Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/206

NAME BYRD 184 BYRNE Byrd, William Andrew (1843-1887) William Andrew Byrd was born in Bath County, Virginia, October 3, 1843, and died in Quincy, Illinois, August 14, 1887. He was largely self-educated, his college training be- ing limited to two years of study at the Mis- souri Medical College in St. Louis, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1867 and began practice in Lima, Illinois, a village near Quin- cy, Illinois. After three years he removed to Ursa, a little nearer Quincy, and in 1873 began his work in the larger city. His predominant interest was in surgery and he soon limited his work largely to this, becoming surgeon to both the local hospitals and drawing patients from a radius of 100 miles to his clinic. He had unusual mechanical ability and initiative, and showed this in instituting and adopting new methods. In 1884 he recognized appendi- citis as a surgical disease and made two suc- cessful appendectomies for its cure. These cases were reported to the surgical section of the American Medical Association. He be- came greatly interested in abdominal surgery, made many successful intestinal resections, de- vising an enterotome to aid in the closure of the artificial anus. He also devised an opera- tion, known by his name, for the cure of im- perforate anus in the new-born. While much of his work has been largely superseded by newer methods, he is still regarded as a pio- neer in abdominal surgery. In recognition of this he was made a professor of abdominal sur- gery, a chair created especially for him in the Missouri Medical College where he taught this one month each year. He was also one of the founders of the American Surgical Associa- tion. Dr. Byrd combined many charming personal traits in social intercourse, unusual originality and initiative with an unusually wide and deep acquaintance with the literature of his profes- sion, especially that part of it having to do with surgical pathology and surgical practice. He died suddenly at the height of his activity when only fortj'-four, after having been hon- ored by the highest offices in the gift of the local and state society and surgical section of the American Medical Association, as well as the Mississippi Valley Medical Association, of which he was one of the original members. Among his pamphlets are found: "Extirpation of Rectum without destroying Sphincter Ani Muscle," 1880; "Abdominal Sec- tion in the Treatment of Ulceration and Per- foration of the Cecum and Vermiform Appen- dix," 1881 ; "Lumbo-colotomy in the New-born for Relief of Imperforate Rectum," 1881 ; Ad- dress in surgery: "Excisions of Portions of the Alimentary Canal," 1882. Edmund B. Montgomery. Jour. Amer. Med. Asso., Chicago, 1887, ix. Peoria Med. Month., 1887-8, viii. Tr. 111. State Med. Soc, O. B. Will, 1888. Byrne, John (1825-1902) John Byrne, pioneer in the cautery treat- ment of uterine cancer, was born October 13, 1825, in Kilkeel, County Down, Ireland, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth Sloane Byrne. His father, a prominent man in his part of Ireland, engaged in large and successful mer- cantile pursuits. After leaving the primary school in his own village, John was sent to Belfast, where he received a thorough classical education. In 1842 he began the study of med- icine and graduated in 1844 from The Royal Institute in Belfast and from the University of Edinburgh in 1846. Later he attended the universities of Glasgow and Dublin. Grad- uating about the time of the outbreak of the great typhus and typhoid epidemic in Ireland, he had ample opportunity for doing much to aid his afflicted and famished fellow country- men, and at the same time gain his first ex- perience as a practitioner. He was in charge, during this epidemic, of the fever hospital in Kilkeel, his native town, where he endeared himself to the poor by his devotion, and gained recognition and commendation from the authorities by his successful use of ad- vanced methods. Two years after his gradu- ation he came to New York. In 1852 he re- ceived an ad eimd^m degree from the New York Medical College. He began the prac- tice of medicine in Brooklyn in 1848, and at once became identified with the most advanced and progressive members of his profession. He was one of the founders of the Long Isl- and College Hospital in 1856, where he was visiting physician and later clinical professor of uterine surgery. In 1858 he was appointed surgeon-in-chief to St. Mary's Hospital for Women for the exclusive treatment of sur- gical diseases of women, a position he held for the rest of his life. This later grew to be a large general hospital, the active direction of which he continued up to the time of hi.'? death. Attracted by his reputation and re- ferred to him by many physicians, there flocked to this hospital women afflicted with all kinds of uterine diseases, but especially those suffer- ing from the ravages of cancer. It is in this field that John Byrne attained his eminence among g>-necologists, by being the first to ad- vocate and use electrocautery in the treatment of cancer of the uterus. Being a man of rare