Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/475

 GORHAM 3;

life was spent in the practice of medicine, first in Saco, then in South Berwick, and finally as Saco, where he returned at the urgent and repeated demands of his friends and former patients, and remained in practice until he re- tired at the age of sixty-five, when he moved to Portland to spend the rest of his life with his children.

He married Hannah Googin, a direct descendant of Daniel Googin.

He made his name known through- out the state of Maine, at the age of thirty-two, by an amputation high up in the thigh upon a young girl on whom every doctor in the neighborhood had positively refused to operate, declar- ing her condition hopeless, an opera- tion nothing short of murder. The operation, decided upon with the patient's consent, was begun with prayer, a proceeding not at all unusual in those days of genuine religion.

As no physician could be found to assist Mr. Ether Shepley, a lawyer of Saco, stood by and assisted Dr. Goodin to the best of his ability.

The operation was a complete suc- cess, the patient living as long as her skillful surgeon.

Goodwin was a member of the Maine Medical Association but does not seem to have left any medical papers. He lived to be ninety-one, dying at last from sheer old age, March 14, 1884. J. A. S.

Trans. Maine Med. Assoc. (Family Papers.)

Gorham, John (1783-1829).

Dr. Gorham was the son of Stephen Gorham, a merchant of Boston, Mae and was born there February 29, 1783.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1801 and began the study of medi- cine with John Warren. In 1804 he took his B. M. from Harvard College and his M. D. there in 1811. After- wards he went abroad and studied for about two years in London, Edinburgh and Paris.

On returning to Boston he married

GORRIE

the daughter of Dr. John "Warren and began to practise. Through Warren's introduction he had become acquainted with Dr. Aaron Dexter, professor of chemistry at Harvard, and shortly (1809) was appointed adjunct pro- fessor of chemistry and materia medica in Harvard College. He held this position until 1816 when he was made Erving professor of chemistry to suc- ceed Dr. Dexter. After 1824 Dr. Gor- ham's labors were confined to teach- ing in the Medical School in Boston, the corporation having decided that the Erving professors ought to live in Cambridge, and Dr. Gorham, being un- willing because it interfered with pri- vate practice, resigned his position in 1827.

During his professorship he publish- ed a system of chemistry in two vol- umes, 1819 and 1820. He wrote many papers for the " New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery," of which he was joint editor for about fifteen years. When this periodical was suc- ceeded in 1828 by the " Boston Medical and Surgical Journal" he contributed to the latter. For many years after 1810 he gave private courses of instruc- tion in chemistry in Boston.

He died of pneumonia March 27, 1829. Dr. James Jackson said of him: " During twenty years and more I know not that he has made an enemy." He was a popular and successful teach- er and practitioner. A lithograph por- trait of him taken from a painting in the possession of his descendants is now in the Boston Medical Library. W. L. B. Hiat. Harvard Sled. School, H. C. Ernest, 1906.

lios. Med. and Surg. Jour., vol. ii, 1 SJ'J. Hist. Har. Med. School, T. F. Harrington. P irtrait). A Sermon by J. (',. Palfrey, Boston, 1829.

Gome, John (1803-1855).

Among those things for which the fever-stricken have to be grateful is artificial refrigeration, invented by John Gorrie of Charleston and Apalach-