Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/505

 HAMILTON

HAMILTON

ical Society, constituting three volumes, illustrated with caricatures by the pen of Dr. Hamilton himself. He is truly depicted therein as " Loquacious Scribble, Esq'r." On May 29, 1747, he married Margaret Dulany, daughter of the Hon. Daniel Dulany, of Annapolis, "a well accomplished and agreeable young lady with a handsome fortune."

There lately appeared (1907) a re- markable diary of a journey of 1,624 miles made in 1774 by Hamilton to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and back to Annapolis. It is called the "Itiner- arium."

Hamilton bore letters of introduction to several eminent physicians, but he found the profession in a very low state, many of the doctors whom he met, especially in New York, being mere "drunken roysterers." He attended several meetings of a "Physical" (Med- ical) " Club," at Boston, which was presided over by the celebrated Dr. William Douglass, a Scotchman of learn- ing, but a "cynical mortal," so full of himself that he could see no merit in anyone else. At these meetings they "drank punch, smoked tobacco and talked of sundry physical matters." One subject of discussion with his medical colleagues was the microscope, in which he shows himself an adept, having "seen Leewenhoek," the great Dutch micro- scopist, " and some of the best hands upon that subject."

His literary tastes are shown by his buying and reading a "Homer" in Bos- ton, and by his allusions to current and classical literature. He also takes the "Physical News," a medical journal published at Edinburgh.

Regarding the history of the manu- script, it was given by the doctor shortly after his return to an Italian gentleman who visited him at Annapolis, and was carried by the latter to Italy. In course of time it was sold and thus got into the book stores of London, where it was found and purchased by Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis. Recognizing its historical value, this gentleman printed

a small edition at his own expense for private distribution. Hamilton died on May 11, 1756.

From "Old Maryland," 190S, iv.

Hamilton, Frank Hastings (1813-1886).

He was the second son of Calvin and Lucinda Hamilton, born Septem- ber 10, 1813, in the hamlet of Wilming- ton, Windham County, Vermont. He came from ordinary people, his father being a farmer and owing a line of stages which ran between Bennington and Brattleboro, across the mountains.

In 1816 his parents moved to Sche- nectady, New York, where he studied at the Lancasterian School and "The Academy;" in July, 1827, he entered the sophomore class of Union College, from which institution he graduated in the Arts. He then studied under Dr. John G. Morgan, of Auburn. During this period he kept bright his anatom- ical knowledge by painting in oil nearly every part of the human form. A full course of lectures at the Fairfield College of Physicians and Surgeons, in 1831, a license from the Cayuga Country Medical Censors, and a formal graduation in medicine from the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in 1835, gave him the needed authority for his life work. "About this time," says the late Dr. Samuel W. Francis, "young Hamilton was appointed demonstrator of ana- tomy, made all the dissections, lectured to attentive students, and subsequently, when Dr. Morgan was called to the professor's chair at Geneva Medical College, in accordance with the wishes of those around him he delivered a full course of lectures on anatomy and surgery. He continued to lecture until the year 1838. On January 23, 1839, he assumed the chair of surgery in the Western College of Physicians and Surgeons, and then again, August 10, 1840, took a corresponding position in the Geneva Medical College. Here he remained for nearly four years, when, his ambition once more getting the bet- ter of him, he gave up his chair and went