Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/350

 DELAFIELD

DELAMATER

"Remedial Substitutes for Blood- letting." ("Transactions Michigan State Medical Society," 1870.)

"Gems in Medicine selected from Forty Years of Experience." ("Trans- actions Michigan State Medical Society," 1885.)

"Special Points in Operative Surgery." ("Transactions Michigan State Medical Society," 1886.)

"The Actual Cautery." ("Trans- actions Michigan State Medical Society," 1880.)

"Treatment of Fractures of the Extremities." ("Transactions Michigan Medical Society," 1887.) L. C.

Representative Men 1878, vol. v.

Mich., Cincin., O.,

Delafield, Edward (1794-1875).

It is chiefly for his ophthalmic work and his great interest in the blind that Edward Delafield should be remembered, his energy and alleviation of disease being shown at a time when thousands went blind through the ignorance of surgeons concerning the eye.

He was the son of John Delafield of London who came to this country and married Ann Hallett of New York. Edward, the eldest of eleven children, was born in New York City, May 17, 1794. He graduated A. B. from Yale College in 1812 and became pupil to a Dr. Samuel Borrowe, following out dili- gently in New York the prescribed course of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and receiving its M. D. in 1816, with a thesis on "Pulmonary Consumption."

Like most young doctors of that period he went over to Europe and studied at foreign clinics, returning to New York City and practising there over forty years. He married first, Elinor E. Langdon Elwyn in October, 1821, and had six children, none of whom survived him. Nineteen years later, being then a widower, he married Julia Floyd, grand-daughter of Gen. Floyd, a signer of the " Declaration of Independence."

He was not a great writer, but he did good work in adding to and editing a

new edition of Traver's Diseases of the Eye and in contributing articles on oph- thalmology to medical journals. As far back as 1S18 he conceived the idea of a New York Eye Infirmary and talked it over with his associate Dr. Kearney Rodgers, which talk resulted in their opening, in 1820, two rooms and in seven months they had treated 436 patients. The necessity for such a hospital was now obvious and the surgeons who had helped in the crowded two rooms also helped in the organization of the new hospital of which Delafield was for thirty years visiting surgeon. The Amer- ican Ophthalmological Society also owns him as one of its founders and elected him as first president. While deeply devoted to his ophthalmic work he held to his other subject, obstetrics, and oc- cupied the chair of obstetrics, and dis- eases of women and children in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons thirteen years, being a president of the college in 1858. Of a very benevolent turn, he often noticed the dismal condition of shabby gentility to which the widows and children of his deceased confreres were reduced and this led him to found the first society for their relief.

As a practitioner, Dr. Delafield pos- sessed, in a high degree, the confidence of his patients. His medical sagacity and extensive acquirements secured him success in the management of dis- ease, and the kindly interest and sym- pathizing care which he felt for those intrusted to his skill gained for him their affection and gratitude.

He died in New York, February 13, 1S75. D. W.

Trans. Am. Ophth. Soc. vol., ii, (port.). Hubbel's Development of Ophthalmology, Med. Record, N. Y. 1875, x. Medical and Surgical Reporter, 1866, xv.

Delamater, John (1787-1867).

His family, of Huguenot descent, had settled in Holland as refugees at an early date. His father was a farmer, and John, born in Chatham, New York, April 18, 1787, was expected to follow the same