Cumberland County NJ Archives Biographies..... Edwin Curtis BIDWELL, 1821 - 1881
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 August 10, 2015, 8:59 pm

Source: See Below
Author: E. H. Bidwell


          EDWIN CURTIS BIDWELL, M. D.

                 Communicated by E. H. Bidwell, M. D.

     Dr. Bidwell was born in Tyringham, now Monterey, Berkshire Co.,
Massachusetts, Feb. 20, 1821. He came of good old Yankee stock, for his
great-grandfather, the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, was the minister of the
Congregational Church of the town for the first thirty-five years of its
existence, beginning in 1750.

     He was educated first at the old red school house of his native place, then
at Lenox Academy, and at Williams College, still in the "Berkshire Hills,"
graduating there in 1841. He graduated from the Medical Department of Yale in
1844, and practiced his profession in Massachusetts for about three years and
then in Ohio, where he remained about five years. Removing thence to Iowa, then
a very new state, while still continuing the practice of medicine and surgery,
he took an active part (not, however, as a candidate) in the political campaign
which resulted in the election of the first Republican legislature and governor,
James W. Grimes, afterwards United States Senator.

     While a citizen of Iowa he was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees
of the State University, an office with no pecuniary compensation beyond the
usual allowance for traveling expenses. This position he held until his return
to Massachusetts, after about six years in Iowa. He practiced again in
Massachusetts until the breaking out of the war for the Union, entering the
military service Jan. 1, 1862, as Surgeon of the 31st Mass. Vols., continuing
until Oct. 1, 1865.

     The 31st Mass. Vols. to which Dr. Bidwell was attached was one of the six
regiments raised in New England by Gen. Butler for the expedition for the
capture of New Orleans. It was present at the taking of Forts Jackson and St.
Philip by Admiral Farragut in April, '62, .and was the first to enter the city
of New Orleans, May 1, '62. It remained in the Department of the Gulf until the
close of the war in 1865. It shared actively in all the important campaigns and
principal events in that Department, among which were the siege of Port Hudson
in 1863; the disastrous Red River expedition in 1864; and the investment and
capture of Mobile in 1865. Dr. Bidwell was with his regiment on all of these
occasions. At some other times he was detached for other duty. At one time he
was assigned to duty as Chief Surgeon of the Cavalry Division of the Department
of the Gulf, on the staff of Gen. E. H. Davis, Commander of that Division
afterwards Governor of Texas. At another time he was by order of Gen. Canby
Commander of the Department, detailed for duty as medical officer with Col. C.
C. Dwight, Commissioner of Exchange of Prisoners. In the performance of this
duty he made many journeys with the Commissioner, who was an old friend of his
younger days, to several ports on the Gulf, and on the River, with ship-loads of
Confederate prisoners to be delivered, and returning with similar loads of Union
prisoners received. It was a very interesting, and, on the whole, not unpleasant
service, continued through a period of several months.

      In 1869 he was appointed Examining Surgeon for Pensions and served in that
position until 1881, when he resigned on account of disability from accidental
injury.

      After the war, being in some measure disabled for the arduous physical
labor of a country practitioner, he purchased a drug store just Started in the
new town of Vineland, and settled there with his family in 1866. At first he
followed his profession in connection with the drug store (Bidwell & Co.), but
soon withdrew from general medical practice, as he found the business of the
pharmacy better suited to a health none too good, even in the milder climate of
New Jersey. He carried on the drug business till the end of the century, when he
transferred it to his son, Dr. E. H. Bidwell.

      Always a wide reader, and specially interested in the natural sciences,
Dr. Bidwell also in the earlier part of his professional career, wrote many
articles for the medical journals. One of his original contributions to the
literature of the profession was the report of a personal Observation of Asiatic
Cholera, in 1849, which seemed to answer conclusively the question then much
discussed of the portability of Cholera infection in the persons of its victims.

      Two merchants, his neighbors, returning from a trip to the western
country, made a brief stop at a port on Lake Erie where the Cholera was at the
time prevailing, nearly a hundred miles from their homes in the interior of
Ohio. Immediately on reaching home both were attacked and both died the next
morning. Three other persons, members of the two families, also died shortly
afterward of the same disease. No other cases had occurred before, and none
followed, in that region for many miles in every direction.

      The lesson which these cases taught, now familiar enough to everybody, was
then a new one. Of the "germ theory" nothing was known, even "spontaneous
generation" was still a subject for serious argument, and the Cholera bacillus
was yet undreamed of. True scientific investigation of disease had scarcely
begun and what we now know of the real nature and manner of transmission of the
infectious diseases, took many years of study and the careful observation of
many thousand cases. Of the latter, Dr. Bidwell's report was among the earliest.

      The disease of the grape called Black Rot appeared in the vineyards of
Vineland in the early seventies. As the culture of the vine had become an
important and very profitable industry the blight that threatened its
destruction naturally became a matter of great concern to everyone interested in
the prosperity of the place. Dr. Bidwell studied it for several successive years
with the microscope, and by careful cultivation of the fungus itself discovered
its perfect or highest form, which had hitherto escaped detection. Prof. Pierre
Viala of Montpellier, France, who with one of his associates had made a special
and exhaustive study of the Black Rot, doubted the discovery until on the day of
his arrival at Vineland on his scientific visit to this country it was shown to
him under the microscope. The fungus was afterwards, through the courtesy of
Prof. Ellis, the eminent mycologist of Newfield, named Laestadia Bidwellii.

      Dr. Bidwell has held no municipal office in Vineland except as a member of
the Board of Health, but has been connected with several voluntary associations
which seemed worthy of countenance and support.

      The Shepherd Book Club, is one of the institutions most thoroughly
established among the literary people of the town. Of this he was one of the
original members and has long been its President. When a younger generation
formed a new organization 011 the same lines as their elder model they honored
him by naming it the "Bidwell Book Club."

      For many years he has been one of the active members of the Vineland
Historical and Antiquarian Association, and on the death of D. F. Morrill, Esq.
succeeded him as President.

      One of his most recent contributions to the archives of this institution,
was his lecture before it, a small edition of which was printed for private
distribution, under the title "The Birth of a New Science." It is a tribute to
the genius, skill and industry of the great. French scientist, Louis Pasteur,
and at the same time an account for non-professional readers, of his successive
studies and discoveries, from fermentation to hydrophobia, which demonstrated,
absolutely beyond question, the doctrine of the microbe—the "germ theory of
disease"—the foundation of an entirely new science, bacteriology. It is a record
of what is, perhaps, the most important, certainly, to operative surgery, the
most valuable, of all the many advances which have been bringing medicine and
surgery, and the new "preventive medicine," nearer to exact sciences during the
sixty years of Dr. Bidwell's professional life; "All of which he saw, and part
of which he was."

      Pineshore Cottage, Monterey, Mass.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

THE EARLY PHYSICIANS OF VINELAND, N. J.
Published by the VINELAND HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY 
1903


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