Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/142

 AYRES

carotid artery had been tied west of the mountains, and the fourth in the United States." The patient made an uneventful recovery, and the case was reported by the operator in the "Western Medical and Physical Journal" for October, 1827.

The Medical Convention of 1835, which met on the fifth of January in the First Presbyterian Church, discussed the pro- priety of establishing a hospital for the care of the insane, and a school for the education of the blind, and sent a me- morial, embodying their discussions, to the Legislature. Before the close of their session, an appropriation was made for the erection of a hospital for the insane at Columbus, a site purchased, the build- ing completed in 1838, and Dr. Awl became superintendent. In 1837 Dr. Awl headed a movement for the establish- ment at Columbus of schools for the blind and feeble-minded, and the original resolution (which became a law), in his own writing, properly framed, hangs in the entrance hall of the "School for the Blind" in the southeastern part of the city. The school for the feeble-minded was not established until the "sixties."

Awl was married in January 28, 1830, to Miss Loughey, and had five children, John, Woodward, Mary, Jennie, and Margaret, all of whom, with their mother, survived the doctor who died in Colum- bus, November 19, 1876, from the con- sequences of an attack of cerebral hemor- rhage sustained some months before.

S. L.

Trans, of the American Med. Association,

1880.

Trans, of the Ohio State Medical Society for

1877, pp. 71-80.

A portrait is in the possession of his

daughters.

Ayres, Henry P. (1813-1887).

Henry P. Ayres, born in Morristown, New Jersey, was one of the pioneer physicians of Indiana, having settled in Fort Wayne in 1842, which was then a small but promising village. To practice medicine in a small town then meant arduous work for the doctor. There were no roads worth mentioning, and

AYRES

country clients had to be visited on horseback; the distances were often great and the mud deep when the weather was bad. His reputation for skill in obstetrical cases was quite extensive.

He came of old colonial stock. He was a descendent of the seventh generation of Capt. John Ayres of Massachusetts, who emigrated from England in 1035 and settled in Salisbury.

His mother, Comfort Day, also belonged to the Day family which settled in New- ark, New Jersey, during colonial times. His father died when he was seven years old and his mother was left with a large family to care for.

He attended his first course of medical lectures in the University of Louisville, Kentucky, 1S41-42, and afterwards located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1845 he went to New York, and in 1846 received the degree of M. D. from the University of New York.

He was one of the organizers of the Allen County Medical Society, also for many years an active member of the Indiana State Medical Society and its president in 1871. In 1860 he contrib- uted quite an exhaustive article of 138 pages to the "Journal of American Medical Association" on "The Education of Imbe- cile and Idiotic Children." He was an occa- sional contributor to the "Medico-Chirur- gical Review," published in Philadelphia by his friend and former teacher Dr. S. D. Gross, as well as to other journals.

He married Eliza Kate Rowan in 1839 and had six children, three of whom died in childhood. He was very fond of children and had a winning way about him, which made them reciprocate his affection for them.

Their oldest son, S. C. Ayers of Cin- cinnati, Ohio, became professor of oph- thalmology in the Medical College of Ohio. Dr. Ayres died in Fort Wayne, Indiana, December 25, 1887. For nearly twenty years before his death he had suffered from paralj'sis agitans, involving first the left side, and a few years later the right. A. G. D.

Personal ■

to the writer.