"The Healer"
by Jay Hester
48" x 60"
Oil on Canvas
This painting and 8 others will be part of the new selections in Jay Hester's solo exhibition:
Jay Hester TEXAS: Stories of the Land
Opening Oct. 8, 2016 4 pm- 8 pm
Sources:
“…approached by an Indian Chief to remedy his
failing eyesight, Herff diagnosed the problem as advanced bilateral cataracts.
Having brought specialty surgical instruments, he set about to remove the
opacified lenses. He decided to use
cistern water rather than the heavily laden mineral ground water….Artificial
light from a lantern or fire would pose a great danger in the use of ether
needed for anesthesia, so he reasoned that the operation should occur
out-of-doors on a clear day, cloud free, windless, dust and insect free. With
the utmost cleanliness, he extracted the cataracts while bystanders wave off
flies with palm branches.”
Early Texas
Physicians 1830-1915 Innovative, Intrepid,
Independent, Texas Surgical Society, Edited by R. Maurice Hood, M.D., Introduction by T.R. Fehrenbach, pg. 177.
“Among the leaders of the new colony called
Bettina was one Ferdinand von Herff, a distinguished doctor and student of
politics who was a co-founder of the Socialistic Colony and Society, which
originally planned to establish socialist communes in Wisconsin. Instead, von
Herff and his two co-founders arranged with the Adelsverein to plant their
colony on Adelsverein land in Texas. They named the village Bettina after a
social activist and friend, and chose a location on the Llano River, northwest
of Boerne. It was in Bettina, under an oak tree on the banks of the
river, that Dr. von Herff successfully performed surgery to remove a cataract
from the eye of a local Indian chief – an almost unheard-of undertaking at the
time.”
Explore Magazine, SMV Texas, LLC. A Brief History
of Boerne, August 27, 2014, Admin, Accessed on August 8, 2016,
“The
two doctors among the Forty proved valuable; though one would surely have been
enough. Dr. Ferdinand Herff became accustomed to dealing with the local
natives, and eventually learned both the Comanche and Apache dialects. His reputation was made after only a few
weeks at the colony, when a Comanche appeared with an advanced case of
cataracts, asking to be healed. Herff
had – amazingly- brought the most advanced ophthalmologic instruments with him
from Germany, and had performed cataract surgery several times in Europe. But
never without professional support and, needless to say, never in the
wilderness. Fearful that the Comanche would blame him if the native went
untreated, Herff decided to risk an operation. Local anesthetics had not been
discovered yet, so the doctor was obliged to use ether to incapacitate the
patient. This created a problem since, according to Herff, ‘one of the
outstanding essential in a cataract extraction is adequate light.’ In those primitive days the only forms of
artificial illumination were candlelight and kerosene lamps whose rays were
intensified by magnifying lenses. But…the flammable nature of ether definitely
constrained its use anywhere near a naked flame, so the only solution was to
perform the surgery out of doors, aided by the sunlight…Surrounding the
operating group stood a dozen of the Forty with palm leaf fans to keep the
flies away…The crude, daring procedure was a success.”
Morgenthaler, Jefferson, The German
Settlement of the Texas Hill Country, 2011, Mockingbird Books
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