Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/391

 SAYRE

347

SAYRE

Anatomico et Botanico Regio insigni, qui eximiam hanc plantam pro summa qua me complectitur bene volentia e Canada misit." Linnaeus in his Genera Plan- tarum, 1753, established the genus ascribing it to Tournefort. The latter (on pp. 37, 38) gives great credit to Dr. Jean Antoine Sarrazin for his magnifi- cent edition of Dioscorides and his notes on plants. As no initials are given to this Dr. Sarrazin, many writers have assumed that Dr. Jean Antoine is the one meant. But he was born in Lyons, France, April 25, 1547, and died there Nov. 29, 1598, ten years before Tourne- fort was born. It was imjiossible, there- fore, for him to have sent the plant to Tournefort.

The Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixvii. Montreal M. J., June, 1908 (M. Charlton). "Nicholas" erroneously given for "Michel." Biog. Lex. der Hervorr., Aerzte, vol. v. Enclo. Britt., vol. xiii, ed., 1878.

Sayre, Lewis Albert (1820-1900).

Lewis A. Sayre seems to have regarded the world as a valley of dry bones and himself specially commissioned as a re- creator. His collection of writings con- cerns all things osseous; tho the writer himself is full of warm throbbing interest in all the ways of osteological reformation and improvement. He was born Feb- ruary 29, 1820, at Bottle Hill, now Madi- son, New Jersey, the son of Archibald and Martha Sayre, his father a prosperous farmer. As a little boy, Lewis was pre- pared for school by John T. Derthick at Madison for the Wantage Seminary at Deckertown, Sussex County. From there he went to Lexington, Kentucky, graduating at Transylvania University in 1839. Soon after he settled in New York as pupil of Dr. David Green, graduating M. D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1842 and straightway forging ahead and doing operations generally considered the work of matured surgeons. Appointed pro- sector of surgery in the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons he, as early as 1841, did an operation for strabismus which

had only been twice before attempted. Having charge of Willard's clinic he opened an abscess connected with chronic disease of the knee-joint and propounded the principle then new of opening by free incision all joints where there is suppura- tion with destruction of synovial mem- brane and erosion of the articular carti- lage. Some severe criticisms did not deter him from firmly declaring similar cases not necessarily constitutional see- ing local treatment and free incisions produced so marked improvement. In 1852 he exsected the head and neck of the femvu- and a portion of the acet- abulum with perfect success. When Bellevue Hospital Medical College, of which he was an organizer, was inaugu- rated, Sayre was given the chair of orthopedic surgery, the first for the science in this country.

In 1854 he performed the difficult operation, without any resultant deform- ity, for morbus coxarius, being the first to do it in America. In 1871 he, by special invitation, lectured on hip disease before several medical societies in Europe, and was created a Knight of the Order of Wasa by Charles IV of Sweden for his success in treating one of the royal family. When, a delegate to the Inter- national Medical Congress in Philadel- phia in 1876 he read a paper on the subject and did the operation. Lord Lister said on its conclusion "I feel this demonstration would of itself have been sufficient reward for my journey across the Atlantic." A year later, as a dele- gate to the British Medical Association, he again lectured and demonstrated. A formal resolution thanking him was passed by the Association. He invented a number of important instruments used in his practice and wrote exhaustively. His " Illustrative Treatise on Spinal Dis- ease and Spinal Curvature," was written while abroad and dedicated to the med- ical profession of Great Britain.

He married January 25, 1849, Ehza Ann Hall, of Harlem, New York, and had four children: Mary Hall, and three sons who all became doctors, Charles H. Hall,