Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1024

NAME ROSS 1002 ROSSE Ross, Joseph Presley (1828-1890). Joseph Presley Ross, founder of the Presby- terian Hospital in Chicago, was born in Ohio, in 1828, and after school and a short experi- ence in business he worked under Dr. G. V. Dorsey, and graduated in medicine at the Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati, in 1853. His ap- pointments included : physician to the City Hos- pital and professor of clinical medicine and diseases of the chest, Rush Medical College. When the great fire of 1871 utterly destroyed the latter, his energy in getting plans and funds for a new college and hospital was the main factor in their re-erection. Yet he felt the city hospital accommodation was not sufficient. Especially was this true of private hospitals for a better class of patient than the paupers housed in the County Hospital. He resolved that his own religious denomination should possess a hospital like those already main- tained by the Presbyterians in the older cities of this country. He secured a donation of $10,000 from his father-in-law, Tuthill King; another, of $15,000, from the faculty of Rush Medical College, to which he afterwards added $5,000 from his own pocket. At last, largely through the influence of Dr. Hamill, a legacy of $100,000, from the estate of Daniel Jones, insured the completion of the edifice. After a prolonged illness he died on June 15, 1890. Early Medical Chicago. J. N. Hyde, 1879. Roste, Irving Collins (1847-1901). Irving Collins Rosse, alienist, author and medico-legal expert, was born at East New Market, Dorchester County, East Shore, Mary- land, October 2, 1847, of Anglo-Scotch descent. He attended St. James College, Annapolis, for three years, then West Point Military Academy for another year. Turning his atten- tion to medicine, he left the academy, studied with Dr. Alexander H. Bayley, of Cambridge, taking his medical degree in 1866 from the University of Maryland. For a time he studied in London, Berlin and Paris. In later life he received an honorary A. M. from Georgetown University, and a rather large number of honorary degrees from various institutions in Europe. His life as a doctor began with his entry into the position of clinical assistant in the Baltimore Infirmary, where he served with marked distinction, but resigned to enter the United States Army; as army surgeon he lived at various posts throughout the west and south. Once he was quarantine officer for Georgia, and in this capacity was present on Tybee Island during the outbreak of cholera there. A little later he was appointed quarantine officer at Brazos, Texas, and also saw much service on the staff of General Henry Hunt, in North Carolina, during the troubles with the Klu Klux Klan. Rosse was at one time professor of nervous and mental diseases in Georgetown University. He was also vice-president of the Medico-legal Society of New York, and a member of numer- ous social, literary and scientific clubs and associations. He married when forty-seven years of age, Florence James, of New York, a granddaughter of General Worth, and had one child, a son. Dr. Rosse died of ptomaine poisoning at Washington, D. C, May 3, 1901. Dr. Rosse was an extensive writer, and his literary work was valuable both for its con- tents and its form. He assisted in the prepara- tion of the "Medico-Surgical History of the Rebellion." Later he had in charge the force which compiled the "Index-Catalogue of the Surgeon-general's Library," doing much per- sonal work on the latter. He wrote volumin- ously, too, as correspondent for the New York Herald and the San Francisco Examiner, and contributed numerous scientific articles to the press of this and of various foreign countries. He was one of the crew on the famous ship Corwin which sailed in 1881 to the relief of the Jeanette. While on this cruise he ascended the supposedly inaccessible Herald Island, and was the first human being in history to set foot on Wrangel Island. For these and other exploits he was created a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of England. On his return he wrote two books : "The Cruise of the 'Corwin' " and "The First Landing on Wrangel Island." One of the most remarkable of Dr. Rosse's writings is an article on "Per- sonal Identity," contributed to volume i of Witthaus and Becker's "Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine, and Toxicolog>'." This article displays the widest range of scholarship combined with profound and original research. He wrote much on medico-legal topics. A list of his writings may be found in the catalogue of the Surgeon-general's Library at Washing- ton, D. C. Dr. Rosse was a great athlete and once, when crossing the Atlantic, persuaded the captain of the steamer to stop the vessel while he took a plunge in the ocean. On another occasion, when quarantined in a small boat for a number of days, with only a single com- panion, he used to stand upon his hands to relieve the tedium. He had very little to say to those who did not interest him, but was affable and communicative in the presence