Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/245

 NICKLES

21<

NORRIS

medical chemistry. In 1874 he was given the chair of materia medica and therapeutics. This he held until 1898, when he was made professor emeritus, and retired from active teaching. He was known among the students as " dear old Sammy Nickles." His life was epito- mized by his clinical assistant, Dr. T. W. Hays, as follows: "Attention to duty, honesty, conscientiousness." In 1885 he became president of the Academy of Medicine of Cincinnati. While in active practice he contributed to it a great many excellent papers. He was a voluminous WTiter. In 1868 he translated the second German edition of Emil Siegle's "Treatment of Diseases of the Throat and Lungs. " The following articles in the " Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences" are from his pen:

"Cholagogues," vol. iii.

"Diuretics," vol. iii.

"Emetics," vol. iii.

"Expectorants," vol. iv.

"Hypnotics," vol. iv.

"Laxatives," vol. v.

"Cathartics," vol. vi.

"Tonics," vol. vii.

Of his contributions to periodical liter- ature the "Index Medicus" lists the following:

1881. "The Modus Operandi of Cod- liver Oil." ("Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic," vol. vi.)

"Modern Therapeutics," ibid., vol. vii.

1884. "DigitaUs, its Pathological Ac- tion." ("American Journal Medical Sci- ences," n. s., vol. Iviii.)

1892. "Calomel as a Diuretic." ("Ohio Medical Journal," vol. iii.)

On August 8, 1858, .he married AUce Bilmer, of Cincinnati, and had six children; Mrs. Nickles died December 27, 1869.

Only two children survived their father. On March 15, 1871, Dr. Nickles married Mrs. CaroUne (Dick) Weglan, and had two more children. Dr. Nickles died April 21, 1908, the result, primarily, of an attack of influenza in the latter part of January.

A. G. D.

Norcom, William Augustus Blount (1836-

1881).

He was born in Edenton, May 24, 1836, the youngest son of Dr. James Norcom, a learned physician of that place. His early education was at home with his father but he afterwards went to the Edenton Academy. He did not receive a college course and graduated in medicine from the University of Penn- sylvania in 1857, afterwards settling in his native town. When the Civil War broke out he was appointed assistant surgeon in the hospital at Petersburg, Virginia.

He was president of the Medical Society of North Carolina in 1874, and a member of the Board of Examiners from 1872 to 1878. His presidential address on "Ma- larial Hemorrhagic Fever" was a valuable contribution to the literature of that dis- ease. Another of his comprehensive papers was "The Modern Treatment of Acute Internal Inflammation" (1868). Dr. Norcom was particularly noted for his scholarly attainments and the won- derful powers of memory. Page after page of his favorite authors he could repeat by heart. He lived in an atmos- phere of medical events and was said to be more enthusiastic about medicine than ardent in its practice. He died in St. Vincent's Hospital, Baltimore, February 28, 1881. H. A. R.

Transactions Medical Society of N. C, ISSl. Personal communications from Miss L. T. Rodman and Dr. Richard Dillard.

Norris, William Fisher (1839-1901).

William Fisher Norris, born in Phila- delphia, January 6, 1839, was the son of Dr. George W. Norris, an eminent surgeon. The son took the degree in arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1857, and the medical one in 1861, afterwards spending eighteen months at the Pennsyl- vania Hospital as resident physician. Some phases of his character are well illustrated by a stirring episode occurring during his residency, which he related to me many years later. Hearing an unusual commotion in one of the wards,