Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1039

NAME SANDS 1017 SANDS there; his father was long known as one of New York's trusted apothecaries. Henry studied at the local high school, and then went to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he graduated in 1SS4, to enter Bellevue Hospital at once as an interne (1854-55). He then went abroad for a year, and on return- ing was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in his college, and settled down in New York to build up a general practice (1856). In this same year he married Sarah M. Curtis, by whom he had two children, Dr. Robert A. and Josephine, who survived him. He was married a second time in 1875 to Mrs. J. Reamey, the daughter of Peter Hayden ; one son born of this union survived him. He took a great interest in pathology dur- ing the earlier years of his professional work and covered a wide range of subjects. He was president of the pathological society, and a member for thirty-one years. He was also a president of the New York Medical and Surgical Society. From 1867-70 he was a partner of Willard Parker, and through this happy association was gradually weaned from all interests other than surgery, for which he was so admirably fitted by his special training in anatomy and pathology. In 1867 he was made professor of anatomy in his college, and in 1879 professor of sur- gery, sharing the chair with Markoe. He was attending surgeon to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (1861-63) ; to St. Luke's Hospital (1866-76) ; to Bellevue Hospital (1863-83); and to Roosevelt Hospital (1876- 88). He was an earnest advocate of a con- tinuous service and at his insistence it was adopted at the Roosevelt, as at the German Hospital in Philadelphia, and later at the Johns Hopkins, Baltimore. For the last five years of his life he held only the position at the Roosevelt. From the year 1854 until 1888, the year of his death, Dr. Sands acted as preceptor to 495 students. Among them we find the names of Allan McLane Hamilton, Edward L. Trudeau, William T. Bull, Charles B. Kelsey, William S. Halsted, Frank Hart- ley, Andrew J. McCosh, M. Allen Starr, George S. Huntington, Alexander Lambert, and Reed B. Bontecou. He wrote on mon- ocular amaurosis in 1866, and on an opera- tion for septic peritonitis due to perforation of! the appendix in 1888. His various papers in the interval cover a wide range of sub- jects: fracture, anchylosis, Hgation of the carotid, gleet, tracheotomy, and stricture, and above all, perityphlitis. In his well-known article on Perityphlitis (Annals of the Anatomical and Surgical So- ciety of Brooklyn, vol. ii, 1880, p. 249), he refers to Parker's plan of opening the abscess, and then on a basis of an experience with twenty-six cases, he urges earlier interfer- ence. He gives an accurate description of the symptoms, attributing the disease to the cecum or the appendix. He treated eleven by opera- tion and in but one failed in opening the abscess ; only one died after refusing an early operation, as urged. He commonly operated in the second or third week, and exposed the transversalis fascia, using a hypodermic needle to find the pus. The paper closes with tables of all his cases. He focused his atten- tion upon perityphlitis-appendicitis and made it easily recognizable, and led men up to the door of the more aggressive surgery which followed R. H. Fitz's paper (q. v.). Sands himself even went further than these late ab- scess operations in making a diagnosis of "acute septic peritonitis caused by perforation of the vermiform appendix" and operating within forty-eight hours ; he found the appen- dix perforated, trimmed the margins of the opening, washed out the affected area, and closed the wound with a drain and the patient recovered. (New York Medical Journal, 1888, page 197). He was a consultant in the cases of Presi- dent Garfield, General Grant and Roscoe Conkling. In early life he was an organist in a leading church and ever retained a warm interest in music, and was a member of the New .York Philharmonic Society. He was trim in appearance, keen, and his eyes looked so bright through his clear glasses, and he acted with such decision, that he im- pressed and cheered his patients from the moment his quick step was heard coming up the stairs until the door of his coach was heard to snap vigorously as he drove off. In the winter of 1885-86 he had a slight cerebral lesion and reduced his work, resign- ing his position in the Roosevelt in the spring of 1888. He died in his fifty-ninth year, on Sunday, November 18, 1888, as he was gomg to his home with Dr. A. A. Smith, to meet a com- pany gathered for a musical afternoon. Howard A. Kelly. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 18S8, vol. xcix, p. 515. Tour. Amer. Med. Asso., 1888, vol. xi, p. 755. Med. News, Phila., 1888. 53-599. New York Med. Record, 1888, 34-626.