San Francisco County

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STEPHEN POWELL BURDICK, M.D.

 

 

STEPHEN POWELL BURDICK, M.D.-- On the first day of December, 1829, in a log cabin just within the margin of a dense forest, skirting a newly-made clearing, where the snow had piled itself in hugh(sic) drifts, a little light-haired, blue-eyed boy for the first time opened eyes to behold the dim light of a candle which struggled with the darkness of the small hours of that bitter cold morning which was to commence the career of a new life.

      Humble poverty had left its finger-touches all around, while on an adjoining cot lay the father of this new life, prostate with paralysis, causing helpless invalidism the remainder of his life.

      Since that morning sixty odd years have been rocked to sleep in the cradle of the past. The life which then had its dawning has passed its zenith, lingering now in the fullness of activity above its golden sunset.

      The above gives mention of the birth surroundings of Stephen Powell Burdick, M.D., born in Alfred, Allegany county, New York, son of Cary and Lucy Sheldon (Powell) Burdick.

      The sketch hereinafter given is permitted by Dr. Burdick that he may reach out his hand to aid those who have had birth, not in the lap of luxury, but where the lines called for energy of action, through which all things may be accomplished.

      Grandfather Stephen Powell of Highgate, Vermont, was a manufacturer of ship-building material, chiefly masts and spars. Synchronous with the declaration of war in 1812, he sustained heavy loses through the confiscation by the English government of a large raft in Wolf’s cove, hear Quebec. Escaping with his men across the line, he enlisted in the United States army, in which he held a Captaincy. He died at an advanced age, in Steuben county, New York. His wife long survived him, attaining the age of nearly 100 years. Of their family of twelve or fourteen children, several lived upwards of seventy years. The Powell family were early settlers of Vermont, and of English ancestry.

      Grandfather Burdick with three sons and two daughters, natives of Rhode Island, settled in Allegany county, New York, taking up a large tract of land in the wilderness near what is now Alfred Center, the seat of Alfred University, at which institution Dr. Burdick received his literary education and of which, his cousin, on paternal side, Professor Jonathan Allen, is now president. Grandparents Burdick lived upon their early possessions to a good old age. Carey Burdick, the father of Dr. Burdick, at an age of over fifty, died, September 23, 1850. The Doctor’s mother, reaching the ripe age of seventy-three years, deceased November, 1874.

      Of their two children Dr. Burdick alone survives, his brother Aylmer Delos Burdick, a teacher by profession, located in Texas before the civil war, was drafted into the Confederate army, serving most in the garrison at Galveston, and died in Texas, October 1, 1870, leaving three sons and two daughters.

      The brothers and sisters of Carey Burdick moved to Wisconsin during the early settlement of that State, locating in Rock county, where they lived to a good old age. Dr. S. Powell Burdick was early thrown upon his own resources through the illness of his father, and is in the strictest sense of the term a self-made man, his education being the result of his own earnings. During the last six months of his medical course he lived in the city of New York on eighteen cents a day; having enough money to carry him through on that basis he kept himself rigidly to that limit. He lived five years in Wisconsin, where he was engaged in farming, and at the age of twenty-one taught school through the winter term, returning in the spring to Alfred University to enter upon his collegiate course. After a few years of close application and strict economy, he was able to begin the study of medicine in the medical department of the University of New York and Long Island College Hospital, receiving his diploma in 1859.

      Now, after the lapse of over thirty years, most of them crowned with professional honors, and liberal pecuniary returns, Dr. Burdick is satisfied that such measure of success as he has enjoyed has been largely due to the discipline of the hard work and privation through which he struggled in his early life, and is not regretful in the least that such was the case.

      It was his good fortune during his early professional labors to have enjoyed the most friendly relations with the celebrated Doctors Frank H. Hamilton and Austin Flint, receiving from them much valuable aid. After graduating he secured the position of surgeon on board a ship plying between New York and Liverpool, at a salary of $50 for the round trip.

      Bearing letters of introduction from Dr. Frank H. Hamilton to celebrated surgeons of London and Paris, he was enabled to visit all the prominent hospitals of those cities with great interest and advantage to himself. His early training in economy enabled him to return to New York with $5 of his salary still intact. His attention was soon called to the claims of homeopathy, and he made some most crucial tests of the relative merits of both systems. Satisfying himself of the superior intellectual basis of the principles, as well as the unquestionable efficacy of the practice of homeopathy, he could not be true to his convictions without embracing the new system, which he has followed with an ever-increasing confidence in the wisdom of his choice. He soon after accepted the position of Professor of Obstetrics in the New York Homeopathic Medical College, in which institution for twenty years he was associated with Drs. T. F. Allen, J. W. Dowling, E. M. Kellogg, William Todd Heimuth, H. C. Houghton and S. Lilienthal. The last named is now residing in San Francisco. Among the graduates under his teachings we find the names of Drs. Sheldon H. Talcott, now a specialist of national reputation in nervous diseases, and superintendent of the State Insane Asylum at Middletown, New York; late Dr. George S. Norton, a distinguished professor in the Ophthalmic Hospital of New York city for many years; and James W. Ward, now of San Francisco. Dr. Burdick was one of the organizers and promoters of the project to secure to the new school practitioners charge of one of the charity hospitals on Ward’s Island, which resulted in their obtaining control of a large hospital of about 800 beds. Dr. Burdick becoming one of its regular staff. He was also consulting physician to the woman’s Homeopathic College and Hospital, and one of the medical staff of the Hahnemann Hospital, all of the city of New York. In fact he and the late Dr. B. F. Hunt were the founders of the Hahnemann Hospital, these two physicians being associated in its humble beginnings in an old dilapidated building of two or three rooms, defraying all the expenses for food, medicine and care. The work was finally taken up by some public-spirited humanitarians, under whose liberal auspices it has grown to its present magnificent proportions.

      At the annual session in 1883 of the New York State Homeopathic Medical Society he was, together with Dr. T. F. Allen, recommended by the society to the regents of the State University for its honorary degree, which was duly conferred.

            Having practiced his profession in New York until 1884, being almost uninterruptedly on the staffs of three hospitals, lecturing three times a week in the medical college in addition to a very large private practice, he found himself becoming a victim of overwork and nervous exhaustion, which compelled him to give up his life work and seek rest and recuperation on the Pacific coast. Settling in the city of Oakland, he slowly regained a measure of health, and is again beginning to feel the over-pressure of a large practice. In 1888 he was elected President of the California Homeopathic State Society.

      On the 15th day of June, 1865, Dr. Burdick and Catherine Elizabeth Bloodgood (daughter of Cyrenus and Catherine Bloodgood, born November 1, 1842) were joined in holy wedlock, which was crowned with unalloyed happiness till her death, October 1, 1870.

      The issue of this marriage was one son, Arthur Wordsworth Burdick, who is now associated with his father in the practice of medicine, being a graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was born in the city of New York, January 11, 1869.

      From a second marriage was issued to Dr. Burdick his daughter Jennie, born September 26, 1875, deceased November 9, 1878.

      Many grateful hears hold remembrance of kind words of encouragement and acts of cheerful aid, which has ever characterized the life and professional career of Dr. Burdick, who has ever lived in the broadest field of advanced thought, allowing no barriers from sect, creed or dogma, with a life motto, "Whatever a man will do, he may do." 

 

 

Transcribed 3-4-06 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 393-395, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

© 2006 Marilyn R. Pankey.

 

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