Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1107

NAME SPENCER 1085 SPENCER Spencer, Pitman Clemens (1793-1860) Known as a surgeon and lithotomist, he was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, the son of Gideon and Catherine Spencer, his father, a lieutenant in the state service in the Revolution. Pitman Spencer had few early advantages and began to study medi- cine with his brother, Dr. Mace C. Spencer, in 1810, remaining with him until 1812, when he volunteered and acted as surgeon's mate to a detachment of troops located at Nor- folk. He attended lectures at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1818. He settled in Nottoway Court House, and, associated with Dr. Archibald Campbell, practised until 1827, when he went abroad, passed some time in London and Paris, and made a tour of Switzerland and Italy. While in Paris he studied under Dupuytren and afterwards always used the latter's doubled, concealed lithotome. Dr. Spencer was a member of the (old) Medical Society of Virginia. A comtempo- rary said of him that he was a born surgeon, but cared more for the art than the science. He was bold to recklessness in operating, but had marvellous success. This was attributable to the great care with which he prepared his patient; to freedom in the use of soap and water, rendering both himself and patient as nearly aseptic as possible, and to the care of his patients after operation. He used in his operations a solution of creo- sote in alcohol, an excellent antiseptic. His operations of all kinds were well done, and generally successful, and his prognoses of traumatisms seldom erred. He paid special attention to lithotomy, dis- carding lithotrity as not comparable in re- sults, a conclusion arrived at only after a thorough trial of both operations. He spent much time practising the crushing operation upon the cadaver while in Paris, and pos- sessed a fine set of instruments. He did the operation of lateral lithotomy twenty-nine times, losing only his first two patients. Less than a year before his death he operated successfully upon an eight-year-old boy, re- moving a calculus weighing 580 grains. He protested against the use of the catheter after operation, and tying the legs together awaited the passage of urine by the natural channel. His reputation as a lithotomist was very extended, indeed, almost worldwide, which fact and a similar one in the case of his greater surgical co-temporary. Dr. J. P. Met- tauer (q. v.), show what a position may be obtained in a provincial town, or even in a small village, unaided by metropolitan or academic advantages. He was far ahead of his time in the use of both asepsis and anti- sepsis without knowing it. His practice ex- tended over southside Virginia and far into North Carolina, and his name was a house- hold word, and his word the law in things surgical. He never married, although a great beau, and assiduous in his attentions to ladies, especially young ladies. He died in Petersburg on the fifteenth of January, 1860, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. So far as I have been able to discover the following articles are all that he contributed to medical literature : "A Case of Calculus successfully treated by Lithotrity" (American Journal of the Medi- cal Sciences, 1832) ; "Report of the Successful Removal of an Enormous Tumor of the Neck" (American Journal of the Medical Sci- ences, 1844); "Case of Irritable Uteru" (The Stethoscope, vol. i, April, 1851) ; "Report of Fifteen Cases of Lithotomy" (The Stetho- scope," vol. i) ; "Empyema Successfully Treated by Paracentesis Thoracis" (Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iv) ; "Re- sults of Twenty-four Operations for Lithot- omy" (Virginia Medical and Surgical Jour- nal, vol. iv) ; "Report of Twelve Cases of Lithotomy." Robert M. Slaughter. Maryland and Virg. Med. Jour., Richmond, 1860, vol. xiv. No. Amer. Med. and Chir. Rev., Phila., 1860, vol. iv. Spencer. Thomas (1793-1851) Thomas Spencer was born in Great Bar- rington, Massachusetts, October 22, 1793. His father, Eliphalet Spencer, wheelwright, was a man of more than ordinary intellec- tual strength and physical energy who served during the Revolutionary War in the Con- necticut regiment, and fought at the battle of Saratoga, and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne. An elder brother taught Spencer arithmetic and in 1806 he had three months' schooling for the purpose of studying Eng- lish grammar, and never forgot the morti- fication of being outstripped by one of the school girls somewhat older than himself. When nineteen he was taught surveying by his brother. Gen. Ichabod Spencer, and about the same time began to study medicine with Dr. Dix, of Delphi. By his surveying and school teaching he was enabled to earn the fees for his medical course, and in 1816 received a license to practise from the Med- ical Society of the County of Herkimer.