Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/297

NAME CUTTER 275 CUTTER foreign scientific societies, a voluminous con- tributor to medicine and collateral sciences, an ingenious discoverer and inventor of instru- ments, procedures, and operations in laryn- gology, gynecology, microscopy, general medi- cine, and surgery. His medical undergraduate course was alter- nated year by year between Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. While pursuing his undergraduate college work at Yale he entered the newly opened Sheffield Scientific School, for the study of chemistry and the use of the microscope. He began practice with his father at Woburn, in 1856, at the same time taking up office work in Boston and removing to Cambridge in 1875, where until 1881 he still continued the Boston office. In 1881 he removed to New York City, whence after twenty years of professional activity he retired to West Falmouth, where he ended his days. In 1871 Dr. Cutter experimented on the action of galvinism in the treatment of fibroid tumors of the uterus, following the writings of Ciniselli of Cremona in 1869, and estab- lished the fact that the current penetrates the body. Dr. Cutter was a man of many-sided inter- ests and accomplishments. He was a diligent student of morphology, and in this department, as in others, showed much originality and keen power of observation. As a master of the microscope he deserves much considera- tion. He not only excelled in the use of this instrument, but with his fine mathematical mind was able to suggest valuable improve- ments. His successful use of the l/7Sth ob- jective with direct lamp-light was enough to prove his eminence in this department. la the work of photomicrography he was a pioneer. Among other observations upon the morphology of the blood, he antedated Metchnikoff's leucocytosis by nearly ten years. Becoming interested in the early decay of children's teeth, he began investigations upon white flour, and antedated by over forty years the present crusade against the use of de- natured and decorticated wheat, thereby earn- ing the opprobrium of Mrs. Eddy who animad- verted upon him_ in several editions of her so-called "Science and Health." Cancer he defined over thirty years ago as "tissue rioting in the body system." Undoubtedly one of the most interesting at- tempts of Dr. Cutter's life was his effort to invent an instrument for the demonstration of the larynx. This was constructed for him by Mr. Alvan Clark, the great maker of telescopic lenses. The original laryngoscope is now in the possession of the Boston Medical Library. It consists of a shell or brass cylinder open at one end and closed at the other. On the under side, near the closed end, there is an opening. The cylinder is passed into the pharynx, the eye of the observer applied to its open end, and the larynx, — as in any laryngoscopic mirror, is supposed to be seen reflected in a mirror above the opening near the closed end of the cylinder. He says of this invention : "I can only add that in 1856 I had a most earnest desire to see my own larynx. I heard of Garcia's invention, but could not find an instrument representing it, so had to invent one for myself. Taking the microscope as a pattern, I made drawings and explanations to Alvan Clark and Sons, who constructed a laryngoscope for me in 1859. I did but little with it. I saw Czermak in Paris, in 1856, demonstrate his own larynx; I also saw the photographs of his own larynx. After this, I had my tinsmith construct my laryngoscopes out of tin mirrors. They were successful. In 1866 I photographed my own larynx. I was fortunate enough to finish Czermak's work as to the anterior insertion, he not having been able to demonstrate it." Other reminiscences of Dr. Cutter are jf great interest. He says : "I remember call- ing upon Horace Green at his office. He was a very pleasant man. With reference to the patient about whom I consulted him, he said that he had passed a sponge probang with nitrate of silver into his trachea. As I could not see, I could not determine the matter for myself. It was probably as he said, but my experience at the time made me think that it might have been the oesophagus. Later, in Vienna, in 1862, Semeleder showed me the three valves of the larynx in action on my- self. In 1865 I became acquainted with Louis Elsberg, a man of great inventive genius and one of the best electricians I have ever met. We studied together things connected with laryngology, and it was delightful to us both to see each other's inventions. His technique and tactile gifts made patients like to be treated. I should also mention Dr. J. Solis Cohen, although he is still living to bless the world. He and Elsberg were like Damon and Pythias, one in New York, the other in Philadelphia. It was a delightful event for me when they came to Woburn to assist in my operation for removal of an intralaryngeal growth by thyrotomy without the tracheotomy tube. Some of my cases were very interesting. The first, operated upon in 1866, was without recurrence for twenty years. Another patient,