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 McGUIRE

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McGUIRE

McGuire, Hugh Holmes (lSOl-1875).

He was born in Frederick County, Vir- ginia, on November 6, 1801, and was the son of Edward McGuire descendant from Thomas MorMcGuire Lord or Prince of Fermanagh, Ireland, who was born in 1400.

He read medicine with Dr. Robert Barton of Winchester, attended lectures in the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated therefrom in 1822, the subject of his thesis being "Tetanus."

He was a member of the Medical So- ciety of Virginia. Settling in Winchester to practise, he devoted himself specially to surgery and during his life did most of the surgical work in his section. He is said to have been the first Virginian to operate for cataract, doing the couching or need- ling operation with a needle made under his direction by a mechanic, and the first in America to operate for club-foot. He cut directly down upon the tendons, sev- ering all the tissues covering them — a method which has been revived in recent years. A skillful lithotomist, too, he operated for stone more than thirty times without a death. Thus successful as a surgeon, possessing both judgment and skill, he acquired a national reputa- tion which led to his being called to the chair of surgery in schools in Philadel- phia, New Orleans and Louisville — calls declined, however, as he preferred the quieter life of a country town and work among his own people.

When the Medical School of the Valley of Virginia was established at Winchester in 1826, he was made professor of anat- omy and physiology and filled the chair until the school was disbanded. Upon its revival in 1850 he became dean and professor of surgery, and so continued to be until it ceased to exist on the outbreak of Civil War, when, despite advanced age, he entered the Confederate Army as sur- geon, and served through the entire war.

He married Anne EHza Moss and two of the sons. Hunter and William P., be- came physicians. He died at Winchester in 1875.

R. M. S.

An unpublished biographical sketch by J. M. Toner, M. D.

A steel engraving and photographs of Dr. McGuire are in the possession of his son, Dr. W. P. McGuire, of Winchester, Va.

McGuire, Hunter Holmes (1835-1900).

He was born in Winchester, Virginia, the son of Dr. Hugh Holmes, a surgeon of note, and the founder of the Medical Col- lege at Winchester, Virginia, and Anne Eliza Moss McGuire, his wife.

First he studied medicine at the Win- chester Medical College, graduating in 1855, and in 1856 matriculating at both the University of Pennsylvania and at the Jefferson Medical College, but was soon taken ill and had to return home.

In 1857 he was elected professor of anatomy in the college at Winchester, but desiring greater clinical advantages, he resigned the position after one session and returned to Philadelphia. The in- tense sectional feeling aroused by the in- surrection of John Brown in 1859 lead to the calling of a mass meeting of the South- ern students then in Philadelphia, at which it was determined that they should return South. The large majority went to Richmond and entered the College there, the remainder going to New Or- leans. Having saved some money from the fees received from his pupils in the quiz classes, he paid the traveling expenses to Richmond of all the students who were unable to pay it themselves. The num- ber of these southern students was some three hundred. Dr. McGuire, who led the move, completed the course of lectures in Richmond and received a second de- gree. He then went to New Orleans and there established a quiz class, but the secession of South Carolina soon after convinced him that war was inevitable, and he returned home and offered his services to his state.

When Virginia seceded he volunteered as a private soldier in Company F, Second Virginia Regiment, and marched to Har- per's Ferry. Soon after he was commis- sioned surgeon in the Virginia forces, and in May, 1861, he was made medical di- rector of the Army of the Shenandoah,