Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1106

NAME SPENCE 1084 SPENCE from Eastport, Maine, to New Orleans, the work being all done with his own hands, and at last, in June, 1819, he was profoundly gratified by a meeting of one section on the pharmacopceia at Boston and another at Philadelphia. Finally, in 1820, the national convention met at Washington, he was put at the head of the Publication Committee and in the winter the book was published, in Latin, and English, on alternate pages. While this great work was going on, Doc- tor Caspar Wistar died and Dr. Spalding made a serious effort to obtain the vacant chair of anatomy in the Pennsylvania Hos- pital Medical School, but local interests ob- tained the appointment for a local surgeon. While the printing of the pharmacopoeia was proceeding, Dr. Spalding met with a blow on his head, fell ill and despite the best of skill and advice, grew steadily worse. Find- ing death drawing near, he asked to be taken back to Portsmouth, where he died, October 21, 1821, a few days after his arrival, at the age of forty-six. Although Dr. Spalding was a versatile man and wrote papers on many topics in medi- cine, surgery, materia medica and natural history, he always had in view the advance of medicine. His papers were clean cut but rather laconic and he loved anatomy. He also took an active part in the public schools of Portsmouth and of New York, trans- lated a number of pamphlets and a medical work from the French and corresponded with a very large number of medical personages throughout the civilized world. He likewise had a great gift for friendship and was much beloved by all who knew him. He was, we must understand, a shining light in medicine, and accomplished a great deal of scientific work in his relatively short, active, profes- sional life. J.MES A. Spalding. Family letters. See also "Life of Dr. Lvman SpaldiriR. Oriuinator of the U. S. Pharma- copoeia," by Dr. James A. Spalding, Boston, 1917. Spence. John (1766-1829) He was born in 1766 in Scotland, receiving his education at Edinburgh University, where he spent five years. Fully qualified to gradu- ate in medicine, he was prevented from doing so by reason of the development of pul- monary tuberculosis, and having been advised by his preceptors to take a long sea voyage, he came to Virginia. Being in straitened circumstances, he accepted a position as tutor in a family living in Dumfries, then a thriv- ing town with an extensive trade with Scot- land. In 1828, in consideration of his well- merited distinction, the honorary M. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Pennsylvania. The voyage to and sojourn in Virginia so restored his health that at the expiration of his engagement in 1791 he began to practise medicine, for which he was well prepared and soon attained, in the region in which he lived for nearly forty years, a high repu- tation as a judicious and successful practi- tioner. When vaccination was introduced into the United States he gave his attention to the subject, and satisfying himself of its great prophylactic power, did much to inspire the public, both in Virginia and the adjoin- ing states, with confidence in it. Having imbibed his first principles under the imme- diate instruction of Cullen, they were never obliterated from his mind and were ever to him infallible evidences and tests of medical truths. He made numerous contributions to med- ical literature, one of which was a valuable one on the efficacy of digitalis in pulmonary hemorrhage. He was an earnest advocate of the use of digitalis in pulmonary affec- tions and dropsies. In 1806 he carried on an interesting cor- respondence with Dr. Benjamin Rush (q. v.) on the successful treatment of puerperal maijia, which was published in the Medical Museum of Philadelphia. He was one of the collaborators of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, and contributed to it a good paper on the efficacy of a sea voyage in arresting pulmonary consumption in his own case. He left many manuscripts in which the results of his professional experience were recorded. The last two or three years of his life were spent in combating a disease the exact nature of which is not known. Its chief symptoms were ascites and anasarca which followed a violent attack of bilious fever succeeded by attacks of gout. He kept him- self alive long beyond the time at which his disease threatened to end his existence by J the use of his favorite remedy, digitalis, and' 1 by trips in summer to watering places. His last days were saddened by the death of a favorite son. He died at his home on May 18, 1829, aged sixty-three years, leaving a widow and sev- eral small children. Robert M. Slaughter. W. E. H. in the American Journal of the Medi- cal Sciences, Phila., 1829. vol. v. Amer. Med. Biog., S. W. Williams, 1845.