Now we know what was in Dr. Louis Kappel’s medical bag. Local physician’s legacy lives on

St. Clair County Historical Society Curator William P. Shannon IV takes pride in finding chores for his volunteers to do that match their interests. So when Dr. Stephen R. Kappel donated the medical bag that his father, Dr. Louis Kappel, carried to house calls, Shannon knew who to call on.

My wife, Mary Pat Spiers, a registered nurse for 46 years and an avid volunteer at the society’s museum once a week, eagerly examined the battered black bag. This was right up her alley.

She got to catalog all the items in the bag. She was ecstatic, to say the least. So was Shannon, who said he knew nothing about medicine but was happy to receive the donation. Mary Pat cataloged 26 items out of the bag, including a stethoscope with worn-out rubber tubing.

The miscellany in the bag is a reminder of earlier times when doctors made house calls and had to drag along everything they thought they might need.

Louis Kappel was a urologist, so the bag was packed with a wide variety of catheters, one of the tools of the trade. It also had medicines, including some that needed to be safely disposed of, antibiotics like penicillin, and syringes, reusable but some with disposable needles.

One syringe came in a metal tube and in the other end of the tube was a set of two spare needles.

A scalpel, sutures and various disinfectants were part of the supplies as well as a pad of prescription forms listing Kappel’s office at 4601 State St. in East St. Louis. There were also a variety of urethra probes which will bring a shudder to anyone who has had urological problems.

Dr. Kappel graduated from the St. Louis University School of Medicine in 1934 and had a family medical practice. He was head of urological services at Fort Dix, New Jersey, during World War II and practiced in East St. Louis after getting out of the service.

He was involved with all the area hospitals, including helping get Memorial Hospital up and running and practicing urology in Belleville until 1986. He died in 2004 at age 94.

But some of his legacy will live on with his medical bag as long as there is a historical museum in St. Clair County.