Edward E. Novak, M.D.  

Pioneer Doctor, Educator, Financier, and Animal Husbandry Expert

E. E. Novak was born April 29, 1873, in Johnson County near Iowa City.  He attended rural school and graduated from the Iowa City Academy in 1892.  He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Iowa in 1895, and the same year began the practice of medicine in New Prague, Minnesota, which he has continued for the past sixty-three years.

Through all of these years, he has rendered excellent medical service to the citizens of New Prague and the surrounding countryside.  He has delivered thousands of babies, many of whom are now in the upper age brackets of life.  He has brought large numbers of comfort to many families by relieving the suffering of those in the family with incurable conditions.  He has always been quick to adopt preventive measures of proved value, such as immunization for diphtheria and smallpox.

Dr. Novak is so modest that it was difficult to obtain the desired information concerning his activities and contributions for this biographic sketch.  Therefore, correspondence was not effective.  However, this problem was solved when a dinner was arranged at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Loufek, his sister and brother-in-law, in Minneapolis on May 30, 1956.  Following the dinner, three of his close friends engaged him in conversation by asking numerous questions about his life and work.  To these he responded freely.  After more than two hours of conversation, which we always directed back to his work, he was informed that one of these friends, Dr. Charles E. Proshek, had a tape recorder in continuous operation.  He then had the opportunity of listening to the record and permission was given to use as much of the information as space would permit.  This record contains so much valuable information, historically and otherwise, that it has been suggested that it be presented to the State Historical Society.

Dr. Novak is a firm believer in providing the best possible educational facilities and has devoted a tremendous amount of time to schools ad school children.  He was a member of the New Prague Board of Education for forty-four years and was its president from 1920 to 1951.  He was president of the Five Town county School Board Associations for five years and president of the Minnesota State School Board Association from 1935 to 1936.  He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Minnesota Education.

He was “father” of Minnesota’s income tax law, earmarking income tax funds for school purposes.

He is a lifetime supporter of higher education and has rendered valuable service to the University of Minnesota by serving as a member of its Board of Regents from 1937 to 1955.

His activities in local civic affairs were cause for election to mayor of New Prague for two terms at the turn of the century.  From 1917 to 1919, he was president of the New Prague Lincoln Club and form 1919 to 1924, president of the New Prague Community Club.

In 1930, he was LeSueur County Democratic chairman and Democratic presidential elector in 1932.  Four years later, he was drafted as candidate for Democratic nomination for governor of Minnesota.

He is a founder (1903) and a former vice president of the First National Bank of New Prague and has been president of the State Bank of New Prague since 1936.

Having been reared on a farm in Iowa, Dr. Novak has much firsthand information concerning agriculture and, particularly, animal husbandry.  In 1950, he published an article in which he stated that the livestock industry loses $100,000,000 annually because of animals that are infected with brucellosis.  He pointed out that 5 to 8 percent of the cattle in the United States were infected with this disease, and it was estimated that 10 percent of the American people show evidence of brucellosis infection.  It was estimated that for every clinical case diagnosed, there were at least 8 to 10 nonclinical or mild cases that were never correctly diagnosed.  In this most enlightening article, he called attention to the great destruction caused by brucellosis not only in animals but also in man and gave the most detailed diagnostic procedures and prophylactic measures.  He paid tribute to the fine work that was developed and carried through at the University of Minnesota.  His article ended with the following: “The writer is sincerely convinced that what was accomplished in eradicating tuberculosis in our cattle through area testing and slaughter can, with similar methods, be achieved in eradicating brucellosis.”

He was a founder of the New Prague Creamery Association of which he was president from 1912 to 1926.  At the local creamery, he arranged for the Bang Ring Test, which revealed that 34 percent of the dairy herds of the area served had brucellosis.  Without methods to eradicate the disease at that time, he labored long to have pasteurization introduced before he succeeded.

There is no doubt that the role Dr. Novak played in the fight against brucellosis in cattle and human beings contributed mightily to the rapid control of the disease, so that, by 1954, Minnesota was one of the three sates to have reduced brucellosis in cattle to 1 percent or less and, thus, receive the classification of Modified-Certified Brucellosis-Free state.

Dr. Novak was an intimate friend and firm supporter of the work of Charles E. Cotton, who participated in the first testing of cattle with tuberculin in this country in 1892.  Dr. Cotton administered the tuberculin test to numerous cattle in the vicinity of Minneapolis in 1893 and 1894 and was influential in having the first ordinance in the world passed regulating the production of milk within the limits of a municipality.  This was in 1895, the year Dr. Novak began to practice in New Prague.  Immediately, Dr. Novak came to Dr. Cotton’s assistance and helped to promote tuberculin testing everywhere, so Minnesota received the rating Modified-Accredited Tuberculosis-Free area in December 1934.  This permitted ½ of 1 percent of reactor animals in an area at any testing.  Therefore, much remained to be done after the state was modified accredited before the eradication goal could be reached.  From 1934 to the present, Dr. Novak has continued to promote periodic tuberculin testing of cattle.  The eradication goal is not quite attained, but now the testing of 5,000 cattle is required to find 1 reactor in Minnesota.

On June 28, 1956, Dr. Novak wrote: “I always admired Dr. Cotton very much.  He was a great inspiration to me in helping his cause wherever an opportunity presented itself.  Well do I remember some of the local as well as state meetings where health problems were considered – especially tuberculosis and brucellosis.  Many a time the decision was in the balance, and he called for assistance from the human side of problems, and it was a great pleasure and privilege to try to explain the need to eradicate tuberculosis and Bang’s bacillus, both being the source of infection of humans.

“As a boy on the farm I was the ‘doctor’ for the animals on my father’s farm, and I suppose that is why my mother and older brothers thought it proper for me to study medicine.  So I took their advice.”  Since childhood, Dr. Novak has been interested in purebred cattle and thoroughbred horses.  He is owner of the Redvue Farms at New Prague, where he has produced large numbers of purebred Red Polled cattle, many of which have won coveted national honors, including 3 National Grand Champion Sires.  He has long been an active member of the Red Polled Cattle Club of America, which he served as president from 1932 to 1952.  in 1952, this organization’s Distinguished Service Award was bestowed upon him.

He was a founder of the Southern Minnesota Livestock Show and president from 1922 to 1938.  He instituted and promoted this show to convince farmers of the value of replacing their grade animals with purebred stock.  Dr. Novak saved a group of buildings from being wrecked by gaining possession of the property by paying the delinquent taxes of a bankrupt machine factory.  He then turned this property over to the Southern Minnesota Livestock Show for housing facilities.  When the livestock show was discontinued because of economic conditions in 1941, these housing facilities became the home of the Minnesota Valley Breeders Association.  He takes pride in having helped to organize this association, since it is the second largest organization of its kind in the United States.  It is doing fine research in the field of artificial insemination and also in pointing the way for easier and better ways of caring for and feeding livestock.

In 1895, when Dr. Novak located at New Prague, the population of the village was 700.  There was no telephone.  Like Dr. Novak, the townspeople did not work by the clock but until the job was done.  The few farmers in the vicinity had to clear the land largely with hand saws, axes, and grubbing hoes.  Little by little the cleared, fertile soil produced wonderful crops.  Having been reared on a farm in Iowa, where such clearing of land was not necessary, Dr. Novak was well-informed on the most modern methods in successful agriculture.  He demonstrated these methods on his own farm, which, at first, seemed ridiculous to other New Prague pioneer farmers, but they gradually realized that his rotation of crops, including the growing of alfalfa, and his practice of raising only purebred animals and keeping them free from such diseases as tuberculosis and brucellosis by having them tested two or three times each year were far more economical than the methods they employed.  Thus, he taught the entire countryside the best methods in agriculture of the day.  His influence among the farmers, no doubt, was largely responsible for the area’s development of such a fine record in crop growing and animal husbandry.  Indeed, it was Dr. Novak who, as an individual farmer, shipped to market the first carload of hogs from New Prague.

In those pioneer days, the practice of medicine was difficult from the standpoint of transportation and the sparse population in the county.  Dr. Novak walked to make many calls among the villagers.  In the summer, he rode a bicycle.  After practicing about two years in New Prague, he found the need of better transportation facilities.  He went back to Iowa, and his father gave him a Hambletonian colt.  “Good horses and equipment made rural practice a pleasure.”  In the winter, he drove horses hitched to wagons, sleighs, sleds, buggies, and, not infrequently, he traveled on horseback.  He was always ahead of his time as manifested in so many ways, one being that he owned the first automobile in New Prague in order to respond more promptly to the calls of patients.

Epidemics, including smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and other communicable diseases were frequent in the beginning of his practice.  Diphtheria antitoxin was not available for several years.  As soon as diphtheria immunization was considered effective and practical, Dr. Novak led the campaign for immunization in the schools.  He has always firmly believed and taught that physicians should do work involving the health of the public gratis or at a minimum cost in order that all may benefit.

Tuberculosis was a terrible scourge in Minnesota in 1895.  That year the mortality rate was 110.6 per 100,000.  1,693 died.  He saw the rate rise to 119.7, when 2,522 deaths occurred in 1911.  Dr. Novak continues to be a potent force against this disease.  He has advocated and promoted tuberculosis eradication programs in the schools through tuberculin testing, isolation of contagious cases, and dissemination of information among people everywhere.  He is a versatile speaker, well-informed before he speaks and always manifests the courage of his convictions.  He played an important role in decreasing the tuberculosis mortality rate to 3.1, when only 101 died in 1957.

The medicine he has practiced has always been the best at the time.  “I tired to cultivate in our community the need of a hospital as I soon recognized the need of such an institution.  In 1906, I tried to get financial aid to build a small hospital but did not succeed.  Later, I secured four additional rooms over the Remes’ Drug Store, where my office was then located, and equipped them as operating rooms, etc., with two beds.  This served us quite well for ordinary surgical cases up to about 1932.  At this time, Mr. Harvey, one of the officers of the International Milling Company, moved to Minneapolis, and we inherited his fine residence as a community hospital, which served us well indeed until our present Memorial Community Hospital was built.”

Not only is Dr. Novak a constant reader of medical books and journals, but he attends medical meetings regularly.  He takes an active part in the medical organizations to which he belongs, such as county, state, and American medical associations.

Dr. Novak speaks of the two “vacations” he has had in sixty-three years of practice.  These were for six months each, one in 1913 and the other in 1932, but most of the time was spent attending clinics at the University of Prague, Czechoslovakia.  In April 1958, he went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where his daughter and her husband are representatives of the United States government in the radio field.

He has been a staff member of the Community Memorial Hospital in New Prague since 1924 and of the Valley View Hospital at Jordan, Minnesota, since 1952.  His contributions have been so great and have extended over so many years that the Minnesota Medical Association named him Minnesota Physician of the Year in 1954.

When he had practiced in New Prague for fifty years, a testimonial banquet was given for him on April 29, 1945.  It appeared that the entire community of New Prague and surrounding country had arrived for the banquet and program which followed.  Many who arrived could not be accommodated for lack of space.  That day a fine editorial appeared in the Minneapolis Star entitled “Country Doctor.”  After relating his numerous activities and contributions, the editorial concluded as follows” “… but New Prague probably reveres him most as a country doctor – the man who has come at many calls to deliver babies and see oldsters out of this world.  This evening his neighbors are gathering at a dinner to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in New Prague.  They hope his shingle will swing in the wind of southern Minnesota for decades more.”

At the age of 85, Dr. Novak continues to practice most modern medicine, not only in his office but also in homes and hospitals.  In addition, his counsel is sought in such fields as agriculture, education, banking, and, best of all, as a close, personal, true friend.