Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1266

NAME VVILLSON 1244 WILSON Willson, Robert Newton (1873:^1916) Robert Newton VVillson, leading social hy- gienist, son of Judge Robert N. Willson and Elizabeth S. Dale Willson, was born in Phila- < delpbia, January 3, 187^. His father's ancestors came from New England while his mother's family were Philadelphians. In 1903 he mar- ried Miss Dorothea Wurts, also of Phila- delphia. He studied at Rugby Academy and Blight's School, later graduating both from the col- lege (1893) and medical department (1897) of the University of Pennsylvania. After his internship at the University Hospital in Phila- delphia he went to Vienna for a year's study. On returning to Philadelphia he worked at the Presbyterian Hospital as pathologist and became one of the visiting physicians to the Philadelphia Hospital. "Blockley," as it has been known for generations, provided a wealth of clinical material for his excellent classes and bedside clinics. He was instructor in medicine and university physician at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania (1900-1905). In 1900 he represented the United States at the Tuber- culosis Congress in Naples, Italy. In addition to his medical work Dr. Willson ■was greatly interested in the matter of public morality. On this subject he lectured wideh', fostered propagandas, and wrote numerous books and pamphlets. Well-known books are "The American Boy and the Social Evil," and "The Education of the Young in Sex Hy- giene." He was a man of positive opinions, often at variance with those of his fellows. In ques- tions of diet his views were original, if not extreme. His unusual personality resulted in the formation of but few intimate friendships. He died. January 1, 1916, of tuberculosis, his death hastened by close attention to work from v^'hich he refused to separate himself until it Avas impossible for him to get about. One daughter survived him — Elizabeth Dale Willson. Robert M. Lewis. Wilson, Ellwood (1822-1889) The son of a farmer in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Ellwood Wilson, gynecologist and obstetrician, was born in that county on February 4, 1822, and had for early education the village school and library. After acting as druggist's apprentice he graduated from the Jefiferson Medical College in 1845 and that same year became a member of the stafif of the Philadelphia Dispensary, a place which fur- nished him plenty of obstetrical and gyneco- logical cases, his ability leading Charles D. Meigs (q.v.) to take him as assistant, and, when Meigs retired, a good deal of the practice fell to Wilson ; also he succeeded Dr. Warring- ton in the Philadelphia Lying-in Charity, and when associated with him founded and con- ducted the first training school for nurses, and was also a founder of the Philadelphia Obstet- rical Society. It is believed he was the first to establish a dispensary there for the exclu- sive treatment of women and the first to lecture clinically on their diseases. As he was instrumental in helping some 34,000 babies into the world he did not get much time to write about any abnormalities in them or their mothers. He entered into a discussion with Dr. William Goodell upon the relative value of podalic version and forceps delivery in narrow pelves, advocating the forceps as a wiser procedure. He was a founder of the American Gynecological Society, its vice-pres- ident, and a member of the College of Phy- sicians of Philadelphia, also a president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Mary- land. He died on July 14, 1889, at his country house near Philadelphia. Davina Waterson. Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc, W. H. Parish, 1889, vol. xiv. Am. Jour. Obstet, N. Y., 1889, vol. xxii. Wilson, Henry Parke Custis (1827-1897) Practically the founder of gynecology in Maryland, Henry Parke Custis Wilson was born on March 5, 1827, in Somerset County, Maryland, and died in Baltimore, December 27, 1897. His father's ancestor, Ephraim, came from England and settled on the Eastern Shore in the early part of the eighteenth cen- tury. Henry was the son of Henry Parke Custis and Susan E. Savage Wilson. He was educated at Princeton, where be received an A. B. in 1848, and he graduated M. D. from the University of Maryland in 1851, receiving Princeton's A. M. the same year. He settled in Baltimore and practised there until his death in 1897. Wilson got his start with Dr. Richard Henry Thomas, driving with him on his daily rounds as he visited his patients. For some years he was the only gynecologist in Baltimore and was the second in his state to do a successful ovariotomy and the first there to remove the uterine appendages by abdominal section. Report makes him the sec- ond in the world to remove a large uterine tumor, this patient recovering. He also in- vented a number of instruments for use in gynecological surgery. In 1858 he married Alice Brewer Griffith, of