Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/158

BRACKETT the oncoming of the Revolution he aided the cause zealously, was on the Committee of Safety, and in his leisure time sat on the bench as judge of the Maritime Courts. This position he owed to Captain Whipple of Kittery whose sister Hannah Dr. Brackett had married in May, 1761, and obtained with her a dowry of 300 pounds in Spanish silver dollars. He remained on the bench until 1784 when his court was abolished and the circuit court established in its place.

From this time on to the end of his life he continued in active practice, was elected honorary and active member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, was one of the charter members of the New Hampshire Medical Society, its first vice-president and then its president for six successive years. (1793–1799). The meetings under his guidance were held in various towns, and were attended by a dozen members, some one presenting a rare case, which was discussed until noon when dinner was served, and then after a pipe and a glass of punch the members with the lowering sun, set off on horseback on their lonely rides, to far distant homes. To this society, Dr. Brackett gave many valuable medical books, the cream of the literature of the era, and from this lending medical library the members had a chance to know all that was best in medicine and surgery of the day. He served on the committee for preparing a permanent seal for the Society, which was finally made of solid silver at a cost of 6 pounds. At his death he gave additional books to the society; when Mrs. Brackett died she left $500 to keep the library in order, and to add more books in time, and at Dr. Spalding's suggestion, the books were marked in golden letters: "Brackett to the N. H. Med. Soc." Let me add for those curious concerning books, that a few of these here mentioned can still be seen in the New Hampshire State Library at Concord.

From the eulogy mentioned at the beginning of this notice, this single sentence may be quoted: "With the rugged art of surgery he was not so much delighted as with the tranquil fields of physic; but midwifery was his forte; here he shone in all his splendor and was peculiarly successful."

Suffering with more than usual severity from a cardiac affection, Dr. Brackett set off in May, 1802, for the springs of Saratoga, but he obtained no relief and finding himself steadily failing he turned back for home, reached Portsmouth about the tenth of July and died on Saturday the seventeenth.

I sum up this benevolent physician as a man of extensive reading, accurate observation, acute reasoning, firm friendship and unbounded benevolence. Nor should we forget that from his early training he could, more successfully than other physicians, minister to the souls of his patients. In other words he was a man to whom one could unbosom secrets, confess sins, and obtain from him all those mental uplifts, which in so many instances raise the patient from a bed of suffering sooner than all the medicines at the command of the indifferent physician.



Bradbury, James Crockett (1806–1865)

In the days when capital operations were rarely well done, Dr. James Crockett Bradbury did more than one and with excellent results. For that reason his life is worth recording more carefully than has before been done. He was born at Buxton, Maine, March 5, 1806, worked on a farm, and studied during every spare moment, besides attending school. With an intense thirst for learning, by his own earnings he paid most of the expense incurred in preparing for medical study, studies begun under his brother Samuel in Bangor, Maine. He graduated at the Medical School of Maine in 1829, practised first in Howland, Maine, and then in Oldtown where he devoted himself energetically to medicine for the rest of his life.

In 1837 he married Miss Eliza Smith of Warren, Maine, who cheered him in the performance of his onerous practice.

Dr. William Henry Allen of Orono falling ill in 1862, Dr. Bradbury kept on with his own practice and overloaded himself with the patients of Dr. Allen. The governor of Maine having to select a board to examine candidates for surgeons to the Maine soldiers during the war, nominated Dr. Bradbury for the head of the board. He was also temporarily one of the surgeons to take charge of a hospital at Augusta overflowing with invalided soldiers from the front. Dr. Bradbury here did more than his share in bringing order out of confusion; the mortality decreased, rapid convalescence ensued upon his labors.

Besides this, he was an active member of the Maine Medical Association, and once its honored president.

He was a practical physician, rather slow to adopt new theories but his mind was active; he decided quickly; arrived at diagnosis often