Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/34

 xxiv INTRODUCTION

ing the older medical colleges: J. Mason Warren at Harvard; Nathan Smith at Dartmouth, Bowdoin and Yale; Benjamin Winslow Dudley at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, the first medical college of the West, later transferred to Louisville; John Beale Davidge at the University of Maryland; Daniel Brainard, founder and many years professor of surgery at Rush Medical College, Chicago; George McClellen, founder and professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia.

The surgical specialties also owe much to our early surgeons who were chiefly concerned in establishing the gynecologic, orthopedic and eye and ear hospitals and until very recently the general surgeon did most of the operative work and trained many specialists of to-day. Illustrating this influence of early surgeons in establishing the specialties, in a report of Hamilton's "Surgical Dispensary Work," "Buffalo Medical Journal" (1847-8, vol. iii), out of thirty-two cases recorded ten were of the specialties, most commonly the eye, and in the same journal, Hamilton has a long article on enlarged tonsils and their treatment by operation. In his address on the "First Century of American Surgery," Gross deplores the tendency to specialize, though admitting the value of the work of Sims, Emmett, Peaslee and the Atlees. A reviewer of Sayre's book on "Orthopedic Surgery," published in 1875, writing in the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," is quite caustic in his criticism of those who would set themselves up as specialists, al- though also admitting that such specialization may in certain cases give valuable results. It seems strange to-day to recall that many of those pioneers in surgical specialties were burdened for many years with general practice, as well as the surgery quite apart from the work of their choice.

It is interesting to note that men representative of nearly all nationalities who early settled this country had an honorable share in the progress of our surgery. As a very large proportion of the early settlers were English-speaking people, it is not surprising their names should be most numerous. Warren, Wolcott, Parker, Dudley, Hamilton, Smith, Post, Bigelow and many others will at once be called to mind. Among Irish names, Conner, McGuire and Moore might be mentioned. Of the Scotch; Sims, McDowell, McClellan: of the Dutch; VanBuren, VandeWarker, VanDuyn, Vanderveer, and among more recent comers: Scandinavians; Fenger and Hermann Mynter; of the German and Swiss, Nicholas Senn and Gross. Thus far each nationality well established in the United States seems to have contributed a fair proportion to surgical knowledge.

With best intentions, it would be impossible to give proper credit to all who deserve honor for priority in surgical achivement. It so often