Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/511

 HANKS 3

As a boy he went to the Orange County, the West Randolph, Vermont, and the Royalston, Massachusetts, academies. He taught in the last-named academy and also in the public schools, like many young New England boys who have been compelled to rely upon their own efforts in procuring a professional education, and in 1S59 he was studying medicine under Prof. Walter Carpenter, of Burlington, Vermont, and attending lectures at the University of Vermont. In 1861 he grad- uated from the Albany Medical College. One year was spent in the Albany City Hospital, and early in 1862 he received his commission as assistant surgeon in the thirtieth regiment, New York Vol- unteers. After serving in the field for one year and participating in several of the principal battles fought by the Army of the Potomac — notably those of Fred- ericksburg, under Gen. Burnside, and Chancellorsville, under Gen. Hooker — he was ordered to Washington, and for a considerable time was in charge of the Armory Square Hospital.

Returning to Royalston, Massachu- setts, after being mustered out he prac- tised in that place until 186S, when he went to New York to attend lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He decided to settle in New York, and in 1872 was appointed one of the attending gynecologists to the Demilt Dispensary.

Dr. Hanks' opportunities at the Demilt Dispensary gave to him the stimulus for work in the field of gynecology, and it was not surprising that he obtained the position of assistant surgeon in the Woman's Hospital in 1875, and that he was promoted to attending surgeon in 1889. The writer well remembers the first laparotomy performed by Dr. Hanks. It was for a medium-sized ovarian tumor in the person of a young Irish girl living on First Avenue, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Streets. He will never forget the doctor's great anxiety and sense of responsibility, when the opera- tion was completed, lest the result might not be favorable, and the joking way in which he said he would lay it all to his

! HINKS

assistant if anything unfavorable happen- ed. The case recovered, and the doctor was a happy man. The incident shows one of Dr. Hanks' traits very forcibly — his intense feeling, sometimes almost amounting to doubt, as to whether he was doing all that he could in every individual case.

Dr. Hanks delivered the course of lec- tures on obstetrics at Dartmouth Medical College in 1878. In 1885 he was chosen as one of the professors of diseases of women in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, and held the position until 1898, when failing health compelled him to resign.

Dr. Hanks was a consulting gynecolo- gist to the Northeastern Dispensary, Judson Dispensary, the Newark Hospital for Women, St. Joseph's Hospital, of Yonkers, and several other out-of-town hospitals. He was a member of the American Gynecological Society and of the British Gynecological Association, the New York Academy of Medicine (of which he was vice-president for three years), the New York State Medical Soci- ety, the Medical Society of the County of New York (of which he was president for two years), and the New York Obstetric- al Society. He was also an honorary member of the Boston Gynecological Society.

In 1898 the University of Rochester conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D.

Dr. Hanks was twice married; to Miss Martha L. Fisk, whom he wedded in 1864 and who died in 1868, leaving one daughter. The daughter died in New York in 1874. His second wife, in 1S72, was Miss Julia Dana Godfrey, of Keene, New Hampshire. Mrs. Hanks survived him with two daughters, Linda Tracy and Emily Grace Hanks.

For one who was so actively engaged in practice, Dr. Hanks contributed many ex- cellent papers to the medical press. His Btyle was forceful, clear, and concise, and always carried the conviction thai 1"' had thoroughly thought out and fully master- ed the subjects upon which he wrote.