Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1010

NAME ROBINSON 988 ROBINSON was rewarded by an appointment as assistant in the department of chemistry. In the autumn of 1878 he began work as a teacher in the high school at Ashland, Wisconsin. After that he taught at Black Earth, Wisconsin, While teaching he took up the study of medicine under Dr. U. P. Stair, as preceptor. His medical work was done at Rush Medical Col- lege, from which he received the degree of M. D. in 1882. No hospital interneship was possible by reason of his slender resources ; therefore he went at once into a country prac- tice at Grand Rapids, Wisconsin. Between 1882 and 1888 he divided his time between practising medicine at Grand Rapids, gaining experience, as a foundation for his life work, and study in Europe, laying another part of the foundation for his professional career, and incidentally spending his savings. He returned from Europe in time to take up the teaching of anatomy and clinical surgery in the medical college in Toledo. In 1891 he came to Chicago and became a professor of gynecology in the Chicago Post Graduate Medical School. Later he became as- sociated with the Illinois Medical College as professor of gynecology and abdominal sur- gery. He was for many years on the staffs of the Woman's Hospital of Chicago and the Mary Thompson Hospital for Women and Children. In 1894 he married Dr. Lucy Waite, head surgeon of the Mary Thompson Hospital. His death occurred March 23, 1910, when he was at an age where he should have been just in the prime of life. On May 23, 1910, Presi- dent Van Hise of the LTniversity of Wisconsin, members of the various colleges and hospitals with whom Dr. Robinson had been connected and members of different medical societies held public memorial exercises in the Whitney Opera House, Chicago. While Byron Robinson was a clinical sur- geon in large practice, his fame rests upon his studies in anatomy and gross pathology. Dr. Senn said of his work : "Dr. Robinson's addi- tions to our knowledge of the structures of the biliary and pancreatic ducts, the ureto- ovarian circle (Robinson's circle), the ureters (Robinson's three ureteral isthmuses), the great sympathetic nerve (the abdominal brain), and the peritoneum are of far reaching and scien- tific value. In the last edition of Da Costa's 'Gray's Anatomy' Dr. Robinson's name appears no less than forty times." He was the author of two volumes on prac- tical intestinal surgery, a large volume on the peritoneum, a six hundred and sixty page book on the abdominal and pelvic brain and four books on various gynecological subjects. He worked four years on his chart illustrating the sympathetic nerve. The two men who more than any others in- fluenced the life of Dr. Robinson were Lawson Tait and Nicholas Senn (q. v.). He came un- der the influence of the former when a young man. Those who knew Dr. Robinson in the early 90's had no trouble in recognizing the in- fluence of Tait in Robinson's brusqueness of manner, intolerance of sham, outspokenness and habit of direct thinking, and fondness for knowledge of anatomy. In the later years of his life he was more influenced by Senn. Like Senn he burned out his life by hard work, outliving his long-time friend and preceptor by only a few years. He was one of the most diligent men that I have ever known. Up to the very end of his life he dissected, did operative work on the cadaver and attended and made autopsies. He never permitted his office and operative work to take all of his time and energy, but, hav- ing set aside a part of his time for dead-house and dissecting-room work, he adhered to his schedule. He had a good physique, a capacity for sus- tained effort, a resistless energy, a disregard of the point of view of those around him and an incapacity for appreciating the allurements of glamour and acclaim. He often neglected the sensibilities, the relinements or the prides of those around him. To them he was not generous, while, at the same time, he was not ungenerous. His mind was intent upon what he was trying to do, and it would not be di- verted to any other considetation. It is easy for one, when in a philosophic vein, to under- stand all this, and yet failure to be understood and failure on his part to see the point of view of others lessened his opportunities, in- creased the difficulty of his work and robbed him of some merited reward. William A. Evans. Robinson, William Chaffee (1822-1872). William Chaffee Robinson was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, November 27, 1822. Working hard as a boy, and as the result of the training of poverty, he developed great self-reliance and perseverance, and was power- fully ambitious to succeed. When almost a youth he was a teacher to others nearly all older than himself. At the age of twenty-three he studied medicine with Dr. John Ford, of Norwich, Connecticut, and graduated at the New York University Medical School in 1849. Being then at the age of twenty-seven, Robin-