Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/256

NAME COFFIN 234 COFFIN descended from Tristram Coffin, born in 1605, of Brixton County, Devon. He came over with his wife, Dionis Stevens, and his mother, and settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Ulti- mately he and his family moved to Nantucket for purely agricultural purposes. He became chief magistrate of that island in 1671 and at his death left seven children and sixty grandchildren. Nathaniel Coffin was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in the year 1716, was educated in the common schools there, studied medi- cine under the guidance of Dr. Tappan, and went to practise medicine in Maine in 1738. In the year 1739 he married Patience Hale, by whom he had eight children, one of whom, Nathaniel, Jr. (q. v.), became as celebrated in medicine as his father before him. Dr. Coffin, Sr., before long obtained a large practice, covering Wells and Kennebunk on the west, to the Kennebec River settlements on the east, so that what with bad roads and endless miles of travel, his medical life was difficult beyond imagination. He was often called to operate upon patients who had been scalped by the Indians during the French wars, but who had partially recovered. By the Indians also, in return for professional lervices rendered them gratuitously when in- jured, wounded, or torn by wild beasts, he was universally respected, so that when he was compelled to pass through their terri- tory on his way to white patients in the outlying settlements they always provided him with a safeguard and the best possible con- veyance through almost pathless forests. The only operation done by him so far as recorded was ligation of the axillary artery in a case of injury to the arm of a man with his scythe when mowing. The man was re- garded as dead, but after the ligature had been applied he gradually recovered. Carrying on his work amid discouraging surroundings and far distant from opportuni- ties to freshen his mind by study, he kept in touch with the progress of medicine by inviting to his hospitable home the young ship surgeons just out from England. Many of these had lately graduated from the famous London hospitals, and from them Dr. Coffin eagerly imbibed everything new. In return for this, he took them to see his patients, so that they could study something more than the diseases occurring on board ship. Excellent at the bedside. Dr. Coffin was better still as a surgeon, in accidents, and emergencies. He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and was known to ride all the way to Boston to attend the meetings. The year of 1763, which found him but forty-seven, brought with it a slight stroke of paralysis. Never knowing but that he might die any day, he persisted in sending to London his son Nathaniel, destined to become in later years a prominent practitioner. This foresight was well rewarded, for the son went and returned well equipped and when the father was unable to do much work he handed it over to him. He died early in January, 1766, not quite fifty-five, and the name of Nathaniel Coffin, Sr., deserves perpetual remembrance in the annals of Maine, for he was a pioneer, skill- ful far beyond the average, and a man of extraordinary self-reliance. James A. Spalding. American Medical Biography, James Thacher, 1828. Coffin, Nathaniel (1744-1826) A distinguished son of the first Nathaniel Coffin, Nathaniel Jr. was born in Portland, in the district of Maine, May 3, 1744, and after such education as the schools then afforded, studied the rudiments of medicine with his father. When nineteen he was sent to England where he walked the London hos- pitals under Hunter, Akenside, and others of medical fame, and returning home after nearly three years abroad, began to practise. On the retirement and death of his father he was well qualified, although still very young, to succeed to his extensive and diffi- cult practice. As the population increased, and physicians settled in the outlying towns, young Coffin had to ride on horseback over the bad roads, yet had ever more and more to do as consultant in his native town. In 1770 he married a daughter of Isaac Foster, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and had eleven children. He early inhaled the spirit of independ- ence, and was very active in the war of the Revolution. When Portland was threatened with bombardment by Mowatt, Coffin was sent on board his ship as one of th^ town commissioners to remonstrate against the out- rage, but all in vain, for the bombardment took place with frightful results. Dr. Coffin went into the country with the exiles, and did his best to alleviate their sufferings dur- ing that inclement season of the year. He also worked vigorously the entire winter • among the numerous sick. During the war he took care of all the wounded and sick who were brought into Portland on men-of-war or Privateers. • Coffin was soon at the head of his profes- sion ; prompt, always ready, steady of hand.