Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/210

NAME CABOT 188 CABOT chusetts General Hospital in 1884 on a case of strangulated umbilical hernia. He had assisted his father in 1874 and 1875 in two abdominal operations on hospital patients, though not within the hospital walls. He became the leading genito-urinarj' surgeon in New England, while second to none anywhere. He always remained a general surgeon. As a general surgeon he was eminent ; as a genito-urinary surgeon preeminent. From 1885 to 1896 he was clinical instructor, and then instructor in genito-urinary surgery in the Harvard Medical School, and would undoubtedly have gone to the top on his merits had he not been chosen Fellow of the University in 1896. The President and Fel- lows of Harvard, generally known as the Cor- poration, are seven in number, including the President and Treasurer ex officiis. They may be roughly compared to the United States Senate; the Overseers, elected by the Alumni for six year terms being the House. All important academic questions need concurrent action by the two governing boards, but the management of the funds rests entirely, and much of the initiative lies in the hands of the Corporation. The varied interests and the responsibility involved, the wisdom and devotion required go without saying. He was president of the Massachusetts Medical So- ciety in 1905 and 1906, and did much to excite the active interest and participation of the profession in the crusade against tuberculosis. He was appointed in 1907, by Governor Guild, a trustee of the State Hospitals for Consump- tives, was elected chairman, and threw him- self heart and soul into the work. Three hospitals were admirably built and equipped on wisely selected sites within the appropria- tion, at a cost of about seven hundred dollars a bed. His interest was enlisted in school hygiene. He was associated in the Congress of School Hygiene in London in 1907, was a prime mover in the organization of the Amer- ican School Hygiene Association in 1908, and in the holding of the fourth Congress in Buffalo in 1913, serving as Chairman of the Executive Committee of Arrangements. His modesty was on a par with his efficiency and devotion. In 1910 he retired from all practice that he might give himself up to wider activi- ties. During thirty years he published over one hundred and twenty papers, the last, in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1912, a plea for the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis in childhood. He was a prized member of many medical societies and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a meagre account of the life of one fore- most as a man, a surgeon, a citizen. In each capacity totus, teres atque rotundus. A rarely balanced youth was trained professionally be- fore scientific progress had made it nigh in- conceivable that an active surgeon should lay aside his knife for the kind and quality of work to which Cabot's last years were de- voted. He died November 4, 1912, leaving a widow, Susan, daughter of the late George O. Shattuck, and a memory, sweet to his friends, stamped on a grateful community. Frederick C. Shattuck. Memoir by Dr. Henry P. Walcott, Harvard Graduates* Mag., March, 1913. Cabot, Samuel (1815-1885) Samuel Cabot was born in Boston Septem- ber 20, 1815, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Perkins Cabot, and grandson of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a merchant of the seven- teenth century. He graduated from Harvard College in 1836 and from the Harvard Medical School in 1839, afterwards studying abroad from 1839-1841, being a fellow student of Nelaton in the wards of Velpeau and also studying under Louis. At the urgent request of his father. Dr. Cabot made investigation of the homeopathic system of therapeutics in the wards of Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. Animated by the exact scientific spirit that he had acquired under Louis, he found much to criticise in the loose diagnostic methods in the Homeopathic Hospital, and was not converted to home- opathy as his father had hoped. Dr. Cabot was a widely known ornithologist and" collected birds throughout his boyhood, and early professional life. In the autumn of 1841 he went as ornithologist with the Stevens Exploring Expedition to Yucatan. The 3'ear spent in investigating the ruins of the older civilization in Central America was full of interest. The people of Yucatan, learn- ing that he was a surgeon, flocked to him for operations and he had as patients many of the leading people of the country. He returned from this expedition in 1842 with a valuable collection of birds and notes on the birds of Yucatan, many of which were first described by him. For some years he was curator of the Boston Society of Natural His- tory, although in those days his own col- lection of birds was considerably larger than that of the society. June 19, 1844, Dr. Cabot married Hannah Lowell Jackson, and had eight children. He was one of the early opponents of negro slavery, and aiming to do practical work in limiting its spread, he joined the Emigrant Aid Society, of which he became secretary.