Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1137

NAME STRONG 1115 STRUDWICK on this account to cease his professional, work. In 1817, on the advice of his friends, he proceeded to the island of St. Croix, seeking relief from his terrible infirmity. But no relief came except death, which occurred on June 28, of the same year. Thomas Hall Shastid. American Medical Biography, J. Thacher, 1828, vol. ii. 104-106. Forensic Medicine and Toxicology in vol. i, Witt- haus and Becker's Medical Jurisprudence, R. A. Witthaus. Trans. Internat. Med. Congress, Phila., 1876 Stanford E. Cliaillg. Strong, Nathaniel (1783-1867) Born of English parentage in Northamp- ton, Massachusetts, in 1783, he served as sur- geon in the War of 1812. and before coming west made a trip around the world, presum- ably as ship's surgeon. The printed announce- ment of the Censors of the Seventh District Medical Society shows that he was licensed to practise November 6, 1817, and settled in Centerville, a small village in Montgomery County, Ohio, but available details of his pro- fessional life are meager, his special claim for recognition resting upon a paper written in 1818. This essay, which discusses the whole sub- ject of reproduction, and displays the alert observer and a remarkable familiarity with comparative anatomy, is still in existence. In it the modern doctrine of ovulation and men- struation is distinctly and clearly taught, thus antedating by four years Doctor Powers, of London, who is credited with the discovery, although it was not generally accepted until Negrier. in 1831, proved its truth by his beau- tiful anatomical preparations. When writ- ten (1818). Dr. Strong's manuscript was sent to a prominent medical journal, but was re-" jected, presumably on account of the obscurity of the author. But for this rejection, this man of genius and original thinker, though only a backwoodsman, would today stand before the world as the discoverer of one of the fundamental facts in the physiology of generation. William J. Conklin. Strudwick, Edmund Charles Fox (1802-1879) Edmund Strudwick was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1802, at Long Meadows, about five miles north of Hillsboro, the county seat. His lineage was ancient and long-established in the community, his father being an im- portant political factor and distinguished for those qualities which afterward graced his son. His medical studies began under Dr. Jarhes Webb, and he graduated as a doctor of medi- cine at the University of Pennsylvania on April 8, 1824. He served for two years as resident physician in the Philadelphia Alms- house and Charity Hospital. Of the North Carolina State Medical Society he was a charter member and the first president. All kinds of surgery attracted him and he sought for it. Scores of operations for cataract were performed by him, according to the now obsolete needle method, without los- ing an eye. Once as he was driving homeward after a long trip in the country, he saw an old man trudging along being led by a small boy at his side. Dr. Strudwick stopped, as- certained that the man had been blind for twelve years, made him get up into his carriage and took him to his (the doctor's) home. One eye was operated on first and the other the next week, sight being restored to each. This case, as did all other similar ones, ap- pealed greatly to Dr. Strudwick. If there was any special operation for which Dr. Strudwick was famous, it was that of lithotomy. Certainly he was the leading lithotomist of his time in North Carolina. There is no record of the exact number of operations he performed, but it was large and his mortality low. Dr. Strudwick lived in a section of the State where this affection abounded. His custom was always to do the lateral operation and to introduce no tube or other drainage unless there was hemorrhage. It is said that he_ did twenty-eight consecu- tive lithotomies without a death. One case in particular has come down to us — a very large stone, wedged into the trigone and assuming its shape. On the posterior surface grooves had formed along which the urine trickled from the ureteral openings. After making the incision and finding that the calculus was too large to extract entire. Dr. Strudwick sent to the blacksmith's, secured his tongs and crushed it. Fortunately, the stone was of the soft phosphatic variety. Many breast amputations were done by Dr. Strudwick. In all cases he cleaned out. the axilla, thus anticipating most of the surgeons of a later period. His after-results were in some cases quite surprising and were uni- formly better than was the rule in those days. He performed the operation for lacerated perineum several times, invariably using sil- ver wire, but undertook no trachelorrhaphies. His practice was always to sew up a perineal tear immediately after confinement and his success in these recent cases was noteworthy. Another anticipation of modern methods was