Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1155

NAME THACHER 1133 THACHER of the misfortune of deafness which long de- barred him from a satisfactory speaking ac- quaintance with people around him, he studied assiduously for the benefit of his patients and posterity, and in his published works he has left a name that will endure so long as Ameri- can medicine has a history. James A. Spalding. Bost. Med. and Surg. Jour., 1891, vol. cxxiv. J. B. Brewster. Comm. Mass. Med. Soc, 1844, vol. vii, pt. 3, p. 162. Lives of Emin. Amer. Phys.. S. D. Gross, M. D. Amer. Med. Biog., S. W. Williams, M. D., Green- field, 1845. Mss. letters in possession of J. A. Spalding. Thacher, James Kingsley (1847-1891). James Kingsley Thacher was born in New Haven on October 19, 1847. His father was Professor Thomas A. Thacher of Yale Uni- versity, his mother the daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Day, one of the honored presidents of the same institution. Dr. Thacher graduated from the academic department of Yale in 1868. The next two years he spent in California. Upon his return tr- New Haven he was appointed tutor in physics, and subsequently in zoolog', in the academic department. He continued to give instruction in the latter study down to 1888. Meanwhile he had begun the study of medi- cine at the medical school, and in 1879 took his degree of M. D. In the latter part of the same year he was appointed professor of physi- ology in the school, and in 1887 the department of clinical medicine was also placed in his charge, as he was on the staflf of the New Haven Hospital. Already, in 1880, he had en- tered into the general practice of medicine. While ably discharging his duties as tutor he had still found time to make valuable investi- gations in regard to vertebrate evolution. And his work on this subject, published in 1877, in which he opposed in certain particulars the views of Huxley and Gegenbaur, secured wide- spread attention and praise, both in this country and Europe. Indeed, when in the summer of 1885. Dr. Thacher visited the various European medical centers, he found that this work had in advance won him many warm friends. But although greatly interested in this de- partment of science, and especially fitted to conduct such original investigations, he found himself drawn into other lines of work. For shortly after his appointment to a professorship in the medical school that institution was re- organized to better meet the requirements of the present times. To this work of reorgani- zation and development Dr. Thacher devoted himself. A skilled organizer and indefatigable worker, a tireless student, he had the qualities -which ensured success. The attainment of one object was but the incentive to another, and the work grew and prospered under his hands. Well versed in all branches of clinical medi- cine, he was especially interested and skilled in diseases of the nervous system. A large por- tion of his time, both at the medical school clinic and at the State Hospital, where for years he had been one of the staff, was spent in studying this class of disease. Among these manifold duties and interests little time was left for the preparation of articles for the medical press. Still, Dr. Thacher furnished a number of scholarly papers, several of which were published in the "Transactions of Ameri- can Physicians," of which body he was one of the original members. One of his last note- worthy articles was on the "Pulse-wave Ve- locity and Ventricular Close-time in Health." His skill in differential diagnosis caused his advice to be often sought in consultation. To the young practitioner especially was Dr. Thacher a delightful and profitable consultant. His genial spirit of comradeship, his genuine and unselfish interest in a case, his delight in investigating and in clearing up obscure and difficult points, in bringing out the important features of the disease, and his skill in deciding upon their rational treatment, will long be gratefully remembered by many. In the midst of increasing honors and duties he was stricken down with pneumonia, and .after an illness of a little over two days died on April 20, 1891. His wife, the daughter of iho Hon. Dwight Foster of Boston, and three children survived him. Proc. Conn. Med. Soc. 3d series, vol. iv, 1888' 1891, p. 314, 315. Louis S. DeForcst. Thacher, Thomas (1620-1678). Thomas Thacher, preacher and physician, au- thor of the first publication on a medical sub- ject in America, was the son of the Rev. Peter Thacher, rector of St. Edmunds, Salisbury, England, and was born in England May 1, 1620, coming to this country when fifteen years old with his uncle, Anthony Thacher, in the James, and landing in Boston June 3, 1635. In that same year he went to Ipswich with his uncle. In a letter published by Anthony Thacher ("Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, 483), we learn that Thomas had a narrow escape from shipwreck, for Anthony, with the Rev. John Avery and a party of friends, twenty- three in all (even then it would seem an un- lucky number), sailed August 11, 1635, frortr Ipswich to Marbfehead, where Mr. Avery was