Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1236

NAME WELCH 1214 WELLFORD married Elizabeth Loveland, and they had five sons, all of whom became physicians. Dr. William W. Welch graduated from the Yale Medical College in 1839, and in 1845 he married Miss Enieline Collin from Hillsdale, New York. She died in 1850. There were two children by this marriage. Miss Emma Welch, who became the wife of Wm. T. Wal- cott of New York Mills, New York, and Professor William H. Welch, the distinguished pathologist of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. In 1866 Dr. Wm. W. Welch married for his second wife Miss Emily Sedgwick, of Cornwall, Connecticut, who was the sister of General Sedgwick, a famous general in the Civil War. Dr. Wm. W. Welch's five brothers were Dr. Asa Welch of Lee, Massachusetts; Dr. Ben- jamin Welch of Lakeville, Connecticut; Dr. James Welch, of Winsted, Connecticut; and Dr. John Welch of Hartford, Connecticut. In the succeeding generation there were three physicians bearing the name of Welch, namely, Dr. William H. Welch of Baltimore, Marj-- land; Dr. Edward Welch of Winsted, Con- nectic'ut ; Dr. W. C. Welch of New Haven, Connecticut. The father and his five sons are buried in the family plot in the Norfolk vil- lage cemetery. Dr. Wm. W. Welch, in addition to his pro- fessional work, was interested in many other spheres of labor. He took an active part in business, politics, and in different philanthropic organizations. In 1855-57 he was elected to Congress in the fourth congressional district and in 1852 he was elected to the state senate and in 1S48-50-69-81 he went to the state legis- lature to represent his native town. He held the following offices of trust: President of the Norfolk Leather Company which was organ- ized in 1853; president of the Welaka Com- pany, manufacturers of woolen yarns, organ- ized in 1854; one of the incorporators of the Connecticut Western Railroad; incorporator of the Norfolk Savings Bank, which was or- ganized in 1896. Thus it is evident that he was a public-spirited citizen, as well as a "beloved physician" as he was familiarly known in the community in which he resided. In his pro- fessonal work during nearly a half century in which he practised he won the love and affection of every man, woman and child liv- ing in Norfolk. Dr. Wm. W. Welch was a practitioner of medicine in its broad sense. He was the first to demonstrate the importance of fresh air in the treatment of fevers and was in the habit of taking out the windows of the sick room to permit an abundance of fresh air to the patient. He was especially success- ful in the treatment of hydrophobia and the bites of venomous reptiles. He was tar in advance of his day in the art of nursing and many of his val'uable suggestions are in use today. He was honored and esteemed as a citizen, he was loved as a physician in the sick room, he was sought after as a congenial companion in all social functions. Frederic S. De.n'nis. Wellford, Beverly Randolph (1797-1870) The son of Dr. Robert Wellford (q.v.), of Fredericksburg, Virginia, he was born in that town on July 29, 1797. Both father and grand- father were physicians. His father was a native of England, and a licentiate of the Royal Col- lege of Surgeons. The son studied medicine un- der his father and then attended two courses of lectures in the University of Marj-land, taking his M. D. in 1817. He was a member of the Medical Society of Virginia (ante-bellum), in 1851-2, president of the State Society and president of the Ameri- can Medical Association. In 1854 he was pro- fessor of materia medica and therapeutics in the Medical College of Virginia; he continued to fill the position until the infirmities of age caused his retirement in 1868, when he was made professor emeritus. After graduation he began practice in conjunction with his father in his native place, where he remained until called to Richmond. His first wife was Betty Burwell Page, whom he married in 1817. She died the next year, leaving one daughter. He married his second wife, Mary Alexander, in February, 1824, by whom he had five sons and a daughter, all surviving him, except the second son, Dr. Armistead N. Wellford, of Richmond, who died in 1884. The oldest son. Dr. John S. ^^'ellfnrd. succeeded his father in his chair in the Medical College of Virginia. Beverly Wellford died after a pro- tracted illness following a stroke of paraly- sis, in Richmond on December 27. 1870. He does not seem to have been a contributor to medical literature. We can find no record of any article by him, except his presidential addresses to the American Medical Associa- tion in 1853 ("Transactions, American Medical Association," 1853), and to the Medical Society of Virginia in 1852. Robert M. Slaughter. From data furnished by Dr. Wellford's son, Mr. Beverly R. Wellford, Jr. Wellford, Robert (1753-1823) Robert Wellford, a surgeon in the British Army, was the son of William ^'eIford (the