Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/184

NAME BUCHANAN 162 BUCK in 1806 removed to Philadelphia. There be became resident physician to the Lazarettos, in which institution be died of yellow fever on July 9, 1808, in his forty-fifth year. In 1789 he had married Laetitia, daughter of Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania, a signer of the "Declaration of Independence." Eugene F. Cordell. Med. Annals of Md., E. F. Cordell, 1903. Buchanan, Joseph Rodes (1814-1899) Joseph Rodes Buchanan was called the "last survivor of the 'Fathers of Eclecticism' ;" oth- er terms applied to him were "medical philos- opher, investigator, speculative reasoner, sci- entist, and general scholar" (Felter) — and the same, biographer adds that be "obtained no eminence as a practitioner of medicine." He was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, December 11, 1814, son of Professor Buchanan, teacher of medicine and law in Transylvania Univer- sity. The younger Buchanan at six years old was studying astronomy, geometry, history and French, at eleven was interested in sociology, and at twelve began to study law. His father died and he became a printer, afterwards a teacher, but health failing he took up medi- cine, graduating at the Louisville University in 1842. He was interested in cerebral phys- iology, phrenology and anthropology and lec- tured in a peripatetic fashion. He settled in Cincinnati as professor of phy- siology in the Eclectic Medical Institute (1846- 1856), and became a dominating force in the school. His biographer says "he actually be- came the manager of the college, and his dom- ineering course and peculiar theories gave rise to dissensions, which were unfortunate for the school." He was elected president of the National Eclectic Medical Association in 1848, but later "repudiated" the Association. He was dean of the Institute from 1850 to 1855, but in 1856 was removed from the faculty; he was made dean of the new institution, the Ec- lectic College of Medicine. After remaining there a short time he went to Louisville, and in 1863 was the Peace Party candidate for the United States Congress. When the Civil War ended he went to Syra- cnse. New York, where he manufactured salt ; in 1867 he was elected professor of physiol- ogy in the Eclectic Medical College of New York City, to resign in 1881. Settling in Bos- ton, he founded the American University where he taught and opened the College of Therapeutics to promulgate the "doctrines of physiology, sarcognomy, and the healing art ;" he founded the Buchanan Anthropological So- ciety. Moving to CaUfornia he settled finally in San Jose. . Buchanan was editor of Buchanan's Journal of Man; the Eclectic Medical Journal (with R. S. Newton) ; and the Western Medical Re- former (with T. V. Alorrow). He wrote "Outlines of Lectures on the Neu- rological System of Anthropology" (384 pp., Cincinnati, 1S54) ; "Therapeutic Sarcognomy" (269 pp., Boston, 1884), besides other works. His last book was entitled "Primitive Chris- tianity." In 1841 he married Anne Rowan, of Louis- ville ; many years after her death he married Mrs. Caroline H. Decker, a clairvoyant. He died at San Jose, December 26, 1899. Hist, of the Eclectic Med. Inst., Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845-1902, by H. W. Felter, M.D., Cincinnati, 1902. Portrait. AUibone's Dictn'y of Authors, Supplement, by J. F. Kirk, Phila., 1891. Buck, Gurdon (1807-1877) Gurdon Buck, New York surgeon, was born in Fulton Street, New York, on the fourth of May, 1807, a son of Gurdon Buck, a New York merchant, and Susannah Manwaring Buck of Connecticut, both grandchildren of Gov. Gurdon Saltonstall of Connecticut. Dr. Buck went to Nelson Classical School and finally determined to study medicine. With this in view he studied under Dr. Thomas Cock and in 1830 received his M. D. from the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons in the city of New York. After passing the regular terra on the medical side of the New York Hospital he went to Europe and continued his studies •in the hospitals of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna for a period of about two years and a half. In 1836 he made a second visit to Europe, and in Geneva, Switzerland, married Henrietta E. Wolff, of that city. In 1837 he was appointed visiting surgeon to the New York Hospital and held that position up to the day he died. He was also appointed visiting surgeon to St. Luke's Hospital and the Presbyterian Hospi- tal at the time of the organization of those in- stitutions, and was visiting s'urgeon to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, from 1852 to 1862. He was a fellow of the Academy of Medicine from its organization, and served as its vice-president for one term ; a member of the New York Pathological Society, serving one term as president, and member of the state and county medical societies. For some j'ears his health had slowly been failing, and grave symptoms appeared, re- ferred to kidney trouble. Finally the symp- toms of uremic poisoning became more- marked, until he sank into coma, in which