Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/168

 MARCH

146

MARCH

"The Intermittent Form of Malarial Pneumonia." (Ibid., vol. iii.)

"A Treatise on the Phj'siological and Therapeutic Action of the Sulphate of Quinine," 1877.

"Malarial Hematuria." ("Transactions of the Medical Society of Virginia," 1886.)

At the time of his death he was engaged in the preparation of an exhaustive work entitled "A History of Fevers from the Earliest Times."

A phototype portrait of Dr. Hanson illustrates the memorial sketch of Dr. S. S. Satchwell. R. M. S.

Memorial of Prof. Otis Frederick Manson, M. D.. S. S. Satchwell, A. M., M. D. pamphlet. Va. Med. Monthly, March, 1888.

March, Alden (1795-1869).

Alden March, noted as an operator and an inventor of surgical appHances, won his way to fame although handicapped by impecuniosity and adverse circumstances.

An ancedote will best illustrate his want of opportunity and his determination to succeed in his profession. One day, as he was carrying a common soap box, con- taining some anatomical preparations with which he was making himself thor- oughly acquainted by most patient and minute application, a fellow-student re- marked to him : " March, it is no use for you to try to make a distinguished man in your profession, since thousands, who have had far better advantages, have tried, and have failed to accompUsh their object." He said: "I leave it for others to decide as to the correctness of this prophecy."

He was born in the town of Sutton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, Sep- tember 20, 1795. His ancestors were of English origin, and settled in Massa- chusetts, so long since that their descend- ants became identified with the early history of that state. The name of March first appears in the history of the town of Newbury, Massachusetts (now Newbury port), as early as 1653.

Dr. March spent his early years on his father's farm, working in the busy season and going to school in winter. "UTien

nineteen years of age, by the death of his father, the charge of the homestead de- volved upon him for about one year. In the winter of 1817 he taught a writing school at Hoosick, Rensselaer County, and also spent a part of the summer in quarrying and cutting slate stone for the roofing of houses.

His brother. Dr. David March, an army surgeon, suggested to him the study of medicine, and under this brother he began to study Latin, Greek and medicine. In 1818 and 1819 he attended medical lec- tures on anatomy and surgery at Boston, and graduated M. D. at Brown Univer- sity September 6, 1820. Shortly after receiving his diploma he visited Cam- bridge, Washington County, where an elder brother resided. While here he performed his first surgical operation, which was for the remedy of that de- formity known as hare-lip.

As an operator he was quick, dexter- ous, cautious, bold and successful. There is no record of his surgical operations during ten years of his professional life. Yet those of which there is record num- ber seven thousand one hundred and twenty-four.

In the " Transactions of the American Medical Association of 1853," on pages 505 and 506, we find in connection with his essay on morbus-coxarius, mention of an invention designed by him, to fulfill a very important indication in the treat- ment of this disease.

Dr. Bryan, professor of surgery in the Philadelphia College of Medicine, in speaking of Prof. March's essay on im- proved forceps for hare-lip operation, says: "It embodied so much that is val- uable that we think this production of one of the most distinguished surgeons of New York ought to be made to assume a permanent form, and be em- bodied in the standard works."

In 1860 Dr. March also invented instru- ments for the removal of dead bone ; and, in 1867, employed a new method for re- moving urinary calculi.

Dr. March, it is beUeved, dehvered the first course of lectures ever given in New