Sometimes private information can become public. It certainly did for the patients of Dr. R. D. Hufford in Tazewell Co. when the administrator for the doctor’s estate began scouring the county collecting debts after his death in 1898. The doctor’s account book, entered as an exhibit in a chancery cause, contains some striking entries that Hufford’s patients probably wished he would have left out or at least written in some cryptic physician’s code. For more on the story see today’s blog post.

http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2011/10/12/is-there-a-doctor-in-the-court-house-a-doctor’s-account-book-as-public-record/ 

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