Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/473

 GOLDSMITH

GOODELL

unselfishness were best known by the poor and afflicted.

He maintained to his last days a lively interest in every new discovery in his profession, and followed eager- ly the early developments of the germ theory. His medical library was the best private library in the state. At his death this went to the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Goldsmith married in June, 1843, Frances Swift, daughter of Henry Swift of Poughkeepsie, New York. She died suddenly of heart disease in November, 1887, and the doctor sur- vived the shock of her death but a few days. His death occurred November 26, 1887. Of three daughters one died in infancy, the other two, Rebecca Swift and Mary Middleton, survived him.

C. S. c.

In Memoriam, Middleton Goldsmith., (J. C.

Peters), 1889.

Med., Rec, N. Y., vol. xxxii, 1887.

Goldsmith, William B. (1854-1888).

William B. Goldsmith was born January 11, 1854 in Bellona, Yates County, New York and graduated from Amherst in 1874, beginning at once to study medicine under Dr. John B. Chapin with the object of spe- cializing as an alienist.

He graduated with high honor from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York in 1S77 and after a short term in the Presbyterian Hospital was appointed junior assistant in the Bloomingdale Asylum.

Wishing to enlarge his experience he resigned in 1879 that he might work under Dr. Clouston in Edinburgh and have six months with Dr. Major at the West Riding Asylum. Two months more were spent in London with Ilugh- lings-Jackson when he received the appointment of senior assistant at the Bloomingdale Asylum. In March, 1881, he accepted the position of .super- intendent of the Danvers Lunatic Hospital where he remained until he again went to Europe to pass a year

in studying with Westphal, Krafft- Ebing, and others.

Dr. Goldsmith was made superin- tendent of the Butler Insane Asylum in Providence, Rhode Island in 1886 where he remained until his death March 21, 1888. M. K. K.

Am. J. Insanity, Utica, N, Y., 1887-8, vol.

xliv.

Boston M. and S. Jour., 1888, vol. cxviii.

Med. News, Phila., 188S, vol. ui.

Tr. Rhode Island M. Soo. 1888. Providence,

1889, vol. iii (H. C. Hall).

GoodeU, William (1829-1894).

For the last fifteen years of his life William Goodell was known in Pennsyl- vania as a leading gynecologist. He was one of the small group of pioneers who made the gynecology of this country what it is and, moreover, possessed the literary faculty to a high degree.

The son of a missionary, the Rev. William Goodell, he was born in Malta on October 27, 1829, getting his college and medical education in America but practising first in Constantinople before he settled down in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was appointed lec- turer on obstetrics and diseases of women in the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1870 and clincial professor of the diseases of women and children in 1874 and taught gynecology for twenty years, on resignation being made honorary professor of gynecology. He established a school of treatment and operative technic whose methods the oncoming generation found still progressive, though Dr. Goodell was not as facile nor as successful an op- erator as some of the younger men who grew up around him.

A prolific writer, he was also a reliable one and would often spend his leisure month after month in getting accurate data. His happiest hours were spent in the college library among the old books and he might have lived longer had he spent more time there. In 1894 failing health obliged him to resign work and he died on the twenty-seventh of October, 1894, aged sixty-five.