Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/364

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hi' was doiin oi llic faculty; lie was a inoniber of the Medical Society and .Medical Association of the District of Columbia, and on the Committee Id revise the Pharmacopana of the United States, of which latter he was secretary. lie was consulting physician to Provi- dence Hospital, to the Central Free Dis- pensary and the Washington Eye and Ear Infirmary. His " Comi)endiuiii of Materia .Medica and TheraiHMitics," Pliila- delphia, 1869, was translated into .Japa- nese at Tokio in 1S72.

A.ssiduous devotion to duty may no doul)t be accepted as one of the causes of his death. Uremic coma and convul- sions from Bright "s Disease were the final symptoms. He was much esteemed as a useful citizen and had many personal friends when he died on February 22. 1879. D. S. L.

Minutes of Medical Society. ]). ('., Februar.\- 24, 1879: Atkinson'.-; Physicians and Sur- geons. 1S78; National Medical Review. February, 1879; .\ppleton's Biog., 1889. v. Transactions. American Medical .V.ssociatiou. 1879.

Ring, Charles Augustus (1854-1907).

Charles Augustus Ring, the son of Oren and Elizabeth Sewell Ring, was born in Portland, Maine, February 16, 1854, the eldest of three sons, all of whom became physicians. While a mere lad of sixteen, he enlisted for the Civil ^^'ar as a drummer boy with the Twenty-fifth Maine Regiment, but was stricken with typhoid fever and soon returned. He entered Bowdoin College and graduated with the class of 1868. Being too young to study medicine then, he worked with the Coast Svirvey and after a year first became a medical student, and gradu- ated from the Medical School of Maine in 1872. Taking additional courses later he also got a degree from the Columbia Medical College in 1873. He was soon chosen to be lecturer of chemistry and afterwards of obstetrics in the Portland School for Medical Instruction, and finally professor on obstetrics in the Medical School of Maine. He was also distin- guished for his fine work as visiting

physician to the Maine General Hospital. Resigning from his position owing to his ))oor health, the directors appointed him oi)stetrician of the hospital as a proof of his demonstrated skill in this branch of tuedicine. A very modest man; once in his life he sj)ent much time in equipping himself as a dermatologist but never took the least trouble to inform the profession of his intentions, or to advertise his mastery of that sp(>ciality.

C'harles Augustus Ring was more of a pcMsonality as a [ihysician than as a literary light in medicine. He did not often talk at the debates of the Maine Medical Association of which he was long a useful memi)er, he did not write many papers, but those for the .\ssociation as well as for the Portland Clinical Society were uni(|ue from a diag- nostic point of view. As a teacher he was straightforward, clear and distinct in his remarks and as an obstetrician won great renown.

He married, December .']!, 1844, Eliza- beth Miller Collier, of Cincinnati, Ohio, but left no children.

About a year before his death. Ring developed the first symptoms of Bright's disease, which carried him slowly to the grave. He suffered greatly at the last, iiut bore his illness patiently. His sight also became affected from intercurrent degeneration of the retina, and towards the end of his life he could hardly dis- tinguish light from dai'kness. The faces of those w'ho were dear to him were lost to his view.

He died suddenly July 8, 1903, leaving the memory of a charming and interesting man. J. A. S.

Trans. Maine Med. .\.s.soc., 1904, xv (port.) F. H. G.

Rives, Landon Cabell (1790-1870).

Landon Cabell Rives was born in Nelson County, Virginia, October 24, 1790; the son of Landon C. Rives, and graduated from William and Mary Col- lege, Virginia, receiving his M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1821.

After graduation he practised in his