Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/226

 MOSHER

19S

MOSHER

nitrous oxide tried and had experimented with sundry substances. C. F. Jackson, the chemist, had encouraged him to employ sulphuric ether which he did by tests on animals, himself and one patient. The achievement was an admirable piece of scientific work for which the man received scant reward. Though he did not discover anesthesia, the profession owes a debt of gratitude to him for sec- onding the discoverer and risking his reputation and his patient in an unex- plored field. Warren died in 1856, having Uved to see his son J. Mason Warren associated with himself at the Massachusetts General Hospital."

Morton had his diploma from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and entered into dental partnership with Dr. Horace Wells to practise in Boston. In 1844 he married Elizabeth Whitman of Farmington, Connecticut, and that same year studied medicine at Harvard Med- ical School.

His writings included:

"Morton's Letheon (cautioning those who attempt to infringe on his legal rights)," Boston, 1846.

"Remarks on the Proper Mode of Administering Sulphuric Acid by In- halation," 1847.

"On the Physiological effects of Sul- phuric Ether," 1850.

Surgical Memoirs. J. G. Mamford, 1908.

Trials of a Public Benefactor, N. P. Rice,

1859 (port.).

History of Medicine in the United States.

F. R. Packard, 1901.

Historical Material for the biog. of W. T. G.

Morton. Benj. Perley Poore, Wash., 1856.

Practitioner, London, 1896, vol. Ivii (port.).

Mosher, Jacob Simmons (1834-1883).

Dr. Mosher was born in Coeymans, New York, March 19, 1834. His father of English, his mother of German descent.

In 1853 he entered Rutgers College, where he displayed most remarkable ability; but, owing to various circum- stances, he left that institution near the close of his junior year. Shortly after- wards he accepted the position of princi-

pal of the Public School No. 1, at Albany, but in 1862, entered the Albany Medical College, from which he graduated in 1863, having made a record in scholarship which has rarely been equalled since. His thesis (on "Diabetes") was original and profound. While still in his student days, he became instructor in chemistry and experimental philosophy in the Albany Academy, and in 1865 was advanced there from the instructorship to the professorship of the same subjects.

1864 saw him surgeon to the Army of the Potomac, and later assistant medical director for the state of New York.

The professorship of chemistry and medical jurisprudence in the Albany Medical College became his in 1865, and, in the same year, the registrarship and Ubrarianship.

To recount the various services of Dr. Mosher would be an almost never-ending task. The operations performed, though many and skillful, constituted only a very small fraction of his service to mankind.

He married, December 30, 1863, Emma S. Montgomery, of Albany, and had four sons and one daughter.

Besides being a man of active hfe and wide-ranging sympathies, he was an expert in botany, as well as in medicine. A bibliophile, also, he possessed a won- derful library of rare and curious vol- umes, and was an authority on prints and etchings, of which he had a very large collection. He was also an expert bibliopegist. As an expert witness, he was unsurpassable and yet, busy as he was, his time was ever at the disposal of his friends and the poor.

He died on the morning of August 13, 1883. For several days he had been complaining of pain about his heart, but neither his friends nor himself had sus- pected anything serious. In the morning, his attendant could not rouse him by the loudest of knocking, and the doctor was found in his bed, dead. A book, one of his cherished volumes, was tightly grasp- ed in his hand. It is related by an inti- mate friend (and the anecdote is well illustrative of Dr. Mosher's character)