Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1089

NAME SMITH 1067 SMITH next room without knowing of his friend's death. Frederic S. Dennis. Amer. Med. Biog., James Thacher, Boston, 1828. A Century of Amer. Med., J. S. Billings, Phila., 1876, 330. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1881, vol. v, 562. Amer. Med. and Philosoph. Register or Annuals, 1814, vol. iv, 391. The Relation of Yale to Medicine, W. H. Welch, M. D., reprint fr. Vale Med. Jour., Nov., 1901, 12 & 29. Smith, Francis Gurney (1818-1878) Francis Gurney Smith, obstetrician and physiologist, was born in Philadelphia, March 8, 1818. His father, of the same name, a pros- perous Philadelphia merchant, was one of six brothers, all of whom lived to be octogenari- ans and celebrated their golden weddings ; his mother was Eliza Muckie ; Francis was their fifth son. He graduated in arts at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1837, taking an M. D. at the same institution, with the thesis "De- lirium cum Tremore" in 1840; he studied medi- cine with his brother, Thomas M. K. Smith, of Brandywine, Delaware. In 1841 he became resident physician in the Pennsylvania Hos- pital for the Insane, hut resigned in nine months to practise with his brother; he re- turned to Philadelphia, however, in 1842, to a practice, principally in obstetrics and diseases of women. The same year he was appointed lecturer on physiology by the Philadelphia Association for Medical Instruction; his pri- vate class, with J. M. Allen, numbered over one hundred students. In 1852 he was elected to the chair of physi- ology in the Pennsylvania Medical College, re- taining this position until 1863, when he suc- ceeded Samuel Jackson (q. v.) as professor of the institutes of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; failing health forced him to resign in 1877 when he was made emeritus professor. With Francis West, John B. Biddle and John J. Reese, he was a member of the first medical staff of the Protestant Episcopal Hospital, named in the reports of 1853; from 1859 to 1864 he was on the medical stafT of the Penn- sylvania Hospital ; from 1861 to 1863 he was medical director of the Christian Street Mili- tary Hospital, and left this post, under orders, to attend sick and wounded officers in the city. Smith was the first president of the Phila- delphia Obstetrical Society (1868-1872); in 1875 he founded the first physiological labora- tory in the University of Pennsylvania. He translated and added to Barth and Roger's "Manual of Auscultation and Per- cussion" (1849) ; he Avrote with John Neill "Handbook of Anatomy"; "Handbook of Chemistry" ; edited three American editions of the fourth English edition of "Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology," also the eighth English edition. In 1856 Smith had Alexis St. Martin under observation, and published the result of his experiments in the Medical Examiner, of which he was editor, 1849-1856; this appeared also as "Experiments upon Digestion," 16 pages, Philadelphia, 1856. In 1884 he married Catharine Madeleine, daug'hter of Edmund G. Dutilh, of Philadel- phia; they had three sons and a daughter, the eldest son, Robert Meade, became a physician and physiologist. Francis Gurney Smith, Jr., as he was always called, was a vestryman of St. James Protestant Episcopal Church. Renal calculi produced pyelitis ; nervous symptoms succeeded; he went abroad twice, consulted physicians, but was unimproved. He died April 6, 1878, at his home in Philadelphia. Trans. Med. Soc. Penn., 1878, vol. xxii, pt. 1, 404- 408, C. B. Nancrede. Trans. Amer. Med. Assoc, 1878, vol. xxix, 726, J. M. Toner. Bost. Med. & Surg. Jour., 1878, vol. xcviii, 549. Hist, of tlie Penn. Hosp. 1751-1895, T. G. Morton. University of Pennsylvania, J. L. Chamberlain. Eminent Amer. Phys. and Surg., R. F. Stone, 1894. Standard Hist, of the Med. Prof, of Phila., F. P. Henry. 1897. Smith, George (1804-1882) George Smith, physician and local historian, was born in Haverford township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, February 12, 1804, son of Benjamin Hayes Smith, member of the Pennsylvania Legislature 1801-1804, and Margaret Dunn. He went to school in the neighborhood, then to the academy in West Chester, Pennsylvania, under Jonathan Gause, a successful teacher of that day, and gradu- ated in medicine at the University of Penn- sylvania in 1826, offering a thesis entitled "Cynanche Trachealis." He practised for five years in Darby and its vicinity; but coming into possession of a large estate in 1829, re- tired from medicine and gave his time to the management of his farms, numerous private and public trusts, and the cultivation of his literary and scientific tastes. In 1832 he was elected state senator from the district composed of Chester and Delaware counties, serving until 1836. As chairman of the senate committee on education he was largely instrumental, with the support of Thaddeus Stevens and Governor Wolfe, in establishing a permanent law for free educa- tion in the state. In 1836 Governor Ritner appointed him associate judge of the courts of Delaware county, a position he held six years