The Ophthalmologist’s Time Machine: Chapter 33

In the early 20th century, few American women trained as ophthalmologists.  One early example was Cornelia Adeline McConville (1869-1949), a Brooklyn native who earned a BS degree from Cornell in 1891. Of the 24 women in her class she was one of only two women to wear glasses in her portrait, and perhapsher interest in ophthalmology related to her dependence on eyeglasses.   From the lens artifact in the photo, McConville appeared to be myopic.  

Before working in medicine, McConville worked as a stenographer in Manhattan (2).  In 1894 she graduated from the Women’s Medical College of New York, Infirmary for Women and Children (2), and opened an office on Lorimer Street (3).

From 1898 to 1904, she was a clinical assistant in the eye department of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (4). In 1917 she  became an assistant surgeon to the eye department of the Infirmary, assisting well-known ophthalmologist Dr. John Elmer Weeks (1853-1949), for over 10 years (5). In 1886, Weeks identified the Koch-Weeks bacillus (now called Haemophilus influenzae), which can cause an acute epidemic conjunctivitis (6).

C. Adeline McConville first travelled to Clay County, Kentucky, after hearing a Baptist preacher, James Anderson Burns, speak of the needs of the region in New York in the Spring of 1909 (5,7).  When Burns asked her for funds, she initially responded that “the place was too far away and the task too difficult for a woman” (5). She was a Medical School Inspector for the Board of Health in Brooklyn, and was interested in touring the Kentucky schools, but thought her sister would object to her travelling to a place “famous for its feuds”.  Still, she went to Kentucky with her pastor and his wife during her next vacation in the summer of 1909. 

From London, Kentucky, they travelled along in a road wagon with a team of two mules.  They crossed mud holes and creek beds, ducking their heads when they came to overhanging branches.  They sang “When the mists have rolled in splendor from the beauty of the hills” as they travelled.  She ended up staying for four weeks on that trip.  One afternoon shortly before her departure:

“…as I was sitting on the porch of the Girls’ Dormitory, a mountaineer brought his little ten-year-old girl to see me.  Florrie was almost blind from trachoma, that contagious disease of the eyes which leads to blindness, if untreated.  She could not hold up her head or open her eyes.  Her father had heard that I treated eyes and he begged me to do something for his little girl’s eyes. I told him I would tell the only doctor in the town how to treat them” (5).

After that experience, she resolved to build a clinic where eye diseases could be treated.  However, she soon decided to open a general hospital in Oneida [in Kentucky], treating all but contagious disorders, since there was no nearby hospital of any kind.  She raised money over the course of two decades.  The largest contribution, $1200, came from Dr. Weeks.  She worked with Dr. Joseph A. Stucky of Lexington in her efforts to combat trachoma.  

While trachoma was understood to be infectious, the etiologic agent had not yet been identified (8). Stucky hypothesized that the towels shared by the entire family helped to spread trachoma within the family (8). In the mountainous region of Eastern Kentucky, 12.5% of the inhabitants were affected by trachoma (8). Measures for control and treatment included improved hygiene, irrigations, fomentations, and scarification of the conjunctiva by scraping with application of mercury bichloride (8).      

Eye clinics were held by Dr. McConville in Anderson Hall at the Oneida Baptist Institute with Dr. Joseph A. Stucky of Lexington.  During the week ending October 3, 1914, “300 patients were examined, twenty-six operations performed and nine lectures delivered… Dr. McConville has remained at Oneida [in Kentcky] to assist in the work for some time” (9).

The Oneida Mountain Hospital, founded and operated by Dr. McConville, was completed in February 1928.

By 1937, and until her death, McConville was an honorary assistant surgeon at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.  In 1941, the state of Kentucky assumed responsibility for the hospital, which became an obstetric facility known as the Oneida Maternity Hospital (5). McConville retired in 1942, and died Nov. 19, 1949 at age 80 years (2). 

The hospital she founded at Oneida was in operation under various administrations, including the Seventh Day Adventist Church, until 1971, when the patients and staff moved to the newly constructed Manchester Memorial Hospital.