From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, page 570.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


GIDEON C. FORSYTHE

So far as can now be learned, the first physician who permanently 
located in Wheeling was Gideon C. Forsythe, who came, in 1803, from 
Chester county, Penn.  He was Wheeling's only physician for about 
three years, when several young men entered his office as students.  
One of these, Dr. H. Potter, afterward became a partner.  Dr. 
Forsythe continued in practice in Wheeling until after the close of 
the war of 1812, when he removed to Louisiana, abandoning the 
profession of medicine.  He acquired a reputation for special skill 
in the treatment of malarial diseases, which he cured by the use of 
calomel and Peruvian bark, a practice not far removed from that of 
to-day.  Dr. Forsythe, by his pursuit of anatomical studies at home - 
resurrecting and dissecting the body of a colored woman who formerly 
belonged to a neighbor, the mutilated remains being afterward found 
in a box near the river - drew upon his head the indignant 
denunciation of the former owner of the "subject," one George Knox, 
who thus sends a communication to the WHEELING REPOSITORY, of 
December 31, 1807: "If the remains of deceased persons are to be 
disturbed and mangled in this way the savages of the "doctor shop," 
it is fair to presume that cases of death will be heard of with 
satisfaction and desired by them; so that our graves will require a 
guard to prevent their bodies being taken up.  This is published to 
the world to awaken public indignation against such inhuman and 
abominable proceedings." 


(Linda Fluharty)