Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/471

 GOFORTH

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GOLDSMITH

fusion of Electricity, and Its Agency in Astronomy, Physiology and Therapeu- tics,' speculations which his pupil cherished through life. He also enjoyed the more substantial teachings of an anat- omist and surgeon, Dr. Charles Knight, but the school was dispersed by a mob raised against anatomists.

Goforth went West with his brother- in-law, Gen. John S. Gano, and on the tenth of June, 1788, landed at Maysville, Kentucky, then called Lime- stone. Settling in Washington, four miles from the Ohio River, he was soon popular, and for eleven years held the principal practice around.

In 1799 he came to Columbia, a suburb of Cincinnati, where his father lived and in 1800 removed to the city, occupying the house known as the Peach-Grove House, bringing with him a high reputation; where he soon acquired an extensive practice. Dr. Drake says he had the most winning manners of any man he knew. He dressed with precision, and never left his house in the morning until his hair had been powdered, or without his gold-headed cane in his gloved hand.

In 1801 he introduced vaccination into Cincinnati, Dr. Waterhouse of Boston having brought it from Europe in the previous year. In 1803, at great expense, he dug up at Big Bone Springs, in Kentucky, the largest, most diversified, and remarkable collection of fossil bones ever disinterred at one time in the United States. These he entrusted to a Thomas Ashe, or Arville, who sold them in Europe and kept the proceeds. Dr. Goforth was the patron of all who were engaged in search- ing for precious metals. They brought him their specimens and generally managed to quarter themselves on his family while the necessary analyses were made. In these researches " Blen- nerism," or the turning of the forked stick, held by its prongs, was regarded as a reliable means of discovering metals, as well as water. , Dr. Goforth was fond of associating

with French people, and sympathized with the refugees from France. This led him to go and live in Louisiana, which had been recently purchased from France and was filled with French exiles. Early in 1807 he departed in a flat- boat for the lower Mississippi, where he was soon after elected Judge, and subsequently chosen by the Creoles of Attacapas to represent them in form- ing the first Constitution of the State. Soon after he went to New Orleans, and during the invasion of the city by the British, acted as surgeon to one company of Louisiana volunteers. By this time his taste for French manners had been satisfied, and he determined to return to the city he had left in op- position to the wishes of his friends So he quitted New Orleans May 1, 1816, and reached Cincinnati on the twenty-eight of December, after a voy- age of eight months, to find his popu- larity still high. Not long, however, did he enjoy it. During his summer journey from the South he had contract- ed disease, and died in the following year, 1817, the second physician to die in Cincinnati, Dr. Allison having pre- ceeded him but a year.

A. G. D. Ohio Med. Reposit., Cincin., vol. i, L826.

Goldsmith, Middleton (1818-1887).

Middleton Goldsmith (born Smith), physician and surgeon in Kentucky and Vermont and army surgeon dur- ing the Civil War, was the son of Dr. Alban and Talia Ferro Middleton Smith of Virginia. (Dr. Alban Smith's name was changed to Goldsmith by Act of the New York Legislature.) Middleton was born at Fort Tobacco, Maryland August 5, 1818, and was edu- cated at Hanover College, Indiana, and in 1837, when his father was called to the College of Physicians and Sur- geons of New York, as lecturer on surgery, he accompanied him, matric- ulating in the same institution and graduating therefrom in 1S40. For some time after his graduation Middleton