Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1113

NAME STEARNS 1091 ST*EARNS Marlboro, Massachusetts and practised until 1859, when he removed to Hartford, Con- necticut. In 1861, upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned a surgeon in the First Connecticut Volunteers, and as such participated in the first battle of Bull Run. He was later made a surgeon of the United States Medical Corps and was detailed as brigade surgeon to the army of Gen. Fremont at St. Louis. Later he was assigned to the staff of General Grant and was with him throughout his service in the Southwest ex- cept for a short period when he served as medical director of the right wing of the army of Gen. McClellan. He subsequently was appointed medical inspector of hospitals on the stafif of Col. R. C. Wood, assistant surgeon general and later superintended the building of the Joseph Holt Hospital at Jefferson- ville, Ind. Afterward he became medical di- rector of the United States general hospital at Nashville, Tennessee, where he had con- tinuously under his charge at least 10,000 patients. In September, 1865, he was mustered out of the service at his own request with the rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel, and returned to Hartford, Connecticut to resume practice. In 1873, at much pecuniary sacrifice, he accepted the superintendency of the Hart- ford Retreat because the demands of his large practice had proven too great for his health and strength. He began service the following year. The remainder of his pro- fessional life consequently was devoted to the care of the insane, in which branch of medicine he proved himself a diligent stu- dent, a skilful physician and a sagacious, con- scientious and able administrator. He prac- tically rebuilt the Retreat and added cottages and other subsidiary buildings. He also made marked improvements in the medical care and treatment of the patients under his charge. He acted frequently as a medico-legal expert in court, and his services as a consultant were highly prized by his brother physicians. A prolific writer, he wrote many books and papers. The following is a partial list : Parts 1 and 2 medical volumes and parts 1, 2 and 3 surgical volumes of the "Medical and Surgical I?istory of the War of the Rebel- lion"; "Classification of the Insane"; "The Relations of Insanity to Modern Civilization"; "The Insane Diathesis"; "Phases of Insanity"; "The Care of Some Classes of the Insane"; "Expert Evidence in the Case of the U. S. vs. Guiteau" ; "Insanity, Its Causes and Pre- vention" ; "Progress in the Treatment of the Insane"; "General Paresis and Senile Insan- ity"; "The Classification of Mental Diseases"; "The Importance of Cottages for the Insane"; "Some Notes on the Present State of Psychi- atry"; "Lectures on Mental Diseases" and "Commissions in Lunacy." He was lecturer in psychiatry at Yale Uni- versity from 1875 to 1897, and resigned be- cause of ill health. His memebrship included : the Americart Medico-Psychological Association (President in 1891) ; the New England Psychological As- sociation; Connecticut Medical Society; City Medical Society, serving each society as both vice-president and president. He remained in active charge of the Hart- ford Retreat until failing health compelled him to resign March 31, 1905, after a service of thirty-one years. He married at Dumfries, Scotland, in 1857, Annie Elizabeth Storrier, who died in 1903, after nearly forty-six years of ideal married life. After a brief and painless illness he died May 27, 1905. Henry M. Hurd. New Eng. Med. Month., Conn., 1884-5, vol. iv Portrait. Stearns, John (1770-1848) John Stearns was born in Wilbraham, Mas- sachusetts, on the sixteenth day of May, 1770. He was early fitted for college, and graduated at Yale with distinguished honor in 1789. He studied with Dr. Erastus Sergeant (q. v.) of Stockbridge until 1792, when he went to Phil- adelphia and attended the lectures of Shippen, Wistar, Rush, and others at the University. The year following, in 1793, he entered upon practice, near Waterford, in the county of Saratoga, New York, where in 1797 he mar- ried a daughter of Col. Hezekiah Ketchum. The inception of the Medical Society of the State of New York was received from John Stearns, and he was elected its secre- tary at the first meeting in 1807, and con- tinued to fill the office for several years. In 1807, Dr. Stearns communicated to the pro- fession through Dr. Ackerly, in an article pub- lished in the eleventh volume of the New York Medical Repository, his observations on the medical properties of ergot in facilitating parturition. Whatever inay have been known of this substance before. Dr. Stearns was the first to attract attention to it in the United States, and his observations were doubtless original. In 1809 he was elected to the Senate of the State of New York, and served as senator for four years until 1813. He removed to Albany in 1810, and for nine years was ac-