Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/455

 GERHARD

GERHARD

Atkinson's Physicians and Surgeons of the United States, Phila., 1878 (a very brief mention).

Gerhard, William Wood (1809-1872).

Born in Philadelphia in 1809, of Ger- man and Moravian descent, he was educated at Dickinson College and graduated from the University of Penn- sylvania in 1S32 and studied medicine under Dr. Joseph Parrish, going that same year to Paris, then the medical center of the world, to study under Chomel, Andral and Louis. How will- ing to study can be seen from this little bit from a letter to his brother:

"Jackson, Pennock and I were all desirous of studying auscultation, of studying it in such a manner as to be sure of our ground on our return and to be capable of appreciating the ad- vantages of the art. Louis' public instructions were valuable but his private lessons upon a subject demand- ing minute and patient inquiry we knew would be infinitely more so. I therefore, in the name of my friends, addressed him a polite note accompanied by a handsome pecuniary offer; we did this with little hope of success but happily for us he accepted our proposition and next week we are his private pupils at La Pitie."

"He appears," says Osier, "to have been an indefatigable worker, and the papers which he published based upon material gathered in Paris are among the most important we have from his pen. With Pennock he described Asi- atic cholera in 1832. Devoting him- self particularly to studying diseases of children he issued a very interesting paper on small-pox and two of very special value — one on tuberculous men- ingitis and one on pneumonia in chil- dren. Both of these mark a distinct point in our knowledge of the two dis- eases. He is usually accorded the credit of the first accurate clinical study of tuberculous meningitis." Above all he avoided any dependence on books and relied chiefly on personal observation and study. His thoughtful works on

pediatrics are now little known, but the essential part of them still benefits the doctor of to-day.

In 1833 he went back to Philadelphia and became resident physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital and while there demonstrated the common continued fever of the United States to be iden- tical with the typhoid he had studied in the wards in Paris. When in 1836 typhus broke out in Philadelphia he had opportunities of studying hundreds of cases and showed the identity of the disease with that seen in Edinburgh and dissimilarity of both from typhoid. The honor of the discovery has been divided between Perry of Glasgow (1836), Lombard of Geneva (1836), Gerhard and Pennock of Philadelphia (1836), Shattuck of Boston (1836), and others, but according to Osier, Gerhard's papers in the "American Journal of Medical Sciences," 1S37, are the first in any language which give a full and satisfactory account of the clinical and anatomical distinctions we now recognize.

Gerhard's training made him speci- ally desired as clinical lecturer at the Philadelphia Hospital, and he soon had a special reputation in diseases of the heart and lungs. At his lectures stu- dents saw that truth was his object, not display; the advancement of science and not the gratification of personal feelings.

An attack of typhoid in 1837 hindered work and left him broken in health, so that a visit was made in 1843 to Europe. In 1868 he retired after a busy life and on April 28, 1872, Philadelphia lost one of her most genial, kindly and clever physicians.

He held among other appointments the post of resident physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1834; assistant professor institutes of medicine, Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, 1S38 ; visiting doctor, Pennsylvania Hospital, 1845; membei of the Philadelphia Medical Society; College of Physicians; American Philo- sophical Society, and president of the Pathological Society.