Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/299

 PEPPER

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PEPPER

efforts, the wards of the Pliiladelphia Hospital were opened to medical instruc- tion and he was soon after made con- sulting-surgeon there. He was one of the founders of the Children's Hospital and of the Gynecean Hospital, and was elected professor of obstetrics and dis- eases of women and children in 1863 in the I'niversity of Pennsylvania but retired from active work in 1888 with the title of emeritus professor. Dickinson College gave him her LL. D. in 1875.

His articles to medical journals in- cluded:

" Introductory Lecture to a Course on Obstetrics," 1859.

"A Discourse Commemorative . . . of Hugh L. Hodge," 1873.

"Treatment of Post-partum Hemor- rhage," 1879.

" A Lecture on the Mechanism and Treatment of Breech Presentations," 1874.

"On the Mechanism of Labor and the Treatment of Labor Based on the Mechanism," 1888.

There is a portrait in the Surg-geii. Lil>., Wash., D. C.

Pepper, William, Jr. (1S43-1S9S).

The re-formation of medical education, the re-organization of the University of Pennsylvania, the establishment of a great commercial museum and free library are deeds whose fruit is long enjoyed but the author soon forgotten. William Pepper, enthu.siastic, persistent, sophistical, set out in life with a breezy determination to effect necessary changes and did so.

He entered life well endowed, being the son of Dr. William and Sarah Piatt Pepper, of Philadelphia, who were rich enough to give the boy a good educa- tion at the University of Pennsylvania whence he graduated B. A., 182, and took his M. D. in 1864. Four months after this his father died, but had left the son a vivant ineradicable heritage of thinking and working. In 1865 he was elected a resident pnysician at the Penn- sylvania Hospital and on completion of service was apjjointed jiatliologist and

museum curator, a })osition held for four years. Morbid anatomy became his special study and in 1868 he was ap- pointed lecturer to the University and brought to the work rare skill and un- tiring energy; the descriptive catalogue of the Pathological Museum issued in 1869 by Dr. Pepper and Dr. Morton gives good evidence of this. But much-needed reforms effually engaged Pepper's atten- tion. How much he was instrumental in the removal of the university to new l)uildings in West Philadelphia was shown when the vice-provost at the inaugura- tion of Pepper as provost in 1881 said: "To him who has pleaded for mercy to the helpless sick as a lover would plead his own cause, who has touched with a master hand the springs of influence, to him public esteem has given the wreath as the moral architect of our hospital." "It is gratifying to think he lived to see it placed on a solid basis of success, with the maternity department splendidly organized, the Pepper Clinical Labora- tory, given in memory of his father, and the new Nurses' Home and the Agnew Wing in full operation. The plan of re- organization was not carried on without much bitterness; indeed, it looked at one time as though the faculty would split." "Then there was the long and painful controversy lasting almost five years over the proposition to again elevate the standard of medical education." But Pepper's plans were crowned with suc- cess, also further efforts in the organ- ization of the Association of American Physicians and the first Pan-American Medical Congress of which he was presi- dent. He also interested the govern- ments of the South American states in his commercial museum.

When in 1894 he resigned the provost- ship it was only to return to his first love, the scientific management and promotion of museums. In 1891 he had under- taken to establish the Archeological and Paleontological Museums and the Com- mercial and Economic Museum, his desire being to see in Pennsylvania "a great group which would serve to illustrate