Former Kosciusko resident Dr. Stanley Hartness was the guest speaker at the Attala Historical Society’s “Get to Know Attala County and Attala Countians Better” meeting.
He delivered a presentation titled “Tie a Bag of Asafoetida Around Your Neck and Call me in the Morning: A Lookback at Medicine in Attala County” at the recent meeting. He also brought his collection of antique medical equipment for display, some of which has been framed in an artwork design compiled by a Mississippi artist.
The title of the presentation was inspired by the phrase doctors have been accused of telling their patients: Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Because he was speaking on early medicine, he chose to use asafoetida in the title, a plant once used to prevent and treat throat and chest infections. The presentation covered who the first physicians were in the early communities of Attala County, where those communities were, and how and where physicians of the time received medical training.
Hartness told that Kosciusko was settled by John Adam in 1834, who built a tavern by Red Bird Spring. He explained that an article in The Sun newspaper said that Kosciusko’s name was originally Greenville, which later changed to Paris, before ultimately being changed to Kosciusko by William Dodd. The same article said that Dr. Munson was the town’s first physician. Hartness said that there were no physicians accounted for in Attala County in the second Mississippi census of 1841, “however, by 1870, several doctors had hung out their shingles.”
