Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/90

 KLEINSCILMIDT

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KLEINSCHMIDT

student of Dr. Cogswell, and in 1828 attending at the Retreat for the In- sane. He graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1S30, his dissertation being on Iritis. For several years he practised surgery at Hartford, Connecticut, found- ed the "Eye and Ear Infirmary" and achieved a widespread reputation as an operator for cataract. In 1834 he removed to New York, taking up the practice of his cousin, Dr. Daniel W. Kissam. The operation of transplanta- tion of the cornea was performed by him in 1838 with at first apparently good results, but failure in a few weeks. During 1844-45 he gave instruction in surgery and was appointed professor of the principles and practice of surgery in Castleton Medical College, but declined the appointment.

Kissam was dignified yet unostenta- tious, of the most prepossessing man- ners, scrupulously neat, with a brilliant and sparkling eye, fascinating by his wit and humor in ordinary conversa- tion, or drawing upon the more scien- tific treasures of his highly cultivated mind as occasion required.

He died November 28, 1861.

H. F.

American Med. Times, Dec. 14, 1861, vol. iii Trans. A. M. Assoc, vol. xiv.

Kleinschmidt, Carl Hermann Anton (1839-1905). In a small town called Petershagen, situated on the Weser in North Germany, Carl Kleinschmidt was born in 1839 and educated at the public schools, enjoying the benefit of a gymnastic course at the Royal College, Minden, Prussia. He came to Georgetown, Dis- trict of Columbia, with his parents in November, 1857, when about eighteen, where he assisted his father in a little store, but continued his studies and soon mastered the English language. His education was first directed towards theology, but his aptitude for medicine and surgery attracted the attention of Dr. John Snyder, of Georgetown, who

persuaded his parents to let him study under him, so he entered Georgetown University and he graduated thence in 18G2. The war between the States was then actively going on and influence was offered to obtain him a position in the United States Army, but on account of his intimate association with southern people, his sympathies were with them, and he was appointed assistant surgeon in Confederate ranks. He was in most of the bloody conflicts in which the army of Northern Virginia was engaged, with all its hardships and trials and devotion to suffering humanity; he was at Gettys- burg with the rear guard during Lee's retreat; at the Wilderness and the terrible series of battles that followed, and finally at Appomattox, after which he walked nearly all the way to Georgetown, arriv- ing destitute of almost everything.

After the Civil War he went abroad and took a course at the Berlin Univer- sity and returning began active practice in Georgetown.

In 1874 he assisted in the reorganiza- tion of the Central Dispensary, and was appointed lecturer on diseases of the eye and ear in the sujnmer course of George- town University. In 1876 he was ap- pointed professor of physiology in the medical department of Georgetown Uni- versity and maintained his connection with it to the end of his life. He was a most excellent teacher and through his omnivorous reading the works of the great German masters were made access- ible to the students and the functions of the different organs portrayed in apt language by the lecturer, aided by physi- iological experiments and by skillful charts and drawings from his own hands.

He was elected president of the Med- ical Society in 1886, and president of the Medical Association of the District of Columbia 1895-1896. In 1889 George- town University conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D. He died in Washington May 20, 1905.

Dr. Kleinschmidt was not a prolific writer. He was the author of a timely address on " The Necessity for a Higher