Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/341

 DAVIDSON

DAVIS

At the outbreak of hostilities between the North and South, he went out as captain of the Alexander Rifles, Crescent Regiment, commanded by Col. Marshall J. Smith.

During the epidemic of yellow fever in 1S75 at Shreveport, he was one of the experts selected with Drs. Bruns and Choppin to be sent to that place. He was also sent to Brunswick, Georgia, as an expert on fever and also sent to the plantations below New Orleans, when the National Board of Health pronounced an epidemic prevailing to be yellow fever. Dr. Davidson declared the fever at both places to be "rice fever," a fever peculiar to those living on and cultivating rice plantations. He was president of the State Board of Health in 1SS0 and chair- man of the Board of Medical Experts on yellow fever.

One remarkable trait was his forgetful- ness of himself when the lives of others were concerned. About the year 184S or 1849 Asiatic cholera broke out on the plantation of Mr. Calhoun, some miles above Alexandria, on Red River. He was called in, and upon investigation found that a large number of the slaves were being fed on rotten meal; he at once separated the well from the sick, and moved all to the pine woods and changed their food and water, after which he lost not a single case, but came near losing his own life. He was stricken with the disease, and in trying to reach the house of a friend was found on the roadside by a faitliful servant, who took him to Dr. L. Luckctts, where he was for several days at death's door. During the epi- demic of yellow fever in 1S53, he sent all his children out of town and filled his "house with sick, and was, during the greater part of the time, the only physi- cian about.

He wa3 prominent in all the state I societies and once served as at of the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Association.

New Orleans Med. and Surg. Jour., 1891 2, n. 8., vol. xix.

Davidson, William (1S10-1875).

William Davidson, counted one of the most learned men of his time in southern Indiana, was born in 1S10 in Wick, Caith- ness, Scotland, and went as a boy to the parish school and afterwards to Edin- burgh University, becoming a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons there in 1S33 and taking his M. D. in 1835. While a student he became acquainted with Sir James Simpson and the friend- ship lasted through life.

In 1S35 Davidson came to the United States, landing in New York provided with letters of introduction to James Gordon Bennett and other prominent Scotsmen who advised him to practise in New York, but, preferring a western home, he settled first in Kingston, Ohio, where he married Malinda Griffiths, whose people had come from Wales to Pennsyl- vania with William Penn, then, finally, in 1837 moved to and remained for the rest of his life in Madison, Indiana.

During the Civil War he acted as sur- geon to an Indiana regiment and to a mili- tary hospital as Munsfordsville, Kentucky.

It is a matter of record that the claim to priority in the use of chloroform in labor west of the Alleghany Mountains should be accorded either to Dr. David- son or Prof. Miller of the University of Louisville, but I, as pupil of Davidson, can confidently give him the credit.

Apart from his diagnostic skill and abil- ity as a lecturer Dr. Davidson was a thorough classical scholar and book-lover and wrote a little for the medical jour- nals; a good scientist too, particularly in geology and botany. The Orthis David- sonia was named after him. A courtly goodlooking man, he was welcomed as guest or friend. He had four children, Victoria, Anne, Marion and William R. who became a doctor. These, with his wife, were all living when Dr. David- son died of cerebral hemorrhage on August .12, 1875. L. J. W.

Davis, Edward Hamilton (1811-1888).

Better known as an archeologist than a doctor, Edward Hamilton Davis