Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1257

NAME WILDER 1235 VVILKINS son's Cyclopedia and contributed many papers to the Journal of A'cj~:'oiis and Menial Dis- eases, and he made a report on the British and other European asylums, which he had visited. He made a good fight for an unpop'ular cause. Arch. Med. N. Y., Mrs. C. V. Brown, 1883, vol. 277-279. Jour. Amer. Med. Asso., J. M. Toner, Chicago, 1883, vol. i, 254. In Mcmori.im, W. W. Godding. Jour. Nerv. & Mental Disease, 1883, X, 658-662. Wilder, Alexander (1823-1908') Alexander Wilder, physician, writer and teacher of eclecticism, was the son of Abel W. Wilder and was born at Verona, New York State, May 14, 1823. His education was ob- tained at the comrnon schools, but in the higher branches mainly at home ; he may have been said to be self-educated. In 1850 he graduated in medicine at Syracuse University, practised medicine in Syracuse and became connected with the Syracuse Star (1852-3) and the Syracuse Journal (1853) in an editorial capacity. Subsequently the New York Home- opathic Medical College and the United States Medical College conferred the degree of M. D. on Dr. Wilder. In 1854 he was clerk in the state department of public instruction and in 1856 took charge of the A'eiv York Teacher. Then we find him in Springfield, Illinois, where he assisted in draw-ing a bill to incor- porate the state normal university, and in 1858 he settled permanently in New York and was on the staff of the Evening Post for thir- teen years, an opportimitj' for perfecting him- self in the art of writing that was well utilized. Finishing with the Post he was elected alder- man in 1871 on the anti-Tweed ticket. At about this time he became interested in the eclectic cult in medicine and served as presi- dent of the New York Eclectic Medical So- ciety (1870-1) and of the National Eclectic Medical Association (1876-95), editing nine- teen volumes of transactions. For four years, 1873-7, he was professor of physiology in the Eclectic Medical College of the city of New York and from 1878 to 1883 he held succes- sively the chair of physiology and ps}-chologi- cal science in the United States Medical College. The monographs from Dr. Wilder's pen covered a wide range of subjects. Among them may be mentioned: "Eclectic Medicine; its history and scientific basis ;" "Neo-Platon- ism and Alchemy" (1869) ; "The Intermarriage of Kindred" (1870); "Plea for the Collegiate its history and scientific basis;" "Neo-Platoin- ists" (1887) ; "Creation and Evolution" (1895) ; "Egypt and Egyptian Dynasties" (1899) ; "Ganglionic Nervous System" (1900) ; "His- tory of Medicine" (1902). In his autobiography in Who's Who in America, Dr. Wilder describes himself as "widower." He died at Newark, New Jersey, September 19, 1908, aged eighty-five years. Appleton's Cyclop, of Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1839. Who's Who in America, 1906-1907, iv. Wilkins, Edmund Taylor (1824-1891) Edmund Taylor Wilkins, California alienist, was born in Montgomcrj- County, Tennessee, October 20, 1824, and was the son of Dr. Benjamin and Jane Taylor Wilkins. He re- ceived his collegiate education at William and Mary College, founded in 1692 at Williams- burg, Virginia, and graduated in 1844. After leaving college he was engaged for several years in raising cotton in Mississippi and Louisiana, and afterwards conducted a sugar plantation in the latter state. Upon the dis- covery of gold in California he took passage in March, 1849, on the schooner St. Mary from New York for the Pacific Coast by way of Cape Horn. After a tedious voyage, filled with irritating delays and great peril, extend- ing over a period of nearly a year, the small craft cast anchor in the Bay of San Francisco. Being unsuccessful in his mining enterprises, he returned in 1853 to Tennessee and attended one course of medical lectures at the Memphis Medical College, after which he sold his sugar plantation in Louisiana and returning to Cal- ifornia in 1854, purchased land in Yuba County and turned his attention to farming. Finding farming unprofitable, he took a sec- ond course in the Memphis Medical College, where he graduated in 1861. He practised medicine in Marysville, then the most flourish- ing inland town of the state, and gave special attention to the subject of insanity. When the legislature of 1870 authorized the governor to appoint a commissioner to com- pile all accessible information as to the con- struction and management of asylums and the modes of treating the insane, he was chosen for that important mission, and entered at once upon it. He visited 50 of the principal institutions in the United States and Canada, and crossing the Atlantic spent the greater part of two years in travel, during which he inspected about 100 asylums in Great Britain and on the Continent. The results of his mis- sion are embodied in his report made to the Executive Department upon his return to Cal- ifornia, which was published and distributed to the various public institutions, because it contained many valuable charts and plans of the best asylum buildings then in existence or in course of construction, and also much im-