An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

STILLMAN, Jacob David Babcock

2 entries
  • 12086

Observations on the medical topography and diseases (especially diarrhoea) of the Sacramento Valley, California, during the Years 1849, 1850.

New York J. Med., 7, 289-307, 1851.

Stillman was personal physician to Leland Stanford, the first governor of California, and was a partner of railroad magnate Mark Hopkins from their days on board a ship to California in 1849. Stillman was also co-founder of the first hospital in California, in Sacramento, 1849. 

Stillman began his paper as follows:

"The emigration which took place from the United States to California, in the year subsequent to the discovery of gold in that country, will be remembered as one of the most remarkable events of this century. If we consider the character and number of the emigrants, the distance traversed, the hardships and privations endured, and the magnificent results attained, the event has no parallel in history.

"The number who arrived in California during the six months from the first July, 1849, to 1st of January 1850, was over 90,000; of these nearly 30,0000 performed a voyage by sea of 17,000 miles, more than 60,000 crossed a wilderness of greater extent than the entire distance from the mouth of the Tagus to the eastern confines of Russia, over arid plains and rugged mountains. Of this number, it was roughly estimated that one-fifth had found graves within the first six months after their arrival. An investigation of the circumstances that conspired to such a result constitutes a subject of extreme interest and importance.

"There has been no effort made by medical men conversant with the facts to give them to the public, that I am aware of; and as the most confused and conflicting views were entertained with regard to the nature and origin of the diseases that caused such remarkable fatality, I have been induced to give the results of my own observation, made during the summer of 1849, in the Sacramento Valley...."

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Biogeography, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Dysentery, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › California
  • 12324

Seeking the golden fleece: A record of pioneer life in California, to which is annexed footprints of early navigators, other than Spanish, in California, with an account of the voyage of the schooner Dolphin.

San Francisco, CA: A. Roman & Co., 1877.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › California, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists