Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/30

 IIOUC.HTOX

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HOUGHTON

11, 1S32. His mother moved to Walpole. New Hampshire, wlicn he was a boy, ami there he gained his preparation for Harvard College, grad- uatinp with the class of 1S53. Enter- ing tlic Harvard Medical School, he gnuiuatod in 1S56. After serving as house pvipil in the Massachusetts Gen- enil Hospital he went abroad and studied medicine in Paris for nearly a year, returning to settle in Water- town, Massachusetts, where he spent his Hfe practising.

On June G, ISOO he married Helen Augusta Stickney, of Watertown.

He was a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society from 1856 until his death from cerebral apoplexy, May 14, IS'.U, also president of the Society in 1SS2. Among other offices held he was president of the Obstetrical Society of Boston, of the Middlesex South Medical Society, first president of the Massachusetts Medico-Legal So- ciety, post surgeon at the United States Arsenal at Watertown, and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He contributed several papers to the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," among them "A Peculiar Condition of the Cervix Uteri which is found in Certain Cases of Dystocia."

Outside his medical activities he was an ardent Christian.

W. L. B.

Bos. Med. and Surg. Jour., vol. cxxvi.

Houghton, Douglas (1809-1845).

Douglas Houghton, a scientific ex- plorer, was born in Troy, New York, September 21, 1809. His American progenitors migrated from Bolton, Lancashire, England, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a lawyer in Troy, New York, but in 1812 he moved to Fredonia, Chatau- qua County, New York, where Doug- las's early education was obtained at home and in Fredonia Academy. In 1829 he graduated from Rensselaer Polji;echnic Institute, Troy, New York, and in 1829 assisted the professor of

chemistry and natural history in the same school. Meantime he had been studying medicine, and in 1830 was licensed to practise by the Chautauqua County (New York) Medical Society. On the recommendation of Prof. Eaton he gave a course of scientific lectures in Detroit. This made him hosts of admirers and friends, so that he settled in Detroit and began med- ical practice with unusual success. He practised dentistry as well as med- icine and surgery. The writer saw a tooth filled more than fifty years be- fore by Dr. Houghton, as good as when introduced. In 1831-32, as physician to II. R. Schoolcraft's expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi and the copper region of Lake Superior, Dr. Houghton gathered materials for two reports to the Secretary of War. One gave a list of species and localities of plants collected; the other discussed the existence of copper deposits in the geological basin of Lake Superior. These reports gave him a wide reputa- tion as a scientist of unusual ability. In 1837 a small appropriation was made for a geological survey of Michigan and Dr. Houghton made state geolo- gist, also in 1839, professor of chemis- try, mineralogy and geology in the University of Michigan, being the sec- ond professor appointed. (He never taught regularly in this chair, Dr. S. H. Douglas doing the work.) In Michigan there have been named after him a city, a county, a lake, and in Detroit a public school. Dr. Hough- ton is described as five feet five inches tall; feet and hands small and delicate- ly formed; a large well developed head; prominent nose; eyes blue, sheltered under light but massive eyebrows, bright and at times merry.

He married on September 11, 1833, Harriet Stevens, of Fredonia, New York, who with two daughters sur- vived him.

On October 13, 1845, writes a friend named Peter McFarland, Dr. Douglas Houghton left Eagle Harbor, Lake