Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/463

 GILPIN 3

He read medicine with his uncle, Dr. Walker, a physician and early ex- plorer of Kentucky, and afterwards studied at Edinburgh, University, grad- uating therefrom. He first settled in Williamsburg, but after a time re- moved to Albermarle County, where he soon built up a practice.

As early as 1774 he represented his county in the House of Burgesses, and was the mover of a resolution on the subject of the Crown Lands which was seconded by William Henry. Quite an orator, he harangued his county- men, when Dunmore seized the power of the colony, to such effect that a company was formed to march to Wil- liamsburg and demand redress. He was chosen lieutenant of this company. In 1775 he was sent by his county to the Convention of that year as the alter- nate of Thomas Jefferson.

He married his cousin Lucy, the daughter of his preceptor, who was a patriot worthy of her patriotic husband. It is related that in the early days of the Revolution she handed Mr. Jeffer- son her jewels and begged him to use them in her country's cause.

R. M. S.

Gilpin, John Bernard (1810-1892).

John Bernard Gilpin was born Sep- tember 4, 1810, at Newport, Rhode Island, where his father, J. Bernard Gilpin, of Vidar's Hill, Hants, England, was for many years British Consul.

His general education was received at Trinity College, Providence, Rhode Island, where he took his M. A., and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating thence M. D. in 1834. Immediately afterwards he studied in London, and became M. R. C. S. (London).

He first practised at Annapolis, re- moving to Halifax in 1846 and there continuing till 188C, when he returned to Annapolis where he spent the re- mainder of his days, dying there March 12, 1892.

He was a member of the Medical

3 GIRARD

Society of Nova Scotia and one of the original founders of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science in 1863, of which he became a vice-president in 1864 and was president from 1873 to 1878. He was also a member of many scientific and learned societes in the United States and Great Britain.

While highly esteemed both as a medical man and as a citizen, he never acquired a very extensive practice but devoted much of his time and energy to the study of natural history, in which he did much original and useful work. His paper on the "Common Herring" was the first one read before the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science after its formation, the first of a series on the food fishes of Nova Scotia, and the first of some thirty-four papers of his read before the institute, which, if collected, would form a very interest- ing and valuable work on the natural history of the Province. Besides be- ing a clear and graceful writer, he was skillful with pencil and brush to illus- trate those subjects of his study, which can be so well served by those arts. He was constantly doing his utmost to assist and encourage the study of natural history in the province, and was frequently consulted by Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute as to the determination of new or doubt- ful species of fish and as to their migra- tions in these northern waters.

In 1S58 Dr. Gilpin published at Halifax a pamphlet of considerable scientific interest on "Sable Island, Its History and Natural History."

A portrait of Dr. Gilpin was publish- ed as a frontispiece to Part II. of Vol- ume X. of the "Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science." D. A. C.

Transactions N. S. Institute of Nat. Science.

Girard, Charles (1822-1895).

Bora in MQlhausen, France, March 9, 1822 he was educated in Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he became the pupil