Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/299

NAME DA COSTA 277 DA COSTA He married Jane Belle Minor in 1869, and had nine children, seven of whom, three sons and four daughters, survived him. One son, William M., became a physician. Dr. Dabney died at his house in the Uni- versity of Virginia, of typhoid fever, August 20, 1894. A prolific writer, he contributed many trans- lations from French and German medical jour- nals, and original articles to medical literature, of which the following are a few of the most important : "The Value of Chemistry to the Medical Practitioner," Boylston prize essay, 1873 ; "Ma- ternal Impressions" (Keating's Cyclopedia of the Diseases of Children, 1889) ; "An Ab- stract of a Course of Lectures on the Prac- tice of Medicine"; A syllat|pis of lectures on "Obstetrics" and one on '*Medical Jurispru- dence" for the use of his students ; "The Phy- siological Action and Therapeutic Uses of the Water of the Greenbriar White Sulphur Springs" (Gaillard's Medical Journal, April, 1890). During his professional life he con- tributed more than thirty articles to medical journals. These are to be found in the vol- umes of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Philadelphia Medical Neius, New York Medical Record, the medical journals of North Catrolina and Virginia, and in the "Transactions of the American Medical As- sociation" and the medical societies of Virginia and North Carolina. Robert M. Slaughter. Trans. Med. Soc. of Va., 1894. Alumni Bulletin of the Univ. of Va., vol. i, No. 3. Da Costa, Jacob Mendez (1833-1900). Like many of the noted American men of medicine, Da Costa was of foreign birth. Jacob Mendez Da Costa came of an old Portuguese family long resident in London. But Jacob was born on St. Thomas Island, West Indies, February 7, 1833, and educated in Europe, chiefly in Dresden. In 1849 he came to Phila- delphia because his mother was there and shortly after began to study medicine in Jef- ferson College and also under Prof. Mutter. He must have been a good worker as, during his second year, he was, with his friend John H. Brinton, appointed demonstrator of the tu- mors and other specimens removed by Dr. Mutter at his clinics. In 1852 he took his M. D. at Jefferson Medi- cal College, and after that spent over a year in the universities and hospitals of Paris and Vi- enna, finding time also to cultivate his talent for painting, an art which he knew would prove of use in his preparation of class-room sketches and diagrams. Not yet twenty-one, he was determined to fit himself for a teacher ; he was not only eager to know things but how to teach them, and he worked under all that was brill- iant in Paris, thence going to Prague and Vienna to study more particularly pathology and diseases of the heart and lungs, then back to Paris for a while before settling in Phila- delphia, where the first work he was invited to take was at the Sumner Association for Medi- cal Instruction, long famous for extramural teaching, and he also organized classes in phy- sical diagnosis and clinical teaching that were popular. When in 1864 the chair of the theory and practice of medicine became vacant in Jefferson College he was elected and in 1872 succeeded Prof. Dickson in the chair of prac- tice. His bedside methods, his diagnostic ac- curacy, his skill in the use of remedies, his wide and well ordered knowledge of medicine, and his still greater knowledge of men made his influence felt upon the physicians who worked with him and those who were to follow. He was not a great writer, but when he had something to say, said it well and lucidly. Of his one treatise, "Medical Diagnosis, 1864," nine editions appeared during his lifetime, and it was translated into several languages. His literary ability and professional skill were rec- ognized by JeflFerson College, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, who all gave him their LL. D. Someone has called him "the physicians' physician," a title which means much. In 1892 there was a meeting at Dr. Weir Mitchell's house to arrange for two por- traits of Da Costa, for the College of Physi- cians of Philadelphia and the Jefferson Medi- cal College, and So great was the number of subscribers that money had to be returned. In 1892 he withdrew from active teaching except for a short clinical course at the Penn- sylvania Hospital, but his interest was main- tained until his death from heart disease which occurred on September 11, 1900, at his country house, Ashwood, near Villa Nova. In April, 1860, he married Sarah Frederica Brinton and had two sons. His wife died many years before he did. One of his bequests was a fund to the University to found a retiring fund for professors of long service. He de- scribed irritable heart in soldiers, 1862-71, and wrote much on functional diseases of the heart. His writings occupy over two columns of the "Surgeon-general's Catalogue," at Washington, D. C, which, besides articles on diseases of the respiratory tract and some on Bright's disease, mentions his "The Physicians of the Last Century," Philadelphia, 18S7 Among his many appointments was that of