USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of representative men of Chicago, Minnesota cities and the World's Columbian exposition : with illustrations on steel. V. 2 > Part 23
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Prior to his fifteenth year Edwin attended the common schools, and then spent a year at Mt. Carroll Seminary. In order to give him the ad- vantage of a college education, his father now re- moved to Wheaton, Du Page county, Illinois, and he pursued the first-year preparatory course at Wheaton College. Upon the opening of the sec- ond year, the college authorities learning that he had interested himself in the organization of a Good Templars' Lodge, and being opposed to secret societies, demanded that he sever his con- nection with the lodge. He was only a day stu- dent, living at his own home, and his father was a member of the lodge, and feeling the injustice of the demand refused to comply with it; and leav- ing the school at once entered the second-year class in the preparatory department of the Uni- versity of Chicago. He remained at that institu- tion six years, completing a thorough classical course of study, and graduating with the class of 1871, with the degree of A.B. In college he was known as a hard worker, and developed a special aptitude for geometry, logic, metaphysics, Eng- lish grammar and rhetoric, and was especially fond of the Odes of Horace and Ars Poetica, by reason of their help to him in writing and speak- ing. In the literary society to which he belonged, the " Tri Kappa," he was a leader in debate, and among the foremost writers and speakers, and made himself popular among his fellow students by entering heartily into the true spirit of college life. He was a prominent member of the " Delta
Kappa Epsilon " fraternity. He also had fine musical tastes and talents, and improved these by attending various musical schools during the sum- mer vacations, giving special attention to the study of harmony and thorough-bass. His own choice was to fit himself for the practice of law, but knowing the disappointment his father would experience should he not enter the medical pro- fession, he yielded his own wishes, and in Octo- ber, 1871, entered Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, and was graduated therefrom in the spring of 1873, with the degree of M.D. During his medical course he acted as quiz-master in con- nection with his father's chair, that of special pathology and diagnosis, and also during his last year filled the position of demonstrator of anat- omy under appointment of the incumbent of that chair. After listening to his valedictory address, the Board of Trustees of the college were so favor- ably impressed that they at once invited him to become demonstrator and adjunct professor of anatomy. In order to better qualify himself for the place, he visited Philadelphia and spent the spring term in Professor Keen's School of Anat- omy, and Jefferson Medical College. In the fall of 1873 he entered upon the duties as teacher, lecturing twice each week, and in addition filled the place of the professor of anatomy, when that gentleman was absent, and as he was present but twice during the entire winter, the responsibilities of that position devolved upon Dr. Pratt. Al- though the mental strain was severe, he bore up under it, and at the close of the year had the satisfaction of knowing that his work was highly satisfactory. As a mark of their appreciation, the students who had received the benefits of his teaching presented him with a beautiful gold- headed cane at the close of his last lecture.
Dr. Pratt was now tendered the professorship of anatomy, but the desire to engage in active practice, and the thought that he could not afford to longer donate his services, led him to at first decline the offer. The college authorities, how- ever, knowing the value of his services, were re- luctant to let him go, and at once tendered him a salary of five hundred dollars a year. Under this arrangement he accepted the position, and filled it until the spring of 1876. At this time, owing to dissensions between the board of trustees of the college and the faculty, ten of the thirteen
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professors resigned and organized the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College. With these Dr. Pratt sympathized most heartily, believing them to be in the right, and although the Hahnemann College desired him to continue his connection there at the same salary, a sense of duty impelled him to decline the offer and accept the profes- sorship of the same chair in the new institution without remuneration. This chair he filled for seven years, during which time the homœopath- ists were admitted to the wards of the Cook County Hospital. Dr. Pratt was elected a mem- ber of the hospital staff, and occupied a position first in the theory and practice department, later in the gynæcological department, and afterwards was elected attending surgeon of the hospital. In 1883 a vacancy occurring in the chair of surgery in the college, Dr. Pratt, with the consent of the faculty, retired from the chair of anatomy, and accepted that of surgery. It was here, while hand- ling the complicated and obscure cases at the col- lege clinic that he discovered what has at once marked an era in the treatment of chronic diseases, and made his own name famous. It was the spring of 1876. While holding clinic, the thought came to him that he had found a satisfactory explanation of the existence of all forms of chronic diseases. Inspired by the thought of his discovery, he was about to announce it to his class, but a second thought prompted him to dismiss them with the announcement that his next lecture would be "Chronic Diseases from a Surgical Stand-point." He had promised an article for a medical journal, and being pressed for time he employed a stenog- rapher to report this lecture in fulfillment of that promise. His purpose of presenting something new had been noised about, and when he entered his lecture-room he found it crowded to its full capacity, among the audience being many visitors from other colleges. It was a moment of supreme importance to him, and as he advanced in his lec- ture, the heavy, tired and restrained feeling which he experienced at the opening passed away, there came upon him a flood of light and he spoke as under the power of an inspiration, holding his auditors spell-bound to the close, when their breathless silence was broken by loud and long applause. Such was the effect of the lecture that, although it was within three weeks of the close of the term, and the students were busy with exami-
nations and tired from their winter's work, during that time sixteen members of the class presented themselves for treatment under the new discov- ery, which the discoverer had named the Orificial Philosophy. The results of the treatment upon these cases were so satisfactory, and so many were cured, that the new philosophy was at once pro- nounced a marvelous success. From that time the surgical clinic of the college was conducted on the orificial principle, and for a year was vis- ited by physicians of all schools from all parts of the United States, who came to witness the work- ings of the new philosophy. The spread of the new idea brought so many inquirers that Dr. Pratt found the drain upon his time and strength more than he could endure and keep up his pri- vate practice, and this led him to receive and in- struct his professional brethren in orificial work, in classes instead of singly as was at first his cus- tom. He now holds these classes semi-annually for a week, and during that time he devotes the time to lectures and clinical work, allowing mem- bers of the class to bring their most difficult cases, upon which he publicly operates. After the second class of this kind, those present organ- ized the National Association of Orificial Sur- geons, electing Dr. Pratt as honorary member, and providing in their constitution that there never should be but one. This association has had a wonderful growth, and promises to be one of the largest medical societies in the United States, and such has been the effect of the new method of treating chronic diseases, that four- fifths of the cases apparently incurable are speed- ily restored to health. In recognition of his ser- vices the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College established a chair of Orificial Surgery, to be filled by Dr. Pratt. Other medical colleges fol- lowed the example, and now this new philosophy is taught in all the medical colleges of this coun- try that pretend to keep up with the progress of the age.
Dr. Pratt was honored with the degree of LL.D. by his alma mater in 188 -. He is an honor- ary member of the Missouri Medical Society, the Ohio Medical Society, the Kentucky Medical So- ciety and the Southern Association of Physicians, and an active member of the Illinois State Medi- cal Association, the Chicago Academy of Medi- cine and the American Institute of Homœopathy.
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Dr. Pratt has a very large and lucrative practice. He is a hard student, has an elegant library filled with several thousands of the choicest books, and contributes largely to current literature, and is author of a beautifully illustrated work on Ori- ficial Surgery, now in its second edition.
Dr. Pratt was married June 26, 1877, to Miss Isa M. Bailey, of Jersey Heights, New Jersey. Mrs. Pratt is a lady of unusual attainments, with literary and musical tastes and abilities of a very
high order, and withal a woman of rare good sense, and a charming hostess. Both she and Dr. Pratt are members of the Apollo Club, of which the latter was one of the founders and is now a director. They have had two children. A daughter, Isabel, died when eighteen months old. A son, Edwin Bailey Pratt, is now ten years old, and a remarkably precocious child. He speaks Ger- man and French fluently, and shows peculiar apti- tude for mathematics and philosophical studies.
JOHN FALKENBURG WILLIAMS, M.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
TT is always pleasant to review the life of a good physician, and especially so when it is as in- teresting, eventful and successful as that of Dr. Williams. Born in Center county, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1837, and a very vigorous and hardy man, he comes of a long-lived race. His father, Mr. George Williams, of Lee county, Illinois, at the present time (1890) paying a visit to the doctor, is eighty-nine years old. Dr. Williams' paternal great-grandfather, a Welshman, was a volunteer in the Revolutionary War, and an intimate friend of George Washington. He was a fine mechanic, and in the course of that gallant struggle, in which the soldiers had no weapons, whenever a saw-mill or any such place was captured, the brave Welshman was called upon to turn the saws into swords.
The wife of this soldier was a young Hol- lander, brought over under contract, and whom he bought and married. After the war they lived for a time in Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, finally locating in Center county of that State. One of their sons, the grandfather of our subject, settled in Bald Eagle Valley. His wife, whose name was Falkenburg (of German extrac- tion), was the daughter of the owner of large rice plantations in New Jersey. The mother of our subject, Mary Adams Williams, born in Pennsyl- vania, was of Scotch-Irish descent. Her father, a forgeman by trade, and an extensive iron manu- facturer, was a prominent and wealthy citizen of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Williams had five brothers and five sisters, of whom there are living three brothers and two
sisters : Ellis I. Williams, a resident of Chicago ; Alexander A., a farmer of Manson, Iowa ; Julius C., residing on the old homestead in Lee county, Illinois ; Nancy A., wife of Hollis Prescott, of Dixon, Illinois, and Mrs. J. P. Goodrich.
Like many another of our best and foremost citizens, the early years of Dr. Williams' life were spent on the farm, his education being obtained, after he had reached the age of twenty, in the common and graded schools of the day. It had always been his ambition to "be a doctor," and from early childhood he showed marked adapta- bility for the profession. While on the farm he had read physiology, and, obtaining a skele- ton from the family physician, had studied anat- omy. Later he read medicine under the direc- tions of the family physician. With bright prom- ise of success he was preparing for the more advanced study of his profession (so much be- loved), when the war broke out.
He enlisted in the Fifty-third Illinois, Com- pany A, which company was afterward trans- ferred to the Fifteenth Cavalry. This was a company of picked men, secured as a body guard by General H. C. Halleck, and young Williams, brawny, hardened by exposure in the fields, and a perfect athlete, was considered a good man to go into it. Shortly after Dr. Williams was detailed by the surgeons of the Fifty-third Regi- ment for medical service in the army of the Tennessee, Hurlbut's Brigade. In this capacity he served until after the evacuation of Corinth, when he was himself taken sick, and after lying for two months on the ground was discharged.
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He came home, studied medicine for a time in a physician's office, matriculated at the Uni- versity of Michigan, and graduated from the Chicago Medical College, March, 1865. Part of his course in the latter institution was under the direction of the eminent and venerable Professor N. S. Davis.
After the completion of his studies Dr. Williams enlisted as assistant surgeon in the Second United States Volunteer Infantry stationed at Fort Dodge, Kansas, where he was the first to establish hospital service. In December, 1865, he was honorably discharged, and, retiring from the front, located at Ashton, Lee county, Illinois, where he remained three years.
In 1869 he came to Chicago, where he has ever since resided, and where he has built up a large and lucrative practice. Dr. Williams is a promi- nent specialist in gynecology, at the same time devoting much attention to general practice, be- ing a great favorite as a family physician. He was formerly attending physician to the North Star Free Dispensary ; is a member of the Chicago Medical Society: of the Illinois State Medical Society, and of the American Medical Associa- tion.
Dr. Williams stands high in the "blue " lodge of the Masonic Order. He was made a Mason in Ashton Lodge, A. F. A. M., in 1866; became a charter member of Lincoln Park Lodge, No. 611, and has held nearly all the offices in the gift of the lodge. He is examining physician for the A.
O. U. W., and also for the Masonic Aid Associa- tion ; is a member and was at one time surgeon to the Washington Post, G. A. R., No. 593, and is a prominent figure in the military order of the Chicago Union Veteran Club, and is also a mem- ber of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
Son of an old-time Whig and Abolitionist, Dr. Williams is by inheritance, as well as by principle, a staunch Republican. He attends the Episcopal church, and in his religious views is liberal.
The Doctor is a man of many marked traits of character ; kind-hearted, generous and true, and a most agreeable companion and a trusty friend. He has attained his ideal of eminence in his profession, and respect of his fellow-citizens, but every step of the way was carved out by hard, up-hill work, in which the only secret of success was that he found no obstacles insurmountable.
In 1867 Dr. Williams was married to Miss Francis Raymond, daughter of Mr. Hiram Ray- mond, of Rock county, Wisconsin. Mr. Raymond, who settled in Wisconsin when it was but a terri- tory, was an active politician and a brilliant man. He died in Iowa about two weeks before the last presidential election, in his ninetieth year. Mrs. Williams is an extremely modest woman, a great reader and a devotee of art. Very domestic, she is of great assistance to the doctor by reason of her business tact and system, and fully deserves the praise of her husband, who says " she is a re- markable woman in her way." They have one child, Elsie E. Williams, aged nine.
SVEN WINDROW, A.M., M.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
S
VEN WINDROW was born March 12, 1853,
in Stockholm, Sweden. His father, John Henry Windrow, whose forefathers were mer- chants, died in 1881, aged seventy-six years, and his mother, still living at the age of seventy-two years, came to America in 1888. Both parents were descended through centuries of Swedish ancestors. The remainder of the family consists of a brother, Charles Henry, formerly a mer- chant in the old country, now a resident of Chicago; a half-brother, John V. Windrow, a sea captain sailing from San Francisco; a
half-sister, now deceased, wife of a merchant of Sweden.
Dr. Windrow is a graduate of the Stockholm Lyceum, class of '73, and of the University of Upsala, where, in 1877, he received the degree of A.M. The University of Upsala, as is well known, is one of the most ancient seats of learn- ing on the continent and ranks with the foremost schools of the world. In 1878 he was con- nected with the Carolina Medical and Surgical Institute in Stockholm; was physician and sur- geon in the Royal Garrison Hospital in 1879-81,
Soru Under A. K. M.D.
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and from 1880 to 1884 served as surgeon in the Swedish army.
In 1886 Dr. Windrow came to America, located in Philadelphia, entered, and in 1887, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He then removed to Chicago, and was for one year the attending oculist at the Chicago Polyclinic. Be- sides having built up an extensive practice here, Dr. Windrow is one of the founders and also superintendent of the Linnæan Hospital, in which he is associated with such men as Drs. Christian Fenger and G. C. Paoli. He is also a director in the Chicago Midwife Institute, one of the found- ers and incorporators of the Scandinavian Medi- cal Society, of which he has been two years secre- tary and treasurer, and since 1891 its president. His office is one of the handsomest and most elegantly appointed in the city.
Dr. Windrow is a prominent Swedish Mason, initiated in the First Northern Lodge, Stockholm, Sweden ; created a Knight Templar in January,
1883, and held the office of master of ceremonies in his Commandery; is a member of and exam- ining physician to fourteen different societies. He is also examiner for Union Central Life In- surance Company of Cincinnati, and Home Life Insurance Company of New York.
His political sympathies are Republican.
Being fond of natural history he has explored much of Sweden and Norway as a botanist, and has extended his travels through Europe, Asia, and portions of Africa. Besides being an exten- sive traveler, he has found time to invent and perfect several surgical instruments, to make him- self a skilled performer on the piano and French horn, and to win a medal and the "champion gold skate" for proficiency on the ice. Very fond of social life, Dr. Windrow is eminently fitted to adorn it by his magnificent physical presence as well as by tact, suavity of tempera- ment and a genial attractive personality.
He was married April, 1892.
OSCAR ORLANDO BAINES, M.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
O NE of the most successful of the younger class of physicians of Chicago is Dr. Oscar O. Baines, who was born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, in 1863. His father, William B. Baines, at the age of eighteen, immigrated to this country from England, settled in Southern Wisconsin in 1865, and became a prominent farmer, owning and residing upon what was then widely known as the Willard farm. His mother, whose people were wealthy manufacturers in Germany, came to this country from a village on the Rhine, when she was twenty-two years old. Our subject's family consists of a sister (Mary), now the wife of Mr. William Bladon, assistant cashier in the Mer- chants' and Mechanics' Savings Bank in Janes- ville, Wisconsin, and three brothers, all well-known men in their respective callings. William is a farmer in Southern Wisconsin ; Charles is a thriving com- mission merchant in Omaha, Nebraska, and Frank is the foremost leaf-tobacco merchant in Wiscon- sin, doing more business than all the other dealers of that state combined. Oscar began his educa- tion in Janesville, Wisconsin, acquitting himself
with honor in the primary and high schools of that city. With a strong literary inclination he found himself well adapted to the study of medical science, which he began in the office of Dr. S. S. Judd, of . Janesville. Having remained there two years, he in 1883 matriculated at Bennett Medical College, of Chicago, and was graduated in 1885, carrying off the highest honors of his class.
He located in the north division of Chicago, and in the fall of 1886 was elected demonstrator of anatomy by his alma mater. This position he held until 1889, when he was elected to the chair of general and descriptive anatomy, and in 1890 to that of general, descriptive and surgical anatomy. He is a member of the National Eclectic Medical Association, also of the State Eclectic Medical Society, and vice-president of the Chicago Eclectic Medical and Surgical Society. Dr. Baines ranks very high in the profession and in the community, both in his specialty of dis- eases of women and in medical and surgical work generally, the extent of his practice suffici- ently demonstrating his standing as a physician.
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In politics, though non-partisan, his sympathies are with the Democratic party, and he belongs to that class of men who always vote. A member of the Congregational church, he is in every way an honorable and respected citizen.
On the 25th of December, 1887, Dr. Baines was married to Miss Ida Christie, daughter of Mr. Angus Christie, of Chicago, and a descendant of one of the oldest families of Canada. Mrs.
Baines is a woman of marked musical talent and ability, distinguished in local musical circles as a vocalist. Possessed of a retentive memory and strong will power, together with a pleasant and congenial nature, she is very popular in society. And Dr. Baines, blessed with a little son, Ro- land, four years old, enjoys, in addition to his success in public life, the pleasures of a delightful home.
COL. JOHN THILMAN DICKINSON,
AUSTIN, TEX.
T HE subject of this sketch is a man of marked and distinguished character, who, though but thirty-four years of age, has proven himself the possessor of such industry, integrity and honesty of purpose as to command the confidence of men. He was born in Houston, Texas, June IS, 1858. His father, John Dickinson, was a native of Scotland, descended from a sturdy line of ancestors, who, on many a hard fought field, stood by Wallace and Bruce, and on more than one occasion poured out their lives amid the fires of martyrdom. Scotch history is permeated with the name of Dickinson, and always in connection with deeds of valor and honor.
Colonel Dickinson's father came to America when quite young, and settled in Houston, Texas, where he became a prominent business man, and yet found time to give attention to literature to such an extent as to be a frequent writer for several leading papers in his native land, and also the press of his adopted State. He was a man of fine appearance and of the strictest integrity, which gave him a prominence which has descended to his son. He was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Thilman of Virginia, whose family was . among the oldest in the old Dominion, and whose first ancestor from England was a gallant officer in the Revolutionary Army, and was specially mentioned because of bravery on the field.
Colonel Dickinson lost his father when he was thirteen years old, and his mother when he was sixteen. He was first educated at private schools in Houston, Texas, and then at Learnington, England, and Dundee, Scotland, and later on at Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, in
the slashes of Hanover county, where Henry Clay was born. He afterwards graduated in several of the academic schools at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, and received the degree of Bachelor of Law from that institution in June, 1879, when he was twenty-one years of age.
In the summer of 1879 he attended Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, returning in the fall to Houston, Texas, and at once secured a license to practice law, but pre- ferring journalism, became one of the owners and editor of the Houston Daily Telegram, the leading Democratic paper in that city.
In January, 1881, while on a visit to Austin, the capital of the State, he was elected secretary of the House of Representatives of the Texas Legis- lature, and in May, 1882, was elected secretary of the Texas State Capitol Board in supervising the construction of the largest State House in the Union, and probably the largest red granite build- ing in the world. During this time he was also elected secretary of the State Penitentary Board, and several other State boards, and filled these positions under three governors, Hon. O. M. Roberts, Hon. John Ireland, and Hon. L. S. Ross.
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