Information Sheet

 

 

R         Thruston, John B., 1815‑

430                  Record books, 1859‑1879.

                                    Three volumes.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These are business records of Dr. John B. Thruston, a physician at Versailles in Morgan County, Missouri.  The records include account ledgers, 1859‑1879, and a daybook, 1861‑1863.  The entries note the names of the patients, the types of medical services rendered, Thruston’s fees, and settlements of accounts.

 

John B. Thruston was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on 30 March 1815.  He came to Missouri with his family in 1833, where they were among the first settlers of Morgan County.  Thruston studied medicine in Missouri and at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.  He began prac­ticing medicine in Versailles in 1836.  Thruston formed a partnership in 1864 with Dr. O. A. Williams.  The two worked together for five years before an amicable dissolution of the practice styled “Thruston & Williams.”  Thruston continued to practice at Versailles through at least the 1880s.

 

The business records of John B. Thruston consist of three volumes (two account ledgers and a daybook) beginning in 1859 and continuing through 1879.  The account ledgers, 1859‑1879, contain alphabetical indexes to the accounts.  Each brief entry includes the name of the patient, the date, and the type of medical service rendered, the physician’s fee, and settle­ments of ac­counts.  The entries in the daybook, 1861‑1863, are similar, but are in chronological order.  The notations of treatment are very sparse, typi­cally indicating only a home visit, the prescription of medicine, obstetri­cal services, or, occasionally extraction of teeth.  Some entries have biographi­cal and ge­nealogical information such as the residence of a pa­tient, or notations that the account had been probated.  The entries in the daybook, which were made during the first two years of the Civil War, make no reference to that momentous event.  Treatment of gunshot wounds is con­spicuously absent from the records.

 

Volume 1 contains miscellaneous memoranda at the end of the ledger which are useful in documenting the partnership of Thruston and Williams.  An undated draft of a “medical no­tice” calls attention to the dissolution of the partnership and gives Dr. Williams’s new location eight miles north of Versailles.  There is also a list of accounts due which were given over for collec­tion on 11 June 1873, and a undated list of medicines which may have been an inventory of stock on hand when the partnership was dissolved.  Also enclosed is a unsigned letter dated 20 Sep­tember 1863, at Versailles, containing comments on schools in the town, and a case of typhoid fever.

 

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