Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1058

NAME SENN 1036 SEWALL him a group of devoted admiring younger men under training to take his place, appar- ently from an instinctive objection to a suc- cessful rival. During his era he reigned supreme but his work soon merged into the common stock of surgical knowledge and he left no distinctively Senn followers to per- petuate his memory. J. B. Murphy's (q. v.) tribute in this connection is, "He did not found a personal school . . . but he created a diffuse and general scientific professional sentiment that permeated the western hemisphere." "Of the western surgeons of the present genera- tion every one is deeply indebted to Senn for inspiration and instruction, and the appre- ciation of the fact that genius without cease- less labor is imperfect." (Ochsner.) The West was extremely proud of him, admiring him as its great protagonist. Roused to antago- nism, this intellectual giant became a vigorous fighter. He was the recipient of such honors and degrees from numerous foreign societies as commonly fall to the lot of men of unusual distinction. In 1869 Dr. Senn married Aurelia S. Muehl- hauser of La Crosse, who survived him, to- gether with two sons, Dr. Emanuel J. and Dr. William N. Senn. In Senn's latter years he travelled much, visiting Porto Rico, Constantinople, Lisbon, Hawaii, and the Islands of the Pacific, Ma- drid, the hospitals of Jerusalem, St. Peters- burg, London, Paris, Cairo, Gratz, Vienna, and all the important German clinics. From South America he wrote a series of letters to the Journal of the American Medical Asso- ciation. Even on these holidays, Senn's inveterate habit of industry gripped him in its tyrannical vise and drove him relentlessly to study, to observe, and to record and send home for publication numerous letters from all parts of the world. Witness his substantial read- able volume, well illustrated, entitled "Around the World via Liberia" (1902). Wherever he went hospitals and their surgeons were his first interest. His admiring comments on the splendors of Germany and the nobility of the Russian and his extreme devotion to his Little Father make curious reading today. As a visitor, Senn donned the spectacles of an optimist. As he had always been a prodigy of both physical and mental endurance, he refused to recognize the plain signs of a chronic inter- stitial myocarditis towards the end and only relaxed in order to work as hard as before. His acute illness came on during his South American trip, where he made an ascent of 16,000 feet, followed by dilatation of the heart, which on his return home was found enor- mously distended, with gallop-rhythm pulse, pulmonary edema, extreme dyspnea and anasarca, followed by acute nephritis engrafted on the chronic passive congestion of the kid- neys. He died January 2, 1908. Howard A. Kelly. Surgery, Gyn. and Obst., 1908, vol. vi, pp. pre(i 145, with fine Portrait in regimentals, in color. Jour. Amer. Med. Asso., 1908, Sec. 1, p. 144. Emin. Amer. Phys. and Surgs., R. F. Stone, Indianapolis, 1894. Distinguished Phys. and Surgs. of Chicago, F. M, Sperry, 1904. Private information. Sergeant, Erastus (1742-1814) Erastus Sergeant, of Stockbridge, Massachu- setts, was the chief surgeon for Berkshire County before the advent of Josiah Goodhue (q. v.). The son of the Rev. John Sergeant, first minis- ter of Stockbridge, he was born in that town, August 7, 1742. He spent two years at Prince- ton College, studied medicine with his uncle, the famous Dr. Thomas Williams (q. v.), of Deerfield, and on the opening of the Revolu- tion was major in the 7th Berkshire regiment, serving at Lake Champlain from December, 1776, to April, 1777, and until Burgoyne's sur- render. Yale gave him an A. M. in 1784 and Harvard an honorary M. D. in 1811. He joined the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1785 and was a councilor and chief represent tative of his country for many years. Dr. Sergeant was reputed to be the most skilful operator of his time, and his services were in demand within a wide radius. Tall, erect and thin, his figure was a familiar sight in Stockbridge. He died in the town of his birth of pulmonary hemorrhage while sitting at table, November 14, 1814, at the age of seventy-two. The Founding of the Berkshire District Medical Society, W. L. Burrage, M. D.. The Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., Nov. 22, 1917. Sewall, Lucy (1837-1890) Lucy Sewall, a pioneer woman physician, descended from a long line of Puritan an- cestors, belonged to the Sewalls of Massachu- setts. She was born in Boston, April 26, 1837, the daughter of Samuel E. Sewall, lawyer and reformer. While in her youth, coming under the influence of Dr. Marie Zackrewska (q. v.), she was drawn to study medicine. She seems to have been the first girl of fortune and family to study medicine in the United States. She entered the only college then open to women, the New England Female Medical College of Boston, graduating in March, 1862,