History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 181

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 > Part 181

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Dr. John Kearsley Mitchell, who was succeeded in the Philadelphia Medical Institute by Dr. Rogers, was born at Shepherdstown, Va., May 12, 1796, and re- ceived his degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1819. He made three voyages to China as sur- geon, and settled in Philadelphia in 1822. In 1824 he lectured on the Institutes of Medicine and Physi- ology in the Philadelphia Institute. In 1826 he ac- cepted the chair of Chem- istry there, and in 1833 lectured in the Franklin Institute on Chemistry ap- plied to the Arts. In 1841 he was called to the chair of the Theory and Prac- tice of Medicine in the Jefferson Medical College. His services during sea- sons of pestilence and in the City Hospital were twice rewarded by munici- pal gifts. He was the au- thor of "Indecision and other Poems" (1839), and " Popular Lectures on Sci- entific Subjects," a work which was translated into several foreign languages. He died April 4, 1858, leaving a work "On the Cryptogamous Origin of Malarious and Epidemi- cal Fevers," and many valuable contributions to the American Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences. A collection of his essays, including a valuable paper on animal mag- netism, was published in this city in 1858. His son, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, was born in this city, Feb. 15, 1829, and received his degree at the Jefferson Medi- cal College in 1850. He is particularly known by his researches respecting the venom of serpents, pub- lished in the Smithsonian Contributions, and in the "Memoirs of the Philosophical Society ;" also, " Re- searches on the Physiology of the Cerebellum," in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences for April, 1869. He published, with Drs. Keen and Morehouse, " Effects of Gunshot Wounds" (1864), and " Anatomy and Physiology of Respiration in the Chelonia," in Smithsonian Contributions.

$ seph Leidy

Dr. Richard Harlau, a physician and writer on nat. ural history, was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 19, 1796, and died in New Orleans, Sept. 30, 1843. Previous to receiving his medical degree, in 1817, he made a voy- age to Calcutta as surgeon of an East India ship. Besides his private practice in this city, he was in 1822 elected professor of Anatomy to the Philadel- phia Museum, where he delivered lectures on that science. In 1825 he published his "Fauna Ameri cana ;" in 1835, " Medical and Physical Researches ;" " Observations on Salamanders," Svo, 1824; " Amer- ican Herpetology," Svo, 1827. In 1838 he visited Europe, and on his return, the following year, estab- lished himself in New Orleans.

The carcer of Dr. Wil- liam E. Horner is so well known that we may speak of it in brief. Dr. Horner was, like Chapman and Ilartshorne, a native of Virginia. He received his academic education at the town of Warrenton in Fauquier County. He en- tered the service of the United States in the war of 1812, acting throughout as surgeon's mate. After graduation at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, he practiced for two years in Warrenton, and in 1816 had already acquired such reputation for his know]- edge of anatomy that he was chosen by Dr. Wistar as his assistant. At the death of Wistar, in 1×18, he was to have been in that relation to Dr. Dor- sey. At the death of the latter he became assistant to Dr. Physick. The Uni- versity boasts, and with becoming pride, of the distinguished services rendered by this great anato- mist to its museum.

By his death, in 1853, the professorship fell to Dr. Joseph Leidy, who was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 9, 1x23, and graduated in 1844 from the medical school of the University. Ilis life was devoted mainly to biological research, and his pub- lished works, ranging from pamphlets to elaborate treatises, amount to some eight hundred in number. Of these publications some of the most important are " Flora and Fauna within Living Animals," " An- cient Fauna of Nebraska." " Memoir on the Extinct Sloth Tribe of North America," "Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States,"' "Extinct Mammalian Fanna

1620

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

of Dakota and Nebraska," together with a "Synopsis of the Mammalian Remains of North America," "Contributions to the Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the Western Territories," and " Description of Verte- brate Remains from the Phospate Beds of South Caro- lina." Most of his works have been issued through the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Acad- emy of Natural Sciences, and Hayden's United States reports of geological surveys of the Territories. In 1846 he was elected demonstrator of anatomy in the Franklin Medical College, and chairman of the cura- tors of the Academy of Natural Sciences. In 1853 he became professor of Anatomy in the medical de- partment of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1871, professor of Natural History in Swarthmore College. During the late war he was a surgeon in the United States army, and contract surgeon to the Satterlee General Hospital at Philadelphia.

The eminent Robley Dunglison, LL.D., M.D., was born Jan. 4, 1798, at Keswick, a small town in Cum- berland, England, and his parents intended to send him to his uncle, Joseph Robley, a wealthy planter in the West Indies, but the design was frustrated by the latter's death, and the young man chose the pro- fession of medicine. His general education was mainly acquired in Green Row Academy, and his medical training at the University of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Society of Apoth- ecaries. He began practice in 1819, but also contin- ued his studies at the University of Erlangen, Ba- varia, from which he graduated in 1824, and in the same year was appointed physician-accoucheur to the Eastern Dispensary of London. In October, 1824, he came to the United States, in response to an invitation from Thomas Jefferson, to occupy one of the chairs in the medical department of the then newly-founded University of Virginia. Nine years later he accepted the chair of Materia Medica, Thera- peutics, Hygiene, and Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Maryland, and removed to Baltimore, where he remained three years. In addition to his labors as a lecturer and author, he had charge of the medical wards of the Baltimore Infirmary. In June, 1836, he was appointed professor of the Institutes of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, a chair expressly created for him. He filled it until 1868, when he resigned, and received from the trus- tees the title of emeritus professor. He contributed largely to various medical periodicals, and translated and edited many volumes on medicine. In 1837 he established the American Medical Library and Intelli- gencer, a monthly magazine that was continued five years. IIe was the author of the standard work, " Dunglison's Medical Dictionary." In 1825 Yale College conferred on him the degree of M.D. In 1852 Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg, l'a., made him LL.D., and in the same year the same degree was granted him by the Jefferson Medical College of this city. He was vice-president of the American

Philosophical Society, vice-president of the Training- School for Idiots, vice-president of the Institute for the Blind, chairman of the faculty of the University of Virginia, and for many years dean of the faculty of Jefferson Medical College. In October, 1824, he married Harriet, daughter of John Leadam. His death occurred in this city, April 1, 1869.

Dr. Thomas D. Mutter was born at Richmond, Va., March 11, 1811, and graduated at Hampden Sidney College. He studied medicine under the tuition of Dr. Sims, at Alexandria, and received his degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In the reorganiza- tion of Jefferson College, after the departure of Drs. Patterson and Revere, Dr. Mütter was first made ad- junct, or professor of Operative Surgery, while Dr. Randolph, then in Europe, was elected professor of the Principles of Surgery. Dr. Randolph declin- ing the appointment, Dr. Mütter was made profes- sor of the Principles and Practice of Surgery, while Dr. Pancoast took the chair of Anatomy. Dr. Müt- ter died March 16, 1859, leaving a large endowment and his fine collection of osseous and other prepara- tions to the College of Physicians of this city, for the establishment of a museum.

Among the leading physicians of the past may also be mentioned the late Dr. Joseph Pancoast, who died in this city greatly lamented March 7, 1882. Dr. Pancoast was born in Burlington County, N. J., Nov. 23, 1805. He graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1828. He imme- diately began the practice of his profession in this city. In 1831 he commenced teaching practical anatomy and surgery, having determined to make a specialty of surgery in his practice. In 1834 he was chosen one of the physicians of the Philadelphia Hospital, Block- ley. Soon afterward he was elected physician-in- chief to the Children's Hospital, in the same institu- tion, and from 1838 to 1845 was one of the visiting surgeons to the same hospital. In 1838 he was called to fill the chair of Surgery in the Jefferson Medical College. On March 27, 1854, he was elected one of the surgeons of the Pennsylvania Hospital, a posi- tion which he resigned Feb. 29, 1864. In 1841 he was chosen professor of Anatomy in Jefferson Medical College, from which he resigned in 1874, being suc- ceeded by his son, Dr. William H. Pancoast. For thirty-six consecutive years he occupied two of the most important chairs in that celebrated school. Upon his retirement from the chair last mentioned, he was chosen emeritus professor of Anatomy, as an evidence of the high esteem in which he was held by the trustees of the institution.

During the long and honorable professional career of Dr. Pancoast, he kept pace with the march of prog- ress which has characterized medical science during the past three-quarters of a century. By his devotion to literary pursuits within the sphere of his profession, and his identification with leading philosophical and medical associations, he succeeded in maintaining a

ПО

1621

MEDICAL PROFESSION.

high position as one of the leaders in thought and in practice among American physicians. Of the socic- ties of which he was a member, the following may be enumerated : the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the London Med- ical Society, the College of Physicians, the College of Pharmacy, the Philadelphia County Medical So- ciety, the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association, In fact, any reputable movement looking toward organized effort in promoting the cause of medical science, and the higher interests of the profession, was sure to meet with his support.

As has been intimated, Dr. Pancoast gave much attention to medical literature. In fact, it is as a dis- tingnished author, as well as a successful practitioner, that he won deserved fame, both at home and abroad. One of his earliest literary efforts was the translation from the Latin, in 1831, of a "Treatise on the Struc- ture, Functions, and Diseases of the Human Sympa- thetic Nerve," by J. Frederick Lobstein, to which he added notes. In 1844 he published his "Treatise on Operative Surgery," which he revised and enlarged in 1852, when it had passed to a third edition. During the first nine years of its existence upward of four thousand copies were sold. He also, in 1844, remod- eled the able work,-originally written by Dr. Caspar Wistar, to which the late Professor William E. Horner had made valuable additions,-entitled " A System of Anatomy for the Use of Students." He also edited at various times "Lænnec on the Great Sympathetic Nerve," the "Cerebro-Spinal System in Man," and "Quain's Anatomical Plates." He was also a volu- minous contributor to the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, the American Medical Intelligencer, and the Medical Examiner, besides publishing sundry monographs, pathological and surgical.

Dr. Pancoast was, perhaps, chiefly noted for having performed many remarkable surgical operations, some of which were previously entirely unknown to the profession. In many instances during his varied and successful career in the practice of his chosen profession he not only succeeded in saving individ- ual lives where death appeared to be a probable se- quence, but he devised convenient appliances, and practically safe plans of procedure, whereby the prac- tice of surgery throughout the world has brought less woe and misery to suffering humanity.

Viewing him as a man and as a physician, as an author and as a practitioner, as a student and as a teacher, it can be truly said that the city of his adop- tion and the profession of his choice have just cause to be proud of him, and that the world is the better and the happier for his life.

Dr. Jacob Randolph was born in this city Nov. 26, 1796, and died here Feb. 29, 1848. His father was an officer in the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment in the Revolution. Dr. Randolph graduated at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in 1817, and began practice in

this city. He married the daughter of Dr. Physick in 1822, and soon attained eminence as a surgeon. He was surgeon at the city almshouse in 1830, a sur- geon of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1835 to his death, and in 1847, after having been some time lec- turer upon clinical surgery in the University of l'enn- sylvania, was made professor of that branch. He published a memoir of Dr. Physick in 1839, and con- tributed many valuable papers to medical journal«. At the time of his death he was a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the College of Surgeons, and a consulting surgeon to the City Dispensary.

Dr. John Barclay Biddle, born in Philadelphia, Jan. 3, 1815, was educated at St. Mary's ('ollege, and before entering the office of Dr. Nathaniel Chapman was a law-student. He received his diploma from the University of Pennsylvania when he was twenty- one years of age, and at once spent a year in Europe for purposes of study. On his return he became as- sociated with Dr. Meredith Clymer in the publica- tion of the Medical Examiner, the first number of which was issued Jan. 3, 1838. Early in 1846 Dr. Biddle, with other physicians, obtained a charter of incorporation for the Franklin Medical College, in which he took the chair of Materia Medica. In 1852 he published his " Review of Materia Medica." In June, 1865, he was elected to the chair of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in Jefferson College, vacated by the death of Professor Thomas D. Mitchell, and became dean of the faculty. In 1850 he married Caroline, daughter of William Phillips, and died Jan. 19, 1879.

On the 22d of December, 1811, William Robertson Grant was born at East River, Nova Scotia, and on Dec. 17, 1836, he entered Philadelphia, which was to be his home and the scene of his labors and distinc- tion. In his early years he was especially a student of anatomy, and he assumed the responsibilities of professor of Anatomy in Pennsylvania College when it was apparently on the brink of ruin. A faculty of four members carried through the course of lectures with a class of twenty-three pupils. During the ses- sion Dr. Grant labored with untiring zeal and energy, delivering nine lectures weekly and attending as- siduously to the duties of the dissecting-room. The faculty completed their labors on March 9, 1844, by holding a public commencement in their own lecture- room on Filbert Street, at which the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on seven pupils. Devoted to the interests of the Pennsylvania C'ollege he did everything that could be done to advance its pros- perity, although he was suffering from a most severe pulmonary affection. It was in the discharge of pro- fessional duty that his fatal illness was contracted. On March 23, 1852, he was summoned to the aldoof a woman who had committed suicide by hanging in the cellar of her own house. The damp and chi ling atmosphere of the place and his unsuccessful efforts to revive the woman had a most disastrous effect upon

103

1622

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

him, and on the evening of that day he was prostrated at the house of Dr. Henry S. Patterson. Dr. Patterson has written, "On Saturday, the 27th, it was believed that a favorable change had taken place in his con- dition, but on Sunday it became evident that all human aid was vain and that the end was near." He died March 28, 1852, in the forty-second year of his age.

Perhaps no man was better known as an alienist on this side of the Atlantic than Dr. Kirkbride. For more than forty years his name has been familiar to the medical world as associated with the study of insanity. He was born in Pennsylvania, near Mor- risville, Bucks Co., July 31, 1809. He was a descend- ant of Joseph Kirkbride, of the parish of Kirkbride, in the county of Cumberland, England, who came to America with William Penn. He received his edu- cation at Trenton, N. J., whence he came to Phila- delphia to pursue his medical studies in the medi- cal department of the University of Pennsylvania, which conferred upon him the degree of Doctor in Medicine in March, 1832. Only one month later he was appointed resident physician to the Friends' Asylum for the Insane, still located near Frankford, where he remained for one year, and in the spring of 1833 was elected to the same position in the Pennsyl- vania Hospital, which he held for two years, after which he engaged in private practice in the city.

In the autumn of 1840 a new institution for the insane, now well known as the insane department of the Pennsylvania Hospital, perhaps most com- monly called "Kirkbride's," was so near its com- pletion that it became necessary to select a su- perintendent. To this post, in October, 1840, Dr. Kirkbride was elected, almost without his knowledge of such a purpose, certainly without any solicitation by him. This was to be used for the insane then in the hospital at Pine and Eighth Streets. It was opened on the first day of the year 1841, with Dr. Kirkbride in charge, and the fact that he so remained is a grand proof of his eminent fitness for this im- portant and extremely responsible position. By con- stant improvements and additions to the original building, this establishment, which was then only capable of receiving a little more than one hundred patients, and actually started with ninety-seven, has been made suitable for five hundred, and these di- vided into separate buildings,-a male and female department. When the improvements were under consideration, Dr. Kirkbride urged the complete sep- aration of the sexes, as though in two distinct institu- tions, and furthermore recommended that an appeal should be made to the public for the requisite amount of money. Both these plans were adopted, and the appeal proved an entire success, the private contribu- tions aggregating three hundred and fifty-five thou- sand dollars.

In October, 1859, the new building was formally opened. Each department will accommodate two

hundred and fifty patients; each has its own set of physicians and other officers, being in every way separate and distinct from the other, but with the same board of managers and physician-in-chief.

It is greatly to the credit of Dr. Kirkbride that his plans have been extensively copied by similar insti- tutions throughout America. This hospital has been one of the institutions most frequented and studied by visiting medical men and scientists.

Under the promptings of Dr. Kirkbride and kindred spirits an Association of the Medical Superintendents of the Insane Asylums of America was formed in 1866, of which he was president for eight years. He was always active in medical organizations. He was elected a Fellow of the Philadelphia College of Phy- sicians in 1839, and was a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Medical Association, and the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania. The two latter bodies were, on several occasions, accorded a special reception at the hospital, and were hand- somely entertained by the venerable and much-loved doctor.

Dr. Kirkbride was not a voluminous writer, but gave to his profession a most excellent volume on "The Construction, Organization, and General Arrange- ments of Hospitals for the Insane," and one on " Rules for the Government of those employed in the Care of the Insane." In addition he contributed a number of valuable monographs and reviews to the American Journal of Insanity and other periodicals, while his annual "Hospital Reports" now form forty-two volumes, filled with the history of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and with the valuable results of his long ex- perience and study in the general subject of insanity.

Personally, Dr. Kirkbride was remarkable for his genial temperament, which quickly endeared him to those members of the profession with whom he was thrown in contact. He never appeared more happy than when playing the host, whether for a few per- sonal friends or for the members of a large medical society. He was endowed with a wonderful power over the unfortunates whose mental malady caused them to be consigned to his care, and could, with scarcely any apparent effort, control the most way- ward, winning the affections of his patients amid all their mental aberrations, and dealing with all with a patient gentleness, blended with a wise firmness, that enabled him to exert the best influences upon all who came under his care.

In the early part of his career, in 1849, Dr. Kirk- bride narrowly escaped death at the hands of a patient named Wylie Williams, who, excited by some insane idea of wrong, escaped from the hospital, procured a gun in the city, and, returning, concealed himself in a tree at the entrance of Dr. Kirkbride's residence. As he passed under the tree the lunatic called to him that he was going to kill him, and a moment later discharged a load of buckshot at the doctor.

1623

MEDICAL PROFESSION.

Most fortunately his aim was bad, and yet so close that one of the shot wounded Dr. Kirkbride in the scalp, where it remained to the day of his death.

Dr. Kirkbride was a man of modest and retiring character, but exceedingly clear and pronounced in all his social, political, moral, and professional opin- ions. Trained in the tenets and usages of the Society of Friends, he was accustomed to " bear his testimony" on all suitable occasions without any ambiguity. He was a man of spotless integrity, of the finest domestic virtues, abhorring whatever was mean or wrong, and winning the esteem and affection of a great circle of friends by the grace and goodness of his daily life. Few men are privileged to complete such a long record of devotion to duty and good work done for the benefit of their fellows. He died, after a pro- tracted illness, during the night of Dee. 16, 1883. He was twice married, his first wife being a daughter of Joseph Jenks, and his second wife, who survives him, the daughter of Benjamin Butler, a distin- gnished member of the New York bar. He left two adult children-Dr. Joseph J. Kirkbride and Mrs. Thomas G. Morton-and four minor children.

Among the many distinguished physicians in this city, we take the liberty of presenting in these pages several of the most prominent, who, we think, are representative in their character of the medical pro- fession of Philadelphia at the present time (1884).

Samuel D. Gross, M.D., D.C.L. Oxon., LL.D. Cantab., was born near Easton, Pa., July 8, 1805. He received a classical education at the Wilkesbarre Academy and the Lawrenceville (New Jersey) Iligh School. Subsequently he began the study of medi- cine, first under Dr. Joseph K. Swift, of Easton, and afterward with Professor George McClellan, the emi- nent surgeon, of Philadelphia. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1828, and immediately began practicing his profession in Philadelphia, and during the first year of his novitiate translated sev- eral medical works from the French and German. In the following year he published a work on the " Diseases of the Bones and Joints."1 In 1833 he became Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, thus inaugurating a career as a medical instructor, which, in brilliancy and breadth, is excelled by that of no other Ameri- can physician. Dr. Gross, during his connection with various medical schools, lectured to a larger number of students than any other surgeon in this country. Forty-eight years of the most active period of his life were spent in public teaching, two years as Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio, four years as Professor of Pathological Anat-

omy in the Medical Department of Cincinnati Col- lege, and forty-two years as Professor of Surgery, fifteen of these having been passed io the University of Louisville, one in the University of the City of New York, and twenty-six in his Alma Mater the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. His name is attached to upward of ten thousand diplomas of students, representing every State and Territory of the Union, as well many foreign countries and provinces, including England, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Cuba, Armenia, and several of the South American nations. As a teacher he was always very popular, highly instruc- tive, and universally beloved. Systematic in the arrangement of his matter, and earnest and forcible in its inenleation, he was one of the most successful lecturers our country has ever produced, and when, in the spring of 1882, in the fullness of his physical and intellectual powers, he retired from the chair of surgery at the Jefferson Medical College, which he had so long adorned by his talents, learning, and ex- perience, universal regret was felt by the many pupils and friends of the school. As a testimonial of the respect and reverence of the faculty and the board of trustees, the latter conferred upon him the title of Emeritus Professor of Surgery, a relation to the institution which he now bears.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 181

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992