County School Board at Barton Academy.  

Source: Ancestry.com 

Here's a screenshot from that brief scene with Roberts and Bogart in the film In a Lonely Place. The scene starts at about the 24 minute mark. 

Alabama Photos of the Day: Gayfers

At mom's in Huntsville I recently came across the small jewelry box shown below, now being used to hold a few photographic slides [remember those?]. Naturally I thought, "There's a blog post in that..." And here we are...

Alabama marriage records show that Englishman Charles John Gayfer married Caroline Lurbeck in Mobile on April 11, 1871. Later in that decade he opened a dry goods store at 20 North Joachim. He soon partnered with A.N. Edmondson, and they relocated to 103 Dauphin at the corner with Conception. A move to St. Emmanuel in 1919 became the final downtown location of Gayfer's. 

Charles died in Mobile on December 7, 1915; he is buried in Pine Crest Cemetery. By that time the store had 150 employees and around $500,000 in annual sales. The business continued to thrive, and in the 1950's it was purchased by Mercantile Stores Company, a department store chain operating under various names. The new owners soon expanded the Gayfer's brand beyond Mobile. By 1969 stores had opened in Pensacola, Biloxi, Mississippi, and Tuscaloosa. 

The apostrophe in the name disappeared in 1970. That same year a Montgomery Fair store [the one where Rosa Parks had once worked] became a Gayfers and a store opened in Jackson, Mississippi, and a second one in Pensacola. The flagship store in downtown Mobile closed in 1985 and moved to West Mobile. By the early 1990's Gayfers was one of the largest southeastern department store chains. 

In 1998 the end arrived. The Dillards chain purchased Mercantile and the Gayfers brand came to an end. The name had a good run. 

In the 2001 book Mobile: Photographs from the William E. Wilson Collection by Marilyn Culpepper you can see Wilson's photograph of Gayfer's taken around 1900. At that time the store occupied the first floor and the Fidelia Club operated upstairs. 

A recent article by John Sharp, "‘I Wish for Gayfers’: Memories of beloved Mobile department store surface as redevelopment evolves" can be found here. 

A drawing of what became the Gayfer's store that opened on St. Emanual in 1919. This one remained the downtown location until the move to West Mobile in 1985. 

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Entrance to Gayfers at Wiregrass Commons Mall, Dothan, 20 April 1988

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Teenagers modelling back-to-school clothes in the Mobile Gayfers on July 19, 1977. The young woman in the middle is holding a copy of Seventeen magazine.

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Zina: The Slave Girl by Dr. Augustin Thompson

Sometimes in this business--pursuing Alabama-related stuff--you can tumble pretty far down a rabbit hole. This post is an example.

Recently Project Gutenberg loaded a copy of a play called "Zina: The Slave Girl, or, Which the Traitor?" by Dr. Augustin Thompson and published in 1882. Glancing at the first scene, I noticed an Alabama connection. Let's investigate. First, who was Augustin Thompson, anyway?

He was born in Union, Maine, in 1835. When the Civil War started, he enlisted in the Union Army and received a commission as Captain of Company G, 28th Maine Volunteer Infantry. His unit saw action at the Siege of Port Hudson in Louisiana and also at Fort Pickens in Pensacola. Thompson suffered a wound and developed tuberculosis; he was discharged in August 1863. He rejoined in October 1864 and served the remainder of the war as commander of a unit protecting the shipbuilding port of Bath, Maine. After the war Congress awarded him the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel for his service.

Thompson attended medical school at Hahnemann Homeopathia College in Philadelphia and set up his office in Lowell, Massachusetts, after graduation. By 1885 he had developed a very successful practice. But during those years he did not just see patients. Around 1876 he developed a "nerve food" patent medicine and began distribution as a syrup in 1884. The following year he invested $15,000 in the marketing and sale of a carbonated beverage he trademarked as "Moxie". 

The product was successful, and four years later Thompson and one of his sales agents created the Moxie Nerve Food Company. Thompson received a nice salary as general manager and was able to spend his time promoting Moxie and pursuing his other interests, such as writing. 

Moxie was one of the rare patent medicines to make the transition to another type of consumer product, the soft drink. The change became necessary after passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, a law that forced patent medicine makers to put active ingredients on their labels. Once the public became aware of just how many such products included alcohol, cocaine, and opium, companies had to change their formulas or go out of business.  

Ironically, the Moxie company is owned today by Coca Cola, another patent medicine turned soft drink, and remains popular especially in New England. I've never tried one, but it supposedly has a sweet flavor and a bitter aftertaste due to the gentian root extract in its formula. 

Thompson's play "Zina" was published in 1882 before he began serious work on marketing his patent medicine. As note above, I stumbled across this item on Project Gutenberg. Their copy came from the digital version at the Library of Congress; the print copy there is in the African American Pamphlet Collection. 

Printed copies seem to be quite rare. The WorldCat database of library holdings from around the world only lists three copies, the Library of Congress one and others in Kansas and New York libraries. The work did not show up on Google Books, the Internet Archive or Hathi Trust. Zina may have been self-published by Thompson; the "Courier Press" is probably his hometown newspaper, the Lowell Courier. 

Zina seems to be an anti-slavery play written 25 or more years too late. The first scene is a dialog between Zina, "Property of Keele Brightly" who is a "Slavetrader, gambler, and guerilla chief" and Martelle d’Arneaux. "A true type of the old Southern chivalry." The two, who know each other, meet in a street; D'Arneaux sees she has been weeping. She tells him she is waiting for her master to finish gambling, and then she'll go back with him. As they converse, D'Arneaux learns she is mistreated by Brightly, and she begs him to purchase her. 

D'Arneaux observes, "Zina, you were not born to be a slave. God has not put the stamp of that race in your angel face. Your brain is sharper than your master’s. Think! at fourteen you read as well as the best at the plantation. In music you are a prodigy." By the end of the scene Zina, afraid she will be sold to a slave trader the next day, is on her knees begging. D'Arneaux promises, "I will try."

The next scene is set in the club at a hotel. Brightly and Merald Myers, "A gambler, duellist, and slave trader," are playing the card game faro, which was extremely popular in the U.S. in the 19th century. Before this scene ends, future Confederate general John Bell Hood has joined the others, word of the bombardment of Fort Sumter has arrived, and D'Arneaux and Myers have had a lethal altercation.

The remainder of the play takes place near various battlefields; General William T. Sherman and other Northern and Southern characters appear. Read the play for yourself if you want to learn Zina's fate. 

Now for the payoff. Those first two scenes that make up Act I contain five references to the city of Mobile. The first scene is set in a street in the city. The second scene takes place in the cafe of the "Hotel Leon." During that scene this dialog takes place:

Myers. Come, Brightly, as you and I have not quarreled, let us have a whack at the national game. (Deals cards—they play.)

Brightly. Myers, you are the sauciest devil in Mobile.

Myers. Why?

Brightly. Because you are the best shot, I suppose.

Myers. Then Mobile tolerates me, does it?

Hood. It does.

Myers. Then suppose it should choose to do otherwise?

Hood. Some citizen would wring your nose and kick you out.

So why did Thompson set the first act in Mobile? Who knows? He had no apparently connection with the city that I could find. Perhaps when his unit was active in the Pensacola area he heard stories about the slave trade in Mobile. 

Thompson published at least two other works before his death. A Waif in the Conflict of Two Civilizations: Tale of the Great Civil War and the Last Days of Slavery in America was published in 1892. The Origin and Continuance of Life, Together with the Development of a System for Medical Administration on the Law of Similars, From a Discovery of its Principles in the Law of Natural Affinities appeared in 1902.

You can read more about Thompson here and about Moxie here 

Frontispiece from Thompson's 1902 book The Origin and Continuance of Life

Source: Internet Archive

Augustin Thompson [1835-1903]

Source: Find-A-Grave

ZINA: THE SLAVE GIRL
OR
WHICH THE TRAITOR?

A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS.

By Dr. A. THOMPSON, of Lowell, Mass.

[Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by Augustin Thompson, of Lowell, Mass., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.]

LOWELL, MASS.:

COURIER PRESS: MARDEN AND ROWELL.

1882.

Source: Internet Archive

Movies with Alabama Connections: Balboa

As I continue my wanderings through the twists and turns of state history on this blog, I'm always alert for mentions of Alabama in the movies or television shows. I came across another one recently in an obscure 1983 film called Balboa. I've never seen it, or even remember seeing it listed for viewing anywhere while channel surfing. But lo and behold there's a character named "Alabama Dern" in this thing, and he's played by none other than Chuck Connors of The Rifleman fame. 

Also staring are Tony Curtis and Carol Lynley. The film's other cast includes Cassandra Peterson, better known to her fans as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark; Sonny Bono and veteran character actor Henry Jones. The film was written and directed by James Polakof.

This movie presents a few conundrums. The IMDB entry is under "Balboa" but one of the DVD covers shown here says "Rich and Powerful." I can find no such film under that name. The plot summary there is simply "Millionaire gets involved in a real estate scam." This version runs 91 minutes, but the entry claims it was originally a mini-series, and nude scenes were added to the video release. It's listed as an independent film released in the U.S on July 19, 1983 The website of the Tony Curtis Estate includes the film as "Balboa" but gives the year as 1986.

I suspect the film is one of many made in recent decades without major studio backing that may have gotten some sort of tape and/or DVD release but even so have essentially disappeared. Not everything is on Netflix, or Amazon Prime, or Hulu, or....

A bit more information follows below. And there's also another interesting connection Chuck Connors has with Alabama...

IMDB image

Image from the Amazon listing, which has this description:

"Welcome to Newport Beach where the exotic sun-drenched waterfront is the setting for intrigue, loyalty, betrayal and million dollar business deals. Wealth and power foster either the best of friends or the worst of enemies -- and some will do anything to get what they want."

I'm going to have to seek out this movie just to find out how a character named "Alabama" fits into it.

Not sure what this image is, perhaps a poster?

Source

Connors played first base for the Mobile Bears in 1947, hitting .255 with 15 home runs. At that time the team played at Hartwell Field. 

"The 1947 Southern Association Baseball League champions the Mobile Bears. Chuck Connors, of Rifleman fame, played on the team. Top row from left: Cliff Dapper, Frank Luga, Chuck Connors, Paul Minner, "Doe" Kelly, Jack Maupin, George "Shotgun" Shuba, and Pershing Mandarf. Left to right in the middle row are Joe Powers, Stan Wasiak, Homer Matney, "Red" Rollins, manager Al Todd, Hal Younghans, and Pat McGlathen. On the bottom row from the left are Johnny Sosh, John Hall, Cal Abrams, batboy Donnie Wagner, Ray Boles, Roy Whitaker, and Bill Hart."

Source: Alabama Mosaic 

Mobile and "Blues in the Night"

I am always on the lookout for appearances of Alabama-related things in popular culture and came across this one recently. Over the life of this blog I've posted several items discussing songs from the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries that relate to Alabama in some fashion. You can read two of the posts here and here.

This example is a bit different--a shout out to various cities including Mobile. The song is "Blues in the Night", which first appeared in the 1941 film of the same name. The song has become a standard; versions by many singers can be found on YouTube. Everyone from Peggy Lee and the Benny Goodman Orchestra to Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney and Amy Winehouse have recorded it. The piece was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award. 

The film is an odd one, a little crime musical if you can believe it. The story follows a ragtag group of jazz musicians as they find and lose great success and learn that their original life riding the rails from town to town was not so bad. 

Richard Whorf plays pianist and leader Jigger Pine, and Jack Carson is the loudmouth trumpet player. Priscilla Lane is Carson's angelic and pregnant wife. The clarinetist is played by Elia Kazan in his acting days before he became one of Hollywood's best known producers and directors. Of course there's a gangster (Lloyd Nolan) and his sometime moll (Betty Field) to add the crime element. 

I remember seeing this film years ago and enjoying it. I watched it again recently and found it a bit silly and over the top in places, but still worth seeing. The cast is great at chewing the scenery, and there's some good music. Betty Field is a great femme fatale. 

Now about that song. I don't remember catching the reference to Mobile the first time I saw the film, but I did on this viewing. The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, two giants of American popular song in the 20th century. Together and with others they both made numerous contributions to the "Great American Songbook".

During their collaboration in the 1940's the pair wrote other hits including "That Old Black Magic" and "One More for My Baby (and One More for the Road)". Arlen wrote film and Broadway music for many hits with other partners including the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz. Mercer also spent much of his career in Hollywood working in the film industry. 

Many popular songs about the South in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries were written by northerners selling an idealized vision of Dixie; most of them probably never traveled below the Mason-Dixon Line. Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, and exposed to much African-American music growing up. We can probably attribute his choice of town names and music for the song to that upbringing. Now about that woman he mentions....
 
The film shows up periodically on Turner Classic Movies. A trailer can be found here. 

Harold Arlen [1905-1986]

Source: Wikipedia

Johnny Mercer [1909-1976]

Source: Wikipedia

"Blue in the Night"

Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

My mama done told me when I was in knee pants 
My mama done told me, "Son, A woman will sweet talk
And give you the big eye but when that sweet talk is done
A woman's a two face, a worrisome thing who will leave you to sing
A worrisome thing
Who will leave you to sing 
The blues in the night

Now the rain's a fallin'. Hear the train a callin' Hoowee! 
Hear that lonesome whistle 
Blowin across the trestle Hoowee! 
A hoowee ta hoowee, clickety clack 
It's echoing back the blues in the night.

The evening breeze will start the trees to crying
And the moon will hide it's plight
When you get the blues in the night
So take my word the mocking bird
Will sing the saddest kind of song
He knows things are wrong
And he's right

From Natchez to Mobile, From Memphis to St. Joe
Wherever... 
I've been in some big towns, and I've heard me some big talk 
I've been to some big towns
I've heard me some big talk 
But there is one thing I know
A woman's a two face
A worrisome thing who will leave you to sing
The blues in the night 

My mama was right, my mama was right
There's blues in the night

Cocaine Comes to Alabama in 1884

In an earlier post on this blog I wrote about early anesthesia in the state. I noted that Dr. William Sanders of Mobile had reported the use of cocaine for local anesthesia in 19 eye surgeries in April 1885. Apparently that drug had been used for a similar purpose several months earlier in Montgomery.

In September 1884 Carl Koller's use of topical cocaine for eye surgery was reported in Germany. The use of cocaine for local anesthesia reached America in a matter of weeks, and surgeons in New York and elsewhere used the method both on patients and in self-experiments. Several of these doctors, including the great William Halsted, became addicted. At the time of his discovery Koller was a surgeon in Vienna and a colleague of Sigmund Freud. 

By the end of 1884 more than 180 articles had appeared in the world medical literature describing cocaine use for local anesthesia in eye, nose, throat and other areas. A newspaper article in the Montgomery Advertiser in late November 1884 noted use by a local doctor named B.J. Baldwin.

That article is reproduced in full below from its reprinting in the Huntsville Weekly Democrat of November 26, 1884. Baldwin was apparently Benjamin James Baldwin. He appears in the listing of Montgomery County physicians in the 1889 Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. He is identified as a medical school graduate of "Bellevue" in 1877. That apparently means Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which operated in New York City until 1898 when it merged with New York University. Baldwin was certified via exam by the Montgomery County medical board of examiners in 1883. 

Baldwin was born in Montgomery on February 6, 1864. He became a prominent figure in state medical circles. In 1892 he served as President of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. His presidential address at the annual meeting in Montgomery in April of that year can be found here. Baldwin died on June 9, 1936, in Chilton County. 

Here is the entire Montgomery newspaper article as reprinted by the Huntsville Weekly Democrat. The author has the chronology of ether and chloroform anesthesia development reversed. Efforts to use nitrous oxide and ether as surgical anesthetics culminated in October 1846 in Boston when William Morton provided ether inhalation for a patient of surgeon John Collins Warren. Simpson and colleagues did not establish the anesthetic properties of chloroform until November 1847.

The article notes about cocaine, "Its discovery marks a new era in surgery" and that is very true. Koller's work with that drug inaugurated decades of clinical use and research into various other drugs for local and regional anesthesia; and the techniques enjoy wide medical application today. The many wounded Civil War soldiers who became addicted to morphine and then the quick spread of cocaine into the non-medical population in the late 1880's also created the kinds of addiction issues society deals with to this day.

The "poet Cowley" who is quoted in the article is Abraham Cowley [1618-1667], an English poet and essayist. His 1662 poem "A Legend of Coca" is one of the earliest mentions of the coca plant in English literature. The entire poem can found in Mortimer's 1901 book Peru.History of coca on pages 26-27 here. And now the article:


The science of medicine has made another step towards the relief of pain, and this time it comes through an humble medical student of Vienna. England can boast of the discovery of chloroform, and, through it, the relief of millions of sufferers. The name of Sir James Y. Simpson, it discoverer, will live through eternity and the statue erected to his memory in Westminister Abbey tells the thousands of visitors who walk through its sacred halls in what esteem the mother land holds this great benefactor. America can claim the discovery of ether a few years later, and while its discoverers have not been rewarded as was Sir James Y. Simpson, yet our people bow in reverence and gratitude to Wells, Long and Morton. 

It does not detract from the great blessings which ether and chloroform bestow upon human race, for they both have their special places, to say that the new German anesthetic for certain purposes has entirely supplanted them. About one month ago Dr. Koller, a student in a Vienna hospital, gave the startling news to the medical world that, by dropping a few drops of the Hydrochorate [SIC] of Cocaine in the eye any operation could be performed without pain and that the same was true of other parts of the body. 

American surgeons at once cabled to Germany for a supply of this marvelous drug, but only succeeded in getting a small amount. Last week, Dr. B.J. Baldwin, of this city, received a few grains from New York and under its influence performed eleven operations on the eye with entire satisfaction and absolutely without pain. 

The Cocaine is dissolved and dropped into the eye at intervals of five minutes until it has been used four times. It produces no pain, and leaves no unpleasant after effects. It seems to act by destroying the sensibility of the parts to which it is applied, but it does not, like chloroform, produce unconsciousness. Its discovery marks a new era in surgery and its action is the marvel of the medical age.

A short history of Cocaine in this connection will prove interesting. Cocaine is obtained from the leaves of the ordinary coco plant which is found wild in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia. The natives of the Western countries of South America chew these leaves as a stimulant when fatigued. So much vaunted is the coco as a stimulant that the poet Cowley represents an Indian chief as addressing Venus thus:

"Our Varichoca first this coco sent,
Endowed with leaves of wondrous nourishment,
Whose juice suck'd in, and to the stomach taken,
Long Hunger and long Labor can sustain,
From which our faint and weary bodies find
More succor, more to cheer the dropping mind
Than can your Bacchus and your Cerea joined.
The Quitoitla with this provision stored,
Can pass the vast and cloudy Andes."

It was used by the Indians of Peru in ancient times as an offering to the sun, and it is still held in veneration by the miners, who believe it has a softening effect upon the veins of one when chewed and thrown upon it. The cost of ordinary coco is very little, but he hydrochlorate of cocaine is very expensive. At present it is only manufactured by one firm, in Germany, and it costs two hundred and forty dollars an ounce or three thousand eight hundred dollars a pound. 

It will probably become cheaper when other chemists begin to manufacture it. The discovery of the action of cocaine is regarded by the medical profession as more wonderful than chloroform. Let suffering humanity build a mountain of gratitude to this humble medical student of Vienna. Though scarcely out of his teens Dr. Koller is now famous over the civilized world, and the good he has done is a greater glory than the crown of his own Imperial Land.