Books That Inspire 2007
 
Scalpel in a Saddlebag: the Story of a Physician in Indian Territory: Virgil Berry,M.D.
Margaret Berry Blair and R. Palmer Howard


I was fortunate to cuddle beside author Margaret Berry Blair (1904-2007), while she shared vivid memories of her father's medical practice in Indian Territory and early Oklahoma statehood. Scalpel in a Saddlebag is his biography rich with anecdotes of procedures performed outside and in rustic cabins with rudimentary surgical tools carried in Dr. Virgil Blair's saddlebags. With his wife Emma Kate at his side, he touched lives in and around Wagoner, Wewoka and Wetumka. Finally, in 1909, he settled in Okmulgee, where he opened a surgical clinic destined to evolve into present day Okmulgee Memorial Hospital.
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Sally Jo Blair
Academic Counseling Prof II
Center for Independent and Distance Learning