Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1110

NAME SQUIRE 1088 STABB life of sixty years and reared a family of nine children. Dr. Spofford became a fellow of the Massa- chusetts Medical Society in 1817 and began to write for the Gaccltcr of Massachusetts, of which he brought out an edition in 1828 and another in 1860. He published two edi- tions of the "Genealogy of the Spofford Fam- ily," 1850 and 1870; as associate editor of the Haverhill Gacettc for thirty years he wrote many biographical sketches of the members of the medical fraternity and articles on the historical incidents connected with the Essex North District Medical Society, of which he was an active member. Among his positions he was a trial justice, state senator, surgeon of the Essex county militia, member of the New York Historic and Genealogical Society. Phys. & Surgs. of U. S., W. B. Atkinson, 1878. Boston Med. & Surg. .Tour., 1881, vol. civ, 116. Squire, Truman Hoffman (1823-1889) When a general practitioner like T. H. Squire, with evident talent for surgery, re- mains a practitioner, one regrets a loss to both sides of the profession, but common- place hindrances often keep a man tied while ambition soars. Truman Squire was born to John Graham and Rhoda Smith Squire in Russia, March 31, 1823. He went as a lad to the Fairfield Academy and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1848, settling eventually in Elmira and practising there all his life with the excep- tion of a term of service during the War. He married Grace, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Smith, of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and had two daughters and a son, the latter, Charles L., practising with his father. Dr. Squire possessed a reputation in skil- ful surgery appreciated by his colleagues and, added to this he had a fine talent of inven- tion, one result of which was an instrument for easy admission to the bladder through the natural channel, an invention which cul- minated in the soft rubber catheter of Nela- ton. Squire's was designed for cases of en- larged prostate and consisted of the employ- ment at the distal extremity of a metallic catheter of a number of ball-and-socket joints in the form of a continuous tube which admitted of much mobility and readily found entrance through a sinuous canal to the cav- ity of the bladder. In 1876 the Arguentieul Prize from the Academy of Medicine of Paris of 1,500 francs was awarded him for his contribution to surgical appliances for use in genito-urinary disease. Dr. Squire died on November 27, 1889, at his home in Elmira. Trans. Med. Soc. State of New York, 1896 Wm. C. Wey. Stabb, Henry Hunt (1812-1892) Henry Hunt Stabb, Newfoundland alien- ist, was born in 1812 at Torquay, Devon- shire, England. Educated in Torquay, he began the study of medicine at the age of fifteen in Edinburgh, where he graduated in medicine. He joined Dr. Carson of St. Johns, Newfoundland, as assistant and was associated with him for two years. His in- terest in the insane in the colony dates from this period. He found six male maniacs occu- pying basement cells of the old Feter Hos- pital, since destroyed, where they were chained to benches and walls with a bedding of straw and with their food passed to them in tins tied to the ends of long poles. Seeing them in this wretched condition, he began an agitation in favor of better housing and treatment. After repeated efforts he induced the government to lease a small cottage called "Palks" on the Waterford Bridge Road, and became attending physician with ten patients. During this time he kept up his general practice and labored as secretary of the Board of Health in an epidemic of cholera and also of smallpox. In 1848 he received promises of large dona- tions from several friends, residents in St. Johns, if the government would build a proper asylum. Miss Dix, who visited St. Johns during this year, offered a donation of lOO pounds, took great interest in the work, and collected other subscriptions from abroad. The Governor, Sir G. DeMarchand, also used great influence with the government, which finally consented and appointed Dr. Stabb to visit continental and English institutions for the purpose of studying their methods of management. He spent one year in Paris schools and in visiting Germany, England and Scotland, before his return in 1852. Upon his plans and suggestions the pres- ent asylum was commenced in 1853. The building consisted of a central block for physician's residence, kitchen, engine-room, etc., and a wing attached to it, consisting of a lower ward for males and upper ward for females and an attic for extra males, with a total accommodation of forty-five male and thirty female patients. It was finished in 1855.' In the year 1860 the Prince of Wales vis- ited the island, and his attendant physician. Dr. Ackland, was surprised and pleased with the institution and encouraged Dr. Stabb to leave St. Johns to seek a position in Eng- land. In 1863 it was found necessary to build a wing, corresponding to the first,