Rice, Revillo (1820-18880

RICE

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 10/11/2019 at 18:38:50

Revillo Rice
Mar 15, 1820 - May 7, 1888

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.52, Council Bluffs)
R. Rice, M.D.,Council Bluffs. The science of medicine has grown to such an extent as to admit of many specialties in the practice. After a general course of study in order to graduate from any of our leading medical colleges, it has become the custom of many of the best students to turn their attention to some important specialty in the practice and in their chosen field devote the time and hard study of their career as a practitioner to adding new points and new discoveries to that science upon which mankind has grown so dependent. What more important study than the treatment of the cancer could be taken up as a specialty, and what more difficult to treat successfully? For hundreds of years the cancer was considered incurable; this, too, by the best medical authority; and it is only by the patient study of eminent physicians, who have made a specialty of this dreaded affliction, that in later years thorough and permanent cures are not uncommon. For years it was the custom of the physician to use the knife in the removal of the cancer, and even to the present time this is practiced to an extent. The same science, however, which has made the custom of blood-letting by the barber - in honor of which their signs were painted with a red stripe - a thing of the past, has also discarded the use of the knife in removing the cancer. No better evidence is needed of the success of the science of medicine in this respect than a talk with .some of the patients of Dr. R. Rice, of Council Bluffs, or a visit to the Doctor himself, where abundant proof awaits the incredulous. A brief sketch of the experience and course of study of the Doctor may not prove uninteresting. He was born in Coventry, N. Y., March 15, 1820, and resided there until six years of age, when his parents moved to Whitestown, Oneida Co., N. Y. The ensuing time until he had arrived at man's estate was spent in Holland Patent, Oneida County, and in Fulton, Oswego Co., N. Y. After receiving a careful literary education, he began the study of medicine, and subsequently graduated from the Eclectic Vegetable Reform College of Fulton. He began practice in Fulton, N. Y., and remained there till 1868, when he removed to Sandwich, Ill. There he practiced eight years and then removed to Council Bluffs, where he arrived in the spring of 1875. He at once opened up an office and began practice, and since that time he has been steadily increasing his practice until at present he is known as the most successful physician in the treatment of cancers and other chronic diseases of the Missouri Valley.