Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/420

 FENGER

FERGUSON

as a teacher came to him in the ap- pointment of professor of clinical sur- gery in the Rush Medical college. His teaching was enhanced by his skill in illustrating by colored drawings on the blackboard, He always adopted this way when he undertook an im- portant operation, to show the patho- logic condition, surgical anatomy, and technic of the operation about to be performed. Every operation was with him a dissection. He would stand with his knife in the air, talking and dem- onstrating, forgetting the patient was under anesthesia or take out a speci- men and talk about it, forgetting the patient was waiting to be sewed up. His endurance was unusual, as he was able to conduct clinics from two o'clock in the afternoon until nine in the evening. He made no display of his vast clinical material and had the honesty to report unfavorable cases. He was the first in Chicago to perform vaginal hysterec- tomy and one of the first there to ex- plore the brain with an aspirating needle. During his thirty years of work he con- tributed more than eighty articles to surgical literature, a full list of which is given in Sperry's " Group of Dis- tinguished Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago," 1904. The place he made for himself in the new world as scien- tist, surgeon, author and humanitarian did not allow him to be forgotten in the old. King Christian of Denmark con- ferred on him the Order of Ridder of Danneberg; America honored him in her own democratic way by a large gathering of physicians representing one hundred and thirty-nine medical societies from every part of the continent ; all coming together to express admiration for the pioneer work in science done by Dr. Fenger in the country of his adoption.

During the last summer of his life his working power was taxed to its ut- most, but a good holiday set him up again. On the second of March, 1902, however, he was attacked by a most virulent type of pneumonia and died five days later. During his illness

the three who had been his pupils, Billings, Favill and Herrick, gave de- votion and care to their beloved pro- fessor. He was survived by his wife, Caroline Abildgaard, and two children, Frederick and Augusta.

Jour. Am. Med. Assoc, July 5, 1902. Dr. X. Senn.

A Group of Disting. Phys. and Surg, of Chi- cago, Speery, 1904. (Port.)

Ferguson, Everard D. (1843-1906).

This surgeon was born in Moscow, Livingstone County, New York, on May 9, 1843 and was educated at Gene- see College, University of Michigan, graduating from Bellevue Hospital Med- ical College in 1868. After prac- tising in New York State in Essex and Dannemora, he settled in Troy and remained there until his death on September 8, 1906. He married, in 1864, Marion A. Farlay and had a son and a daughter.

He was a master of quick, accurate clinical diagnosis and his insight into complicated conditions was astonish- ing. As an operator, too, he had con- summate ability in overcoming any unforeseen emergency. For twenty- five years he was summoned hither and thither in New York State and his resources for keeping appointments were amusing. He would sometimes get a lift on a freight train or an engine, once doing what was an unparalled thing in those days, having the New York Albany express stopped to take him up.

Keenly interested in medical litera- ture and societies, he was a founder of the New York State Medical Associa- tion and its president in 1899, also originator and a founder of the Med- ical Association of Troy. His biggest work was founding the Samaritan Hos- pital in Troy, for which he raised about a quarter of a million by private solici- tation. He himself was chief of its medical and surgical staff, and at death had done some 2153 operations, of which 907 were abdominal sections.