Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/383

 DUNGLISON

DUNLAP

eases," and was editing the "London Medical Repository," to come out. This man, Robley Dunglison, born at Keswick, England, in 17S9, was destined for a mer- chant, but fortunately a rich uncle, one Joseph Robley, died and left him enough to become a doctor. So when seventeen, after a good education he began to study medicine under a village physician before attending courses in Edinburgh, Paris and London, taking his surgical degree at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 1819, and his medical at Erlan- gen in 1823.

In 1825 Yale conferred on him her LL. D.

The ship bearing Dunglison with his young wife and children was three months crossing from Liverpool, giving plenty of time for reflection on the step taken — a wise step, for he stayed with all approval for nine years at the University of Vir- ginia going afterwards as professor of ma- teria medica and medical jurisprudence to the University of Maryland. But the University of Pennsylvania recognized clearly what his value would be to them and made him professor of the institutes of medicine in Jefferson College, which appointment he held until 1868.

During the nine years in Virginia his industry was amazing. The " Human Physiology," rejected by Philadelphia publishers, came out at Boston in 1S32, and went through eight editions and be- came at once the book for students. S. D. Gross says, "What Haller's great work accomplished for surgery in the eighteenth century, Dunglison accomplished for it in America in the nineteenth. " The book is rich in learning, accurate and logical in its statements of facts. His big "Medical Dictionary," 1833, a work of profound erudition, earned him a world-wide reputation; 55,000 copies were sold during his life-time, and in 1897 it had reached twenty-three editions. These books were followed in rapid succession by treatises on " Materia Medica," 1843; "Hygiene;" "The Practice of Medicine" 1842, and "New Remedies;" yet this systematic and persistent writer found

time to edit "Forbes' Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine" and several foreign works. He founded and edited for five years the "American Library and In- telligencer," and with one William Chapin issued a celebrated dictionary for the blind in three folio volumes, and all this besides innumerable articles to the medical and lay journals.

As a lecturer he could hold the close attention of his students to dry details and yet interest them, and as dean for many years he was prompt and faithful. "A fluent talker, an insatiable reader, a rapid writer, rapid to illegibility and, like the letters of the great Scotsman, Chalmers, his were often put away for the writer to elucidate. " Gentle and at- tractive in manners and appearance, no one could ever say an unkind word about Dunglison, and his heroically borne illness which made him a constant sufferer six months previous to death showed of what stuff the eager student was made. "Confined to bed, propped up by pillows, his feet resting on the floor, he could not even lie down for an hour. Long the victim of heart disease, no one could witness his distress without the deepest sympathy, yet no murmur escaped bis lips; indeed he was cheerful and always delighted to listen to music and hear the latest news from the busy life outside. On April 1, 1869, he went away, his life's volume all frayed by hard usage; the long :lik1 last chapter, On Pain, typed sharp and clear by that hard-headed printer Experience. D. \V.

Tr. Coll. Phys, Phila., 1869, n. a. Autobiography. S. D. Gross, Phila., 1887. Hist, of the Med. Profession in Philadelphia. Henry. 1897. Portrait in Surg. -gen. Lib. Wash., I). C.

Dunlap, Alexander (1815-1894).

Wrli known in connection with ovari- otomy, In- was born in Brown County,

Ohio, January 12, 1815 arid after spend- ing two years in Ohio University. Athens, matriculated at Miami University, Ox- ford, Ohio, from which he graduated A. B. in 183C. His medical degree was