Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1104

NAME SOLLY 1082 SOMERVAIL Michigan Medical Society. Dr. Snow was a large man, fully six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds. His face was smooth, ruddy, rather full; he had a gra- cious expression, a thoughtful manner, and was deliberate in speech. He died in Dear- born, Michigan, July 18, 1892, from apoplexy. Le.rtus Connor. Representative Men in Mich., Cinn., O., 1878. Solly, Samuel Edwin (1845-1906) An Englishman, who spent his active life in Colorado; a general practitioner, devot- ing himself to diseases of all kinds, espe- cially to chest diseases seeking an arrest in that climate, and a restless pioneer in the now prevalent climatic treatment of tuber- culosis. Such in brief was Dr. Solly. Born in London, May 5, 184S, he was edu- cated at Rugby and later at St. Thomas' Hospital, graduating from the College of Surgeons in 1867. His father, Samuel Solly, was a distinguished London surgeon. His grandfather, a financier, joined with others in building the Sirius, one of the first steam- ships to ply between England and America. In 1874 Solly cast his lot with the infant Colorado (being driven to it by disease) and with others was so insistent on its climatic virtues as to compel the world to hear. His principal writing was the "Handbook of Med- ical Climatology," though he published a large number of monographs on various diseases as they were affected by climate, and prin- cipally that of Colorado. His last important work was to build, with funds provided by the late Gen. Palmer, Cragmor Sanatorium overlooking Colorado Springs. He lived to conduct this institution through the first year of its existence. He was a fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society of London ; ex-president of the American Climatological Association, of the American Laryngological, Rhinological, and Otological Society ; Colo- rado State Medical Society, and the El Paso County Medical Society. He received the honorary M. D. from the University of Den- ver. He was a director of the National Society for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. He married, in 1872, in London, England, Alma Helena Sandwell, who died in 1875, leaving two daughters, Lillian and Alma, and in 1877 ( ?) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Elizabeth Meller Evans, of Philadephia, a widow with two children, Helen and Wil- liam. On the nineteenth of November, 1906, Dr. Solly died in Asheville, North Carolina, of heart disease, complicated with Bright's disease. S.^muel A. Fisk. Somers, John (1840-1898) John Somers was born in St. Johns, New- foundland, in 1840, and died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1898, after practising in Halifax most of his professional life. His general education was obtained at St. Mary's College, Halifax, his professional training at Bellevue Medical College, New York, from which he graduated M. D. in 1866. Dr. Somers was a member of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, of which he was president in 1883. He was for a time assistant-surgeon in the United States Army, and, for years, a vis- iting physician of the Victoria General Hos- pital, Halifax, and professor of physiology in the Halifax Medical College. Dr. Somers led a life of great activity, was engaged in many matters of social and public interest, and was a warm supporter of the Halifax Med- ical College. He was an ardent student of botanical science, did much to extend the knowledge of the flora of Eastern North America, and presented a large number of papers on this subject to the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science, which may be found in that Society's printed Transactions. Dr. Somers married a Miss Brown, of Halifax, and left several sons and daughters. Donald A. Campbell. Somervail, Alexander (1758-1823) Born in Scotland and probably educated at the University of Edinburgh. He emi- grated to America in the early years of the nineteenth century and settled in Essex County, Virginia, and practised there until his death. He was a very skilful and observant phy- sician, and evidently a student of diseases and a contributor to medical literature. In a paper on "The Medical Topography and Diseases of a Section of Virginia" he shows that he recognized, as a distinct variety of' continued fever, the disease we now term Typhoid Fever, which in that day was con- founded with continued Malarial Fever. He was one of the first to recognize Typhoid Fever as a distinct disease. In his early life, though brought up in the Scottish Kirk, he was an avowed infidel, but later became an earnest Christian and was noted for his high moral character and charitable works, being a physician of the poor as well as the rich. He married the daughter of the Rev. John Mathews, of St. Anne's Parish, Essex, and