JAMES McFADDEN GASTON.

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Soon after settling in that city Dr. Gaston opened a surgical infirmary in connection with his surgical practice, and in 1884 was elected professor of the principles and practice of surgery in the Southern Medical College. Both as an operator and a writer on medical and surgical subjects he is prominent throughout the country.

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Off To Brazil

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Dr. Gaston joined a group of  colony scouters in august of 1865 who were also in the process of locating lands for their prospective colonizers.  Dr. Gaston, an aristocratic surgeon from Columbia, South Carolina, who in 1866 wrote a book on the subject, entitled "Hunting a Home in Brazil".  was repre-sentinga South Carolina organization promoting emigration, but the Brazilian government also appointed him laison among all the other scouts, as well.  He coordinated all the groups so that they would not stumble over one another.

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So numerous were the searching parties that they found themselves encountering each other out on the hunt, and sometimes negotiating for the same tract of potential cotton growing land.  But the memory of shared hard times in the South brought out the best in them, and they worked coopera-tively in most cases.  Over a dozen groups were exploring along the coast and into some potions of the interior of the state of Sao Paulo.  The Brazil scouts included Warren Hastings, General  A, T. Haw-thorne, Frank McMullan, William Bowen, Colonel M. S. McSwain, Charles Gunter, the Reverend Bal-lard Dunn, Gaston and Wood, Dr. John H. Blue, Meriwether, Shaw, and others.  Dozens of others scouted the land on their own, sending back reports through the exchanges press in the South.

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Welcoming crowds, extending for three blocks, shouted "Long live the Confederados, " at dockside receptions of these scouting groups.  Brazilians vied for the privilege of entertaining them.  As one of the group remarked, "Balls and parties  and serenades were nightly accompaniment and whether in town or in the country it was one grand unvarying scene of life, love and seductive friendship."  Em-peror Dom Pedro met them personally, and bands played "Dixie."  In cities, large and small, parades and cheering crowds greeted this advance legion representing Brazil's future citizens.  Some predicted as many as a hundred thousand ex-Confederates would soon migrate to the land of the Southern Cross.  Brazil was at war with Paraguay, and put on a show for some of the scouters, showing them around the war front and honoring them with grand receptions.

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Dr. Gaston was kept busy scouting for his own group and coordinating the other scouts.  The former Con-federate army surgeon disagreed with General Robert E. Lee's opinion that southerners should not emigrate, and he lost no time before heading south to investigate.  Within two months of the sur-render of the Army of Northern Virginia, and seeing the utter devastation of his adopted home town of Columbia, he was on a ship bound for Brazil.  There he hoped to get a good accounting of the "soil, climate, production, people and the government."  On his forty-first birthday, December 27, 1865, he wrote in his diary that he had reached a crossroads in his life.  He had decided to start over in a dif-ferent world with his wife and six children.  He noted the shock of cutting his ties with the United States, but, his confidence rising, he believed that success lay ahead if he settled in Brazil.

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Gaston covered the land by train,, canoe, mule and on foot.  He studied the port of Santos, noting approvingly that it was deep enough to handle even the largest ships of the time​.  It was just the place to export the cotton that Confederates would someday grow on plantations with access to this port.

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He agreed with General Wood, one of his fellow scouters, that the best area for raising cotton seemed to be at Arrarquara, Jau, and Limeira, and he was concerned that Wood had already reserved the same lands by contract with the Brazilian government, to be held for immigrants from the seven states that Wood represented.  Gaston described the soil of the Jau region lovingly, remarking that it stuck to his shoes when it was wet like the black dirt of southern Mississippi.  He found the people there to be healthy, with no cases of malaria reported.  As it turned out, the Jau area proved unsuitable for cotton cultivation but fine for coffee.  Grandfather Harris's coffee plantation lay right in the middle of these old cotton lands.

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Gaston visited coastal areas including Bertoga and Perique, near Santos.  Perique had ensured its place in history when it was captured in 1850 by elements of the British navy who were trying to stop the importation of slaves from Africa.  Gaston had an abiding interest in the economics of slavery and noted that a slave could be bought at half the price formerly charged in the United States.

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On one occasion he tried to interest the Brazilian government in a plan to use the cotton-growing expertise of the freed U.S. slaves.  He advised the Brazilian government to encourage the former slaves to emigrate to Brazil and then to employ the freedmen as supervisors on the cotton plantations.  After some study, the government  rejected the plan as unwise, fearing that the freed slaves would incite the Brazilian abolitonists to demand a faster end to the peculiar institution in their country.

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Dr. Gaston's colony, at the headwaters of the Ribeira River, eight days journey from the mouth at Iguape, upstream from McMullan's and Dunn's colonies consisted of about a hundred persons, mainly from the Carolinas.  They faced the same trials as the other Confederados endured, and some made their choice to move to other areas of Brazil.  Gaston, himself moved several time, finally setting up his medical practice in the city of Campinas, not far from Americana.  In 1883, Dr. Gaston made the final decision and moved back to the United States to the city of Atlanta where he started an infirmary.

 

By 1871 the colony had spread itself so thin through dispersal of its residents that they were hard to trace.  Most settled in other parts of Brazil.  One of the exceptions was William, the Redhead, who married one of the neighboring Brazilian girls, absorbing the native culture entirely.  His descendants who populate the area, sometimes can be spotted by their red hair and blue eyes.

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His professional Biography

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JAMES MCFADDEN GASTON was born in Chester District, S. C., December 27, 1824.  He comes of the Gaston family of South Carolina, who were famous in the Revolutionary war.  His great-grandfather was the first to organize armed resistance to the British in Chester District.  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

After the battle of Manassas, where Dr. Gaston served as medical director, at his own request he was assigned by Gen. Beauregard to duty with the Third brigade South Carolina volunteers, under the command of Gen. D. R. Jones.  He remained with the Third brigade when under the command of Brigadier-General R. H. Anderson, and when the latter was made Major-General he manifested the estimate placed upon Surgeon Gaston by making application to have him assigned as chief surgeon to his division.  Thus he became identified with Anderson's division and passed through the stirring campaigns in which it bore so active a part in Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

 

While on sick leave with his family in South Carolina upon the occurrence of the battle of Chickamauga he telegraphed the surgeon-general of his readiness to repair to the relief of the wounded, and was so ordered.  Here he labored assiduously for several days with lamented Dugas.  He then went to Marietta and assisted in the secondary operations required, impressing the medical director of the hospitals, Dr. S. H. Stout, in such a manner that he subsequently applied for a transfer of Surgeon Gaston to his department as inspector of hospitals.  With such an understanding an application was sent up requesting to be relieved from field service and to be assigned to hospital service, but instead of receiving orders to report to Surgeon Stout, the general order relieving him from the duties of chief surgeon of Anderson's division, in compliance with his request, was accompanied with an order to report to the medical director of hospitals in Gen. Beauregard's department at Charleston, S. C.  He was ordered then to Fort Gaines to establish a general hospital; remaining here only a short time, he was ordered to Fort Valley, Ga., where he established a hospital and remained until the close of the war.
 
Soon after the close of the war Dr. Gaston determined to seek a foreign land, and accordingly made his way to New York in his Confederate gray and took passage for Brazil.  After arriving at Rio de Janiero the imperial government of Brazil tendered the position of consulting surgeon of the medical staff to Dr. Gaston, with the rank and pay of the highest medical officer in the army.  Dr. Gaston had seen and done enough in this line for the past four years, and declined the appointment, as he wanted to explore the country with a view of removing his family there.  For six years after the family of Dr. Gaston moved to Brazil he practiced his profession in the interior towns.  At the end of this time he went to Rio de Janiero to undergo the requisite examination and present a thesis for recognition by the faculty of the imperial government.  After remaining there four months this was accomplished, and early in 1874 he removed to the thriving and populous city of Campinas, in the province of S. Paulo, where he remained until his removal to the United States at the close of 1883.  
 
Atlanta had been selected as Dr. Gaston's future home before leaving Brazil.  Soon after his arrival here he inaugurated a surgical infirmary upon a basis he had adopted for a similar institution in Brazil.  In his broad field of experience as a general practitioner has been included more than ordinary attention to obstetrics, gynecology and surgery, so that his literary productions cover a variety of subjects such as are rarely treated so thoroughly by one observer.  He has likewise claimed a prominent place among neurologists of the present day by his lucid exposition of the excito-dynamic element of the nervous system.  He has published articles in the medical and surgical journals of this and other countries, which commanded universal attention. 

 

While the various contributions of Dr. Gaston to current literature indicate a large scope of professional skill and experience, it is as "professor of the principles and practice of surgery," he discharged the duties of both professorships most acceptably to the class of medical students in this institution.  In addition to his didactic lectures, he gives a private course of instruction in surgery during each winter to those who desire to avail themselves of his practical observation in this department.  The performance of many of the most important surgical operations in his clinics for the regular course is supplemented by his practical demonstration on the cadaver of the rarer operations at the close of each session.
 
The faculty of imparting knowledge in a way to be appropriated by the student is a notable feature of his teaching, and he presents in his course of instruction a rich harvest from the fields of investigation throughout the world, with the fruits of his own original observations, so that little escapes his zealous search for improvements in surgery.  His views in regard to the germ theory of disease and of antiseptic treatment in surgery are based upon the observation of facts, and his practice is pre-eminently conservative.  While he adopts all aseptic measures to secure a normal condition of the vital structure, he protests against the use of germicides which may by absorption lead to disintegration of the tissues with which they come into contact, or result in constitutional derangement.  He insists upon the utmost cleanliness in the dressing of wounds, believing that ptomaines may be generated by filth, which would ignore all preventives against contamination from without during important surgical operations.
 
Dr. Gaston is well know throughout the country and abroad as an original thinker and experimental investigator, and those who have kept pace with his later productions cannot fail to note the evidences of much research and close observation in his publications.  While actively engaged as a general practitioner and surgeon he finds time for profound thought, careful reading and elaborate writing in connection with surgical work, and keeps abreast of the progressive spirit of the age.  
 
Dr. Gaston is well and favorably known at home and abroad for his experimental investigations connected with abdominal surgery; and his original explorations of the troubles growing out of the obstruction of the gall-ducts and the disorders of the ileocaecal region have given him prominence among American and European scientists.  He, undoubtedly, includes among his correspondents more distinguished members of the medical profession than any other medical man of private life in this country.
 
He is strongly impressed with the great advantages of co-operation among all classes of medical men who belong to the regular profession, and hence considers the county or city societies, the State organizations, and the American Medical Association as highly conducive to progress.  According to his view every one may contribute something towards the building up of the medical profession by presenting the details of his practical observations.  He has manifested his faith by his works in the papers laid before these different bodies at their meetings, and is a constant attendant upon the regular meetings of the Atlanta Society of Medicine.
 
At a recent banquet of this society he remarked that he was on the last quarter stretch of a race in which he had borne aloft the standard of scientific advancement that must soon be entrusted to younger members of the profession, in whose keeping he was willing to leave it.
 
The bearing of Dr. Gaston toward his colleagues always commands the respect and confidence of those with whom he co-operates whether in medical or surgical cases.  In his associations with other physicians there is no dogmatic assertion of his opinions, such as might be expected from his fixed convictions in regard to most practical questions.  But a reasonable view of the case under consideration, with a fair presentation of the arguments warranting his conclusion, and the facts supporting his position, are the only influences employed to accomplish his object in a consultation.  It is very rare, if ever, that his own treatment of a special class of cased is urged for the adoption of his views by a colleague, but the history of a given case, with details of its treatment and the result, are presented, with pertinent remarks upon its correspondence to the case under consideration.  This course is observed more especially with the younger members of the profession who call him in consultation, or upon a statement of symptoms, seek his advice for their guidance.  Whatever can be approved in the management of the attending physician is sanctioned and continued, with such modification only as may seem requisite; and he makes it a point never to intimate to the family any unfavorable criticism on his past course.
 
The frequent occasions for testifying before courts of justice as an expert witness, which have been afforded to Dr. Gaston by those who placed confidence in his professional attainments, is the most flattering tribute to his status in the medical profession which any medical man could receive.  In presenting his testimony it has been remarked that the view taken of a case is divested of any partisan feeling, however much he may be interested in the result, and his impartiality gives great weight to his statements of fact and his opinions.  It has sometimes been found that his evidence did not fill the measure of expectation on the part of those by whom he was subpoenaed, as he never fails t state frankly his conviction upon points drawn out by cross-examination.  When undertaking to render an opinion in conference with an attorney preparatory to serving as an expert witness in a case, he does not swerve from his sense of propriety, as to the bearing of his testimony, for the sake of supporting the cause in which he is sought.  He has not disguised the effect likely to be produced under such circumstances by his testimony, and has thus been excused from going upon the stand on several occasions in which he was consulted.
 
A considerable number of subjects injured by accidents or the various railroads have been placed under Dr. Gaston's treatment by the advice of their attorneys, with a view to secure the benefit of his testimony in suits for damages, under the impressions that his opinions would carry great weight in the case.
 
A striking instance of this procedure occurred in the superior court of Fulton County recently, by the fact being brought out that the lawyer had no previous personal acquaintance with Dr. Gaston when his card was sent with this client, for which professional attention was desired.  Being thus placed in charge of the treatment of the patient and becoming acquainted with all the points in his case, he was prepared to testify as his attending physician, as well as to offer expert testimony.  The difference between these kinds of evidence consists of the report of facts observed by the informer, whereas an opinion based on such observations pertains to the latter, and when the two are combined in the same person an important advantage is gained for the client.
 
Expert testimony is sometimes based upon the statement of a suppositions case, but when it can be founded upon personal knowledge of all the circumstances of the actual case, much more importance is attached to the evidence.  It is apparent, therefore, that an interesting field of professional service is being opened up to Dr. Gaston in being place in charge of patients for whom his expert testimony is wanted; and, after a faithful resort to measures of treatment without relief, he is in many instances able to express an unqualified opinion as to the permanent character of the injury received.  In this respect he occupies a position of prominence among his colleagues, awarded by the confidence of distinguished members of the bar of Atlanta.

 In the course of his investigations the wide field of hygiene has received a full share of his attention, but having no aspirations for recognition outside of the proper service of the medical profession, his contributions have been made anonymously to our current literature.  Among the notable articles which have appeared from his pen in this way, it is known that he is the author of a series of essays on domestic hygiene and an elaborate paper on municipal hygiene, published in the Atlanta Evening Journal four years ago, without any intimation of their source.
 
Dr. Gaston, being aware of the investigations of Dr. Domingos Freire in regard to inoculation as a prophylactic against yellow fever, took and active interest in having the subject investigated by the United States government, and urged its claims soon after his return from Brazil, with a tender of his serviced to aid in the investigation.  But action was so long deferred that his duties and responsibilities precluded his going abroad for this purpose, and his proposition was withdrawn.  Upon learning that is was contemplated by the President to send but one commissioner, Dr. Gaston influenced the American Medical Association to recommend that two additional commissioners be appointed; but this was rescinded by parliamentary tactics at the closing session.
 
The recent unfavorable report of Dr. George M. Sternberg in regard to the processes adopted by Freire in Brazil and Cremona in Mexico are not considered as final by Dr. Gaston.

 In view of the circumstances surrounding the commissioner of the United States government upon visiting these sections, it was not a matter of surprise that he should have failed to recognize the efficacy of inoculation as a prophylactic against yellow fever, and however well qualified as a scientist he may be, there are sundry omissions of the plainest dictates of common sense which vitiate his conclusions.  Dr. Gaston claims that there are so many conditions involved in the verification of experiments among different classes of people, as to necessitate the varied processes of investigation contemplated by making additional appointments on the commission.  The great desideratum in all experimental developments is to get at the facts, and if it is made to appear that yellow fever may be prevented entirely, or so far modified as to rid it of its terrors by inoculation with cultivated virus, there can be no longer doubt of it efficacy.  With a strong conviction of the trustworthiness of Freire's statistics, it is held that actual trial is the proper test of inoculation.

 In concluding this sketch of the professional career of Dr. Gaston as he appears before the public, it may be admissible to note that his private relations to his patients and friends are not the least interesting features of his life.  He has throughout the course ofhis practice extended many courtesies to his colleagues and their families; and no son or daughter of a physician, whether under the family roof or far away from home, has ever called upon him without receiving cheerfully his gratuitous attendance.  It has also been his privilege to relieve the sufferings in the families of the clergy of different denominations in our land, as a free-will offering on many occasions, without accepting that compensation which has been often tendered for his services.  In his generous attention to the worthy poor who have come under his care, it is said that his visits are more frequent and continued longer than to those who pay for his services.  He never forgets to visit an humble, honest and poor patient, thought he may forget to call upon one who is amply able to foot his bill.  In dealing with his debtor he is very indulgent, but when he had reason to know that one is trying to shirk his just claims he becomes punctiliously exacting, and insists pertinaciously upon full payment.  When a proposition is made by anyone to fix the remuneration in advance of the service he invariably puts a higher estimate upon it than would be charged without such stipulation; but adheres generally to the recognized rated in the profession, never underbidding those of the most reputable standing.
 
Having secured a competency from his practice in Columbia, S. C., before the war, all was swept away in that disastrous result which befell the South.  Again his labors in Brazil were rewarded with an income which enabled him to make investments which promised well, but by an unfavorable turn in financial affairs of the country proved ruinous.  His readiness to serve a friend under all circumstances led him also to assume obligations for others which had to be canceled at great sacrifice to his pecuniary interests.  Upon his return to the United States the depreciation of currency was so great that little was left of the proceeds of his successful professional work abroad, and he was compelled to live in the simplest and plainest style in Atlanta during the first years of his residence; yet he has always been able to meet promptly his liabilities of any kind, with a reserved fund on hand for emergencies.  His pecuniary prospects, with a growing practice, relieve him of all concern for the future.
 
His self-reliance is illustrated by the reply made to his brother, Dr. J. B. Gaston, of Montgomery, who asked him what he proposed to do in the event he did not succeed in Atlanta: that he had made no calculation for failure, as he intended to succeed; and he has verified his determination in the manifestation of great energy in overcoming the difficulties of new associations in life.  His capacity for mental and physical labor has not been in the least impaired by the lapse of years; and he holds to the doctrine that it is better to wear out than rust out.  So that he eclipses most of the younger men in the profession in his daily work.  The plea of not having time to attend to anything which may devolve upon him is rarely if ever urged, as an excuse for doing any service, and it is remarkable what he has been able to achieve by a methodic distribution of various duties.  A diversity of mental and physical avocations affords him recreation, so that he is never found at places of amusement, so called, but attends such literary and scientific lectures as may furnish intellectual entertainment.  He claims that with great diligence in the past for the attainment of knowledge, he must be industrious still to keep pace with the age, holding that "whatever man has done, man may do."

 Among the important contributions to medical literature, the following articles of Dr. Gaston are worthy of special notice: use of Bozeman's button suture in recto-vaginal fistula; cure of traumatic tetanus with lobelia inflate; the abdominal spring pessary in the treatment of uterine displacements; the correlation of the nerves and capillaries with the internal organs; report of successful restoration of the small intestines after excision of two and one-half feet of the canal; clinical lecture on perforating fracture of the cranium followed by epilepsy and operation by trepanning; dynamoscopy; use of ecraseur for curing deep-seated fistula in ano; ablation of the womb with fibrous tumor; successful treatment of psoas abscess; report of ligations of femoral and subclavian arteries; ligation of femoral artery for sanguineous effusion in poplitelal region; distinguishing features of malignant pustule and anthrax; obstruction of gallduct and its bad consequences, with remedial operation; explanation of the pathology and therapeutics of the diseases of the nerve-centres, especially epilepsy; hypodermic use of carbolic acid in the cure of erysipelas; silver wire suture in wounds of the intestines; laparotomy with suture of intestinal canal; extreme anesthesia for obstetric operations; division of stricture without subsequent sounding; experimental cholicystotomy; report of antipartum hour-glass contraction of the uterus; allopathy and homeopathy in practice; electro-therapia; laparotomy for gun-shot wounds of the abdomen; report of two cases of perforation of the vermiform appendix; double ovariotomy and division of the pedicles with thermocautery; surgery of the ileo-caecal connections with new process for intestinal communication; ligation of femoral artery for political aneurism and subsequent ligation of the external iliac for femoral aneurism in the same subject; a caution against septic germicides; cure of carbuncle with lunar caustic and adhesive plaster; hour-glass contraction of the womb with retention of placenta, followed by internal hemorrhage; excision of anal circumference with hemorrhoids; laparotomy for volvulus and stitching of the intestines into incision of the line alba; report of two cases of papilloma with carcinomatous degeneration in the rectum; report of the fracture of the neck of the scapula; status of yellow fever inoculation and various other papers, with a memorial to congress on this subject; hypodermic use of spirits of turpentine in malignant tumors and other structural degenerations; employment of large doses of olive oil in obstruction of gall-ducts; medicated applications to the os nteri in vomiting in pregnancy; case of nephrotomy; fistula in ano with stricture of rectum; stone in the bladder; the practicability of establishing an artificial fistulous opening in the human subject between the gall-bladder and the duodenum; snake bites treated by hypodermic injections of permanganate of potash; gangrene from lymphatitis; surgical relations of the iliecaecal region; perforation of the vermiform appendix; the vermiform appendix-its functions, pathological changes and treatment; cerebro-spinal meningitis, recognizing incipient congestion as the basis of treatment; fractures in bones of the arm and forearm, treated with angular splint of special construction; cholicystotomy cholicystectomy; duodeno-cholicystotomy; biliary engorgement from obstruction of common bile duct verified by autopsy; the etiology, pathology and treatment of tetanus; address at the opening of the session, 1888, of the southern medical college, on aseptic, antiseptic and septic surgery.
 
Dr. Gaston, being appointed secretary of the section of military and naval surgery in the International Medical Congress at Washington city declined invitations to prepare any special-paper; but accepted propositions from the presidents of different sections to lead in the discussions upon tetanus; upon what conditions on the field justify amputation in gun-shot wounds; and upon prophylactic inoculation with the attenuated culture of the microbe of yellow fever.  His remarks on these topics appear in the proceedings of section 3 and section 15 of the transactions of the Ninth International Medical Congress.

 

[Biographical Souvenir of Georgia and Florida by FA Battey & Co., 1889-Transcribed by LA Bauer]