Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/512

 HARE J

Among these papers are four read before the society and published in the trans- actions: "On the Early Diagnosis of Ec- topic Pregnancy and the Best Method of Treatment," 1SS8 ; " Rules to be Followed in the Effort to Prevent Mural Abscesses, Abdominal Sinuses, and Ventral Hernia after Laparotomy," 1S90; "Secondary Hemorrhage after Ovariotomy: Can We Prevent It?" 1S92; "Total Extirpation of the Uterus and Appendages for Diseases of These Organs," 1894.

In the first-mentioned paper he took a firm stand in upholding the use of elec- tricity for the purpose of destroying the life of the fetus in the early months of ectopic gestation.

During the last two years of his life Dr. Hanks showed the effects of constant and exhausting work. In 1900 his condition became more serious, and well-marked symptoms of actue nephritis made their appearance, which terminated his life on November IS.

J. E. J.

Tr. Am. Gynec. Soc, 1901, vol. xxvi.

Albany M. Annals, 1901, vol xxii (W. C.

Spalding).

Am. Gyn. and Obstet. Jour., N. Y., 1900, vol. xvii.

J. Am. Med. Ass., Chicago, 1900, vol. xxxv. Med. Rec, N. Y., 1900, vol. lviii. Med. News, N. Y., 1900. lxxvii.

Hare, Robert (1781-1858).

In an old volume of the " American Medical Recorder" (1820) is an elaborate instrument called a calorimotor which like all inventions was hailed by some as "new, " by others as an adaptation from foregoing inventions. But whatever the real merits of the calorimotor, none re- fused praise to its author Robert Hare, who was born in Philadelphia January 17, 1781, the son of Robert and Margaret (Willing) Hare.

After leaving school he went into his father's brewery but there was too much chemistry and too little commercialism in his composition. He studied the compo- sition of malt liquors and invented a barrel which would resist an extra ac- cumulation of carbonic acid gas, then at

1 HARE

twenty entered the Chemical School of Pennsylvania University where, with Dr. Benjamin Silliman he studied under Woodhouse. Yale in 1806 and Harvard in 1816 bestowed on him an honorary M. D. and he was elected professor of chem- istry and natural philosophy in William and Mary College in 1818, where he stayed until called to the same chair in Pennsylvania University in 1S19. Pre- vious to this, in 1S11 he had married Miss Harriet Clark.

In 1S01 he contrived the oxy-hy- drogen blow-pipe and gained the Rumford medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1803 the American Philosophical Society heard his paper on his apparatus for fusing large quantities of lime, mag- nesium and platinum. He also im- proved the voltaic pile and was the author of a process for denarcotizing laudanum; toxicology owes to him the method of determining minute quantities of opium in solution. One other subject to which he gave much thought was "Salt Radical Theory." A member of the American Philosophical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Science, he contributed largely to their journals. Curiously, in later life he became a convert to spiritualism and supported these ideas by lectures and writings, and under the nom de plume of Eldred Graysen wrote a series of moral essays which appeared in the "Portfolio."

His splendid apparatus, nearly all his own invention, he gave to the Smithsonian Institute and the entire collection perished in that portion of the building destroyed by fire. The description of his working apparatus had grown to a bulky volume before he left the university. On May 15, 1S5S, he died at the age of seventy- seven. D. W.

Hist, of the Med. Dept. of Penn. Univ., Dr.

Joseph Carson, Phila., 1869.

Universities and their Sons (Penn.), Boston,

1902.

A memoir on some new modifications of

galvanic apparatus, etc, R. Hare. The