Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1140

NAME SWEETNAM 1118 SWEETSER He was an expert in setting fractures, and in reducing dislocations, and was often called to great distances for accidents of this sort in which he possessed an extraordinarily acute power of diagnosis, and skill in manipulation. He performed during his lifetime all of the operations of the day and had no superior in Maine. He married Elizabeth Wedgewood, of Portland, in 1811. and had eleven chil- dren, the youngest of whom became a doctor. Unfortunately, however, for the hopes of his father, this promising son who was begin- ning to take the drudgery of long journeys from his shoulders, died very early. From this shock Dr. Sweat never actually rallied to do his work as of old. His bright hopes were crushed; his interest for work was de- stroyed. This manly physician and skilful surgeon passed gently away, August 25, 1865. J.^MES A. Sp-M-ding. Trans. Maine Med. Assoc. Sweetnam, Lesslie Matthew (1859-1901) Lesslie Matthew Sweetnam, surgeon, son of Matthew Sweetnam, Post Office inspector, was born in Kingston, Ontario, on August 1. 1859. .'^s a boy he went to the Upper Canada Col- lege, Toronto, graduating M. B. from the University of Toronto and M. D. from Vic- toria College in 1881, afterwards doing post- graduate work in Great Britain, Europe, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and in 1885 marrying Margaret Victoria, daughter of C. H. Goodesham of Toronto, by whom he had one daughter who, to his great sorrow, died before him. An untiring worker, he faithfully attended to the incessant demands of a large general practice, often making routine calls into the small hours of the night, yet building up a large surgical practice, paying visits to other clinics, being quick to adopt the best methods. An original thinker, he worked out a number of improvements in surgical technic. He showed that cases of extreme tympany might sometimes be relieved by posture alone. In one instance he placed a patient who appeared to be in a dying condition in the knee-breast posture with prompt relief to the accumula- tion of gases. ("Relief of Tympanites by Posture." Annah of Surgery, 1896, vol. xxiii.) He also devised the inflatable rubber balloon contained in a silk bag as a means of dilating rectal strictures without risk. Personally, he fearlessly followed duty wherever it led. He went to Colorado with a relative suffer- ing with laryngeal tuberculosis who was most careless in his habits, confidently expecting to lose his own life in devotion to duty. The nurse, whom he warned of the risk, took the disease and died. Sweetnam practically wore himself out in incessant labors for the sick. He contracted nephritis which was accompanied by attacks of extreme pain and hematuria and had but partially recovered when he was poisoned in amputating an arm of a tramp infected with the gas bacillus. This added burden was too much for the crippled kidneys and he died suddenly in a uremic convulsion on December 11, 1901. He had rare surgical judgment, was a delib- erate operator and obtained excellent results. In many ways he was years ahead of his time. As a man he at once inspired confi- dence and as a friend was as true as steel. Sweetnam was on the staff of the Toronto General Hospital : surgeon to St. Michael's Hospital, and the House of Providence and was a professor in the Ontario Medical Col- lege for Women. How.^RD A. Kelly. Canad. Pract. and Rev., Toronto, 1901. Bibliog- raphy, vol. xxvi. Canad. Jour. Med. and Surg., 1902, vol. xi. Methodist Mag. and Rev., Toronto. 1902, vol. Iv. Portrait. Sweetser, William (1797-1875) William Sweetser, physician, teacher, author, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Septem- ber 8, 1797, and died in New York City, October 14, 1875. He was graduated at Har- vard in 1815, received his medical degree there in 1818, and practised in Boston, Burlington, Vermont, and New York City. From 1825 till 1832 he was professor of medicine in the University of Vermont, and from 1845 till 1861 he held the same chair in Bowdoin. He also lectured in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and in the medical school of Castleton, Vermont, and was professor of medicine in Hobart College, Geneva, from 1848 till 1855. Dr. Sweetser published "Dis- sertation on Cynanche Trachealis or Croup" and "Dissertation on the Functions of the Extreme Capillary Vessels in Health and Dis- ease," to which were awarded the Boylston prizes for 1820 and 1823, respectively; "Dis- sertation on Intemperance," the Annual Dis- | course in 1829 to which was awarded a pre- mium by the Massachusetts Medical Society; | "Treatise on Consumption" (1823-1826) ; "Treatise on Digestion and Its Disorders" (1837); "Mental Hygiene" (New York, 1843; London, 1844) ; and "Human Life" (1867). Appleton's Cyclopedia Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1889.