When Dr. Samuel W. Torrey of Beverly, Massachusetts, died in
1917, his obituary spoke of his reputation as a “skillful
surgeon, a sound and searching diagnostician, and a wise
counselor and devoted friend in general practice.” Becoming deaf
as a young man had not prevented him from receiving a degree
from the University of Vermont, serving as a quartermaster for
the Union in the Civil War, and taking a medical degree at the
College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City in 1868. He
opened a practice in Beverly and founded a private hospital
which he later donated to the city. In addition to a
distinguished reputation, he left behind a small leather drug
kit, handwritten notes on the preparation and therapeutic uses
of heavy metals, and a casebook of gynecological patients. In
his casebook are notations of prescriptions for hydrastis
(goldenseal), viburnum (black haw), podophyllum (mayapple),
cascara sagrada, and other herbal preparations. In his drug kit
are vials of strychnine (from the seeds of plants