Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/323

 CULBERTSON

CULBERTSON

where the water supply was bad, he re- moved to Hanover in 1852. In 1858 he once more took up active practice, and on the breaking out of the Civil War believed it his duty to consecrate his medical skill to his country.

Upon entering the service he was at once put in charge of the Columbian College Hospital, in Washington. He assumed the responsibility of the position with the determination that the men who came under his charge should have their rights, and faithfully did he carry this out.

He remained in charge of this hospital until after the close of the war and the sick and wounded were able to be trans- ferred to their homes. The next year he was appointed professor of general and military surgery and hygiene in the National Medical College, which position he filled until 1870.

His lead poison had twisted and de- formed his right wrist and hand so that he had only the use of the thumb, the index and second finger, while the wrist was firmly anchylosed in a semi-flexed posi- tion, yet Dr. Crosby did his own opera- tions in the hospital.

At the close of the war he returned to Hanover, and entered once more upon general practice.

In February, 1843, he married Louisa P., only daughter of Col. Burton of the United States Army, but had no children.

Dr. Crosby came from a family that had been physicians for three generations, and inherited the family love for the profession. He possessed uncommon skill in diagnosis and prognosis, and it might be said that he almost had an intuitive perception of the nature of occult diseases.

He is buried in Dartmouth College Cemetery at Hanover. I. J. P.

Tr. N. Hampshire on Soc. Manchester. 1872.

Culbertson, Howard (1828-1890).

Howard Culbertson, surgeon, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, February 24, 1828. a eon of the Rev. James Culbertson, Presbyterian minister.

Thrown at an early age upon his own resources by the death of his father, he worked for a time in a machine shop at Cincinnati, Ohio. This work proved too severe for his somewhat frail constitution, and being of a studious disposition, he gave it up and for a short time read medicine with Dr. Lyman Little of Zanes- ville, in 1S4S entering the Jefferson Med- ical College, from which he graduated in 1850.

From the time of his graduation until 1862 he practised in his native city, acquiring a more than local reputation, especially in diseases of the eye; but in 1862 he left his rapidly growing practice to enter the army as an assistant surgeon and was assigned to active service at Rolla, Missouri, where he immediately set to work to improve conditions, succeeding so well under adverse circumstances that in a year he was assigned to take charge of Harvey General Hospital at Madison, Wisconsin. Here he did some of his most successful operating, which is recorded and favorably commented on in the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion."

In 1865 he left the volunteer service with the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel, and joined the regulars as captain and assistant surgeon, serving at Louis- ville as medical director of Taylor barracks, at Memphis, and at Jefferson barracks, St. Louis. From there he was ordered to Baton Rogue, but climatic conditions completely prostrated him, and he was compelled to go on the retired list, with health permanently undermined.

Returning to Zanesville in 1869, he again took up private practice, devoting most of his time to his chosen specialty, diseases of the eye, and soon became one of the leading oculists of the state. For several years he was professor of ophthal- mology in the Columbus Medical College, Columbus, Ohio.

Dr. Culbertson invented a number of instruments for use in both general and ophthalmic surgery. Among these were a meerschaum probe for bullets, used in the army, and a prismoptometcr for test-