Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/440

 FRAZEE

Autobiography). S. A. Green, Boston,

1871.

Biography of the Signers of Independence.

T. Cowperthwait, Phila., 1849.

Frazee, Louis J. (1S19-1905).

Louis J. Frazee, son of Dr. Ephraim Frazee, of Mayslick, Mason County, Kentucky, was born at this place, August 23, 1819. He read medicine with his uncle, Dr. Anderson Doniphan, in Germantown, Kentucky, and graduated from the Louisville Institute (now Uni- versity), in March, 1841, settling in Mays- ville in 1S42. With the exception of an absence of eighteen months during 1844— 1S45 in Europe, he practised medicine there until December, 1851, when he removed to Louisville. In 1S49 he published "The Medical Student in Europe," a volume of 297 pages, descrip- tive of his trip, and referring to some of the objects worth seeing in Europe, with sketches of the prominent physicians, surgeons, and hospitals of Paris. A second edition appeared in 1852. He was editor of the "Transylvania Journal of Medicine" in 1852 and 1853; also of the "Louisville Medical Gazette" in 1859, and wrote a report on " Indigenous Botany," and one on the "Mineral Waters of Kentucky," both published in the "Transactions of the Kentucky State Medical Society." He also con- tributed some articles to journals and held the chair of materia medica and therapeutics in the Kentucky School of Medicine for seven years, and the same chair duiing one session in the University of Louisville. For four years he was dean of the faculty of the first-named school.

D. W.

Atkinson's Phys. and Surgs. of the 0. States.

Freer, Joseph Warren (1816-1877).

Of this Chicago surgeon, Joseph Warren Freer, one biographer gives just the dry facts, the other some of the struggles with fortune which form the basis of his life's romance. One Elias Freer, of Washing-

FREER

ton County, mechanic, weds Polly Paine of Vermont and on the tenth of August, 1816, Joseph Warren comes into the world, leads the life of many country boys, helping, until he is sixteen, in his father's business and attending winter school. The future surgeon has a taste of a dry-goods store; of the drug-shop of his uncle, Dr. Lemuel Paine, where he picks up a little medicine and finally works under the doctor at Albion. Meanwhile his family buy a claim — Fork- ed Creek — in Wilmington, Illinois, and Joseph quits medicine and for nine years lives a free hard-working life on the farm.

Of course he marries; most impecuni- ous young farmers do, but this Emmeline, daughter of Phineas Holden, dies two years later leaving him with a little boy, Henry C.

Now Joseph Warren had an idea that his wife's life had been sacrificed to scanty medical knowledge, so he is seized with a desire to return to the study of medicine. He mounts a load of wheat that he may not lose time, and repairs to Dr. Brainard in the then village of Chi- cago and asks to be taken as pupil. He looked rather a rustic specimen, this young widower from the farm, but Dr. Brainard was wise in taking him and Joseph graduated at Rush Medical Col- lege in 1848. After this he spent his life there as demonstrator of anatomy professor of physiology and microscopic anatomy, president and, besides other appointments, was on the staff of the Mercy Hospital and St. Joseph's Hos- pital. His practice was devoted largely to surgery. He performed nearly all the operations of note including excision of the knee-joint; the elbow-joint with the entire ulna and head of radius. This before Carnochan's case.

In June, 1849, he married Katherine Gatter of Wurtemberg, Germany, and had a daughter and three sons. A good many months each year, from 1868 to 1871, were passed in foreign clinics with the result of much added brain power and a large collection of curiosities, the latter all swept away in the Chicago fire.