Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/274

NAME CORSON 252 COTTING A. M. in 1843, Western University an LL. D. in 1863, and JeiTerson College a D. D. in 1865. Previous to the Civil War he was professor of anatomy and physiology in Western Uni- versity. Histor. Cat., Brown University, 1764-1904. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., 1887. Corson, Hiram (1804-1896) A pioneer promoter of the recognition of women physicians Hiram Corson was born at Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1804, and died in his native town, March 4, 1896. He was the seventh child of Joseph and Hannah Dickinson Corson, members of the So ciety of Friends, and descendants respectively of Huguenot and English ancestors. His school life began in the school at Plymouth Meeting, a small town near Plymouth, and was con- tinued at the Friends' School in Philadelphia. Then he entered the office of the Norristown Herald with journalism in view, but chang- ing to medicine he was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1828, beginning practice at once in Plymouth Meeting. Dr. Corson advocated the use of cold water as a drink and as an external application for the sick, measures at that time thought to be dangerous. In this fashion he treated measles and scarlet fever, and wrote papers on these and on a large variety of subjects, which are to be found in the transactions of the Penn- sylvania Medical Society from 1857 to 1876, and in the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia from 1871 to 1882. When in his fifty-sixth year and pressed by the demands of a large practice he began his efforts for the recognition of women phy- sicians by the profession, working through the state medical society year after year until they received complete recognition through- out the state in 1871. In the year 1877 he introduced a resolution at a meeting of the state society, urging that women physicians be put in charge of the female patients in insane asylums. Although opposed in the leg- islature, this reform was adopted in Pennsyl- vania and later spread to Massachusetts, New York and other states. Besides championing and carrying on these reforms, Dr. Corson was able to found the Montgomery County Medical Society, to read many papers be- fore it, and to give antislavery lectures before the War. He may be said to have had a genius for medical societies and knew how to get them to aid him in promotin'j reforms. The list of such societies of which he was a member would fill a column. He retired only at the age of eighty-four in 1888, when his wife died. In 1833 Dr. Corson married Ann Jones Foulke, and they had nine children. Emin. Amer. Phy. & Surgs., R. F. Stone, 1894. Trans. Amer. Asso. Obs. k Gyn., 1896, vol. ix, 448- 452. Portrait. Gorss, Frederic (1842-1908) Frederic Corss, born in Athens, Pennsyl- vania, January 16, 1842, was a son of the Rev. Charles L. Corss, Presbyterian minister, and of Ann Hoyt Corss. He was descended from James Corss of Greenfield, Massachu- setts, who died in 1696. He graduated A. B. from Lafayette Col- lege in 1862 and took his A. M. in 1865 and his M. D. from Pennsylvania University in 1866. In the same year he settled in King- ston, Pennsylvania, where he continued up to the time of his last illness. Here, in 1872, he married Martha S. Hoyt, who survived him. Dr. Corss was well equipped for the prac- tice of medicine. His ancestry, his early training, his educational advantages and scholarly attainments all had their influence in moulding the physician. He was particu- larly interested in scientific studies, especially in the geology of the county in which he lived, and was popular as a lecturer. Although a busy man and actively engaged in strenuous labors, he found time to prepare papers for his County Medical Society, for the Lehigh Valley Society, and for the Wyoming His- torical and Geological Society, all of which have been published in the various transac- tions of these bodies and elsewhere. He died in Kingston, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1908, Emmet Rixford. Cotting, Benjamin Eddy (1812-1897) Benjamin Eddy Cotting, general practitioner and promoter of sociability in the profession, was born at Arlington, Massachusetts, Novem- ber 2, 1812. His education was obtained at Harvard, where he took his A. B. at the age of twenty-two, and A. M. and M. D. three years later, in 1837 being a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Settling in Boston he struggled along as a poor but busy practitioner for four years when he was brought into con- tact with the Lowell family and through their influence was made curator of the Lowell In- stitute for Free Public Lectures. This posi- tion he held for fifty-five years and thus met the eminent men of the world of letters who came to Boston to lecture. Besides this im- portant influence on his life he was enabled to make favorable investments in the valuable mill stocks of that period, so that in later life he was comfortably situated financially and