Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/480

 STRUDWICK

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STRUDWICK

Strong, Nathaniel (1783-1867).

Born of English parentage in North- ampton, Massachusetts in 1783, lie served as surgeon in the War of 1812, and before coming west made a trip around the world, presumably as ship's surgeon. The printed announcenient of the C'ensors of the Seventh District Medical Society shows that he was licensed to practice November 6, 1817, and located in Center- ville, a small village in Montgomery County, Ohio, but available details of his professional life are meager, his .special claim for recognition resting upon a paper written in 1818.

This essay, which discusses the whole subject of reproduction, and displays the alert oiiserver and a remarkable familiar- ity with comparative anatomy, is still in existence. In it the modern doctrine of ovulation and menstruation is distinctly and clearly taught, thus antedating by four years Doctor Powers, of London, w'ho is credited with the discovery, although it was not generally accepted until N^grier, in 1831, proved its truth by his beautiful anatomical preparations. When written (1818), Dr. Strong's manu- script was sent to a prominent medical journal, but was rejected, presumably on account of the obscurity of the author. But for this rejection, this man of genius and original thinker, though only a back- woodsman, would to-day stand before the world as the discoverer of one of the fundamental facts in the physiology of

generation.

W. J. C.

Strudwick, Edmund (1802-1879).

Edmund Strudwick was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1802, at Long Meadows, about five miles north of Hillsboro, the county seat. His line- age was ancient and long-established in the community, his father being an important political factor and distin- guished for those qualities which after- ward graced his son.

His medical studies began under Dr. James Webb, and he graduated as a doctor of medicine at the University

of Pennsylvania on April 8, 1824. He served for two years as resident physician in the Philadelphia Almshouse and Charity Hospital.

Of the North CaroUna State Medical Society he was a charter member and the first president.

All kinds of surgery attracted him and he sought for it. Scores of operations for cataract were performed by him, according to the now obsolete needle method, without losing an eye. Once as he was driving homeward after a long trip in the country, he saw an old man trudging along being led by a small boy at his side. Dr. Strudwick stopped, as- certained that the man had been blind for twelve years, made him get up into carriage and took him to his (the doctor's) home. One eye was operated on first and the other the next week, sight being restored to each. This case, as did all other similar ones, appealed to Dr. Strud- wick very greatly.

If there was any special operation for which Dr. Strudwick was famous, it was that of lithotomy. Certainly he was the leading lithotomist of his time in North CaroUna. There is no record of the exact number he performed, but it was large and his mortality low. Dr. Strudwick lived in a section of the State where this affection abounded. His custom was always to do the lateral operation and to introduce no tube or other drainage unless there was hemorrhage. It is said that he did twenty-eight consecutive lithotomies without a death. One case in particular has come down to us — a very large stone, wedged into the trigone and assuming its shape. On the posterior surface grooves had formed along which the urine trickled down from the ureteral openings. After making the incision and finding that the calculus was too large to extract entire. Dr. Strudwick sent to the blacksmith's, secured his tongs and crushed it. Fortu- nately, the stone was of the soft phos- phatic variety.

Many breast amputations were done by Dr. Strudwick. In all cases he cleaned out the axilla, thus anticipating