Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/520

 TURNIPSEED

462

TWITCHELL

1829, of English and German parentage in a house built on land granted to his family in Kichland. lie graduated M. D. from South Carolina Medical Collge, Charleston, in 1S52, then studied medi- cine in Paris and afterwards went to St. Petersburg and entered the Russian Army as surgeon-major, doing fine work during the siege of Sevastopol, getting knighted by the Emperor and receiving other orders; not returning to America until 1856, when, after three years in New York, he settled in Richland, taking up his army practice again on the out- break of Civil War as brigade-surgeon and afterwards resuming private practice, this time in Columbia, South Carolina. His wife's name was Clara M., daughter of J. T. Hendrix, of Lexington, South Carolina.

In the "Transactions of the South Carolina Medical Association" for 1875- 77, Turnipseed is shown as an inventor of some useful surgical instruments, among them some for staphylorraphy, a quadrilateral urethrotome, a speculum, also a cotton chopper, and a beehive which shows he was always on the inventive track wherever he happened to be. His writings include:

"Gossypium Herbaceum and Viscum Album, used by Negro Women to Procure Abortion," 1852; "Superior Maxillary Section of Malar and Pterygoid Process of Sphenoid Bone," 1868; "Modification of Syme's and Pirogoff's Operation of Ankle-joint," 1868; "Facts Regarding the Anatomical Difference Between the Negro and White Races (locaUty of Hy- men)," 1868; "Why Should we Support the Perineum During Labour at All," 1877.

He belonged to the American Medical Society of Paris, the New York Patho- logical Society, and the South CaroHna Medical Association.

D. W.

Med. News, Phila., 1883, vol. xlii (P. P. Por-

cher).

Obit. J. Am. Med. Assoc, Chicago, 1883,

vol. i.

Twitchell, Amos (1781-1850).

Amos Twitchell was born in the town of Dublin, on the slopes of that grand old mountain, Monadnock. He was the son of Samuel and Alice Willson Twitchell and born April 11, 1781. His childhood was characterized by his great love of reading and at the age of seventeen be journeyed on horseback and rapped for admittance at Harvard but was refused on account of the lack of preliminary education. Nothing daunted, he turned his face to the North and came to old Dartmouth's door, which graciously swung open to him in 1798; so Harvard lost one whom Dr. Bowditch describes as one of "the most honest and intel- lectual men this country has produced." His Ufe at College was a struggle with poverty; he graduated in 1802 and at once entered on medical studies under Dr. Nathan Smith. Both men were strong characters, singular in their strength and of similar tastes, so that they were drawn together, and a life long friendship resulted that was strong and mutually helpful.

At that time material for dissection was hard to obtain, but Amos Twitchell possessed all he needed. In 1805 he graduated and first practised in Norwich, Vermont, then in Marlborough, New Hampshire. He entered partnership here with his brother-in-law, Dr. Carter, intending to devote his whole attention to surgery. About the time of his removal to Marlborough he performed an operation which if then published would have given him an international reputa- tion. October 8, 1807, he was called to Sharon, New Hampshire, over forty miles distant, to see a lad named John Saggart, whose jaw had been shattered in a skirmish at the muster of the State Militia. All the adjacent parts were severely bruised and extensive sloughing took place. On the tenth day after the injury, while dressing the wounds. Dr. Twitchell observed that one of the sloughs lay directly over the carotid. The aged mother of the lad stood near as the sole attendant, and he said to her, "If that