Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/265

NAME CONANT 243 CONDICT practice, and in 1854 he took charge of the Mott Street Cholera Hospital, and whilst there wrote several papers on the pathological alterations discovered in the numerous pa- tients. Immediately after the resignation of Dr. Peaslee from the chair of anatomy at Bow- doin, Conant went there and continued until 1862 when he was elected professor of sur- gery. He lectured also on anatomy and sur- gery at the medical school of the Univer- sity of Vermont from 1855 until his death. He became a member of many learned medical and surgical societies and was a favorite wherever he presented himself. As a teacher he was exact and comprehensive, as a sur- geon courageous and skilful, and as a man upright and the soul of honor. With the beginning of the Civil War he volunteered as a surgeon, and on the field did an incredi- ble amount of surgery, often under embarras- sing conditions and with a high percentage of recoveries. After the battle of Antietam Conant vol- unteered his services, and owing to his great exertions contracted an intestinal disease which never entirely left him. He died from septicemia ; a small furuncle starting' on the side of the nose, then heal- ing, then another following; that healing, a third made its way into the orbit and brain, and he died at his home in New York, October 8, 1865. He was twice married; first to Miss Mary Sanborn of Strafford, Vermont, and after her death to Miss Mary Larrabee, of Brunswick, Maine, who with a child survived him. The salient characteristic of Conant was force, properly directed. He could turn a handspring from a tree-stump without a spring- board. He was a wonderful boxer. He hit everything hard, driving it home like a nail, but he was never out of breath. He was a handsome specimen of the strong man, not big, but powerful. He lectured delightfully, but he preferred to listen to recitations, to question his pupils to find out just what they did not know, and then he strove to get at them until they should know what they needed for practice in Medicine. Although brusque in manner he was so good-natured that a second later you forgot and forgave any seeming discourtesy. He read much and absorbed what he read. He operated with mechanical accuracy. His early experience with tools and rules stood him of immense value in surgery. In operating upon his own father, coming down unexpectedly upon the carotid, he ligated it as coolly as if nothing had occurred. Bold, yet conserva- tive, he would save one limb rather than get rid of fifty by bold operations. As an incident of his skill in emergency, he was in a railroad accident and was called to a boy badly injured. He took a small case of instruments from his pocket, quickly amputated both legs, dressed the wounds with strips torn from garments furnished by lady passengers, then went on his way; the boy recovered. He wrote on a case of operation for ovarian tumor, and a paper on monsters (New York Academy of Medicine). Dr. Abraham Jacobi writes of him : "He was a good teacher of anatomy (and also of surgery) in my old college. I saw little of him. Suddenly he was dead. The regret was that he died of work, meningitis con- tracted in connection with a septic rhinitis after an operation" (letter to Dr. Kelly of February 25, 1919). James A. Spalding. Eulogy delivered by Dr. "Ben" Crosby to Class of 1866, of the Med. Dept. of Univ. of Vt. Med. & Surg. Reporter, 1866, vol. xiv, 81-83. N. Y. Med. Journal, 1865. vol. ii, 157-158. Condicl, Lewis (1773-1862) Lewis Condict, organizer of a medical so- ciety, public man, was the son of Ebenezer Condict and a descendant of John Condict of Newark, 1690. He was born in Morristown March 3, 1773, and died there in his ninetieth year. May 26, 1862. His early academic training was Hm- ited, as he began the study of medicine in his fourteenth year with Dr. Timothy Johnes, of his native town. He subsequently attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania and received his medical honors in 1794. He im- mediately began practice in Morristown, where he continued to reside till his death. In 1798 he married Martha, daughter of Rev. Nathaniel Woodhull, of New Town, Long Island. He soon acquired popularity as a physician and became active as a public man. "In 1805 he was elected a member of the Assembly to which he was returned year by year till 1811 when he was elected to Con- gress, serving three consecutive terms. While in Washington he was associated with Clay, Madison, Randolph, and others in the forma- tion of the Colonization Society. In 1827 he was made a trustee of Princeton College and served as such till 1861 when he resigned on account of the infirmities of age. In 1838 he was again a member of the State Legis- lature, and was one of a commission to settle the boundary line between New York and New Jersey.