Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1242

NAME WESTMORELAND 1220 WESTMORELAND sions of the college were suspended, there were several subjects on hand in the anatomical department. These Dr. Westmoreland em- balmed and carefully stored away. Several years after the war, he turned them over to the college in such good condition that they were used in place of fresh subjects. Dr. West- moreland established the first hospital in the city of Atlanta, for many years maintaining it principally at his own expense. During the early part of the war he sold $100,000 worth of Atlanta city property, lending the entire amount to the Southern Confederacy. Of course this was to him an entire loss. Long before the pestiferous, stegomyia fas- ciata, and his cousin, culex, began to buzz in medical circles, Westmoreland took the position that yellow fever was non-contagious and to convince the public and medical pro- fession of the correctness of his position, he often took his yellow fever patients into the inner room of his office and slept with them, and at no time contracted the disease. The only public office Dr. Westmoreland ever held was in 1855 when elected member of the House of Representatives of Georgia, going there solely for the purpose of getting a donation from the State to help build the Atlanta Medical College. In this he succeeded to the extent that the State granted the college $15,000, in return for which the college has ever since that time gratuitously educated some young man every session from each of the congressional districts of the State of Georgia. Dr. Westmoreland married Annie Buchanan, a near' relative of President James Buchanan, and had two children, Louisa, and a son, Robert W. Dr. Westmoreland on his paternal side was of English ancestry, a lineal descendant of Lord Westmoreland. In 1740 three West- moreland brothers emigrated to America, first settling in Virginia. Of these, one, William, came to North Carolina, and one of his descendants coming to Georgia, settled in Fayette County, long before the Indians had left that part of the State. This gentleman was Dr. Westmoreland's father. R. J. Massey. Westmoreland, Willis Furman (1828-1890) Willis Westmoreland, surgeon, was born in Pike County, Georgia, June 1, 1828. He was a descendant of Lord Westmoreland of West- moreland County, England, from whom West- moreland County, Virginia, was named about three centuries ago. In 1740 three Westmore- land brothers emigrated from England to Vir- ginia, settling at Jamestown. They were Robert, William and Thomas. Robert settled in Virginia, William in North Carolina, and Thomas in South Carolina. Willis Furman was the great-grandson of William, one of whose descendants came to Georgia and set- tled at that time in Fayette County, known as Pioneer Georgia, coming here long before the Indians had left that part of the State. Young Willis went to the best country schools and like most farmer boys alternated between farm and schoolhouse till about twenty years old. He then read medicine with his brother, Dr. John Gray Westmoreland (q.v.), at that time practising in Pike County. His first course of lectures was in the Georgia Medical College during the winter of 1848 and 1849; he graduated at the Jeffer- son Medical College in Philadelphia in 1850. In 1851 he went to Paris, where he spent three years making himself proficient in his favorite department, surgery. Returning home, he first settled in his native county in 1854, but soon removed to Atlanta and from the very begin- ning fully identified himself with surgery. To- gether with his brother, John G., he estab- lished the Atlanta Medical and Surgical Jour- nal. He joined the Georgia Medical Associa- tion in which he held during his life many im- portant positions. For fifteen years he was president of the Atlanta Association of Medi- cine. Dr. Westmoreland was an active, energetic man, capable of undergoing much physical labor. Wishing to visit Texas in his youth, he rode all the way on horseback from Pike County, Georgia, to middle Texas. Remaining a short time, he returned, each ride taking him about thirty days. At present the same dis- tance can be traveled in as many hours by rail. As a monument to the memory of this ener- getic man, his old neighbors in Pike County point with pardonable pride to a plain, two room frame building, still standing at a neigh- boring cross-road. In 1851 when he deter- mined to start country practice, there was no room to be had fit to see patients in. He had no money to build one, so he went to the woods, cut down and hauled the timber to the nearest sawmill, had the lumber sawed and with his own hands built the rooms himself. Aside from being a leading surgeon, during the Civil War he ranked as a general in the Confederate service by special appointment from President Davis himself. He was an ardent supporter of the Atlanta Medical College from its very beginning, and