Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1269

NAME WINTHROP 1247 WISHARD i"irinecl by both Connecticut and New York, In the spring of the following year he re- moved to Pequot (now New London), but after a residence of eight years, moved to New Haven. From here he was called to dwell in Hartford, on being elected governor of Connecticut, in 1657. He had previously (September 9, 1647) been given a commission to execute justice "according to our laws and the rule of righteousness," and in May, 1651, was elected an assistant of Connecticut. He served as governor one year, then became deputy governor on account of a law which prevented his reelection. This law being re- pealed the next year, he served continuously as governor from 1659 until his death in 1676, although in 1667, 1670 and 1676 he requested to be relieved of this office. He was always an omnivorous reader and much given to scientific studies. The jour- nal of his father says that he had a library of more than 1,0(X) volumes. The taste for medicine came naturally to him, as his father was well versed in it as well as other members pf his family. "The scarcity of physicians in the colonies and Winthrop's willingness to give advice free of charge — so far as his studies enabled him to do so" — caused him to be much consulted. Many letters are still extant, com- ing from all parts of New England, seeking aid for various ailments, and Cotton Mather declares : "Wherever he came, still the diseased flocked about him, as if the Healing Angel of /Bethesda had appeared in the place." Win- 'throp's sovereign remedy, Rubila, was much (sought after. It appears to have been com- posed of diaphoretic antimony, nitre and "a little salt of tin." In one of his son's letters, ■vve find the directions "but remember that Rubila be taken at the beginning of any ill- ness," and Roger Williams elsewhere writes : "I have books that prescribe powders, but i'ours is probatum in this country." Besides Rubila, Winthrop prescribed rfitre, iron, sul- phur, calomel, rhubarb, guaiacum, jalap, horse- radish, the anodyne mithrodate, coral in pow- der form, elecampane, elder, wormwood, anise, unicorn's-horn and an electuary of millepedes. He was made a member of the Royal Society of England shortly after its incorporation, on January 1, 1662, and during his stay of a year and a half in England at that time, he took an active part in the society's proceedings, read a number of papers on a great variety of subjects and exhibited many curious things. He married first, in 1631, his cousin, Martha Jones, who died at Ipswich, Massachusetts, three years later. In 1635 he married Eliza- beth, daughter of Edmund Reade of Wickford, County Essex, and step-daughter of the fa- mous Hugh Peters. She died at Hartford, in 1672. By her Winthrop had two sons and five daughters. The sons, Fitz John (Governor of Connecticut, 1698-1707) and Wait Still (Chief Justice of Massachusetts) had both a very laudable knowledge of medicine. Winthrop died on April 5, 1676, and is buried at Boston, in the King's Chapel Bury- ing Ground. A portrait of him, copied from a painting in the possession of the family, is to be seen in the library of the State Capitol at Hartford. It has been often reproduced, being most accurately given in Waters' sketch of Winthrop's Life. Walter R. Steiner. Sketch of the Life of John Winthrop, the Young- er, T. F. Waters. Privately printed, 1899. Governor John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut, as a Physician, W. R. Steiner, Johns Hopkins Ilosp., Bull.. 1903, vol. xiv. Wishard, William Henry (1816-1913) William Henry Wishard, a pioneer in medi- cine, was born in Nicholas County, Kentucky, January 17, 1816. He was descended from Scotch ancestry, his grandfather, William Wishard, emigrating to America in 1773, and ■settling in Pennsylvania ; enlisted in the Revo- lutionary army, serving until the close of the war; later going to Kentucky. His father, Colonel John Wishard, moved to Indiana in 1825, where Dr. Wishard spent his boyhood helping to clear the forest and assisting his parents in establishing a frontier home, re- ceiving only the education offered by the prim- itive schools. When twenty-two years old he began the study of medicine with Dr. Benja- jnin Noble, brother of ex-Governor Noble of Indiana, with whom he afterward formed a partnership. He graduated from the first Indiana Medical College, situated at La Porte, cal College, and also received an honorary degree from the Indiana Medical College of Indianapolis in 1877. Dr. Wishard served as a volunteer surgeon in the Civil War, rendering a signal humani- tarian service to the country by his report to Indiana's great war executive. Governor Mor- ton, as to the condition of sick and disabled
 * in 1848, subsequently attended the Ohio Medi-
 * soldiers at the front, which led Governor

Morton to go to Washington and present the situation to President Lincoln, who issued a general order for all incapacitated soldiers, of each state, to be returned to their homes. For nearly forty years Dr. Wishard cov- ered long distances as a country doctor, riding horseback in the early days when there were only trails through the forests. In 1877 he