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Society, and the St. Louis Obstetrical Society, and a fellow of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery.

Am. Med., Phihi.. 1904, vol. viii.

Med. Bull., Wash. Univ., St. Louia, 1904,

vol. iii.

St. Louis Cour. Med., 1904, vol. xxxi (port.).

Price, Mordecai (1844-1904).

The son of Joshua and Feby Moore Price; Mordecai graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1869 and became one of the most eminent abdom- inal surgeons and gynecologists of Phila- delphia and an operator of repute. He was born in Rockingham County, Vir- ginia, in 1844, and came to Philadelphia when a boy and was associated in his work with his brother, Dr. Joseph Price.

He died suddenly at his home in Phila- delphia from apoplexy, October 29, aged sixty.

Amer. Med., Phila., 1904, vol. viii. Buffalo Med. Jour., 1904, n. s., vol. xliv. J. Am. M. As3., Chicago, 1904, xliii. N. York Med. Jour., 1904, vol. Ixxx.

Pryor, William Rice (1858-1904).

William Rice Pryor, gynecologist, was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father, the Hon. Roger A. Pryor, was minister to Greece in 1855, and a justice of the Supreme Bench in New York.

Pryor was educated in Virginia, then entered Princeton University and in 1881 took his M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, being appointed assistant gynecologist in the New York Polyclinic in 1866 and afterwards, in 1895, professor of gyne- cology, retaining that position till his death, and was also on the staff of the Charity and St. Elizabeth's Hospital. He became a fellow of the American Gynecological Society in 1892.

His principal work consisted in im- proving the technic of abdominal hy- sterectomy, advocating more rational methods of treatment in puerperal infection, especially by the vaginal route whenever practicable and devising simple methods of exploring the bladder and

PURPLE

ureters. In 1903 appeared his "Text- book of Gynecology," written in his characteristic style, and which gives an excellent resume of his teaching.

His health began to fail in the spring of 1904 and he died August 25, 1904 in St. Vincent's Hospital.

j\Iy friendship with him grew warmer every year. He was a man of fine pres- ence and cordial manners, boundless enthusiasm. I continue to carry with me the recollection of his work, but above all the example he set us of absolute fearlessness and sturdy manliness.

His writings included:

"Septic Endometritis with Peritonitis and their Treatment," 1892.

"Mr. Lawson Tait and the Germ Theory of Disease," 1894.

" A New Method of Treating Adherent Retroposed Uteri," 1895.

"The Anatomy of the Endometrium and the Technic of Its Removal by Curretage," 1896.

"A Method of Examining the Pelvic Contents which Renders Exploratory Laparotomy Unnecessary," etc., 1896.

"Text-book of Gynecology," 1903, and a complete list, some fifty-eight, is given by his biographer Dr. J. Whitridge Williams in vol. xxx, 1905, of the Ameri- can Gynecological Society's Transactions.

J. W. W.

Buffalo Med. Jour., 1904-5, n. s., vol. xliv. Tr. Am. Gyn. Soc, Phila., 1905, vol. xxx (port.).

Tr. South. Sur. and Gyne. Ass., 1904, Bir- mingham, 1905, vol. xvii.

Purple, Samuel Smith (1822-1900).

There is an old proverb that "A shoe- maker should not look beyond his last," but fortunately for medical libraries there was one lad who worked with a book on the bench as he made shoes and who got up at four in the morning to study and looked far beyond his last to being, some day, a doctor.

This boy was Samuel Smith Purple, of English stock who came over in 1674. He was born to Lyman Smith and Minerva Sheffield Purple on June 24, 1822, at Lebanon, Madison County.