Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/390

 EASTMAN

EATON

gaged, attended three courses of medical lectures at the University of George- town, where he graduated in 1865.

He was then commissioned assistant surgeon of volunteers. The next year he was mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee, and returning to New York stopped off in Indiana where he remained to practise the profession he had picked up as a soldier. In 1868 he married Mary Katherine Barker, daughter of Thomas Barker of Indianapolis.

His medical education was supplement- ed by attendance at the Bellevue Hos- pital Medical College. He was for eight years assistant to Prof. Theophilus Parvin, the distinguished obstetrician and gynecologist, after which he spent some time abroad. Being the first to appreciate and teach the value of sur- gical cleanliness in his community, he quickly came into a great surgical prac- tice which he gradually limited to the abdomen.

He was the only American surgeon who had operated for extrauterine pregnancy by dissecting out the sac containing the child, saving the life of both baby and mother (Hirst's "System of Obstetrics," vol. ii, pp. 269 and 270). He originated and perfected many instruments and surgical pro- cedures, which in their day were much used and had a large and honorable part in laying the foundation of modern abdominal surgery.

His original work and his operating- room attracted many of the earnest surgeons of the country. These were impressed by his originality, machine- like precision and the clarity of his surgical judgment.

He was surgeon to the Indianapolis City Hospital and founder of the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons of Indianapolis, a component school of the Indiana University, department of medicine. He taught anatomy in this institution seven years, after which a special chair was created for him in dis- eases of women and abdominal surgery.

He was president of the Western

Surgical Association, Chairman of the Section of Diseases of Women of the American Medical Association, and an honorary member of the medical soci- eties of the states of New York, Michigan, etc. In 1901 Wabash College conferred upon Dr. Eastman her LL. D.

His death occurred in Indianapolis, June 7, 1902, caused by carcinoma of the liver. His wife, a daughter and two sons, Drs. Thomas B. and Joseph Itilus Eastman, survived him. A toler- ably full list of his pamphlets, chiefly obstetrical, can be seen in the Catalogue of the Surgeon-general, Wash., D. C. J. R. E.

Eaton, Horace (1804-1855).

The son of Dr. Eliphaz and Polly (Barnes) Eaton, he was born in Barnard, June 24, 1S04 and fitted for college at St. Albans Academy, graduating at Middlebury in 1825. He studied med- icine with his father in Enosburg and attended lectures at Castleton where he received his diploma, afterwards practising with his father at Enos- burg and then with his brother, Dr. Rollin Eaton, in the same place.

He was a skillful practitioner and was held in high esteem by the profes- sion generally. He was a member of the Vermont State Medical Society and its president in 1845. He held nearly all the offices — town, county and state — to which it was possible for his friends to elect him, being state senator four times, lieutenant governor three times, and in 1S46 elected governor and remained so for two years. After his retirement he was elected professor of natural history and chemistry at Middlebury College, which chair he filled for six years until his death in 1855. It is recorded of him that he was the victim of a wasting and disastrous dis- ease, contracted in the care of a profes- sional brother in a neighboring town. Dr. Eaton was a voluminous writer and delivered addresses and lectures on a variety of subjects.

Gov. Eaton was twice married: in