Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/203

NAME BUTTERFIELD 181 BUXTON ter being editor of the New Jersey Medical Re- porter. Dr. Butler soon became its sole editor and proprietor, his natural qualifications tor the post being early conceded, and he immedi- ately transformed it into a monthly. In spite of a growing practice he deter- mined to remove to Philadelphia, in order to prosecute his editorial labors more success- fully. The move was made in 1858, and the journal begun as a weekly under the title The Medical and Surgical Reporter. Dr. Butler was appointed in 1859 superin- tendent physician of the department for the insane of the Philadelphia Almshouse. This position he held until 1866, but from this date to the close of his life he devoted himself to medical literature, continuing the Medical and Surgical Reporter, beginning in 1867, the Half Yearly Compendium of Medical Sci- ence and in 1866, the Physician's Daily Pocket Record, and in 1872 projecting the "United States Medical Directory." He died January 6, 1874, of pulmonary tuberculosis. As a contributor to medical science. Dr. B'utler's name is connected with the introduc- tion into the materia medica of the hydrangea arborescens, a remedy used by the Cherokees, and the value of which has been, since his in- troduction of it to professional notice, fully attested by many practitioners. Dr. Butler was a Presbyterian, an ardent ad- vocate of the temperance movement, and a citizen worth having. Francis R. Packard. Biog. Memoir from the Trans, of the Med. See. of Pennsylvania, 1874. Butterfield, John Stoadard (1817-1849) John Stoddard Butterfield, a prominent medical teacher and journalist of Columbus, Ohio, was born in Stoddard, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, on December 2, 1817, and went as a boy to the local school. He worked under Elisha Huntington (q.v.), of Lowell, Massachusetts, took one course of lectures in the Berkshire Medical Institution at Pittsfield, Mass., and finally graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, in 1841. In the latter he had as a classmate George C. Blackman (q.v.), later the famous surgeon of Cincinnati. After practising for a brief period in Littleton, Massachusetts, Dr. Butterfield re- turned to Lowell and entered into partnership with his former preceptor. Dr. Huntington. In 1843, however, on the recommendation of Dr. Willard Parker, he was chosen professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the medical department of Willoughby University, Ohio. This medical school, disrupted by the secession of Drs. Delamater, Kirtland and other eminent teachers, who united in the or- ganization of the Cleveland Medical College in the neighboring and larger city of Cleveland, was threatened with extinction. Largely by the exertions and influence of Dr. Butterfield, the Legislature of Ohio, in 1846, authorized the removal of the Willoughby Medical Col- lege to the city of Columbus where, in the following year, it was combined with the Star- ling Medical College then just organized. Dr. Butterfield retained his old chair in the new institution, and was chosen at once as dean of the faculty. Soon after, with courage and energy unabated by the manifest evidences of failing health, he founded, in the year 1848, the Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal, in the service of which he spent the little remainder of his strength until the editorial pen fell at last from his powerless hand and he retired to Salisbury, New Hampshire, in the vain hope of recuperation by rest and change of air. Here he died of general tuberculosis, Septem- ber 7, 1849, at the early age of thirty-two. He was buried in Lowell, Massachusetts, where his medical career had begun. Dr. Butterfield took an active part in pro- moting the interests of his profession, and was a member of the Ohio State Convention and one of the founders of the Ohio State Medical Society in 1846. A fluent speaker, a clear and forcible writer, Dr. Butterfield bid fair to became a power in the ranks of the medical profession of the state, until untimely death intervened. In the "Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Con- vention" of 1S46 are two papers from his pen; one, "A Report on Typhoid Fever" (pp. 19- 21), the other, an excellent one, on "Obstetric Auscultation," fully abreast with the knowl- edge of his day. Both are interesting, even at the present time. He is also said to have been preparing, at the time of his death, a work on Physical Diagnosis. A journalist of his days sums up the charac- ter of Dr. Butterfield as follows : "He was a ripe scholar, a popular lecturer, a discriminat- ing writer, a Christian without austerity and a gentleman without ostentation." Henry E. Handerson. The Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal, 1849, vol. ii. Trans. Amer. Med. Asso.. 1850, vol. xxx. Buxton, Benjamin Flint (1810-1876) This noted man was born in Warren, Maine, November S, 1810, the son of Dr. Edmund Buxton. He studied medicine with his father, who was killed by being thrown from a horse.