Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/211

 BRADBURY

BRADFORD

ment, besides attending school. With an intense thirst for learning, by his own earnings he paid most of the expense in- curred in preparing for medical study, studies begun under his brother Samuel in Bangor, Maine. He graduated at the Medical School of Maine in 1839, practised first in Howland, Maine, and then in Oldtown where he devoted himself en- ergetically to his chosen profession.

In 1837 he married Miss Eliza Smith of Warren, Maine, who cheered him in the performance of his onerous practice.

Dr. William Henry Allen of Orono fall- ing ill in 1S62, Dr. Bradbury kept on with his own practice and overloaded himself with the patients of Dr. Allen. The gov- ernor of Maine having to select a board to examine candidates for surgeons to the Maine soldiers during the wars, nominat- ed Dr. Bradbury for the head thereof. He was also temporarily one of the sur- geons to take charge of a hospital at Augusta overflowing with invalided soldiers from the front. Dr. Bradbury here did more than his share in bringing order out of confusion; the mortality ceased, rapid convalescence ensued upon his labors.

Besides this, he was an active member of the Maine Medical Association, and once its honored president.

He was a practical physician, rather slow to adopt new theories but Ins mind wa- active; lie decided quickly; arrived at diagnosis often by intuition, and by bold treatment was celebrated far and wide for having saved the life of many a patient whose life hung in the balance.

As his medical practice extended a hundred miles North of Oldtown, many

weai te mile did he feel obliged to

1 1 ivel, well know in:; t hat he could ri. \ er

expect proportionate pay for his time

or skill. Despite such generosity, he

illy acquired affluence through

the kindness of others who were able to pay well.

Ill fame re ed on two special cases.

1 me an " I !xt< ii tve Laceration of the

of the Forearm" i" Boston

Medical and Surgical Journal," vol.

xxxvii), showing how a very extensive injury of the elbow-joint may, under proper treatment, escape amputation and be useful for life to the patient. Any surgeon would be proud of such a result as Dr. Bradburg obtained. In fact it was never doubted that he was probably unsurpassed in contriving splints for fractures and in thus saving limbs which otherwise would be amputated.

October 11, lS.jl, he performed that most formidable operation in surgery, the amputation at the hip-joint for osteo- sarcoma of the femur; the fourth time it had ever been performed successfully in this country.

Again in February, 1860, he successfully removed from the neck an enormous fibrous tumor involving the entire par- otid, the patient being still alive seven years after.

He once attended the maid servant of a well-to-do man who told the doctor that the woman was poor and he could make his bill as light as possible and " take it out of some one who was more able to pay." A year or two later Dr. Bradbury was called to attend this gentleman's wife and on ultimately handing in the bill, personally, the man saw the items of the bill for the maid servant. The man looked at Dr. Brad- bury, and Dr. Bradbury looked at him, their eyes twinkled but the bill was paid in full.

The enormous work of his latter life, in taking care of so many patients at Augusta, impaired his health most se- riously, lie had an attack of paralysis

February 11, 1863, gradually recovered,

then relapsed; his mind grew cloudy, his body enfeebled, and he gradually fill asleep into another world, October
 * , 1865, undeniably to be enrolled among

th.- ruoi worthy medical men that

Maine had seen. .1. A. S.

no Med \ '■', 1866.

Bradford, Joshua Taylor (1818 1871).

Joshua Taylor Bradford, ovariotomi t,

was born in Bracken County December

9, 1818, a -on of W illiam Bradford of \ ir-