Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/327

CUSHING cine with Dr. William Harris of Philadelphia, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1844 with a thesis on "Scrofulous Ophthalmia." In this year he became assistant physician for the Insane in Pennsylvania Hospital and resigned in 1849, engaging in general practice and attending the hospitals until 1851 when he was made superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital in Harrisburg.

His little volume, "A Manual for Attendants in Hospitals for the Insane" (1850) was translated into Dutch, and he also wrote, beside his concise reports, "A History of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane from 1844 to 1884" (1885).

His appointments included: President of the State Medical Society of Pennsylvania; member of the Pennsylvania State Medical Society; honorable member of the California State Medical Society, and he had the LL. D. from Jefferson College.

On August 2, 1849, he married Martha P. Elmer of Bridgton, New Jersey, who died May 12, 1873. John Curwen himself died on July 2, 1902.

D. W.

Cushing, Henry Kirke (1827-1910).

Henry Kirke Cushing, obstetrician and gynecologist, grandson of Dr. David Cushing and son of Dr. Erastus Cushing, was born in Lanesboro, Massachusetts on July 29, 1827. His father came to Cleveland in 1835 and practised there forty years, and Henry Kirke, after taking his B.AB.A. [sic] from Union College in 1848, followed in his father's steps after graduating M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1851.

He was successively professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children; professor of gynecology, and emeritus professor of gynecology in the medical department of Western Reserve University; a trustee of Western Reserve University, which in 1884 conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. He served in the Civil War as surgeon-major in the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry and retired from active practice about twenty years before his death from paralysis, which occurred on February 12, 1910.

In the medical societies, especially the smaller ones, which he seemed particularly to enjoy, he was always at his best. His extensive reading and his large and varied experience made him able to speak intelligently and authoritatively on any subject.

It is difficult to appreciate medical conditions at the time Dr. Cushing began practice. It was a critical period characterized by a low average standard of preparation for medicine; medical relations were too frequently personal; medical societies poorly developed; medical education was in the depths, being practically entirely in the hands of proprietary schools. This was not peculiar to Cleveland, but was typical of conditions all over the land. During this period the strong personal and powerful influence of Dr. Cushing was exerted at all times toward the elevation of professional standards.

Besides being an eminently successful practitioner his energies were ever directed towards the advancement of scientific medicine; a fitting tribute in this respect was the naming in his honor the new laboratory of experimental medicine of the Western Reserve University.

He married Betsey M. Williams in 1852; she died in 1903, leaving him with six children, William E., Alice K., Henry P., Edward F., George B., and Harvey, who, with Edward, followed his father's profession.

This thin, erect, dignified and skillful country doctor, with so many names, deserves a place among the medical worthies of Maine, although he left but few, if any, remembrances of his practice,