Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1022

NAME ROOSA 1000 ROOSA degree at the University of the City of New York in 1860, and was at once appointed for merit, an interne in the New York Hospital. Before he had completed his entire year of service, he acted for a short time as assistant surgeon in the Civil War, finished his term at the hospital, and then spent a year of study in Europe. Coming home he again went into army service, and finally settled for general practice in New York. Some time in 1865 he began to devote his time exclusively to the practice of the diseases of the eye and ear, and continued in those specialties for the rest of his life. For eighteen j'ears he was pro- fessor in both of those branches of surgery, in the University of the City of New York. At the end of that time he was compelled to de- cide in which of them he should continue to lecture, since the scope of both had expanded so broadly that no man could hope to cover successfully both fields. He decided on oph- thalmology, and continued his lectures on that branch in the Manhattan Eye and Ear In- firmary, of which he was a founder, in the New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hos- pital, and incidentally for five years he lec- tured on both of his original specialties at the Medical School of the University of Vermont. Altogether his course of instruction in the diseases of the eye and ear embraced forty- four years of steady activity. As a teacher and lecturer he was plain and simple in his illus- trations, and unhesitating in his opinions. As a conservative pioneer he remained unswerving in his objection to the perforation of every ir- ritated drum, to the exenteration of every in- flamed mastoid bone, to the removal of im- mature cataracts, to the extraction of both in the same patient in rapid succession, and to the cutting of eye muscles for errors of refrac- tion. Dr. Roosa was held in high esteem by his colleagues all over th& country', as was shown by his election to the presidency of the Ameri- can Otological Society, to that of the Inter- national Otological Congress, to that of the New York Ophthalmological Society, and to the high position of president of the New York State Medical Society. In all of these positions he obtained excellent papers for pre- sentation, led the members into animated dis- cussion, and accomplished good results for the profession and the public by forwarding im- provements of the public health and obtaining proper registration and recognition of the pro- fession. The following anecdotes throw light on the character of Dr. Roosa: Many patients flocked to him during his lectures in Vermont, and one morning his assistant said to him: "You will have to hurry a bit this morning for as many as thirty patients are already waiting for you." "I have no time to hurry," was his quiet reply. When a friend remonstrated with him on his expressing an intention to make his yearly visit to Europe longer than usual, this time for three months of vacation, and said : "I cannot see how you can afford to lose all of three months' practice," he replied briefly : "I cannot afford to work as I do, more than nine months in the year." He was a fluent speaker in debate, famous as an after-dinner speaker; his hospitality was abundant but unobtrusive, his home life was beautiful in his care of his wife, and in his work he was a man of method. He was an excellent teacher but not an expert operator. As a writer of medicine Dr. Roosa stands out very eminent in his two specialties. He trans- lated the "Hand-book of Otology'' written by Von Troeltsch (1863), and one on the eye by Stellwag (1867), and he composed a text book of his own on the ear (1866), which simple in style and illustrated with cases from his prac- tice was highly thought of by the profession throughout the nation. He wrote a great many papers on the ear, such as a very early instance of aural suppu- ration from improper use of the nasal douche, another on aural suppuration extending into the cervical connective tissue, one on Panotitis, (at that time a very rare and unknown dis- ease), a third on the effect of mumps on the organ of hearing, and .finally one on the effect of noises on healthy ears. Buried also amongst the unmeaning title of "Clinical Cases," may be found mention of deafness from a kiss on the ear, vertigo from syringing hot water into the meatus, and syncope after a Politzer in- flation of the middle ear. Amongst his papers on the eye mention may be made of the fact of his persistent arguments that blepharitis was not a skin disease of the eyelids, but an irritation due to the result of uncorrected astigmatism, whilst his brochures on lenses and on defective sight and his prim- ers on eye and ear diseases all deserve men- tion as proving his right to be called an active literary pioneer in otology and ophthalmology. Take him all in all. Dr. Roosa was a man remarkable for his vigorous expressions of opinion in those two specialties which began to flourish at the time when he started in practice, specialties he assiduously and sue-