Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/188

 RLACKMAN

BLACKMAN

Blackie, George Stodart (1834-1881).

This professor of botany and chemistry came, like many another of his kind, from Scotland, a land which sent over many of America's earliest botanists.

Alexander Blackie, banker, of Aber- deen was the father, and the eccentric, erudite John Stuart Blackie the brother of John Stodart, who was born in Aberdeen the tenth of April, 1834. After a capital education at Aberdeen Univer- sity and in medicine at Edinburgh he went to Germany and France, taking his A. M. and M. D. from Edinburgh.

He seems to have moved about a great deal at first; to the Mowcroft Private Asylum, London, as physician, then back north, to Kelso, as a local practitioner, finally coming over to Nash- ville in 1857 and remaining there for the rest of his life.

Besides being co-editor for twelve years of the " Nashville Medical Journal," he contributed largely to the "London Botanical Gazette" and the " North American Surgical Review. " Three of his publications were "Cretins and Cretinism," 1855, "The Medical Flora of Tennessee," 1S57, and " History of the Military Monkish Orders of the Middle Ages."

He held many appointments: professor of botany in the University of Nashville; professor of botany, Tennessee College of Pharmacy; professor of chemistry, Nashville Medical College; member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, Edinburgh, and fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. D. W.

Am. Pub. Health Assoc. Rep., 1881. Boston, 1883, vol. vii.

Blackman, George Curtis (1S19-1871). The second child of Judge Thomas Blackman, of the Surrogate Court of Newtown; he was born the twenty-first of April and had his preliminary educa- tion at Newtown, and Bridgeport, Connec- ticut, and Newburg, New York, after- wards entering Yale College and graduating in medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York,

1S40, immediately after practising in the dispensaries in that city. Devotion to work so impaired his health that, at the suggestion of his friends, he went to Europe, acting as ship's surgeon, in which capacity he made many trips across the ocean and spent much time in London and Paris. In the former city he had to contend with great poverty.

In 1845 he spent some months in the London hospitals, living on seventy-five dollars, the sum-total of his means.

He was well acquainted with Liston, Astley Cooper, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir William Fergusson, and many more eminent London doctors.

By invitation he read a paper before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, which so impressed the mem- bers by its depth of research and pro- found knowledge of the science and art of surgery that he was at once elected a member.

He practised some time in Newburgh, New York, and in 1854 went to Cin- cinnati, where he was appointed professor of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, which position he held at the time of his death.

Although a brilliant and fascinating lecturer at all times, it was in the hospital theater he was in his native element; there he was great. Outside of his own field he was a timid speaker and it is told of him that at a large gathering of medical men he refused to speak, although urged, until one of those present referred to an operation that is classical, giving the credit of its initiation to an English surgeon. Blackman was on his feet in an instant. For ten minutes he blazed forth like a meteor.

The roar of applause that greeted him when he sat down showed how neatly he had been entrapped.

In October, 1861, he was appointed brigade surgeon on Gen. Mitchell's staff, being present at the battles of Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing. He was for a short time on the Ohio State Medical Board for the army and was present at the battle of the Wilderness.