(Note: The following is part of a series of columns looking at the establishment and growth of doctors, hospitals and the health industry in Georgia and Bulloch County.)

    Many believe that Bulloch got its first real doctor in 1838.
    He was Dr. George Ross, who lived by Black Creek. There is a particularly interesting story about one of his trips to Savannah to restock his medical supplies.
    Dr. Ross, it was said, put all of his powders in bags and then packed them in a barrel. He arrived home only to find that most of the bags had been jostled open.
    Ross, never one to waste anything, decided to just mix them all together rather than throw them away. He then found a mangy cur dog that was near dead and started experimenting with his concoction.
    The dog didn’t die — it actually recovered. Ross then he went out and found a sick stray cat. He performed the same test again, giving the same mixture to the cat, which also recovered.
    By this time, Ross was pretty sure of the powders' recuperative powers, so he gave the mixture to Old Man Beasley, his very best patient. The next time Dr. Ross saw Beasley, he was completely recovered from all of his ailments.
    Unfortunately, when all of the miraculous medicine was gone, there was no way to recreate what an accident had created, and this apparent cure-all was lost to all of humanity.
    Ross, according to some, was also Bulloch’s first surgeon. As another story goes, an older patient came to Ross with an injured leg, which was so infected that it needed to be amputated.
    Ross grabbed a butcher’s knife from his kitchen, put his patient on a table set up in the shade of a large tree and proceeded to cut the leg off. The man recovered and lived a good many more years.
    According to local newspaper reports, more doctors soon followed: Drs. T.T. Seibles and Coleman arrived in 1850, and Drs. Lloyd Carleton Belt and Jones arrived in 1855. In 1860, Dr. Alfred Iverson Hendry set up shop in Bulloch County; Drs. J.F. Brow, Kiebler and Matthew Hodges established their practices in 1865; and Dr. George Stotsebury arrived in 1869.
    In 1870, four more doctors arrived: Drs. Thomas Roach, Rodney Burke, John I. Lane and Dan L. Kennedy. Five years later, in 1875, Drs. I.S.L. Miller, Foss and Montague Boyd set up their practices. They were followed by Dr. G.W. Sease in 1876, Drs. Tom Headley and M.W. Eason in 1878, Dr. J.W. Daniel in 1879, and Drs. M.M. Holland and Gay in 1885. Bulloch County now had nearly 25 physicians.
       
    Roger Allen is a local lover of history. Allen provides a brief look each week at the area's past. Email Roger at rwasr1953@gmail.com.