This is taken from Souvenir Book, St. Paul Police Benevolent Association, 1919, a 1919 publication.

Relationship of Coroner’s Work to That of Police Surgeon

By Dr. C. A. Ingerson

In speaking of the relationship of a police surgeon’s work to that of the Coroner’s office, I deem it appropriate that we go back to the days when the "Police Surgeon's" department was first established and give its history from its incipiency to the present day.

The idea was brought about on account of so many accidents and fatalities occurring for which there was no appropriate facilities at first hand, and no persons trained in first aid work immediately available in many instances to cope with these emergency cases the police officers came in contact with, so it devolved upon Chief John J. O’Connor to devise ways and means of working out this most important entangled problem. There being no provisions in the then existing City Charter to take care of this branch of the contemplated service it was decided to give some sort of benefit whereby monies would be raised to purchase the necessary equipment. So a benefit base-ball game was conceived by Lieut. William Hanft and Joseph Mounts, Secretary to Chief John J. O’Connor, between the Minneapolis Police Base Ball Team and the Saint Paul Police Base Ball Team; the game being staged in the then down town ball park in the month of June, 1902.

The patrons were exceptionally liberal, Saint Paul’s share of the proceeds netted our department approximately fifteen hundred dollars ($1500.00). So the following month, July. 1902, Chief O’Connor empowered Lieut. Hanft and Jos. Mounts to go east for purposes of purchasing the most up-to-date horse ambulance in existence at that time. The itinery of the trip included all of the leading cities; the choice of purchase falling on the firm of Fulton and Walker Co., 20th and Filbert streets, Philadelphia, who proved to be a firm that specialized in the manufacture of ambulances. In fact the ambulance was so complete upon its arrival in Saint Paul that a duplicate of the same was immediately ordered by one of the leading hospitals in this city. So much for the history of the Saint Paul Police Department’s first horse drawn ambulance and the unique method devised for obtaining it.

The first ambulance driver was P. J. Casey, and I might add right here that he is still in the service of the Police Department at Prior Avenue Sub-station. The ambulance was first installed on September 12th, 1902, and made its first official run on November 1st, 1902, with Dr. George B. Moore in charge. As I have previously stated there was no regular provision for obtaining an ambulance, likewise, there was no regular provision to pay a police surgeon to go with the ambulance on its call of mercy and assistance in physical distress; whereupon the then existing Board of Police Commissioners, consisting of the following members: William Folsom, Richard T. O’Connor, Daniel W. Lawler, Lewis L. May and Charles L. Haas, by a resolution introduced by one of the above members appointed the first two police surgeons in the history of the department, viz: Dr. Geo. B. Moore, who served from the time of his appointment, November 1st, 1902, to that of his death, November 14th, 1906, and Dr. Paul Cook, who served from November 1st, 1902, up to the time of his voluntary resignation, February 28th, 1903.

Up to the present writing Dr. Moore is the only police surgeon that has died while in the service. Glory to his name and memory, for Doctor Moore was a congenial, affable and efficient surgeon whose sad demise occurred in the midst of promising opportunities.

The surgeons were paid at that time out of an emergency fund, there being no regular provisions for the payment of their salaries.

By the foregoing act the Saint Paul Police Department was the first city in the west to adopt this emergency aid system. The Minneapolis Police Department installed a system of like kind five years later; putting same into operation in the fall of 1907.

The Police Commissioners of that period as well as Chief John J. O’Connor, are to be commended for inaugurating this system as it has been the means of rendering emergency aid to countless numbers of people unfortunate enough to meet with accident on streets or public places.

So much for the history of how the first police horse ambulance was obtained, how the system was inaugurated and its object: to relieve human suffering at the earliest possible moment.

It might be appropriate to mention now the names of the various physicians who have served the police department since the beginning of the service, their length of tenure and date of resignation. They are as follows:

1. Dr. George B. Moore, appointed November 1, 1902,resigned November 4, 1906. (Died.)

2. Dr. Paul Cook, appointed November 1, 1902, resigned February 28, 1903.

3. Dr. Roy H. Labbitt, appointed November 15, 1906, resigned December 30, 1907.

4. Dr. John V. Kelly, appointed December 10, 1907, resigned September 30, 1907.

*5. Dr. A. J. Dohm, appointed November 15, 1906, resigned September 23, 1912.

6. Dr. Wm. Daily, appointed December 1, 1906, resigned June 20, 1911.

7. Dr. Paul Kelly, appointed October 1, 1909, resigned May 31, 1911.

8. Dr. C. A. Ingerson, appointed June 20, 1911, resigned April 5, 1915.

9. Dr. W. C. Rutherford, appointed June 1, 1911, resigned June 6, 1914.

10. Dr. R. Schnacke, appointed September 21, 1912, resigned March 31, 1918.

11. Dr. LeRoy Brown, appointed April 6th, 1915, still in service.

*Reappointed August 6, 1914. Still in the service.

In the point of service Dr. Dohm has served the department longer than any other physician, his service being approximately ten years.

Thus you see in seventeen years (17) eleven (11) various physicians have served under the Police Department.

In the early spring of 1914 the familiar horse drawn police ambulance was superceded by a motorized ambulance. These were indeed sad days as we bid adieu to the good old gray team, Queen and Dan, as well as the old ambulance for it broke the link between the old and the new method of transportation, but we were reconciled by the fact that it was for the best interests of humanity.

The duties of a Police Surgeon I have found are closely correlated with the work of the Coroner for the reason that when a crime is committed, as for example a suicide, or homicide, the participants are frequently only partially successful in attaining their ends, and the first impulse of the bystanders, onlookers or neighbors is to summon aid, usually the police officer, and he in turn for medical assistance to render first aid as the case may be; that the prime requisite and purpose of the medical department of the police system, to render aid in an emergency regardless of the causative factor, whether it be burns obtained in a conflagration, street car accident, automobile accident, resuscitation of a drowned person, railroad accident, poisoning, whether accidentally or purposely taken. In all the foregoing and other variety of accidents, too numerous to mention, which arise in a heavily populated city such as ours, the police surgeon is usually first called on the scene.

I found the work intensely interesting in that no two cases proved alike, there always being a deviation from ordinary routine; the expediency of the moment often calling all the ingenuity one possessed to meet a given case. For instance, in one particular case I recall, a man had swallowed a goodly portion of cerium oxalate, the antidote emergency kit containing lime water was missing, so on the spur of the moment, I had occasion to knock out some plaster on the wall for the purpose obtaining lime and adding that to water, it made an excellent antidote for the poison. The wrath of the landlord, who was a foreigner and not too intelligent, was indescribable. He could not appreciate the nominal damage sustained in comparison with a human life which was at stake, and was saved by prompt and energetic aid and treatment. Thus you see one oftentimes has to depend upon one’s own resources to tide a patient over until it is advisable to remove the patient to a hospital for further treatment, as a loss of a few minutes might mean going over the “Great Divide.”

Oftentimes I would not be so fortunate as to have a favorable outcome. From then on the police surgeon’s work ceased, and the coroner would be notified, and here is where the correlation comes between the police surgeon and the coroner. At times I have been called to attend poison cases where the individual absolutely refused all proffered aid and assistance, and this no doubt has occasionally been experienced by other physicians. This calls to my mind a case where a person, a young lady, had taken carbolic acid with suicidal intentions, and it was necessary to insert a small sized stomach tube thru the nose because she wanted to die, and absolutely refused to open her mouth, biting the tube between her teeth when we were partially successful in our endeavors to insert it; seeing this would not prevail, I withdrew the tube and inserted the same through her nose, followed the posterior pharyngeal wall into her esophagus and proceeded very politely to wash out her stomach with sodium sulphate solution in the usual manner, against her strenuous resistance and willingness to die. I will say she recovered as it was but a brief period from the time the poison was taken to my arrival, and the effects of the carbolic acid had not been fully absorbed.

On the other hand a police surgeon’s work is not attended without some dangers as the following incident will reveal:

One night while I was on duty an urgent call came to go out to the West end of town; a man had shot his wife, child, and himself. We arrived on the scene and immediately proceeded to walk into the house, no one was there to intercept us as it was past midnight; the party who called us had apparently been frightened. I thought it strange, but nevertheless I unconcernedly walked straight into the house and found a large living room of colonial type with the woman lying on the bed with her child, both seriously wounded, and the husband on the floor shot through the head, but still conscious and capable of slightly raising himself up from the floor with a 38 colt at his side, with two shells still unexploded.

I have often wondered since, what my fate would have been if he had taken a fancy to taking a pot shot at me as I entered the room. If I am to judge from the wounds inflicted on the other two persons in the room I certainly would have proven a coroner’s case, and would not be alive to write this article.

I could go on and relate numerous instances of this kind, some laughable and others pathetic and sad, but space forbids—suffice to say the training one receives in the police service renders one alert, keen, and able to take in a situation at a glance which has proven invaluable to me in my subsequent work as coroner.