Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/491

 GRISSOM

GROSS

and False Experts" — a controversy with William A. Hammond, surgeon- general, United States Army.

He married, January, 1S66, Maria Anna Bryan, of Brunswick, North Carolina and had two sons and three daughters.

Dr. Grissom was a very heavy man, of fine physique, tall and well-propor- tioned, extremely strong and active. His complexion was dark; his hair, jet black; his eyes, steel-gray, clear, and penetrating. His manner was quick and animated, except when deciding im- portant psychological questions. Then he became extremely slow, thought- ful, and methodical. He was a noted entertainer and converser, and made many friends. He was a man of varied interests, and widely read in history, philosophy, poetry, fiction, and general as well as medical science and an incessant student of the Bible.

He was one of those who "toil ter- ribly," and mental breakdown was the inevitable result. The wonder was that this came to him so late. Not long before the close of his life he presented, at times, certain symptoms of paresis. In this enfeebled mental condition he began to betake himself to cocaine, morphine, and various other drugs. On a Sunday morning (July 27, 1902) when the church-bells, which he had always very much loved to hear, were ringing, he died as the result of his own act. At the time he was sitting on the front porch at the house of his namesake son, in Washington, District of Columbia. Before the unsuspect- ing relatives could intervene the doctor had drawn a pistol, placed it to his head a little above the right ear, and fired. He was hurried to tin; Casualty Hos- pital, but died inside of an hour.

T. 11. 8.

The Alumni Register (U. of Pcnna.), Oct.,

1902.

New England Medical Monthly, vol. iii,

1883-4 (Eugene Grissom, M. D.).

Jour. Am. Med. Assn., Aug. 16, 1902, vol.

xxxix.

The Raleigh Post, Raleigh, N. C, Aug. 7, 1902.

Gross, Samuel D. (1S05-1884).

Many boys have an idea of what they want to be, but few are so fixedly determined as young Samuel Gross who, when a mere child, made up his mind to be a doctor. When this de- termination seemed well in shape he was reading one day about a man re- quiring operation who was sent by his physician into Philadelphia. There- upon young Gross formed another resolution — to be so good a doctor that cases should not have to be sent to other and more prominent men. In 1884, both resolutions faithfully and efficiently kept, Samuel Gross went content- edly from this world. He came into it on July 8, 1S05, the son of Philip and Juliana Brown Gross, living then at Easton, Pennsylvania. As a lad he went to the village schoolhouse, but when seventeen found his German — he being of that nationality — better than his English; his lack of the classics painfully apparent, so, leaving the country doctor under whom he had begun to study, he went to Wilkes- Barre Academy and the High School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and finally became a pupil under Dr. George Mc- Clellan, professor of surgery in Jefferson Medical College. Graduating thence in 1828 he entered on practice, employ- ing all his leisure in close study and in translating French and German medical works. In 1S30 this ambitious young writer wrote a volume on the "Anat- omy, Physiology and Diseases of the Bones and Joints."

His income at this time from pa- tients was only about S300 a year, yet this level-headed young doctor married a girl left a widow at twenty with one child. It was uphill work and the young people finally returned to Ea ton where a good practice was acquired. In 1833 he went to Cincinnati as demon- strator of anatomy in Ohio Medical College and after two years became professor of pathology and anatomy in Cincinnati Medical College. 1839 saw his celebrated " il Path-