Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1136

NAME STRIBLING 1114 STRINGHAM "mutter tropfen," were made of opium, castor, saffron and maple seed, each one dram, and Lisbon wine four ounces ; possessing anodyne and antispasmodic properties they were doubtless beneficial in nervous disorders. That Dr. Stoy was a progressive physician, keeping abreast of the times, is shown by the fact that he was active in introducing inocu- lation for the smallpox, although there was a great prejudice against it as an attempt to thwart Providence. After an eventful life, he died in Lebanon, September 14, 1801, and was buried at the Host Church, in Berks County. Francis R. Packard. From an account read before the Lebanon County Historical Society, October 19, 1900, by J. H. Redsecker, Ph.M. Stribling, Francis Taliaferro (1810-1874) Francis T. Stribling, alienist,^ was born near Staunton, Virginia, on the twentieth of Feb- ruary, 1810, and after receiving a good edu- cation, was for some years employed in assist- ing his father, clerk of -Augusta County. He then took a course of lectures at the Uni- versity of Virginia, and another in the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, taking his M. D. from the latter in 1831 and settling to prac- tice in his native town. In 1836, when only twenty-six, he was elected physician to the Western Lunatic Asylum of Virginia, and in 1840, superintendent. He was one of the prime movers in the organization of the Association of Medical Superintendents of Institutions for the Insane in 1844, and was a member dur- ing the rest of his life. He was an honorary member of the Medical Society of Virginia. His entire time was devoted to the manage- ment of the asylum and the care of his un- fortunate patients, the nuinber of whom in- creased during his administration from sev- enty-two to more than 350. Possessing great professional ability, extensive knowledge of mental disorders, together with evenness of temper, and inflexible firmness, he was pecu- liarly fitted for the position. He entered most heartily into that spirit of reform, then grow- ing in strength, that the insane were the sub- jects of disease rather than dernoniacs pos- sessed of an evil spirit, and was an ardent advocate of the modern humane and rational methods of treatment. His success gained for him an extended reputation, and he was re- garded as an authority in his native State on all questions connected with his specialty. He took, also, an active interest in the establishment of a State institution for the deaf, dumb and blind, and was one of those influential public men who effected the found- ing of one at Staunton. As early as 1845 he began to urge the establishment of a hos- pital exclusively for the colored insane, and never ceased to bring it to the attention of the Legislature until his object was accom- plished. He married Henrietta F. Cuthbert, of Staunton, in 1833, and had three daughters and a son. He died at his home in Staunton on the twenty-third of July, 1874. His only known writings are his annual reports, which were considered models of their kind. He was also the author of some valuable laws governing the hospitals for the insane, which were passed by the Legisla- ture. The Western State Hospital owns a portrait of him. Robert M. Slaughter. Stringham, James S. (1775-1817) James S, Stringham, the earliest professor of medical jurisprudence in America, and the earliest American writer on that subject, was born in New York City in 1775, where his parents gave him the foremost educational facilities of the time. Some time after taking his degree from Columbia College in 1793 he began to study theology, but, by rea- son of delicate health, ceased for a time all study and afterwards his liking and atten- tion both turned in the direction of science and medicine. To Edinburgh, therefore, the medical Mecca of the time, he went, and there received in 1799 his medical degree. Shortly after his return to New York (in 1804) he was appointed professor of chem- istry in Columbia College, and prepared and delivered a course of lectures on medical jur- isprudence, the first in America. When, in 1813, the medical faculty of Columbia was iTierged with the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Stringham was very naturally appointed to the chair of legal medicine. His lectures were always clear, forceful, and interesting, and were greatly enriched by his wide and varied learning. These lectures were published in the Amer- ican Medical and Philosopliical Register in the following year (1814) and are highly prized at the present day by all interested in the development of American medical jurispru- dence. For the greater part of his life Dr. String- ham was a sufferer from organic heart-dis- ease. On several occasions he was obliged