Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/182

 MEIGS

first writer to call the attention of the medical profession to these sudden con- cretions of those concresible elements of the blood in the heart and great vessels." It may be said he did not follow his dis- covery into detail as regarded secondary deposits of emboli. He does not assert his claim as far as that.

As professor of obstetrics at Jefferson I\Iedical College he worked hard studying every thing connected with his branch, studying German until he was able to read with ease the most important Ger- man obstetricians, but in his work on '■ Woman, her Diseases and their Remed- ies" (1847) there is an amount of per- sonal experience seldom equalled, brought to bear on every point.

His books, all written in the midst of most fatiguing obstetrical and general medical practice and lecturing were a re- markable example of what the human machine can accomplish. Consistent with his idea that men ought to retire be- fore losing the power of judging their own fitness for duty he sent in his resignation when he was sixty-seven, a resignation unwillingly accepted by the dean, faculty and students, for, to the latter he had in teaching obstetrics so dealt with the science as ever to raise higher and higher the obedience of the classes to the highest law of manly respect for woman and to inspire the purest sentiments of man to- wards mother, sister or wife. He would portraj^ the responsibilities of the accou- cheur to the public; paint vividly the tragic scenes through which he had to wend his way and throw around them an atmosphere of romance and tenderness.

The doctor's robe cast off he donned that of the bibliophile and eagerly, joy- fully, spent his newly acquired leisure at his country house Hamanassett among his old books, adding thereunto other scientific pursuits and never losing touch with the big world oustide. Gradually faihng health with gastrodynia made him a not unwilling traveller, when, one night, the twenty-second of June 1869, he set out, without waking any more, on his last journey.

IGO MEIGS

His best known publications are:

" Woman, her Diseases and Remedies," 1847.

"Obstetrics, the Science and Art," 1849.

"Treatise on Acute and Chi'onic Dis- eases of the Neck of the Uterus," 1850.

" On the Nature and Treatment of Childbed Fevers," 1854.

"A Translation of a Treatise on the Diseases and Special Hygiene of Fe- males," by Colombat de L'Isere

His appointments numbered among others : fellowship of the College of Physi- cians Philadelphia and presidency from 1848-1855. Professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in Jefferson Medical School, 1841.

D. W.

Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1849, vol. xl. Proc. Am. Phil. Soc, Phila., 1873, vol. xiii. Tr. Coll. Phys. Phila., 1872, n. s., vol. iv. (J. F. Meigs.)

Memoir of Dr. Charles D. Meigs. J. Forsyth Meigs, Phila., 1876.

Meigs, James Aitken (1829-1879).

For his work during nearly a quarter of a century as one of the leading men of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila- delphia, James A. Meigs is chiefly remem- bered. He was born in Philadelphia, July 31, 1829, of English and Scotch an- cestry and after schoolboy life at Mt. Vernon Grammar School and the Central High School he began to study medicine under Drs. F. G. Smith and J. M. Allen. He matriculated from Jefferson Medical College in 1851 and settling in Philadel- phia, practised there until his death. In 1868 he entered the faculty of the Jeffer- son Medical College with a dissertation on the "Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces " a subject he discussed with mast- erly ability. He had for a long time made a specialty of the study of physiol- ogy and natural sciences and was well fitted for his department. " A ripe schol- ar, with a command of language the off- spring of a tenacious memory and a well disciplined mind he stood before his class the peer of any member of the fac- ulty, wisely confining himself in his teach-