Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/365

NAME DUNGLISON 343 DUNLAP Philadelphia recognized what his value would be and made him professor of the in- stitutes of medicine in Jefferson Medical Col- lege, an appointment he held until 1868, more than thirty years. During the nine years in Virginia his in- dustry was amazing. The "Human Physi- ology," rejected by Philadelphia publishers, came out at Boston in 1832, and went through eight editions and became at once the book for students. S. D. Gross says, "What Hal- ler's great work accomplished for surgery in the eighteenth century, Dunglison accom- plished for physiology in America in the nine- teenth." The book is rich in learning, ac- curate and logical in its statements of facts. His "Medical Dictionary," 1833, a work of profound erudition, earned him a world-wide reputation ; 55,000 copies were sold during his life-time, and in 1897 it had reached twen- ty-three editions. These books were followed in rapid succession by treatises on "Materia Medica," 1843 ; "Hygiene" ; "The Practice of Medicine," 1842, and "New Remedies" ; yet ibis systematic and persistent writer found lime to edit "Forbes's Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine" and several foreign works. He founded and edited for five years the Ameri- can Library and Intelligencer, and with one William Chapin issued a dictionary for the blind in three folio volumes, and all this be- sides innumerable articles for the medical and lay journals. As a lecturer he could hold the close at- tention of his students to dry details and yet interest them, and as dean for many years he was prompt and faithful. "A fluent talker, an insatiable reader, a rapid writer, rapid to illegibility and, like the letters of the great Scotsman, Chalmers, his were often put away for the writer to elucidate. "Gentle and at- tractive in manners and appearance, no one could ever say an unkind word about Dungli- son, and his heroically borne illness which made him a constant sufferer six months pre- vious to death showed of what stuff the eager student was made." Confined to bed, propped up by pillows, his feet resting on the floor, he could not even lie down for an hour. Long the victim of heart disease, no one could witness his distress without the deepest sym- pathy, yet no murmur escaped his lips; in- deed he was cheerful and always delighted to listen to music and hear the latest news from the busy life outside. On April 1, 1869, he went away, his life's voiuine a'! frayed by hard usage ; the long and last chapter. On Pain, typed sharp and clear by that hard- headed printer Experience. Davin Waticu.son. Tians. Coll. I'liys., IMlila., 1869, n. s. .utobiograplij . S. D. Ciioss, I'liiia., lyy7. History of the Medical Profession in Phila- delphia, F. P. Henry, 1897. l*ortrait in Surg-gen.'s Lib., Washington, D. C. Dunlap, Alexander (1815-1894). Well known in connection with ovariotomy, .lexander Dunlap was born in Brown County, (Jhio, January 12, 1815, and after spending two years in Ohio University, Athens, matriculated at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, from which he graduated A. B. in 1836. His medi- cal degree was obtained from the Cincinnati Medical College in 1839. He began practice in Greenfield, Ohio, with his brother Milton, with whom he had read medicine, and upon the dissolution of this partnership (1846) he moved to Ripley, Ohio, and later Springfield, where he practised until his death, February 16, 1894. Dr. Dunlap was president of ihe Ohio State Medical Society in 1868; vice-president of the .American Medical Association in 1877, and an active member of the American Gynecological Society. From 1875 to 1885 he was professor of surgical diseases of women in Starling Medi- cal College. During his career he made I'our hundred and twenty-eight laparotomies, of which si.x- teen or eighteen were hysterectomies, with eighty-three per cent, of recoveries. Dr. Dunlap's claim for honorable mention is not based upon the number of sections nor upon the percentage of recoveries, both of which would compare badly with the statistics of modern operators, but upon the fact that he was one of the pioneer ovariotomists of ibc world. It is difficult for one living in the present surgical environment to conceive of the bitter opposition which prevailed against the opera- tion of ovariotomy among many who held high places in the profession in the early forties. The written report of Dr. Dunlap's first opera- tion was sent to the Western Lancet, of which Dr. John P. Harrison ( one of his former teachers) was editor, but was returned with the significant comment that "its publication would encourage an unjustifiable and murder- ous operation, which had already been tried and condemned by the profession both in this country and Europe." The elder Mussey, who then dominated the surgery of this region, look early occasion to rebuke the young man