Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/244

 BURNHAM

BURRELL

Schiotz." Reprinted from "Transactions of the American Ophthalmological So- ciety," Hartford, 188S-90, v.

"The General Form of the Human Cornea and its Relations to the Refrac- tion of the Eye and Visual Acuteness." Reprinted from "Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society," 1891-3.

"The Racial and Geographic Distribu- tion of Trachoma in the United States of America." Reprinted from "American Jour, of Ophthalmology," St. Louis, 1896.

"A Case of Obstructed Retinal Cir- culation with a Series of Pictures show- ing the Changes in the Vascular System during its Reestablishment of New Vessels in the Retina." Reprinted from "Ophthalmological Record," Nashville, 1899. G. M. K.

Burnham, Walter (180S-1883).

Walter Burnham, the son of Dr. Wal- ter Burnham, was born in Brookfield, Vermont, January 12, 1808. He studied medicine with his father and his brother, Dr. Z. P. Burnham, a pupil of Nathan Smith, and graduated from the medical department of the University of Vermont in 1829. After practising in several places he settled in 1S33 in Barre, Ver- mont, where he lived until his removal to Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1S46. For sev- eral years he was treasurer of the Vermont State Medical Society. While in Ver- mont he performed many major surgical operations, but it was only after his re- moval to Massachusetts that he devoted himself to gynecological surgery.

An early advocate of the operation of ovariotomy, he removed his first ovarian tumor in August, 1851. From this time until 1SS2, a period of thirty-one years, he did about three hundred ovariotomies with a mortality of about 25 per cent., a good showing for those days.

His first case of hysterectomy for fi- broma of the uterus, the first successful case on record, was performed in June, 1853. In 1883 the woman was still alive. Later experience with this operation — only three successes in fifteen cases — led

him to doubt the propriety of doing it ex- cept in carefully selected cases.

Among his successful cases in the field of general surgery may be mentioned two cases of ligation of the common carotid artery and a case of ligation of both ex- ternal carotids for malignant tumor of the jaw, done at two sittings.

Dr. Burnham was surgeon of the sixth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers in the Civil War from 1S62 through the war and after until 1870. He became a mem- ber of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1863. While a member of the Massa- chusetts House of Representives in 1855 he was instrumental in securing the passage of the "Anatomy Act" by which members of the medical profession were authorized to obtain the bodies of dead paupers for dissecting purposes, an im- mense assistance to the cause of anatomy in Massachusetts.

Dr. Burnham died at his home in Low- ell, January 16, 18S3 after an illness of five weeks, the exciting cause of his death being gastritis. W. L. B.

Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Jan. 25, 1SS3, vol. cviii.

Burrell, Herbert Leslie (1856-1910).

Herbert Leslie Burrell, surgeon, was born in Boston, April 27, 1856, the son of Randall Gardner and Elizabeth Madeleine Burrell, and received his preliminary education at the English High School in that city, graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1S79. After a few years general practice, during which he gradually turned towards surgery, he commenced his work as a teacher as de- monstrator of surgical technic in his alma mater; for many years he gave a systemic course of lectures on surgery and in 1903 was made professor of clinical surgery.

He was made surgeon-general of Massa- chusetts in 1893, and in 1898 saw service during the Spanish-American War as sur- geon-in-charge of the Massachusetts vol- unteer aid hospital ship, Bay State.

He became surgeon in the Children's Hospital in 1893, and was made consult-