The physicians and surgeons of the United States / edited by William B. Atkinson.

Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physicians and surgeons of the United States / edited by William B. Atkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    many other oplithnlmologisls from America, it was then (lecided that the next congress should meet in New York in 1S76. At the New York meeting, held in Sept., 1S76, he was elected president of the congress. By appointment of the committee of arrange- ments. Dr. Williams read a jiaper before the ophthalmological department of the Interna- tional medical congress at their meeting in rhiladelphia in Sept., 1876, on Pulsating Tumors of the Orbit. This paper will be ])ublished in the forthcoming transactions. In [une, 1875, Dr. W. was elected president of Ohio Stale med. soc. at Put-in-Bay, and read a paper on Penetrating Wounds of the Eye. Dr. Williams is a member of the Interna- tional ophthalmological congress; of the American ophthalmological soc.; of the Inter- national olological soc.; of the American med. asso.; of the Ohio Slate med. soc.; of the Cin- cinnati academy of med., being one of its founders; of the Cincinnati med. soc, etc., etc. Besides the articles already mentioned he is the author of numerous papers treating of his specialty, published in this country and in Europe. In 1865. he read a paper before the American med. asso. at Boston, on Para- centesis of the Cornea; treatment of stric- ture of the nasal duct; the brown citrine ointment and its extensive value. To the Cincinnati Lancet and Observer, from 185610 date, he has been a frequent and valued con- tributor, being for several years editor of the ophthalmological department. In the I\Iedi- cal Record, of New York, March l8th, 1868, will be found a very important paper from Dr. W. on cases of Tumor of the Brain with Optic Neuritis, with details of post mortem sections. In the same journal in April, 1868, will be found the report of a ease of aneu- rism of the orbit, in which, at his request. Dr. H. E. Foote tied both carotids, thirty days apart, with a successful result. The invesli- crations of the retinal circulation before and after these operations, as seen by the ophthal- moscope, formed a most interesting part of this ]ia]:>er. In the Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology for 1869 (p. 40) is a paper on Stricture of the Nasal Duct, in which a new and important moditicalion in the treatment was advocated. Dr. Williams has long cherished the intention of embodying his vast experience in a treatise on ophthal- mology, but as yet it only exists in the form of scattered material. DAVIS, NATHAN SMITH, Chicago, was born in Greene, Chenango co., N. Y., Jan. 9th, 1817, the youngest of seven children of Dow and Eleanor (Smith) Davis. He lived and labored on the farm until sixteen, attending district schciol in the winter. A six months' session at Casenovia seminary, N. Y., followed, and in A])ril, 1834, he began stuilying medicine with Dr. Daniel Clark, Smithville Flats, in his native county. In Oct., 1834, he matriculated at the coll. of phys. and surgs. of the West- ern district of New York, and graduated there in Jan., 1837, for the last two terms being a pupil of Dr. Thomas Jackson, then the leading ])hysician of Binghampton. His thesis wjis on Animal Temperature, in which he combated the then prevailing theory thnt the heat of the.body was generated by the union of oxygen and carbon in the lungs. Its merits caused it to be read as part of the commencement exercises. After a four months' association with Dr. Daniel Chatfield, of Vienna, Oneida co., he sought a wider field in Binghampton, at whose academy he occasionally lectured by special request on physiology and chemistry. He early began contributing to the medical journals, and some of his papers were copied into European journals, notably that on the Physiology of the Brain, which appeared in vol. i. of the Aviericanyciitrnal of Insanity, 1844, p. 235. Joining the Broome co. med. soc, he was one of its censors in 1838. Among his most notable papers at this period v\'ere : Diseases of the Spinal Column, their Causes, Diagno- sis, History, and the best Mode of Treat- ment; Discoveries in the Physiology of the Nervous System, from the time of Sir Charles Bell to date, which won the prizes offered by the N. Y. State med. soc. in 1840-41 respectively ; and A Brief View of Dr. Marshall Hall's Views in the Excito-mo- tor System of Nerves, contributed to, and receiving a unanimous vote of thanks from the same society. In 1841-42-43 he was secretary and also librarian of the county soc, and in the last year delegate fiom Broome CO. to the State soc. During 1844 he served on several of the leading committees of the State soc.; and as chairman of thai on cor- respondence relative to medical- education and examination made a report in iS45,with recommendations which were really the ante- cedent measures leading to a call for the national convention. The resolution adoj^ted by the N. Y. Slate soc. in 1845, which re- sulted in the holding of this convention in May, 1846, was offered by him, and he pro- moled its success in advance of meeting by contributions to medical journals and an ex- tensive correspondence with influential medi- cal men in almost every State in the Union. The American med. asso., which grew out of this movement, owes its existence to him. From him came the fust suggestion, under
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