Weller Van Hook
Dr. Weller Van Hook was a prominent and innovative surgeon in Chicago, and served for five years as the President (General Secretary) of the American Theosophical Society.
Early years
The Van Hook family came from a Burgomeister General of Holland, whose descendants emigrated to New Amsterdam (now New York City), and later settled in Indiana. Weller Van Hook was born on May 14, 1862 in Greensville, Indiana, where his father was a physician. In 1881 he began a course of study at the University of Michigan, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1884. After a year at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, he graduated in 1885. From July 1885 through December 1886 he interned at the Cook County Hospital. When a peaceful labor demonstration turned into the Haymarket riot of May 4, 1886, Dr. Van Hook admitted a policeman, Mathias J. Degan, to the hospital. The doctor helped to perform the post-mortem examination that provided important evidence used in prosecuting eight anarchists.[1]
Medical career
Dr. Van Hook established a practice on the west side of Chicago from 1887 until 1894. In 1892, he became a professor in the principles of surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and also taught at a hospital. He gave up his practice in 1894 and spent some months engaged in postgraduate study of surgery in Vienna, Berlin, London, and Paris. On his return, Dr. Van Hook campaigned to modernize the practice of medicine, and was quoted as writing:
The grey heads cling to the denial of bacterial significance of disease as, when a boy, I heard them doing in Central Music Hall at the Meetings of the American Medical Association. Even then, after the pathogenic powers of the pus microbes were known, many great surgeons still adhered to the primitive Listerian antiseptic methods.[2]
Dr. Van Hook could be intolerant of his colleagues in their rejection of modern methods, but his warm attitude toward patients is evident in another quotation:
The beginning of anesthesia constitutes a period of anxiety for both patient and surgeon. Too often, the anesthetist fails to treat his patient as a fellow mortal and starts to anesthetize him without formality. Twenty seconds may be spent in saying to the patient, 'Mr. Jones, I am Dr. Smith and your surgeon Dr. So and So wishes me to administer your anesthetic.' A pleasant word or two about any promising feature of the outlook from the patient's point of view will give the patient confidence in the man who is to have his life in charge for a while and will often have the effect of distinctly quieting the nervous sytem. Boisterous and confused conversation and activity, are most undesirable about a patient who is going to sleep. [3]
In the late 1890s, Dr. Van Hook performed surgeries mainly at Wesley Hospital at 25th and Dearborn, adjacent to the Northwestern Medical School. When surgery was performed at the Medical School in that era, patients had to be carried on stretchers to and from the hospital in the open air. Patients came from distant locations, attracted by his reputation for superior surgical ability, modesty, even temper, and kindly manner. He had a staff of seven assistants, several of whom went on to become eminent surgeons and professors.[4] Dr. Van Hook and his colleagues pioneered in techniques such as the use of nitrous oxide for anesthesia and microscopic examination of excised tumors. He also "devised a new operation of transplanting one ureter into the one on the opposite side to salvage the kidney on the side of the obstructed ureter."[5]
Northwestern Medical School lists Dr. Van Hook as Professor of Surgery 1896-1908, and chairman of the Department of Surgery 1899-1908.[6] When he joined the medical faculty in 1896, the school had been making admission requirements more rigorous, but soon that academic objective came into conflict with the administration's desire to increase matriculation, which exceeded 600 in 1902-1903, compared to 321 in 1895-1896. Bayard Holmes wrote: "Van Hook went to Northwestern [in 1896] where his enthusiasm was slowly drowned out by the economic and pedantic exploitation of the splendid foundation laid so patiently and devotedly by [the early founders of the school]."[7]
Family life
On June 16th, 1892, Dr. Van Hook married another physician, Anna C. Whaley of St. Louis. She was a student of his friend and colleague Dr. James B. Herrick.[8] Hubert Van Hook, their son, was viewed as a possible vehicle for the World Teacher until Charles Leadbeater decided to cast Jiddu Krishnamurti in that role.
Introduction to Theosophy
Mrs. Van Hook apparently disagreed with this account of events, however.[9]
In 1904, Dr. Van Hook was introduced to Theosophy when C. Jinarājadāsa lectured in Chicago,[10] who remembered the occasion in the foreword to his little book, In His Name:
We met only for an hour, but I felt from the moment I saw you that I had a message to give. What that message is you will find in the following pages.
You have come to a point in your life when you feel you cannot any longer be fully of the world. You are established in an honorable career and know that time will bring you success and ease; but already you feel that you cannot work for success alone. You feel you must be an idealist in your profession, and be loyal to the ideal you see even though it means suffering and humiliation. You are in the position that hundreds are in to-day, but you are different from them in that you believe that the ideal that compels your obedience is not a thing of your imiagination, but is the first glimpse of a Personality whom you would like to call The Master. You feel that if this Master really exists and you could know him, then you could be utterly true to him in every way regardless of what comes.
You know further that you cannot seek this Master by retiring into some monastic seclusion, in order that by meditation and contemplation there you might commune with him. You are not free to consider your welfare only, for there are those depending upon you for their needs. For their sakes you know you must engage in a worldly career; but while you are so engaged you would like, if it be possible, at the same time to serve the Master in some way. It is because there is such a way that I write these pages for you, and for others who are opening their eyes to those higher human possibilities that you have already seen.
Each human soul has some message to give to every other human soul, and what I write is my message to you just now. It is not mine in reality, for it came to me from other human souls, and I am giving to you as a brother what others as Brothers have given to me.[11]
Theosophical work
By the American Theosophical Society convention in 1907,
Years as President of American Theosophical Society
Writings
Later years
The Van Hook household became impoverished due to unsuccessful investments in gold mining shares and a grain farm..[12]
Notes
- ↑ Chauncey C. Maher, A Man of Good Will, Chicago Literary Club Papers Online Web page accessed April 9, 2012 at [1]. See page 2-3.
- ↑ Maher, page 3-4.
- ↑ Maher, page 5.
- ↑ Maher, page 6.
- ↑ Maher, page 8.
- ↑ Leslie B. Arey, Appendix to Northwestern University Medical School 1859-1979, Galter Health Sciences Library Web page accessed April 9, 2012 at [2]. See pages 537 and 544.
- ↑ Leslie B. Arey, Northwestern University Medical School 1859-1979, Galter Health Sciences Library Web page accessed April 9, 2012 at [3]. See page 159.
- ↑ Maher, page 4.
- ↑ Maher, page 12-13.
- ↑ Maher, page 12.
- ↑ C. Jinarājadāsa, In His Name, Chicago: Rajput Press, 1913. Reprinted in 1923 by The Theosophical Press, Chicago.
- ↑ Maher, page 8.