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[[Image:2010 WalnutSt BeaconSt Boston4 .jpg|thumb|left|Walnut Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, where George Parkman lived]]
[[Image:2010 WalnutSt BeaconSt Boston4 .jpg|thumb|left|Walnut Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, where George Parkman lived]]


Parkman believed that psychiatric institutions should reflect a residence-like setting, where patients could enjoy hobbies and socializing and participating in household chores, as permitted. Parkman thought Saltpêtrière a good model and talked to the faculty of [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] about having a lunatic hospital connected to it. In 1817, he wrote two papers, [[Remarks on Insanity]] and [[The Management of Lunatics]] in an effort to convince the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital that he could supervise an asylum they were considering opening. That same year he offered to raise $16,000 for the construction of a full-size institution. Unfortunately, the trustees interpreted the offer as a proposal to fully endow the project. Later, the [[McLean Asylum]] was established, but the trustees feared the taint of corruption if Parkman had held an appointment he had endowed. Interesting to note, Dr. [[Rufus Wyman]], the father of [[Jeffries Wyman|Dr. Jeffries Wyman]] and [[Morrill Wyman|Dr. Morrill Wyman]], who both were involved in the Webster case, was appointed. The embarrassed Parkman retired, but continued his interest in medicine and insanity. He would visit and entertain them, he bought them an organ, and opened up his own mansions for the treatment of [[cholera]] and [[small pox]] epidemics’ victims. The Court frequently called upon him to testify in alleged insanity pleas.<ref>American Experience/Murder at Harvard/ People & Events (c. 1790-1849); Holmes, 24-28; Sullivan 31-34; Schama, 100-4</ref>
Parkman believed that psychiatric institutions should reflect a residence-like setting, where patients could enjoy hobbies and socializing and participating in household chores, as permitted. Parkman thought Saltpêtrière a good model and talked to the faculty of [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] about having a lunatic hospital connected to it. In 1817, he wrote two papers, [[Remarks on Insanity]] and [[The Management of Lunatics]] in an effort to convince the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital that he could supervise an asylum they were considering opening. That same year he offered to raise $16,000 for the construction of a full-size institution. Unfortunately, the trustees interpreted the offer as a proposal to fully endow the project. Later, the [[McLean Hospital|McLean Asylum]] was established, but the trustees feared the taint of corruption if Parkman had held an appointment he had endowed. Interesting to note, Dr. [[Rufus Wyman]], the father of [[Jeffries Wyman|Dr. Jeffries Wyman]] and [[Morrill Wyman|Dr. Morrill Wyman]], who both were involved in the Webster case, was appointed. The embarrassed Parkman retired, but continued his interest in medicine and insanity. He would visit and entertain them, he bought them an organ, and opened up his own mansions for the treatment of [[cholera]] and [[small pox]] epidemics’ victims. The Court frequently called upon him to testify in alleged insanity pleas.<ref>American Experience/Murder at Harvard/ People & Events (c. 1790-1849); Holmes, 24-28; Sullivan 31-34; Schama, 100-4</ref>


In 1823 Parkman organized and published the [[Boston Medical and Surgical Journal]] with Drs. [[J. C. Warren]] and [[John Ware]]. 1837 he revisited Saltpêtrière, and having not written for many years, he sent a letter and sketches to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, outlining some Parisian hospitals.<ref>Holmes, 27; Schama, 106; Sullivan, 33</ref>
In 1823 Parkman organized and published the [[Boston Medical and Surgical Journal]] with Drs. [[J. C. Warren]] and [[John Ware]]. 1837 he revisited Saltpêtrière, and having not written for many years, he sent a letter and sketches to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, outlining some Parisian hospitals.<ref>Holmes, 27; Schama, 106; Sullivan, 33</ref>

Revision as of 12:27, 22 August 2010

File:GParkman.gif
George Parkman, "The Pedestrian".
House of Samuel Parkman (father of George), Bowdoin Square, Boston, 19th c.[1]

Dr. George Parkman (February 19, 1790–November 23, 1849), a Boston Brahmin (a term actually not coined by Parkman contemporary Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. until 1860, after Parkman’s death),[2] belonged to one of the moneyed city’s richest families. A son of his father Samuel’s second wife, Sarah Rogers, Parkman had three full brothers and one sister—and another six half-siblings, children of Sarah Shaw.[3] George’s father and family patriarch, Samuel, had bought up low-lying lands and income properties in Boston’s West End.[4] He owned the towns of Parkman, Maine and Parkman, Ohio.[5] His sons from his first marriage oversaw the Ohio properties; his second set of boys were responsible for the Maine parcel. Samuel’s daughters inherited wealth as well. The most notable was George’s full-sister Elizabeth Parkman whose spouse Robert G. Shaw, grandfather of Robert Gould Shaw, grew his wife’s share of the fortune to become the senior partner in the most powerful commercial house in a city glutted with the proceeds of the China Trade. [6] To add to the resources, the eleven Parkman scions united in marriage with the Beacon Hill families of Sturgis, Blake, Tuckerman, Cabot, Mason and Tilden. Of the offspring, it was tightfisted George who his father chose to administer the Parkman estate. [7]

George Parkman’s poor health as a youngster led him to want to study medicine. He entered the freshman class of Harvard at 15 and delivered the “Salutory Oration” in 1809. Despite his assured wealth, a lecture by Dr. Benjamin Rush inspired him to take an interest in the terrible state of asylums for the mentally ill. He spent two years at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland obtaining his medical degree.[8] After returning to Boston, he traveled aboard the U.S.S. Constitution to Europe and was under the charge of a former Bostonian, Count Rumford, who introduced him to the Minister of France, Joel Barlow. Barlow introduced him to many doctors in Paris. While there, he observed the pioneering and humane treatment methods of two famous French psychiatrists, Drs. Philippe Pinel and Etienne Esquirol. He studied at the Salpêtrière Hospital for his graduate work. “My first knowledge of the Saltpêtrière , was with the high privilege of the guidance of its great physician, Pinel, and of his new illustrious associate, Esquirol. Pinel received me kindly, and inquired with much interest after Dr. Benjamin Rush, who had lately written his book on Diseases of the Mind,” Parkman wrote from Paris.[9] That same interest helped to cement the relationship between Parkman and Pinel. The 70 year-old Pinel’s ideas impressed Parkman. Under great teachers like Pinel and Esquirol, Parkman practiced at the great Parisian Asylum, and learned the history and treatment of mental “diseases.” At this time Parkman developed his own path of his career. He spent time in England studying with men of Science, as well. [10]

Parkman returned to the U.S. in 1813. The War of 1812 called for the service of young men and Parkman “received a commission as a surgeon in a regiment of the third brigade belonging to the first division of the Massachusetts militia.” He began in South Boston and simultaneously served as a physician to the poor with a desire to replicate the practices of Pinel and Esquirol.[11]

Walnut Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, where George Parkman lived

Parkman believed that psychiatric institutions should reflect a residence-like setting, where patients could enjoy hobbies and socializing and participating in household chores, as permitted. Parkman thought Saltpêtrière a good model and talked to the faculty of Massachusetts General Hospital about having a lunatic hospital connected to it. In 1817, he wrote two papers, Remarks on Insanity and The Management of Lunatics in an effort to convince the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital that he could supervise an asylum they were considering opening. That same year he offered to raise $16,000 for the construction of a full-size institution. Unfortunately, the trustees interpreted the offer as a proposal to fully endow the project. Later, the McLean Asylum was established, but the trustees feared the taint of corruption if Parkman had held an appointment he had endowed. Interesting to note, Dr. Rufus Wyman, the father of Dr. Jeffries Wyman and Dr. Morrill Wyman, who both were involved in the Webster case, was appointed. The embarrassed Parkman retired, but continued his interest in medicine and insanity. He would visit and entertain them, he bought them an organ, and opened up his own mansions for the treatment of cholera and small pox epidemics’ victims. The Court frequently called upon him to testify in alleged insanity pleas.[12]

In 1823 Parkman organized and published the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal with Drs. J. C. Warren and John Ware. 1837 he revisited Saltpêtrière, and having not written for many years, he sent a letter and sketches to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, outlining some Parisian hospitals.[13]

For his income, Parkman relied on business. When the elder Parkman died in 1835, George took complete control of the estate and bought vast amounts of land and real estate in Boston, including many poorly maintained tenements. Money lending and real estate augmented his income; he also sold the land for the new Harvard Medical School and the Charles Street jail. His house still stands at 8 Walnut Street.

Parkman was a well-known figure in the streets of Boston, which he walked daily, collecting his rents (a thrifty man, he did not own a horse). He was tall, lean, had a protruding chin, and wore a top hat. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. said that "he abstained while others indulged, he walked while others rode, he worked while others slept." Fanny Longfellow, wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, called him "the lean doctor... the good-natured Don-Quixote." He was worth some half a million dollars in 1849.

References

  1. ^ State Street Trust Company. Forty of Boston's historic houses. 1912.
  2. ^ In January 1860, Holmes defined the term in an article in the January 1860 Atlantic Monthly as “...not merely a person of good family, but a scholar, or what we would call an intellectual.”
  3. ^ New England Historic Genealogical Society database. Birth Records of Boston, Massachusetts, 1800-1849.
  4. ^ The Gentleman in the Purple Waistcoat; James and Lois Cowan; Smithsonian-HarperCollins. 2009
  5. ^ Both towns are included in Roger Storm’s 1969 University of Maine thesis History of Parkman, Maine and in the Dec. 6, 1814 Parkman, Maine, A Frontier Settlement by Victor McKusick---in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.
  6. ^ According to the Descendants of the Rev. Daniel Rogers of Littleton, Mass. New England Historic and Genealogical Society Register. Vol. 39. David Clapp and Son, 1885, Robert Gould Shaw’s father and Sarah Shaw, Samuel Parkman’s first wife, were brother and sister. Therefore Elizabeth Parkman Shaw’s half-siblings were direct cousins to her husband.
  7. ^ The 1850 pretrial deposition given by Charles Kingsley, business manager for George Parkman, to John Andrews would convey this picture of his boss’s personality.
  8. ^ Sullivan, 31; American Experience/Murder at Harvard/ People & Events (c. 790-1849); Holmes, 17-18.
  9. ^ Holmes, 12
  10. ^ Holmes, 21; Schama, 96-98; Sullivan, 31
  11. ^ Holmes, 21
  12. ^ American Experience/Murder at Harvard/ People & Events (c. 1790-1849); Holmes, 24-28; Sullivan 31-34; Schama, 100-4
  13. ^ Holmes, 27; Schama, 106; Sullivan, 33

See also

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