No individual in the history of Columbus has had a greater impact on the health and improvement of this community than Dr. James A. Thrash, who has all but been forgotten since his death in 1962, 50 years ago this May. If he is remembered by the public today, it is for the role he played in turning the old City Hospital into the modern-day Medical Center, but this tall, bespectacled North Carolinian did so much more for Columbus.

Almost single-handedly, Thrash transformed the public health-care practices in our town, havng served as city commissioner of health from 1921 to 1926 and as commissioner of health for both the city and the county from 1933 until 1948. In the latter year, he was made executive director of City Hospital, a job he held until his death.

During his first years of service as city health officer, Thrash closed the old Pest House down on the river, and working with the Public Health Nurse Association, began a compulsory vaccination program, which effectively eliminated small pox from the corporate city limits of Columbus. In 1924, he was instrumental in getting a pet inoculation ordinance adopted that virtually eliminated rabies within the metro area. Thrash also joined Dr. Mercer Blanchard in successfully attacking hookworm in local school children.

In 1939, after several years in private practice, Thrash took over as commissioner of health for the city and the county, both of which were still struggling to deal with the effects of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Thrash concentrated his efforts on disease prevention, addressing the problem with a broad range of programs, ranging from education to sanitation and nutrition. He campaigned to improve water quality and sewage facilities in both county and city. From 1940 onward, hundreds of thousands of feet of water and sewer mains were laid, and outdoor privies and surface toilets were all but eliminated. He succeeded in getting an ordinance passed, which required the city’s milk to be pasteurized, and he also launched programs to control pests, including
mosquitoes, flies and rats. Although it is not well known, he was the first public health officer in America to spray an entire community with DDT to control mosquitoes. Under the auspices of the U.S. Public Health Service, he directed a community-wide vaccination program for tuberculosis.

At the beginning of World War II, there were still 2,000 outdoor privies in Columbus, including many in the downtown area. Thrash campaigned vigorously to eliminate these health hazards. Prostitution and venereal diseases quickly became problems as thousands of soldiers flocked to Benning for basic training. Thrash publicized the problem and led several antivice campaigns, even encouraging the arrests of soldiers and women and their pimps.

He also organized and equipped a Health Department Laboratory that tested for everything from venereal diseases to polio. In fact, due largely to Thrash’s growing national reputation in the health field, Columbus was chosen by the U.S. Public Health Service for a pilot project to inoculate the entire community against polio. At this time, Thrash also established city and county health clinics at which people could get vaccinated for small pox, be x-rayed, and women could obtain maternal and pre-natal care.

Many older residents of Columbus remember when, toward the end of World War II, Thrash began to grade restaurants on their cleanliness and sanitation. These grades were prominently displayed in eateries around town. Any restaurants receiving a grade of “C” had 60 days to improve its health practices or Thrash would shut them down.

As the crowning achievement of what had been a stellar career in public health, Thrash led a drive in 1946 to build a new $400,000 Muscogee County Health Department across from the City Hospital. Construction on this much-needed facility began in 1953. It remains a mystery today why this building—and all subsequent health department buildings—were not named in Thrash’s honor.

Lastly, when Thrash took over as executive director of City Hospital in 1948 the facility was in wretched condition. Morale was low among the staff, pay was even lower, and black nurses had been out on strike. Incredibly, and the old building actually failed to meet the Georgia Building Safety Code. Moreover, the hospital was no longer fully accredited by the American Medical Association as a teaching institution for interns and residents, nor was the nursing school fully accredited due to substandard facilities for black students.

With characteristic energy, Trash improved the pay scale, lobbied for a new dorm for the black student nurses and hired a new director of nursing. He established a hospital medical library, improved the record keeping system and persuaded the American Cancer Society to move its Columbus Cancer Center to City Hospital. Then he began to raise money for construction projects, including the dorm for black student nurses, a new laundry, and for enlarging the hospital from 250 to 500 beds. He also began to work on Emory Medical School to help upgrade City Hospital’s medical teaching program. These efforts paid off in December of 1950 when the AMA announced it was reinstating full accreditation to the hospital.

Since many of these projects were realized by 1953, Thrash shifted to promoting the medical center concept, first advocated by John Wynn in 1945, to address the medical needs of Columbus and the surrounding community. Voters approved a $600,000 bond issue in 1953, and along with matching funds from Hill-Burton and the state, a total of $1.2 million was made available for a five-story north wing and two smaller wings that included out-patient service facilities and an emergency room. All together the hospital would be able to add 75-125 beds.

Many more construction projects and technical improvements would follow, until in 1956, the city commission voted to rename the institution The Medical Center. Dr. Thrash died in the hospital he had done so much help to create on May 21, 1962, a pioneer in public health and one of the makers of modern-day Columbus.

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