Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/88

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72

KIRTLAND

in 1S91, assistant surgeon. Dr. Kirk- patrick was the first in Canada, and one of the first in America, to repair with success the stomach wall after perforation by ulcer; and he had a good record in the performance of the operation for resection of the bowel, and of gastro-enterostomy. He was also a competent managing editor of the "Montreal Medical Jour- nal." The cause of death was tuber-

cular meningitis.

A. M.

KirUand, Jared Potter (1793-1877).

Jared Potter Kirtland, an eminent naturalist of Cleveland, Ohio, was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, November 10, 1793. In early life he was adopted into the family of his grand- father. Dr. Jared Potter, a physician of AVallingford. His father, Turhand Kirtland, removed in 1803 to Poland, Mahoning County, Ohio, leaving his son Jared in the home of his grand- father. The boy received his early education in the district and academic schools of "Wallingford and Cheshire. Even at this period he is said to have manifested a predilection for the natural sciences, and studied botany and scientific agriculture systematic- ally. In 1811 the death of his grand- father, who left the young Jared his medical library and a sum of monej' sufficient to pay for his medical edu- cation in Edinburgh, enabled him to study medicine with Dr. John Andrews of Walhngford and Dr. Sylvester Wells of Hartford, Connecticut. At this period too he made the acquaint- ance of Prof. Benjamin Silliman, of Yale College, who took an interest in the bright boy and offered him many facilities for the study of chemistr3^ Unfortunately the outbreak of the war with England at this time compelled the abandonment of the plan of com- pleting his education in Edinburgh, and in 1813 he became the first medical matriculant in the first class at Yale Col- lege. Ill health, however, compelled him

to stop studying awhile, but later he took a course of lectures at the ITni- versity of Pennsylvania, but subsecjuent- ly returned to Connecticut and gradu- ated from Yale College in March, 1815. During his attendance at Yale he took special courses in botany from Prof. Ives, and in mineralogy and geology from Prof. Silliman, and devoted some time likewise to the study of zoolog}'. Immediately after grad- uation Dr. Kirtland began practice in Wallingford, dividing his time between some practice and the study of scientific agriculture, botany and natural history, and five years he practised in Durham, Connecticut. In the same year he married Caroline Atwater, of Wallingford, and had two children. The death of his wife and one of his daughters, which occurred in 1823, was a severe trial which un- settled him for a time and revived a desire to remove to Ohio, and in the same year he settled with his father in the town of Poland. Here, almost in spite of himself, he found an active medical practice forced upon him, though it had been his desire and in- tention to devote himself to agricul- tural pursuits. In 1815 he married Hannah F. Toucey, of Newton, Connec- ticut. At the close of some service in the Legislature, Dr. Kirtland resumed practice in Poland, but in 1837 became professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, which position he filled for the next five years, and in the following year, having resigned his position in Cincinnati, removed with his family to Cleveland, and ac- cepted and filled until 1864 the chair of the theory and practice of medicine in the newly organized Cleveland Medical College.

Dr. Kirtland was actively interested in the work of the Medical Conven- tion of Ohio, was president of that body in 1839, and a paper from his pen on " Irregular Malarious Diseases and Their Counteractions by means