Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/227

CHANNING September 11, 1896. Among his numerous valuable communications to medical literature were: "Iodoform as a Local Remedy in Syphilitic, Scrofulous and Indolent Ulcers" (Transactions of Medical Society of Virginia, 1877); "Origin and History of Ancient Medicine" (Presidential Address, ibid., 1884); "Poisoning by Datura Stramonium" (Virginia Medical Monthly, vol. v); "Treatment of Ingrowing Toe-nail" (ibid., vol. vi); "Mineral Waters of Virginia" (ibid., vol. x); "Review of the Medical History of the Middle Ages" (ibid., vol. xi).

Channing, Walter (1786–1876).

Walter Channing was born in Newport, Rhode Island, April IS, 1786, and died in Brookline, Massachusetts, July 27, 1876. He was the son of William Channing, an attorney of Newport, Rhode Island, who at one time served as attorney-general of the state and also as United States district attorney, anil of Lucy Ellery, daughter of William Ellery, a signer of the "Declaration of Independence," to whom several of his grandsons were indebted in great part for their education preliminary to entering college, among them being Dr. Channing's brothers, William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian clergyman, and Edward Tyrrel Channing, professor of rhetoric, oratory and elocution from 1819 to 1851 in Harvard University.

Walter Channing entered Harvard in 1804 in the same class with his brother, Edward T., and his cousin, Richard H. Dana, the poet, but taking part with them and others in the rebellion of 1807, a somewhat famous incident in the annals of the college, failed to receive his bachelor's degree in regular course, though it was afterwards bestowed as a member of the class of 1808. He graduated M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania (1809) when Dr. Rush was president and continued his studies under Dr. James Jackson, of Boston, afterwards going to Edinburgh University and the London hospitals, where he devoted himself largely to obstetrics, establishing himself in Boston as a practising physician in 1812. In this year Harvard conferred on him the ad eundem degree of M. D. In 1815 he was appointed the first professor of obstetrics and medical jurisprudence in Harvard University and held this position for nearly forty years, during all the second period of the life of the Harvard Medical School while it was called the Massachusetts Medical College and was situated on Mason Street in Boston (1816–1847). He resigned, together with many other professors, a few years after the removal of the school to North Grove Street. He was dean from 1819 to 1847.

In addition to an extensive private practice he was for nearly twenty years on the visiting staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Soon after the introduction of anesthetics there in 1846, he became deeply interested in the use of ether in childbirth, and mainly through his influence it was successfully used in such cases in this country. He published an elaborate work upon the subject "Etherization in Childbirth" founded on nearly 600 cases in his own practice, describing this innovation in medical treatment which at that time was considered as daring as it has since proved beneficial. He was one of the first attending physicians at the Boston Lying-in Hospital, and he and Dr. John Ware were editors of the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery when that publication became the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1828.

He published "Reform in Medical Science," and made addresses on the prevention of pauperism and on the necessity of introducing pure water into Boston. He was librarian of the Massachusetts Medical Society from 1822 to 1825 and an honorary fellow of the Obstetrical Society of London.

He was the author of one or two volumes of miscellaneous poems, and his "Physician's Vacation," published in 1856, is a readable record of an extensive European tour. He was also a Bible student and loved Shakespeare and Scott, often repeating long passages of scripture and pages of Shakespeare. He once read the part of Macbeth in public, Fanny Kemble reading that of Lady Macbeth.

Channing was an ardent temperance reformer and a zealous citizen, very charitable, devoted to the poor and always thought people honest, often leaving patients of doubtful character alone in his study. On one occasion a man he had helped a great deal forged his name, when thus left alone, on a check for $300. He refused to prosecute this man and remarked; "I ought not to have left temptation in his way. I dare say his conscience will punish him enough."

While a poor driver, he made a practice of keeping lively horses and met with several accidents. Knowing nothing about the physical points of a horse he once purchased one whose strange actions he could not account for until upon taking him to a horse dealer he found out that the animal was blind. This