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LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 610.92 Sp3g I.H.S. A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF CHICAGO A COLLECTION OF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MANY OF THE EMINENT REPRESENTATIVES, PAST AND PRESENT, OF THE MED- ICAL PROFESSION OF CHICAGO COMPILED BY F. M. SPERRY ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO J. H. BEERS & CO. i e o 4 r INDBX Allen, Jonathan Adams 127 Hall, Winfield Scott 133 Andrews, Edmund 53 Hamilton, John B 231 Harmon, Elijah D 42 Babcock, Robert Hall 123 Harris, Malcolm LaSalle 230 132 Bartlett, John : 44 Hektoen, Ludvig 127 Billings, Frank 168 Henrotin, Fernand Bishop, Seth Scott 195 Herrick, William B 103 Blaney, James Van Zandt 77 Hollister, John Hamilcar 201 Bogue, R. G 207 Holmes, Edward Lorenzo 79 Brainard, Daniel 236 Hotz, Ferdinand Carl 105 Brophy, Truman W 209 Brower, Daniel Roberts 99 Ingals, Ephraim 235 Byford, Henry T 154 Ingals, Ephraim Fletcher 107 Byford, William Heath 10 Jackson, Abraham Reeves 72 Gary, Frank 66 Jewell, James Stewart 219 Christopher, Walter S 142 Johnson, Frank Seward 52 Church, Archibald 97 Johnson, Hosmer Allen 49 Cotton, Alfred Cleveland 215 Jones, Samuel J 206 Danforth, Isaac N 120 Lyman, Henry M 32 Davis, Nathan Smith, Jr 175 Davis, Nathan Smith, Sr 1 Martin, Franklin H 189 De Lee, Joseph Bolivar 211 Mergler, Marie J 1 ' Dewey, Richard 198 Miller, DeLaskie 46 Dickinson, Frances 150 Miller. Truman W 106 Dudley, E. C 63 Murphy, John B 73 Dyas, William Godfrey 148 Newman, Henry Parker 89 Earle, Charles Warrington 163 Evans, John 185 Owens, John E 1 84 Favill, Henry Baird 199 Parkes, Charles Theodore 221 Fenger, Christian 35 Quine, William E 69 Freer, Joseph W 194 ' Ranch, John M 117 Goodkind, Maurice L 220 Rea, Robert Laughlin 00 Gunn, Moses 1 30 Ridlon, John 179 I I 80464 vi INDEX. PAGE PAGE Robinson, Byron 114 Thompson, Mary Harris 57 Robison, John Albert 3GU Van Hook, Weller 187 Senn, Nicholas 15 Smith, Charles Oilman 141 Waite, Lucy 62 Stevenson, Sarah Hackett 145 Waugh, William F 128 Wolcott, Alexander 31 Talbot, Eugene Solomon 81 Wood, Casey A 203 A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OK CHICAQO LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOiS URDANA s. p, A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS NATHAN SMITH DAVIS, M. D., SR. In considering the character and career of this eminent member of the medical faculty, the impartial observer will be disposed to rank him not only among the most distinguished members of his profession, but also as one of those men of broad culture and genuine benevolence who do honor to mankind at large. In overcoming obstacles, he has exhibited patience and per- sistence; through a long and busy life he has known none but worthy motives; to the practice of his profession he has brought rare skill and inventive resource; while in the imparting of instruction, whether through his pen or in the class room, he has shown profound aptness. Such qualities as these stamp him as a man of genius, and entitle him to be classed with the benefactors of mankind. Dr. Davis was born on January 9, 1817, in a rude cabin of logs, erected by his father, Dow Davis, among the primitive forests of Chenango county, New York, of which his parents were pioneer settlers. He was the young- est of a family of seven children, and was deprived of a mother's care at the tender age of seven years, Mrs. Davis, whose maiden name was Eleanor Smith, having died in 1824. His father lived to attain the extraordinary age of ninety years, and died upon the farm which he had reclaimed from the giants of the forest. The early years of Dr. Davis's life were passed much as were those of other farmers' sons in a new settlement, i. e., in hard work during the summer, and in attendance upon the district schools in the winter months. This alterna- tion of study with work continued until he reached the age of sixteen years, and there can be little doubt that outdoor life and manual exercise did much to build up his naturally spare form into healthy, robust manhood. At the same time, it is probable that a frontier life was not without its influence in forming 2 A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED and fostering those habits of industry and self-reliance which proved such potent factors in achieving success in after life. While yet a boy, however, he displayed an inborn thirst for knowledge, a fondness for study, and an aptitude in acquiring such learning as was within his reach, which convinced his father that to confine his native abilities within the limits of a woodland farm would be to do the boy an injustice; and while possessed of only limited means, he sent young Nathan to the Cazenovia Seminary when the latter had reached his sixteenth year. He attended that institution for only one session, but his thirst was intensified, rather than slaked, and in April, 1834, he began the study of the profession on whose practice and schools, whose ethics and culture, he was destined to shed a brilliant and a permanent light. His first preceptor was Dr. Daniel Clark, of Che- nango county. Within a few months he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Western New York, as a matriculant, graduating therefrom, with distinguished honor, on January 31, 1837, before he had reached the age which entitled him to exercise the right of suffrage. Meanwhile, he had become a student in the office of Dr. Thomas Jackson, of Binghamton, New York, continuing under his instruction until he received his final degree. The subject of his graduating thesis was "Animal Temperature," and in this he combated the (then) generally accepted theory that the evolution of heat had its origin in the union of oxygen and carbon in the lungs, maintain- ing that its evolution was in the tissues. The inherent merit of his argument was such, and the premises upon which it rested were so accurately established by experimental investigation, that the Faculty of the college selected it as one of those to be publicly read on the day of his graduation. He began his professional career as a general practitioner, at Vienna, New York, his partner being Dr. Daniel Chatfield. The field was too narrow to meet his aspirations, felt its limitations. with Dr. Chatfield and he soon His partnership . was formed in February, 1837, and the following July it was dissolved, Dr. Davis removing to Binghamton, in the same State, where he at once commanded professional confidence and popular patronage. He had scarcely resided at Binghamton for a year when he was married to Anna Maria, a daughter of Hon. John Parker, of Vienna, for whom he had formed a strong attachment during his brief sojourn in that village. The exacting demands of a constantly increasing general practice did not hamper Dr. Davis in the prosecution of those scientific studies which lay near- est to his heart. Chemistry, Medical Botany, Geology and Political Economy were among his favorite subjects of research, while at the same time he strove to perfect himself in the study of Surgical Anatomy. Even at this early period in his career, he displayed that interest in a sound professional education which so pre-eminently characterized him in later years. It was his PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS. 3 habit, during the winter months, to dissect one or two cadavers, in a room adjoining his office, for the purpose of instructing the resident medical stu- dents of Binghamton, and he frequently responded to requests to lecture on topics connected with Physiology, Botany and Chemistry, before the advanced pupils of the district schools, and for the Binghamton Academy. Of the last named institution he was one of the founders, as also of the Lyceum Debating of and it is worth while to state that it was in Society Binghamton ; largely this amateur school of oratory and debate that he acquired that fluency of dic- tion, perspicacity of statement, solidity of argument and aptness of illustration which, in after years, contributed to his eminence as a lecturer and a writer. He was yet a young man when he was elected a member of the Broome County Medical Society, of which body he was Secretary from 1841 to 1843, and Librarian from 1843 t I &47, as well as a member of the Board of Cen- sors for several years. In 1843 ne was chosen a delegate to represent his county organization at the annual meeting of the State Medical Society, at Albany. Even at this time he was well and favorably known to the profession throughout the State of New York by reason of many valuable brochures which had already appeared from his pen. In 1840 (three years after graduation) he had w-on the first prize offered by the State Society for the best essay upon "Diseases of the Spinal Column, their Causes, Diagnosis and Mode of Treatment." In 1841 he had won another prize through his contribution to medical science entitled "Analysis of the Discoveries concerning the Physi- ology of the Nervous System." It followed that when he took his seat as a delegate in the body which represented the highest medical learning of the State his voice was heard with respectful attention. It was then and there that he made his first public plea for a higher standard of professional quali- fication. He introduced a series of resolutions which, even because of their novelty, could scarcely have failed to provoke discussion. He was in advance of the time, but he was "building better than he knew." They called for a better general education for medical postulants, a lengthening of the course of instruction, a grading of the curriculum, and the establishment of inde- pendent boards of medical examiners.

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