Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/160

 BASSETT

BATCHELDER

His last letter is from Paris, dated October 16, and he speaks in it of his approaching departure.

I have no information as to the date of his return, but his intention was, he states frequently in his letters, to be back by the first of the year, so that after this date he probably resumed practice at Huntsville.

The two papers in Fenner's Southern Medical Reports are the only ones I see credited to him. They are charm- ingly written and display in every page the wise physician; wise not only with the wisdom of the schools, but with that deeper knowledge of the even- balanced soul "who saw life steadily and saw it whole."

The report in volume I deals with the topography, climate, and diseases of Madison County. Dr. Fenner states that it was accompanied by a beautiful map drawn by the author, and a large number of valuable statistics.

Very full accounts are given of epi- demics of scarlet fever and of small-pox, and a discussion on the cold water treat- ment of the former disease. Dr. Bassett must have had a well-equipped library, and his references to authors both old and new are not very full, but most appropriate.

Bassett developed tuberculosis, and the last letter in the budget sent to me was dated April 16, 1851, from Florida, whither he had gone in search of health. He died November 2 of the same year, aged forty-six.

To a friend he writes on the date of April 5: "This world has never occu- pied a very large share of my attention or love. I have asked but little of it, and got but little of what I asked. It has for many years been growing less and less in my view, like a receding object in space; but no better land has appeared to my longing vision; what lies behind me has become insignificant, before me is a vast interminable void, but not a cheerless one, as it is full of pleasant dreams and visions and glorious hopes." W. O.

An Alabama Student. Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull.. Bait., 1896, vol. vii (W. Osier). An Alabama Student and other Biographical Essays. W. Osier, London, 1908.

Batchelder, John P. (1784-1864).

John P. Batchelder was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, August 6, 1784, and studied medicine with Drs. Samuel Fitch and Matthias Spaulding, of Green- field, New Hampshire. A short time after, young Batchelder took out a license to practice (1807), and continued to practice until enabled to attend a full and practical course of lectures at Har- vard University, Massachusetts, whence he graduated in 1S15. Armed with his diploma, Dr. Batchelder practised al- ternately in Charlestown, New Hamp- shire; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Utica, New York; and for the last twenty years in New York City.

A college, of good standing and ethical principles, in Middlebury, Vermont, conferred upon him the A. M.

Dr. Batchelder wrote an excellent thesis "On the Disease of the Heart, styled Aneurysm," read before the faculty of Harvard University, Mass- achusetts, when he took his M. D.

As early as 1818, Dr. Batchelder per- formed his first operation for lithotomy, and with a satisfactory result. This was at the time when Dr. Kissam, the success- ful lithotomist, was performing contin- ually his great operations in that locality. He also had made some excellent im- provements in surgical instruments and he invented the first craniotome that could be worked with one hand.

In 1S17 he was appointed professor of anatomy in Castleton College, Vermont, and subsequently elected professor of surgical anatomy in the Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Besides many articles appearing in the medical periodicals of the day, he wrote and published a pamphlet on "Cholera." His work on "Compressed Sponge" is replete with learned statements and abounding in excellent hints, and every- thing the doctor wrote was reprinted abroad.