Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/135

BLATCHFORD with Professor Joseph Henry (later of the Smithsonian Institution) and received an A. M. in 1841. Being entitled to a diploma in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before he was of age he "walked the hospitals" until his majority was reached; he is numbered with the class of 1842 with a thesis entitled "The Investigation of the Vegetable Materia Medica." The same year he went west and was associated with (q.v.) in founding Rush College where he was professor of chemistry and materia medica from 1842 to 1866. From 1866 to 1874 he was president of this college.

He was widely known as an analytical chemist; in 1846 he "organized a successful mineral exploration of the south shore of Lake Superior" (Browning). His skill as a chemist convicted George W. Green, the banker, tried in 1854 for murdering his wife. Blaney detected strychnine in the stomach of the victim and convincingly explained his method in court; the analysis was much talked of, as it alone was proof of the murderer's guilt.

In 1855 Blaney accepted the chair of chemistry and natural philosophy at Northwestern University, and moved to Evanston where he had a beautiful home and a celebrated garden. In 1861 he became surgeon of volunteers, then medical director; later he was surgeon-in-chief on General Sheridan's staff, and until the end of the war was medical director and purveyor. When the war closed he had the duty of disbursing over $600,000 in pay to medical officers. In 1865 he was mustered out as brevet lieutenant-colonel.

In 1847 he married Clarissa, daughter of Walter Butler and niece of Benjamin F. Butler; they had four children, James R., Charles D., Bessie and Cassie.

He died in Chicago, December 11, 1874.



Blatchford, Thomas Windeatt (1794–1866)

Thomas W. Blatchford was born in Topsham, Devonshire, England, on the twentieth of July, 1794. His father, the Rev. Samuel Blatchford, removed to this country in the year 1795, when Thomas was an infant, and first settled in Bedford, New York.

Blatchford's early studies were prosecuted under the direction of his father, in Lansingburgh Academy, of which his father was the principal. In October, 1810, he began to study medicine in the office of Dr. John Taylor, of Lansingburgh, and in November, 1813, matriculated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In August, 1814, he was appointed resident physician, for one year, of the New York State Prison, in Greenwich Street, then a suburb of New York. At the end of the year he received an offer to travel in Europe as physician to a gentleman, a purser in the United States Navy, who during the War of 1812 had become suddenly wealthy and thereby lost the balance of his mind. But the patient attempted to kill Blatchford, so upon landing at Liverpool the engagement was concluded, and he went to London, where he attended two courses of lectures at the united schools of Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals, given by Sir Astley Cooper and Prof. Cline. In the spring of 1816 he returned to New York, and after attending another full course of lectures at the college at which he had previously matriculated, he graduated in 1817. His graduating thesis was upon "Feigned Diseases," being the result of his observations and experience during his residence as physician at the New York State prison. Immediately after receiving his degree he practised at No. 85 Fulton Street, New York, for one year. At this time he was induced to remove to Jamaica, Long Island, and in February, 1819, married Harriet, the daughter of Thomas Wickes, a descendant of one of the original patentees of the town of Huntington in 1666.

After nine years, in consequence of arduous duty, he was attacked with fever which brought him very low, and in 1828 he began practice in Troy.

Dr. Blatchford was favorably known by his published papers and essays, which are as follows: "Inaugural Dissertation on Feigned Diseases," 1817; "Letter on Corsets," 1823; a work entitled "Letters to Married Ladies," about 1825; "Homeopathy Illustrated," 1842; "Report on Hydrophobia," 1856, read before the American Medical Association and published in their transactions; "Report on Rest and the Abolition of Pain, as Curative Remedies," 1856, besides many papers to the medical and surgical journals.

He kept a meteorological journal from the year 1824 and the testimony of his record on these subjects was regarded as conclusive in the community.

Once someone in the West had forwarded in the winter a quantity of apples in barrels. Upon their arrival in New York they were found to have been frozen. The owner sued the forwarding company for damages alleging that the apples had been left out, and exposed to injury by freezing, on a certain night. The