Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1056

NAME SENKLER 1034 SENN daughter of John P. and Eliza Ramsey, and six children survived their parents. Towards the close of his life he was at- tacked by a wasting disease. In July, 1833, he was taken with a fever which he was unable to successfully combat, and on the last day of that month (July 31, 1833) he passed away. A portrait of Dr. Semmes is now in the possession of a granddaughter, Mrs. S. M. Slaughter, Mitchells, Culpeper County, Vir- ginia. There is also a portrait of him in the collection in the library of the surgeon- general of the United States Army. Robert M. Slaughter. An unpublished sketch by one of his daughters. Amer. Jour. Med. Scis., vol. xvii. Amer. Medical Biography, S. W. Williams, 1845. Senkler, Albert Edward (1842-1899) Albert Edward Senkler was an Englishman by birth, having been born at Docking, Nor- folk, England, March 8, 1842. When he was still a boy his father, a clergyman of the Church of England, came to Brockville, Ontario. His early education was obtained under the tutelage of his father, who was a fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, and a scholar, one who gave him at home an education and an intellectual start in life, such as few boys have. Being naturally of a scientific bent, Albert decided to study medi- cine, and at an early age entered McGill University at Montreal, where he received, when only twenty-one, his M. D., and that of Master of Surgery in 1863. Two years later he began to practise at St. Cloud, Minne- sota, where he soon had a large clientele. From 1873 to 1876 he was a member of the Minne- sota State Board of Health and made the first meteorological observations in the State of Minnesota. The year 1880 saw him at St. Paul, where he lived up to the time of his death. He was president of the Minnesota Academy of Medicine, and professor of clini- cal medicine in the medical department of the Minnesota State University, also at the time of his death on the staff of every hospital in St. Paul. Indeed it may be said that his profession, recognizing and appreciating his character and distinguished ability, had conferred upon him every honor within its power. He married Frances Isabella Easton, at Brockville, Canada, August 28, 1867. Two children were born; the son, George E., be- came a doctor. Dr. Senkler, after a lingering illness, which for nearly a year prevented him from attend- ing to his practice, died at his home in St. Paul, Sunday morning, December 10, 1899. A gentleman of the noblest type ; a scholar in medicine, an accomplished physician who loved his profession and all that was best in it. BuRNSiDE Foster. Senn, Nicholas a844-1908) Nicholas Senn, eminent surgeon in early antiseptic days, great clinical teacher, experi- menter, and pioneer in intestinal surgery, was born in Buchs, Canton of St. Gall, Switzer- land, October 31, 1844, and was brought by his parents to the United States in 18S2, to the town of Ashford, Wisconsin. His early education was had at the Fond du Lac High School, Wisconsin, where he graduated in 1864. He taught school for two years, and at the same time read medicine with Dr. Munk, and studied the local flora; in 1866 he entered the Chicago Medical College and graduated M. D. in 1868. He was resident physician in Cook County Hospital for eigh- teen months, before practising in Elmore, Wisconsin. In 1874 he moved to Milwaukee and served as attending physician to the Mil- waukee Hospital, but in 1877 went to Ger- many to study at the University of Munich where he graduated in 1878. He returned to the United States in 1880 and was called to be professor of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago. In 1884 he was made professor of the prin- ciples and practice of surgery in the same institution, and two days every week he trav- elled 88 miles to deliver his lecture and con- duct cHnics which became popular with prac- tising physicians and surgeons, as well as with the students, on account of his masterly pres- entation of his subject illuminated by his large knowledge of surgical history, path- ology and surgical principles. In 1888 he became professor of surgery and surgical pathology in Rush Medical College, and in 1891 succeeded Charles Theodore Parkes (q. v.) in the chair of practice of surgery and clinical surgery in the same in- stitution, the most important surgical appoint- ment in the West. Senn was also professor of surgery in the Chicago Polyclinic. He held appointments as surgeon-in-chief to St. Joseph's and the Pres- byterian Hospitals, and was surgeon to the Passavant. Later he was professor of sur- gery and military surgery in the University of Chicago. His early experimental work in abdominal surgery made him foremost in this field, and in his researches in intestinal per- foration, particularly in gunshot wounds, he