Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1172

NAME TODD 1150 TOLAND one sister who was also insane, Dr. Todd be- came apprehensive lest he himself might lose his reason and therefore devoted much time to the study of insanity. He was fitted for col- lege by private instructors and graduated from Yale in 1787. The following year he spent in the West Indies and unfortunately con- tracted yellow fever at Trinidad. He re- turned to New Haven when he recovered, and studied medicine with Dr. E. Beardsley. In 1790, before his twenty-first birthday, he com- menced the practice of medicine in Farming- ton, Connecticut. He won respect and con- fidence at once and gradually acquired a large practice and high repute as a skilful physician. He was conspicuous for nobility of character. During an epidemic of "spotted fever" in 1808, when such panic prevailed that the greater number of well people fled the town, and out- side help could not be obtained, his extraordi- nary devotion to the sick elicited public com- mendation from the Governor of the State. Dr. Todd practised four years in New York, and in 1819 removed to Hartford, where he continued the practice of general medicine until he was elected physician to the Con- necticut Retreat for the Insane. Twice he was elected President of the State Medical So- ciety. He married, August 9, 1796, Rachel Hill of Farmington, and in November, 1828, Catherine Hill, her sister. Dr. Todd was a man with a captivating per- sonality, rare mental gifts, keen perceptive faculties and a retentive memory. He was a diligent student with remarkable aptitude for discerning values and the orderly accumula- tion of knowledge. He possessed an active but well-disciplined imagination and ready wit. "His conversations were fascinating and his occasional public addresses were impressive and magnetic." While the project for a public asylum for the insane had been agitated by local and other members of the State Society, before Dr. Todd settled in Hartford, he soon became the ac- knowledged leader in that humane movement. In some way he had obtained a comprehensive understanding of the new and revolutionary methods of treating the insane, which a tea- merchant, William Tuke, had inaugurated in a private asylum in York, England. This "Qua- ker" system of "moral treatment" appealed to the judgment, as well as the philanthropic sen- timents of Dr. Todd, who readily convinced all interested parties that Connecticut needed an asylum for the insane with aims and methods copied from the "York Retreat." By strenuous exertions, continued for several years, the Connecticut Medical Society raised sufficient money to build the "Connecticut Retreat for the Insane," at Hartford, in 1824. Dr. Todd was its first physician and con- tinued in charge until his death, from angina pectoris, November 17, 1833, at the age of sixty-four. There, for about ten years, he de- voted all his natural abilities and acquired skill in caring for the afflicted insane. His exceptional oratorical powers, the skilful ar- rangement of facts, the command of wit and pathos and the power of sincerity were assidu- ously employed in cheering despondent pa- tients and soothing irritable ones ; endeavoring to dissipate delusions and encourage all within the circle of his influence. In treating the insane Dr. Todd naturally continued to prescribe such medicines as had been efficacious in his large practice with sane invalids. Thus he judiciously combined Tuke's "moral treatment" with the best medical prac- tice, and with such signal success that his pre- eminent leadership in the treatment of the in- sane was widely recognized and continued for many years a vital power for good in American hospitals for the insane. Indeed, the benificent influences emanating from Dr. Todd's example and his remarkable success in treating the in- sane, were felt, ere long, in many foreign countries through the instrumentality of Doro- thea L. Dix, whose knowledge and convictions respecting the insane, as well as prophetic zeal for their betterment, were grounded upon the brilliant operation of Todd's system of insane hospital management, as applied in two Massachusetts institutions. By following Todd's methods and radiating the inspiration received from him. Dr. S. B. Wooflward (.q. v.) at Worcester and Dr. J. S. Butler (q. v.) at South Boston, produced illuminating re- sults, within the knowledge and under the observation of Miss Dix, before she began her glorious crusade against cruel and un- just treatment of the insane. Charles W. Page. - Toland, Hugh Hughes (1806-1880). Hugh H. Toland has been 'styled by some "the great surgeon of the Pacific slope." He was born on his father's plantation, Guilder's Creek, South Carolina, April 6, 1806, the fourth of ten children. His father, John Toland, emi- grated from the north of Ireland, and came to South Carolina after the War of Indepen- dence. Hugh read medicine under Dr. George Ross, and helped in the doctor's drug store, afterwards going to Transylvania University