Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/238

NAME CHILDS 216 CHILDS dents. As a public speaker before medical assemblies he was much in demand, delivering an address on "Medicine in the Past and Future" before the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1880, presenting the bust of Dr. George W. Miltenberger to the same body in 1896 and giving two addresses at the Centennial celebration of the founda- tion of the University of Maryland in 1907. Dr. Chew was one of the authors of "Pep- per's System of Medicine," and he was the author of : "Clinical Lectures on Certain Dis- eases of the Heart, and on Jaundice," 1871 ; "Papers on Medical Jurisprudence," 1879; "Notes on Thoracentesis," 1876, besides editing his father's "Lectures on Medical Education," in 1864. He was president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1879-80 and in 1898-99, consulting physician to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and president of the board of trustees of the Peabody Institute. Medical Annals of Maryland, E. F. Cordell, Baltimore. 1903. Ccntenn. Celebr. of Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore, 1908. Portrait. Bull. Med. and Chir. Fac. Md., Baltimore, 1915, vii, 77-82. Portrait. Cliilds, Henry Halsey (1783-1868) Henry Halsey Childs, founder and president of the Berkshire Medical College and lieu- tenant-governor of Massachusetts, was the son of Dr. Timothy Childs (q. v.), a surgeon from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the Revolutionary War and holder of an honorary M. D. from Harvard College. Henry was born in Pitts- field, June 7, 1783; studied medicine with his father and practised with him until the latter died. The father had introduced the practice of inoculation in Pittsfield and now father and son substituted for it vaccination, against strenuous protest. For some time previous to 1822 Henry Childs had pressed upon the Berkshire Medical Society the importance of establishing a medical college in the county, and the advantages of Pittsfield for its site, and in that year he joined with Daniel Collins and 'Asa Burbank in a petition to the Legis- lature for an act of incorporation. This was granted, and the Berkshire Medical Institu- tion began its existence September 18, 1823, Dr. Childs taking the chair of theory and practice of medicine. He was the soul of the school and was instrumental in obtaining en- dowments, erecting buildings and collecting a library. In 1837, when the school was de- tached from Williams College, he was made president, and continued to direct its affairs until 1863 when he resigned because of ad- vancing vears. Dr. Childs served also on the faculties of the medical colleges at Woodstock, Vermont, and at Willoughby and Columbus, Ohio, where he gave courses of lectures each year. Dr. Childs represented Pittsfield in the legislatures of 1816 and 1827, and he was an influential councilor of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was lieutenant-governor in 1843. He died in Boston at the home of his son-in-law, Elias Merwin, March 22, 1868. Walter L. Burrage. Com. Mass. Med. Society, vol. ii. 78 Appleton's Cyclop, Amer. Biog., Nev iiog.. New York, 1887. Childs, Timothy (1748-1821) Timothy Childs, father of Henry Halsey Childs, organizer of the Berkshire Medical In- stitution, was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, in February, 1748. He entered Harvard Col- lege in 1764, but was forced to leave at the close of his junior year because of lack of funds. From Cambridge he returned to Deer- field and studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Williams (q. v.), removing to practise at Pitts- field at the age of twenty-three. In 1774 Dr. Childs was appointed chairman of a committee to draft a petition to His Majesty's Justices of Common Pleas in the county of Berkshire, remonstrating against certain acts of Parlia- ment which had just been promulgated, and in the same year took a commission as lieutenant in a company of minute men. On the news of the battle of Lexington he marched to Boston with his company. Being appointed surgeon of Colonel Patterson's regiment. Dr. Childs accompanied the regiment to New York and to Montreal, returning to the practice of medi- cine in Pittsfield in 1777. He introduced the practice of inoculation in that town and later, against strenuous protest, with the assistance of his son. substituted for it vaccination. Evi- dently he was a man of affairs and had inter- ests outside the daily routine practice of his art, for he was elected representative to the General Court in 1792 and later was senator and a member of the executive council. Har- vard College conferred on him the honorary degree of M. D. in 1811; he was a councilor of the Massachusetts Medical Society until his death, and, on the organization of the Berk- shire District Medical Society he was ap- pointed a censor and was elected its first presi- dent. For thirty years Dr. Childs was the leading physician of Pittsfield and was called as a consultant in the neighboring towns, keep- ing up his activity until a week before his death at the age of seventy-three, in the town of his adoption, February 25, 1821. From the "Founding of the Berkshire Dist. Med. Soc," W. L. Burrage, M.D., Bost. Med. and Surg. Jour., 1917, vol. clxxvii, 720-726.