Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1198

NAME VANDER WEYDE 1176 VAN GIESON gery. He was the founder o[ the Syracuse Hospital for Women and Children where he served as surgeon-in-chief for more than twenty years. He is said to have performed over 2000 laparotomies. Howard A. Kelly. Albany Med. Ann., Oct., 1910. Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc, Phila., 1911, vol. xxxvl, 595-6. Trans. Amer Gyn. Soc, 1901. Album of Fellows. Portrait. Vander Weyde, Peter H. (1813-1895) Peter H. Vander Weyde, scientist, editor, writer and physician, was born in Nymegen, Holland, in 1813, and graduated from the Royal Academy at Delft. He was a scientific writer and teacher in Holland, and professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the Government School of Design. In 1842 he founded a journal devoted to malhctnatics and physics, and in 1845 received a gold medal from the Society for the Promotion of Scien- tific Knowledge for a text-book on natural philosophy. At the same time he was the editor of a liberal daily paper, which waged vigorous warfare against existing abuses in the government. In 1849 he came to New York, and grad- uated from the New York University Medical College in 1856, and practised medicine until he was appointed professor of physics, chem- istry, and higher mathematics at the Cooper Institute. He was also professor of chemistry in the New York Medical College. In 1864 the chair of industrial science was expressly created for him at Girard College, Phila- delphia. This last professorship he resigned a few years later, and returning to New York became the editor of The Manufacturer and Builder, a scientific journal. He contributed many valuable articles of a scientific nature to "Appleton's New American Cyclopedia," of which he was an editor. He had more than two hundred patents on inventions of his own, mostly electrical. Besides these attainments he displayed much merit as musician, com- poser and painter. Med. Reg., N. Y., 1895, vol. xxxiii. Van Gieson, Ira Thompson (1866-1913) Ira Van Gieson died March 24, 1913, at the Bellcvue Hospital in New York at the age of 47. His death was due to chronic nephritis and its complications. The son of Dr. Ransford E. Van Gieson, Ira Van Gieson was born on Long Island and throughout his active career was associated almost entirely with New York and the insti- tutions of that State. He was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1885; and for many years thereafter served the school as one of its teachers, receiving his first appointment in 1887, and in 1894 being made instructor of pathology and histology of the nervous system. He early developed an interest in scientific problems,- particularly of a pathological sort connected with the ner- vous system, and although during the latter years of his life he did much work on hydro- phobia he will be chiefly known as a brilliant investigator and student of neuro-pathological subjects. One of his earlier services was the discovery and application of a practical and simple method of staining nerve tissues, which has since gone imder his name. His point of view was always original and at times fan- tastic. For many years he was a dominant figure at neurological meetings and invariably advanced ideas of striking originality and significance. One of his most brilliant pieces of work was the demonstration, in the early nineties, that certain conditions of the spinal cord found post mortem and supposedly dem- onstrating faults of development, were in reality simply artefacts produced by imperfect and careless hardening of the tissues. This work created a profound impression in Ger- many, and disclosed in striking fashion the fallacy of much painstaking investigation pre- viously made by German students. When the central laboratory, known as the Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospitals for the Insane, was organized Dr. Van Gieson was chosen, very naturally, as its first director. He held this position for about seven years and established during that time a most elaborate system for the study and path- ological investigation of mental disease, in- sisting upon the thesis that the nervous system although more highly differentiated, and there- fore demanding special study, must, neverthe- less, be regarded as under the same general laws as other organs and that an examination of the nervous system should entail an equally painstaking study of the rest of the body. Val- uable in theory, such a plan of organization met certain obstacles in practice. It was felt that the practical aspects of the subject were being sacrificed to theoretical considerations, so that finally, much to his disappointment. Dr. Van Gieson was obliged t6 give up a work upon which he had set his whole heart. He thereafter, for a number of years, was in the service of the New York Health Department and continued to work in the Laboratory up to the time of his final illness, although for some years past he had been far less in the public eye than formerly. Boston Med. & Surg. Jour., 1913, vol. clxviii, pp. 634-635.