The musings of a physician who served the community for over six decades
367 Topics
Downtown A discussion about downtown area in Philadelphia and connections from today with its historical past.
West of Broad A collection of articles about the area west of Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Delaware (State of) Originally the "lower counties" of Pennsylvania, and thus one of three Quaker colonies founded by William Penn, Delaware has developed its own set of traditions and history.
Religious Philadelphia William Penn wanted a colony with religious freedom. A considerable number, if not the majority, of American religious denominations were founded in this city. The main misconception about religious Philadelphia is that it is Quaker-dominated. But the broader misconception is that it is not Quaker-dominated.
Particular Sights to See:Center City Taxi drivers tell tourists that Center City is a "shining city on a hill". During the Industrial Era, the city almost urbanized out to the county line, and then retreated. Right now, the urban center is surrounded by a semi-deserted ring of former factories.
Philadelphia's Middle Urban Ring Philadelphia grew rapidly for seventy years after the Civil War, then gradually lost population. Skyscrapers drain population upwards, suburbs beckon outwards. The result: a ring around center city, mixed prosperous and dilapidated. Future in doubt.
Historical Motor Excursion North of Philadelphia The narrow waist of New Jersey was the upper border of William Penn's vast land holdings, and the outer edge of Quaker influence. In 1776-77, Lord Howe made this strip the main highway of his attempt to subjugate the Colonies.
Land Tour Around Delaware Bay Start in Philadelphia, take two days to tour around Delaware Bay. Down the New Jersey side to Cape May, ferry over to Lewes, tour up to Dover and New Castle, visit Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Battlefield and art museum, then back to Philadelphia. Try it!
Tourist Trips Around Philadelphia and the Quaker Colonies The states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey all belonged to William Penn the Quaker. He was the largest private landholder in American history. Using explicit directions, comprehensive touring of the Quaker Colonies takes seven full days. Local residents would need a couple dozen one-day trips to get up to speed.
Touring Philadelphia's Western Regions Philadelpia County had two hundred farms in 1950, but is now thickly settled in all directions. Western regions along the Schuylkill are still spread out somewhat; with many historic estates.
Up the King's High Way New Jersey has a narrow waistline, with New York harbor at one end, and Delaware Bay on the other. Traffic and history travelled the Kings Highway along this path between New York and Philadelphia.
Arch Street: from Sixth to Second When the large meeting house at Fourth and Arch was built, many Quakers moved their houses to the area. At that time, "North of Market" implied the Quaker region of town.
Up Market Street to Sixth and Walnut Millions of eye patients have been asked to read the passage from Franklin's autobiography, "I walked up Market Street, etc." which is commonly printed on eye-test cards. Here's your chance to do it.
Sixth and Walnut over to Broad and Sansom In 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce was 'way out in the country. Now it is in the center of a city, but the area still remains dominated by medical institutions.
Montgomery and Bucks Counties The Philadelphia metropolitan region has five Pennsylvania counties, four New Jersey counties, one northern county in the state of Delaware. Here are the four Pennsylvania suburban ones.
Northern Overland Escape Path of the Philadelphia Tories 1 of 1 (16) Grievances provoking the American Revolutionary War left many Philadelphians unprovoked. Loyalists often fled to Canada, especially Kingston, Ontario. Decades later the flow of dissidents reversed, Canadian anti-royalists taking refuge south of the border.
City Hall to Chestnut Hill There are lots of ways to go from City Hall to Chestnut Hill, including the train from Suburban Station, or from 11th and Market. This tour imagines your driving your car out the Ben Franklin Parkway to Kelly Drive, and then up the Wissahickon.
Philadelphia Reflections is a history of the area around Philadelphia, PA
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Philadelphia Revelations
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George R. Fisher, III, M.D.
Obituary
George R. Fisher, III, M.D.
Age: 97 of Philadelphia, formerly of Haddonfield
Dr. George Ross Fisher of Philadelphia died on March 9, 2023, surrounded by his loving family.
Born in 1925 in Erie, Pennsylvania, to two teachers, George and Margaret Fisher, he grew up in Pittsburgh, later attending The Lawrenceville School and Yale University (graduating early because of the war). He was very proud of the fact that he was the only person who ever graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Science in English Literature. He attended Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons where he met the love of his life, fellow medical student, and future renowned Philadelphia radiologist Mary Stuart Blakely. While dating, they entertained themselves by dressing up in evening attire and crashing fancy Manhattan weddings. They married in 1950 and were each other’s true loves, mutual admirers, and life partners until Mary Stuart passed away in 2006. A Columbia faculty member wrote of him, “This young man’s personality is way off the beaten track, and cannot be evaluated by the customary methods.”
After training at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia where he was Chief Resident in Medicine, and spending a year at the NIH, he opened a practice in Endocrinology on Spruce Street where he practiced for sixty years. He also consulted regularly for the employees of Strawbridge and Clothier as well as the Hospital for the Mentally Retarded at Stockley, Delaware. He was beloved by his patients, his guiding philosophy being the adage, “Listen to your patient – he’s telling you his diagnosis.” His patients also told him their stories which gave him an education in all things Philadelphia, the city he passionately loved and which he went on to chronicle in this online blog. Many of these blogs were adapted into a history-oriented tour book, Philadelphia Revelations: Twenty Tours of the Delaware Valley.
He was a true Renaissance Man, interested in everything and everyone, remembering everything he read or heard in complete detail, and endowed with a penetrating intellect which cut to the heart of whatever was being discussed, whether it be medicine, history, literature, economics, investments, politics, science or even lawn care for his home in Haddonfield, NJ where he and his wife raised their four children. He was an “early adopter.” Memories of his children from the 1960s include being taken to visit his colleagues working on the UNIVAC computer at Penn; the air-mail version of the London Economist on the dining room table; and his work on developing a proprietary medical office software using Fortran. His dedication to patients and to his profession extended to his many years representing Pennsylvania to the American Medical Association.
After retiring from his practice in 2003, he started his pioneering “just-in-time” Ross & Perry publishing company, which printed more than 300 new and reprint titles, ranging from Flight Manual for the SR-71 Blackbird Spy Plane (his best seller!) to Terse Verse, a collection of a hundred mostly humorous haikus. He authored four books. In 2013 at age 88, he ran as a Republican for New Jersey Assemblyman for the 6th district (he lost).
A gregarious extrovert, he loved meeting his fellow Philadelphians well into his nineties at the Shakespeare Society, the Global Interdependence Center, the College of Physicians, the Right Angle Club, the Union League, the Haddonfield 65 Club, and the Franklin Inn. He faithfully attended Quaker Meeting in Haddonfield NJ for over 60 years. Later in life he was fortunate to be joined in his life, travels, and adventures by his dear friend Dr. Janice Gordon.
He passed away peacefully, held in the Light and surrounded by his family as they sang to him and read aloud the love letters that he and his wife penned throughout their courtship. In addition to his children – George, Miriam, Margaret, and Stuart – he leaves his three children-in-law, eight grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and his younger brother, John.
A memorial service, followed by a reception, will be held at the Friends Meeting in Haddonfield New Jersey on April 1 at one in the afternoon. Memorial contributions may be sent to Haddonfield Friends Meeting, 47 Friends Avenue, Haddonfield, NJ 08033.
Ben Franklin's father was a candle maker working out of his home. Little Benjamin was thus in a position to watch the rise and fall of candle sales with each passing season; it must have been a central fact of that household's economy. Many years later when he was Ambassador to France, the suggestion of Daylight Savings Time was likely less a demonstration of his ingenuity than a testimony to his powers of observation and reflection.
Now, over two centuries later than that, the point is being raised that what with Nintendo and television and all, daylight time may actually cause more consumption of electrical energy than it saves. It's a striking thought, even quite a revolutionary one. Until you remember that Franklin, more than any one person, also discovered electricity.
The Philadelphia Right Angle Club has mainly local speakers, so topics tend to concentrate on the Philadelphia scene. Recently, a Philadelphia resident was asked to speak, and chose the intriguing topic of the lack of democracy in Pakistan. Explaining, to general surprise, why that lack may be inevitable in all undeveloped countries, and therefore not to be criticized too harshly in this one.
As a starting generalization, he pointed out that democracy is almost never found in countries where the average annual income is less than $6000, and almost universally found in countries where income is above that level. The main exception is India, which was described as having a "sham" democracy. Historical exceptions like ancient Athens and Iceland were not elaborated upon, so perhaps it might be better to say poverty is a hindrance to democracy, and let it go at that. The general idea is that Pakistan needs to get more prosperous, and particularly needs to get rid of the things making it less prosperous. When that's accomplished, democracy will establish itself without help. At the very least it cannot be expected to establish itself before then. One subtle jibe at the British (and the American Democrat party) is the point that it helps establish democracy if everybody is a taxpayer, not just the filthy rich. Democracy is helped to emerge when universal taxation provokes a demand for universal representation. Even a second historical echo might have been hidden in our speaker's pointing out that because much of Pakistan is in the feudal hands of two hundred families; the poor serfs of their fiefdoms invariably vote as their owner wishes, thus leading to a small political oligarchy. Americans were not twitted, but might have been, whether the Pakistan constitution should have imitated our own provision for 3/5 votes for slaves.
To go back to poverty itself, it is probably possible to editorialize that other main factors hindering democracy's development could be viewed as expedients evolved to sustain a functioning society in the midst of poverty, or are inherent limitations of poverty. Like lack of education, overpopulation defined as a ratio of population to resources, ethnic enclaves organized around religious leaders, feudal systems of self-defense, and vulnerability to invasion leading to overspending on defense. Even the suppression of women can be viewed as a poor, weak society's way of sustaining the number of soldiers while cutting the number of people needing costly education by half. These are not congenial concepts for Americans, but it must be granted they have importance if you adopt our speaker's central thesis: the military government of Pakistan may be the least bad choice now available to that country. At least two other epigrams touch the same conclusion: survival may temporarily seem more important than democracy, and/or democracy may be unachievable until prosperity is first achieved by authoritarianism. That last one is really uncomfortable, because it may imply that revolution is the second step in a three-step process.
Meanwhile, we have to be sympathetic with Pakistan's struggle with a problem any fair-minded person would agree is not an easy one. Their country is a series of valleys between some of the highest mountains in the world, with the rest of the countryside either desert or in contention with India. Pakistani must police a border cut down the middle of the mountains by the British, separating two portions of the same tribe who share the common bond of survival in the harshest climate in the world. They are in constant international contention with India, both sides brandishing nuclear arms. The bitterness of the Israeli-Palestine conflict inflames religious sentiment. America pursues its international interests within Pakistan's borders and against some who are regarded as fellow tribesmen, certainly co-religionists. The opium trade from Afghanistan infiltrates the borders. The nation is composed of five feudal states, united only in their annoyance with Moslem immigrants from India who are better educated than the locals, and who offend the local cultures with jarring dissimilarities. And finally, Bin Laden and his fellow Wahhabi zealots are in their midst, funded with vast amounts of Saudi money to pursue worldwide disruptions, hotly pursued by Americans who are not of their religion and not particularly careful of local sensitivities. Under the circumstances, perhaps our demand that they adopt a perfect democracy, and right now, is understandably exasperating.
NEWSPAPER REPORT OF REMARKS OF DR. J. BASIL HALL (Public Ledger, May 28,1925)
THE American public's interest in health matters is the country's greatest boon in the prevention of disease. Dr. J. Basil Hall, President of the British Medical Association declared here last night. He expressed the hope that the British public would take the lesson of the Americans in this respect. Education of the public to take care of themselves, he characterized as the doctors' noblest task.
Dr. Hall is in the United States as the officially invited guest of the American Medical Association to attend the annual convention of the body in Atlantic City. Yesterday he was the guest of the Medical Club of Philadelphia, addressing the full membership last evening at a reception in his honor at the Bellevue-Stratford.
He commented on American methods in contrast to British, particularly in regard to medical services for the working classes.
Tracing the history of the National Health Insurance Act in Britain, which was fostered and made a reality by Lloyd George, when he was Prime Minister, Dr. Hall stated that it had worked a hardship of no inconsiderable means on the English profession. The act provides for the payment by workers of a certain portion of their wages into a fund, augmented by an equal sum from the employer to produce free medical attention and sick pay while ill. It is under Government control and the amount given to the panel physician is comparatively small, while hospitals and consultants have to render service gratis in the majority of instances.
'Elaborateness in detail is the outstanding characteristic of American practice'' said Dr. Hall during his address. "In my opinion, the American physician is more elaborate in his treatments than is necessary. Is it always necessary to have blood counts, X-ray examinations, protracted examinations, protracted diagnosis, complete physical examinations, analyses of all sorts, tests for this and that, consultations and the like? That appears to be the American theory.
"In England we don't do it, because the patients can't afford to pay for it, and we don't believe that the result of the treatment accorded them without the co-adjuncts is different from the result of things are done."
"My survey is too premature to be dogmatic it may seem" he continued, "but the American possesses the infinite capacity for taking pains. In my opinion, it is sometimes overdone. It makes service prohibitive but to the wealthy. The elaborate method and technique employed in every-day practice will eventually have to be modified, and much, in the future."
In addition to being the president of the British Medical Association, Dr. Hall is a fellow of the Royal College of England, Master of the Queens' Hospital and surgeon-in-chief of the Royal Infirmary at Bradford, England, where he makes his home. He is acknowledged to be the leading living surgeon of the British Empire and a specializing authority on abdominal surgery.
Dr. Harley Smith, former president of the Academy of Medicine, Toronto, Canada, also addressed the meeting, which was presided over by Dr. Charles W, Burr, president of the Medical Club of Philadelphia. Among the many distinguished physicians and surgeons present were Dr. Basil Graves, of London, who has been lecturing at the University of Pennsylvania as a specialist on the eye, and Dr.
William E. Hughes.
Unions teach their supporters: never retreat. Yell, shout, threaten, roll on the floor in simulated agony, denounce and declaim -- but never give back a single concession you have previously won. The hallmark of ratcheted positions about givebacks, is they are not negotiable.
Raising average retirement ages to 75 would quickly cure the financial problem.
By having some personal contact with union officials, who are generally decent enough fellows when not in their negotiating stance, I have learned that, to them, advancing the retirement age is absolutely not negotiable. Some of this intransigence is fake, having to do with negotiating traditions, and some of it has to do with the equally traditional stance that work is some dreadful thing which has been inflicted on the working man by unfeeling employers, or management, or the rich aristocracy or somebody. Reflex belligerence is therefore triggered immediately by suggesting that people are going to have to work more than they expected to. Much as I hate to offend people in their deeply held religious beliefs, I bring the news that retiring later would immediately solve the problem of affording to retire and that no other proposal under the sun has greater chance of solving that problem. But it's like the Law of Gravity. When dealing with demographics, to declare that something is off the table, or unacceptable, or a giveback -- is just bombast. With the present data, we are going to have to re-set the retirement age to 70. If medical and demographic trends are unexpectedly extreme, we may have to go to 75. If you think someone has promised you can retire at 55, you had better be in an iron lung or drinking your meals through a straw.
Retirement Later
It's easy to see that later retirement cuts lifetime costs in two ways: it increases the duration of earning and saving. And it shortens the years of retirement payout. The later you retire, the better it is. So the less you save, and the more lavish your lifestyle, the older you will be when you can afford to retire.
A lot of things can be debated, and a lot of clever ideas can be worked with. But it is going to take an atomic attack or something similar to modify this particular prediction about the future. And even doomsday predictions just make the future look worse, not better. Because as the insurance salesman tells you, you can have it one way or the other. You can die too soon or you can live too long. Since you can't know in advance which it will be, you would be wise to work a little longer, just in case.
Cornell is in Ithaca, at the foot of Lake Cayuga. It's New York's land grant college, which at first seems a funny way of expressing it, until you learn that during the Civil War, Congress declared that at least one college in each state would receive a grant of federal land (which they could sell) for advancing the working class through agricultural and mechanical education. Cornell is thus New York's "A and M". The whole idea is central to the Whig philosophy that social classes were not a permanent status, but rather only stages in the evolution of penniless immigrants into managers, and thence into entrepreneurs and owners.
Sen. Andrew White,
President
The Whigs didn't hate poor people, they just wanted to get rid of that class by showing them how to get rich. Although the Republican Party was largely the successor to the Whig party, Lincoln remained philosophically an ardent Whig; the emancipation of slaves was a bold and imaginative extension of the Whig ideal. The striking thing about the founding of Cornell University is that both of New York's U.S. senators were enthralled by the land grant college idea. Ezra Cornell drove the legislation through Congress, and Andrew White became Cornell's first president; both of them devoted their later lives to it. Cornell donated most of his substantial fortune to its establishment and applied his unusual financial talents to investing the proceeds of the land grant.
Devotion to self-improvement of the working classes helps explain why many of Cornell's departments sound a little out of place in the Ivy League, hotel management being the first to come to mind. However, it must have been the two senators who instilled in this project the idea of striving for excellence. If you manage a hotel, be the very best hotel manager in the world if you have it in you. Very likely that's the bug that bit the Johnson family, whose name is on the Johnson School of Management, the Johnson Museum. And the Imogene Powers Johnson Laboratory for Ornithology, which is our present topic.
Cornell Laboratory for Ornithology
They say it took the architects six years just to design the 80,000 square foot building overlooking the wetlands on 220 acres of the bird sanctuary, otherwise known as the Sapsucker Woods. The public doesn't often see most of the interior of the building, which is devoted to working scientists, and their extensive effort of computerizing the voluminous efforts of volunteer bird watchers up and down the Appalachian Flyway. The result has been a set of coherent conclusions about what is happening to ecology, as illustrated by ornithology. That's only one of many scientific projects underway. What the public does see are two things: the most elaborate bird-watching museum anywhere, and one of the most imaginative bird-hobbyist stores. Between them, these two features are designed to make a bird lover out of the meanest curmudgeon, show him how to arrange an indoor watching area, buy books and magazines about how to do it, and offer for sale the most advanced and clever devices and supply. If you hate birds, or even if you are merely indifferent to them -- this is the place to come to Jesus.
109 Volumes
Philadephia: America's Capital, 1774-1800 The Continental Congress met in Philadelphia from 1774 to 1788. Next, the new republic had its capital here from 1790 to 1800. Thoroughly Quaker Philadelphia was in the center of the founding twenty-five years when, and where, the enduring political institutions of America emerged.
Philadelphia: Decline and Fall (1900-2060) The world's richest industrial city in 1900, was defeated and dejected by 1950. Why? Digby Baltzell blamed it on the Quakers. Others blame the Erie Canal, and Andrew Jackson, or maybe Martin van Buren. Some say the city-county consolidation of 1858. Others blame the unions. We rather favor the decline of family business and the rise of the modern corporation in its place.
Originally the "lower counties" of Pennsylvania, and thus one of three Quaker colonies founded by William Penn, Delaware has developed its own set of traditions and history.
Start in Philadelphia, take two days to tour around Delaware Bay. Down the New Jersey side to Cape May, ferry over to Lewes, tour up to Dover and New Castle, visit Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Battlefield and art museum, then back to Philadelphia. Try it!
Millions of eye patients have been asked to read the passage from Franklin's autobiography, "I walked up Market Street, etc." which is commonly printed on eye-test cards. Here's your chance to do it.
In 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce was 'way out in the country. Now it is in the center of a city, but the area still remains dominated by medical institutions.
Grievances provoking the American Revolutionary War left many Philadelphians unprovoked. Loyalists often fled to Canada, especially Kingston, Ontario. Decades later the flow of dissidents reversed, Canadian anti-royalists taking refuge south of the border.
