Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/313

DAVIS seems to have had considerable success. He contributed numerous papers to the medical journals, and in 1867 his work on conservative surgery was published in New York. His work and writings made a profound impression on several younger men working in the same field in the early sixties, among them, Louis A. Sayre (q. v.) and Charles Fayette Taylor (q. v.). In fact. Dr. Davis is often looked upon as the founder of the traction school of orthopedic surgery, which dominated the field for a generation or more. His views on the nature and treatment of chronic joint disease, club foot, congenital dislocation of the hip, and the deformities following infantile paralysis, are interesting reading even now; they are marked by much shrewdness and common sense, and were far ahead of his time. For example, in a paper on the treatment of abscesses (Transactions of the American Orthopedic Association, vol. vi, 1893), Davis advocates in addition to traction the opening and evacuation of the abscess, washing it out with warm water and injecting it with "a French preparation of chlorine." It was kept open by a tent and covered by a compress, secured by a roller bandage. "The object of the compress was to bring the walls in close contact so that they might unite. This union took place in every instance where this plan was followed and in no way interfered with." He further says, "If we could have a preparation made from the chloride of lime and prepared of proper strength it would answer the same purpose," and says that he had successfully used the chlorine treatment for fifty years, or since about 1854, anticipating in a remarkable manner the Carrel-Dakin treatment of the present day.

Dr. Virgil P. Gibney says: "When I was a medical student and during my first years in hospital work. Dr. Henry G. Davis was the pioneer in orthopedic surgery in this country; he was the first one who ever devised a hip splint for the protection of the joint and especially for traction. It was he who believed that the joint surfaces could be separated and the bones of the hip thus placed under control."

Dr. E. H. Bradford, addressing the American Orthopedic Association in 1889, said: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that before his time the general treatment of hip disease in common surgical practice was the actual cautery or the seton, and we all know the results which we can gain by treatment which has grown from his suggestion. Whether we know it or not, we are all followers of the teachings of Dr. Davis."

He wrote "Conservative Surgery," 314 pp., New York, 1867.

Dr. Davis died November 18, 1896, at Everett, Mass., aged 89 years. He contributed papers of value to the Transactions of the American Orthopedic Association to within a few years of his death.

Davis, John Staige (1824-1885).

This anatomist was the son of John A. G. and Mary J. Terrell Davis, his father, a lawyer of Charlottesville, Virginia, who in 1830, being elected to the chair of law in the University of Virginia, removed with his family to that institution. John was born in Albemarle County, October 1, 1824.

In the cultured and refined atmosphere of the university he acquired his education, graduating M. A. before the completion of his sixteenth year. One year later, July 4, 1841, he took his M. D. there and after spending 18 months in the study of practical medicine in Philadelphia, settled in Jefferson County, Virginia, December, 1841. Here he practised until January, 1847, when, having been elected demonstrator of anatomy in the university, he returned to Charlottesville.

From January, 1845, to July, 1856, he filled the position of demonstrator of anatomy in the University of Virginia, and in the latter year was elected professor of anatomy, materia medica and botany. With the exception of the chair of botany, which in 1867 was transferred to another school, he held this professorship until his death. He was commissioned July 3, 1861, surgeon in the Confederate States Army, and served as such in the military hospital at Charlottesville.

Dr. Davis was one of the greatest teachers of anatomy America has known; "As a practitioner," says a colleague, "he was not only fully abreast of the latest advances in medical science, but was also skilful and judicious in their practical application." He was, moreover, possessed of a beautiful Christian character and the highest sense of duty. He was a churchman without cant, a Christian without hypocrisy.

Dr. Davis was twice married, first to Lucy L. Blackford, who died on the first of February, 1859, leaving a daughter and a son, Dr. William B. Davis of the United States Army. His second wife, whom he married the 2d of September, 1865, was Caroline Hill. Three