Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/35

 HOWE

man of affairs; a sane humanitarian; a tempered enthusiast. New work- ing machinery was necessary; he creat- ed it, instructing his assistants so thoroughly that later, when the Syden- ham School was established in England, a corps of Howe's former pupils were secured as teachers. He invented a novel form of raised letters for the books of the blind; and the first pro- duct of his press was a Bible which was published in 1843 — a book half the size, and produced at half the cost, of the Scriptures for the Blind then recently brought out in England.

To test upon himself continued blind- ness he went about for weeks with his eyes bandaged and used books for the bhnd.

His best known subject was Laura Bridgman, the famous blind deaf- mute, whom he found at Hanover, New Hampshire, brought to Boston, when she was a child of eight, and educated at the Perkins Institute. Dickens describes the girl. For forty- three years Howe was superintend- ent of the Perkins Institute. He ask- ed but was refused permission to work at the Hartford Asylum, but emerged triumphant from opposition in the founding of the Massachusetts School for Feeble-minded Children.

In 1869 Howe had an experience which took him back to the scenes of his youthful crusade of forty years before. The Cretan insurrection of '66 was becoming an international prob- lem. Greece was taking sides with Crete against Turkey. Howe organized a relief expedition to feed and clothe the destitute people, loaded a ship with supplies, visited Crete, and saved thousands from starvation. Then he visited the Greek mainland, and learned to his delight that he was not forgotten there. He returned with add- ed honors to America, and promptly was called to further public work. There was serious talk of annexing the islands of the sea. Santo Domin- go was their first object, and thither

19 HOY

went Howe with other forlorn com- missioners, by direction of Pres. Grant. The object was a failure, as we know.

Howe came home, but went back later to the island, seeking health and forwarding a commercial enterprise. This expedition was a double failure, and our philosopher returned to Bos- ton a broken man. His end was near. Much buffeting and novel strivings do not conduce to a peaceful old age. He died with little more ado, in his seventy-fifth year, on the ninth of Jan- uary, 1876.

He married Julia Ward, author of the famous " Battle Hymn of the Re- public," written in camp in 1861, and sharer in all his philanthropy. When travelling with her as a bride in Eng- land, they spent some time at a house where a young daughter, Florence, asked Dr. Howe's opinion as to whether it "would be a dreadful thing" to devote her hfe to nursing? The Cri- mean War and Florence Nightingale's work showed his wisdom in encourag- ing her. In May, 1910, the two women who met as girls celebrated respect- ively their ninetieth and ninty-first birthday.

J. G. M.

From Boston Medicine One Hundred Years Ago and a Notable Physician of the Last Century, by J. G. Mumford, M. D., Johns Hoplvins Hospital Bulletin, May, 1907.

Hoy, Philo Romayne (1816-1892).

Philo Romayne Hoy, who did much for his State as a natural scientist, was descended from an old Scotch family Hawey, one of whom fought at Flodden and was sold to an English family but eloped with his master's daughter to Ireland. Three of his male descendants escaped from a diffi- culty with a pubhc officer by coming over to the United States in 1756, and from these came the father of Philo, Cap. William Hoy, who gave his boy the best local education he could