Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/406

 SHAKESPEARE


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SHATTUCK

seem to care little or nothing about posthumous reputation but devote them- selves entirely to mastering every subject for the sake of exact knowledge and teaching. He was one of the three sons of Israel and Lucinda Pierce Seymour who were among the early settlers of Troy, New York, where WilUam was born October 17, 1S25. He worked as a schoolboj' under Prof. Charles H. Anthony and, graduating from \\'illiams College in 1841, studied medicine with Dr. Alfred Wotkyns, whose daugliter he afteru-ards married in 1852. He gradu- ated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1848 and the following year began to practise in Troy. After filling many appointments, 1870 saw him professor of obstetrics at the Albany Medical College, and, added to this three years later the professorship of gynecology. A student of Hodge, he j'et corrected errors of that time and recognized in the human pelvis three straits or planes having their appropriate diameters and their axes decussating at a similar angle of 130 degrees to the planes of entrance, rota- tion and exit, lea\dng the teaching of Levret as to the two straits and axes to the lower animals, where it belongs.

His statement as to the infectivity of pneumonia, made in 1868 before the Rensselaer County Medical Society, met with strong opposition, and ten years before his strong advocation of operation for appendicitis, then called typhlitis, was deemed impossible. Those who knew him best, however, and were educated to follow him, appreciated his ability and mental worth.

He died on April 7, 1893, passing away

quietly as if falUng asleep. He left two

sons, Alfred W. and William Wotkyns,

the latter follo^^^ng his father's profession.

Stone's Eminent Amer. Phys. and Surgs.

Shakespeare, Edward Oram (1846-1900). Edward Oram Shakespeare was born May 19, 1846, in Delaware, and graduated at Dickinson's College in June, 1867, taking his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1869. After practising

in Dover, he removed to Philadelphia in 1874. He was made lecturer on opera- tive surgery at the University of Penn- sylvania and wrote a number of oph- thalmological papers.

He investigated tlie cause of a great epidemic of tjphoid fever in Wyoming Valley near Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and discovered the cause in the contami- nation of the mountain water, which report was of great value. In 1885 he was sent as United States representative to Spain to investigate cholera, and made an elaborate report to Congress. During the war with Spain he was appointed brigade-surgeon.

He died June 1, 1900. H. F.

Stone's Biography of Eminent American

Physicians and Surgeons.

.Journal Am. Med. Assoc, June 9, 1900.

Shapleigh, Elisha Bacon (1823-1892).

Best known as an expert in forensic medicine, Ehsha Bacon Shapleigh was born in York County, Maine, on Novem- ber 6, 1823, a descendant of one Nicholas Shapleigh who emigrated from England in 1630.

His A. B. was from Yale in 1846, his M. D. from the University of Penn- .sylvania, in 1849.

Immediately after graduation he set- tled in Lowell, Massachusetts, but in 1851, removed to Philadelphia, where he married in June, 1864, Anna, daughter of William Lloyd.

He was a copious ^\Titer for the medical press, especially on subjects connected with toxicology and legal medicine.

Dr. Shapleigh was a man of medium size, but heavy build. He had dark skin, hair and eyes, and wore a full beard. He was slow and deliberate in speech, but fond of telUng stories; he was ever saying "that reminds me." He was read almost as widely in law as in medicine. T. H. S.

Memoir, J. Collins, 1893.

Shattuck, Benjamin (1742-1794).

Benjamin Shattuck was a descendant of Wilham Shattuck, who was born in