Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/398

 SELDEN

354

SELDEN

preceded those of Erb and Charcot. To him is due what is known as the American method of giving potassium iodide in enormous doses.

Though ft specialist, he had very wide sympathies in the profession and threw himself with great enthusiasm into literary ventures. Thus, in 1S73, he joined with Brown-S^quard in the editorship of the "Archives of Scientific and Practical Medicine and Surgery," a journal which did not, however, survive a year. Between 1876-8 he edited a series of American clinical lectures, but his most pretentious venture was the "Archives of Medicine" (1879), in which an attempt was made to supply the pro- fession with a high-class journal. But it was not a financial success and lapsed after the twelfth volume.

From the shock of an awful domestic tragedy in 1884, Dr. Seguin never fully recovered. After staying abroad for two years he resumed practice in New York, but did not teach again. Many years before his death he lost one of his fingers, the result of a spindle-shaped growth. In 1896 a growth appeared in the abdomen and there were, later, signs of diffuse metastases. From a long and trying illness he was released on February 19, 1898.

From an obituary in the Philadelphia Med- ical Journal, 1898, vol. i.

Selden, WiUiam B. (1773-1849).

Born in 1773, he was the son of the Rev. William Selden, pastor of the Epis- copal Church at Hampton, Virginia, and received a good education, afterwards studying medicine for several years under Drs. Taylor and Hansford of Norfolk, and then attending a course of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. After two years in Edinburgh, he had not received a degree as he had to return home on account of lack of funds.

He then settled in Norfolk and was associated with Dr. Alexander White- head. In 1779 he obtained some vaccine virus from Dr. Jenner and with this pro- ceded to vaccinate, and kept up a con-

tinuous supply for nearly fifty years. He declared that all this time he could see no variation in the appearance of the vesicle, nor any failure in its power to protect. From the beginning of his practice he used the bark in the treat- ment of malarial fevers without waiting for the fever to subside, and in severe cases, anticipated the paroxysms by full doses of camphor and opium. Long before Graves wrote on the subject, he treated typhoid fever by careful nursing and proper medicines, rather than with drastic remedies. He was one of the first in this country to use calomel in the treatment of the summer diarrhea of children, trying it first in 1807 in the case of his own child. He had a large obstetrical practice, and was one of the best accouchers of his day, and was prob- ably the first to perform the operation of decapitation of the fetus. This he did in the case of a woman with a shoulder presentation, who had been in labor for two days. The shoulder was forced so low in the pelvis that the neck was easily reached, and the doctor decided to sever the neck, rather than attempt to turn. This he did with a pruning knife with a curved blade which he happened to have in his pocket. The body was then easily delivered by pulUng down the arm and the head was expelled by the uterine contractions. The woman recovered.

Dr. Selden was a scholarly man, an earnest student and a close observer. From the beginning of his career it was his habit to write down every morning his observations on the climate and weather, and to record briefly any note- worthy case he had seen. These records were lost during the Civil War when his son's library was plundered by the Federal troops.

He married in 1802 Charlotte Colgate, of Kent, England, and several children were born. Three sons and a daughter survived him and two of the sons, Wil- liam and Henry, became physicians.

He died on July 18, 1849, his last illness presenting the symptoms of cancer of the stomach, R. M. S.