Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/163

 BATTEY

verted to his first method. So far as Battey knew and so far as published cases enabled anyone else to know, his operation had no precedent.

Battey's idea was to remove the ova- ries whether diseased or not to do away with painful menstruation and neurotic conditions, whereas Tait's idea was to remove diseased uterine appendages, ova- ries and Fallopian tubes because they were diseased. Battey's original con- ception of the feasibility of removal of the ovaries by the vaginal route had in it much more than he dreamed of and the operation of to-day is the infant thought of Battey grown to great magnitude.

In 1859 he devised an improved ap- paratus for vesico- vaginal fistula and was the originator of iodized phenol.

His thorough anatomical knowledge gave him confidence so that he was a bold and prudent operator. It must have re- quired courage of a high order to do his first oophorectomies and he told me how a band of men, among them prominent physicians of his vicinity, awaited the re- sults of his first case, intending, in case of the patient's death, to have him arrested and prosecuted for murder.

He is said to have been the friend of al- most every inhabitant of the little town wherein his life was spent. For two years previous to his death which oc- curred near Rome, November S, 1S95 his health was so broken that he was unable to work.

He was president of the American Gynecological Society in 1899 and of the Medical Association of the State of Geor- gia, 1876, and honorary fellow of the Obstetrical Society of Edinburgh, fellow of the British Gynecological Society and of other medical sociei i»

Battey was not a prolific writer, but without circum-cript ion readied the core of the matter in a few words and stated his views lucidly. He contributed l., the "Transactions of the American i .\ inruliiL'iiMl Siicn-i \ : ■■ I . ,i n n.'ii inn i if the Functionally Active Ovaries for the Remedy of ' >thei vri <■ Incurable I lisease," vol. i. "Is There' a Proper Field for

L BAXLEY

Battey's Operation?" vol. ii. "Intra- uterine Medication by Iodized Phenol," vol. iv. " What is the Proper Field for Battey's Operation?" vol. v. And to the "Transactions, Medical Association of Georgia, Atlanta, 1S86: "Antisepsis in Ovariotomy and Battey's Operation; Seventy Consecutive Cases with Sixty- eight Recoveries." "Normal Ovariot- omy," "Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal," 1873.

He married on December 20, 1849 Martha B. Smith of Rome, Georgia, and had fourteen children, eight of whom, Grace, William Cephas, George McGru- der, Henry Halsey, Anderson Redding, Bessie and Mattie survived him. Henry became a doctor. T. A. R.

Am. Gyn. and Obstet. Jour., N. Y., 1890,

vol. ix.

Tr. Am. Gynec. Soc, 1896, vol. xxi.

Atlanta Sled, and Surg. Jour., 1SS4, n. s.,

vol. i.

Brit. Med. Jour. Lon., 1895, vol. ii.

There is a portrait in the Surg-Gen. Library,

Wash.. D. C.

Baxley, Henry Willis (1S03-1876).

Henry Willis Baxley, a founder of the first dental college in the world, was born at Baltimore in June, 1S03, and educated at St. Mary's College in the same city, afterwards attending medical lectures in the University of Maryland and receiving his M. D. from that institution in 1824. From 1826 to 1829 he was attending physician to the Balti- more General Dispensary and from 1831 to 1S32 held the same post at the Mary- land Penitentiary. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at the Uni- versity of Maryland in 1S34. In 1837 he became professor of anatomy and physiology in the University of Maryland (Trustees' School), succeeding Prof. Eli Geddings, who had resigned. In 1840

lie held the same chair in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, then founded. From 1842 to 1847 he was professor of surgery in the Washington University of Baltimore; from 1S49 to 1S50 he was n to the Baltimore Almshouse; in the latter year he moved to Cincinnati,