Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/402

 EMERSON

EMMET

professor of ophthalmology and otology in the New York Post-graduate School of Medicine. In 1S78 he became a meml ber of the American Ophthalmologica- Society. His ophthalmologic and oto- logic writings showed great ability.

In 1882 he was attacked with tuber- culosis and died April, 12, 1S85, in Ro- chester, New York. H. F. Trans. Am. Ophth. Soc, vol. iv, 1885-7.

Emerson, Gouverneur (1795-1874).

Gouverneur Emerson, traveller, agriculturist and doctor, eldest of the seven children of Jonathan and Ann Beel Emerson, was born August 4, 1795 near Dover, Kent County, Delaware. His grandparents having been received into the membership of the Duck Creek Meeting of the Society of Friends, Gouverneur was brought up in their simple faith. Through his mother's ambition he began to study medicine when he was sixteen, under one of her cousins, Dr. James Sykes, a surgeon of some note in Dover and one time governor of the state of Delaware. Afterwards he attended medical lectures in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania granted him his M. D. in March, 1816.

In 1816, owing to poor health, he moved to and practised near Montrose, Pennsylvania, but after two years accepted an appointment as surgeon on a merchant ship bound for China. His journal gives detailed account of his voyage and a dramatic account of being held up and robbed by Spanish pirates on the return voyage.

When Dr. Emerson returned to America he settled in Philadelphia where a yellow-fever epidemic gave him an opportunity for usefulness which he used so well that he was appointed attending physician to the City Dispensary. The Board of Health being without authority to deal with smallpox as it did with other contagious diseases, Dr. Emerson turned his attention, when on the Board of Health, to necessary legislation concerning checking the disease. Statistics relative to smallpox are to be found in his article, "Medical and Vital Statistics," published in "The American Journal of the Medical Sciences" for November, 1827, 1831, and July, 1848.

Dr. Emerson made some contributions to the improvement of the agriculture of his native place, editing the "Farmer's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Rural Affairs." His interest in agriculture increased until he was entirely occupied with its demands to the exclusion of medicine. He definitely gave up his large practice in 1857 and occupied himself with questions of political economy and social science for the remaining years of his life.

He died suddenly July 2, 1874. M. K. K. Proc. Am. Phil. Soc, 1891, xxiv.

Emmet, John Patten (1796-1842).

This scientist was born in Dublin, Ireland, April 8, 1796, the second son of Thomas Addis Emmet, one of the lead- ers of the United Irishmen, and Jane, daughter of the Rev. John Patten, a Presbyterian clergyman of Clonmel. He was also nephew of the great Irish orator, Robert Emmet.

His parents emigrated to New York when he was a child and he was edu- cated in Newburg, New York, and later entered the Military Academy at West Point. He was prevented from graduat- ing by his delicate health, and spent a year abroad, chiefly in Italy, devoting himself to the study of languages and art. On his return to New York he be- gan to study medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, paying spe- cial attention to chemistry and, despite ill health, graduating in 1S22, defend- ing an inaugural thesis on "The Chem- istry of Animated Matter," a treatise of one hundred and twenty-five oc- tavo pages. Immediately after this lie settled in Charleston, South Carolina.

While a cadet at West Point he was appointed, on account of his great pro- ficiency, acting assistant professor of mathematics, also assistant to the pro- fessor of chemistry, Dr. William H. Mc-