Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1156

NAME THACHER 1134 THAYER to be settled. Thomas fortunately preferred to go by land. A violent storm arose, and An- thony's pinnace was cast away on a desolate island off the tip of Cape Ann, and he and his wife alone were saved. The island, carrying tvi'o lofty granite lighthouses and lights of the first class, bears the natne of Thacher's Island to this day. Before coining to America Thomas received a good school education, his father planning to send him to Oxford or Cambridge. He was educated for the ministry by Charles Chauncy (q. v.), the second president of Har- vard College, and, it is probable, received something of a medical education from the same source, for Chauncy was skilled in the medicine of the day. At all events, Thacher was learned in many things. He was a scholar in Arabic and composed a Hebrew lexicon. Dr. Mather tells us that according to Eliot he was a great logician, and understanding mechanics in theory and practice, could do all kinds of clock work to admiration. He was ordained as pastor in Weymouth, January 2, 1644, and re- moving to Boston in 1667 was installed as the first minister of the Old South Church, Febru- ary 16, 1670. The last sermon he preached was for Dr. Increase Mather. Dr. Thacher married a daughter of the Rev. Ralph Partridge of Duxbury, May 11, 1643, by whom he had two daughters and three sons, one of the latter a noted minister. He mar- ried a second time, June, 1664, Margaret, widow of Jacob Sheafe and daughter of Henry Webb. He died of a fever, October IS, 1678, following "a visit to a sick person." The title of the publication, issued by Dr. Thacher in the year 1677, was "A Brief Rule To guide the Common People of New England how to order themselves & theirs in the Small- Pocks, or MeaSels." A reprint of this dated 1702 is a little pamphlet of eight pages, 5^ by 3y2 inches, and signed "I am, though no PhySitian, yet a well wiSher to the Sick; And therefore intreating the Lord to turn our hearts, and Stay His hand, I am, A Friend ; Reader to thy Welfare, Thomas Thacher, 21, 11, 1677, 8." The reprint is marked "Boston, Reprinted for Benjamin Eliot, at his Shop under the WeSt-End of the Exchange, 1702," and may be found in the Boston Medical Library. W.LTF.R L. BURR.'^GE. A Biog. Dictny of the First Settlers in New Eng- land. Jotin Elliot, D. D., Salem and Boston, 1809. A GeneaJog. Register of the First Settlers of New England. John Farmer, 1829. A Genealog. Diet, of the First Settlers of New England. Tames Savage, 1861. Amer. Med. Biog. Tames Thacher, M. D., 1828. Hist, of Med. in U. S., to" 1800. Francis R. Packard, M. D., 1901. Thayer, Proctor (1823-1890). Proctor Thayer, a surgeon of Cleveland, Ohio, was the son of Daniel Thayer, a farmer, and was born in Williamstown, Massachu- setts, October 16, 1823. The death of his. father in 1830 compelled his mother to break up her home in the East, and accept the invitation of her eldest son to live with him in Aurora, Portage County, Ohio. Here the son, Proctor, received such education as was attainable, and was designed to be apprenticed to a shoemaker of the town ; but the boy re- belled and positively refused to learn this humble trade. By dint of industry and econ- omy he succeeded in working his way throi;gh the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, in the scientific department of which lie grad- uated in 1842, and eventually studied medicine with Dr. Delamater (q. v.), of Cleveland. Here he attended medical lectures in the Cleveland Medical College, until his graduation there in 1849. In 1849 he was appointed to the charge of the cholera hospital in the city of Cleveland, and won many encomiums for his courage, skill and success. In 1852 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Cleveland Medical College, in 1856 was elected to the chair of anatomy and physiology, and this was exchanged in 1862 for that of the principles and practice of surgery, to which was annexed, at his own request, the chair of medical jurisprudence. During the Civil War Thayer was active as an examining surgeon, and in the volunteer medical service in South Caro- lina and at Pittsburg Landing and Corinth. On returning to Cleveland he resumed duties in the college, until, in 1890, failing health com- pelled him to claim a few months of rest. Unfortunately neither rest nor inedical treat- ment sufficed for his restoration, and he died in Cleveland October 1, 1890. On June 27, 1861, Dr. Thayer married Mary Ellen Mesury, and had two boys and two girls. One of these boys, Joseph M., be- came a physician. Dr. Thayer was a prudent and skilful sur- geon of bluff and hearty manners and a ready and caustic wit, which won him both friends and enemies. As an expert witness upon the witness stand he was at his very best, and woe to the unwary lawyer who aspired to entangle or confuse him in the toils of medico-legal ambiguities. As a teacher he was distinguished by positivcness and a clearness of statement which rendered him very popular among stu- dents. If we add to this that Dr. Thayer is said to have been the first teacher in the Cleveland Medical College to discard written