Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/384

NAME ELSNER 362 ELWELL Eisner, Henry Leopold (1857-1916). Henry L. Eisner was for a long time a teacher in the Medical Department of Syra- cuse University, a clinical investigator of merit, and a prolific writer dealing for the most part with advanced medical topics; he also for a generation stood before the entire central New York State as an ideal general practitioner, and its cherished consultant. Born in Onondaga County, New York, August 15, 1857, of Dr. Leopold and Hanchen Sulsbacher Eisner, he was prepared in the Syracuse grammar and high schools, and began to study medicine under his father and an older brother. He graduated in medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City in 1877, and continued his studies in Berlin and Vienna, beginning an active general practice in Syracuse in 1878, and attaining great eminence as the leading consultant in New York State west of the City, while serving as attending physi- cian at St. Joseph's Hospital and as professor in the University. He was appointed lecturer on internal medicine in the Medical School of Syracuse, becoming full professor of the science and art of medicine on the resigna- tion of Dr. Didama (q. v.) in 1893, and it is to his credit as well as to the credit of Didama and Jacobson (q. v.) that so many well-trained men have been sent out into practice from the Syracuse University. He was remarkable for an unusual sweetness of disposition and ap- proachablcness, Syracuse University con- ferred on him the degree of LL. D. June 9, 1915. He married Pauline Rosenburg of Roches- ter, N. Y., in 1881, beginning a most happy domestic life which was blessed by one son. Among the subjects of his writings are: "Conditions Lessening Cell Resistance and Favoring Infection, Especially Consumption" ; "Tubercular Meningitis in Children" ; "Newer Methods of Examining the Stomach" ; "Erythromelalgia with Raynaud's Disease" ; "Expert Testimony" ; "Cardiac Asthenia" ; "Spleno-myelogenous Leukemia" ; "Cardiac Toxemia in Pneimionia"; "Vascular Crisis"; "Hypertension"; "Uterine Growths"; and "Goitre." His health began to break down under the incessant stress of work several years before death, when he began to seek recuperation in change of scene, but not by seeking the needed rest. He worked up to the end, and during the last two years was writing his opus huii^tnim, "Prognosis of Internal Diseases" for "Mono- graphic Medicine," D. Appleton & Co., a volume of twelve hundred pages, a complete treatise on internal medicine with special ref- erence to prognosis. He died of cardio- vaiicular disease, at Syracuse, February 17, 1916. Frederick V. Se.^rs. El well, John J. ( 1820- 1 900 ). John J. Elwell, medico-legal expert, one of the ripest scholars and most courtly gentle- man who ever graced the medical profession, was born near Warren, Ohio, June 22, 1820. His youth was spent on a farm, his early education acquired at the public schools of Warren and at the Western Reserve Uni- versity, his medical degree from the Cleve- land Medical College. For some years he practised medicine, then turned his attention to law, being admitted to the bar in 1854, and entering at once into legal practice. He soon became professor of medical jmrisprudcnce in the Ohio State and Union Law College and in the medical department of Western Re- serve University. In 1853 and 1854 he was a member of the Ohio Legislature from Ashtabula County. In 1857 he established the Western Law Monthly, and was for years both editor and publisher. In August. 1861, he entered the Union Army in the capacity of quartermaster and rose to the rank of brigadier general. At Port Royal he was stricken with yellow fever, and for a lime recovery seemed doubtful. Owing largely In the careful nursing of Clara Barton, he at last got well, but with health so impaired that he was placed in command of the prison for Confcderales at Elmira, New York. .At the close of the war Dr. Elwell settled as a lawyer at Cleveland, Ohio, where he practised until his death. Dr. Elwell was a polished and copious writer. In addition to editorial work he wrote voluminously for other journals, both legal and medical. He was one of the contributors to and an editor of Bouvier's "Law Diction- ary," and some of his articles in the North American Review attracted widespread at- tention. His magnum opus, however, and the work on which his fame as a writer rests, was his "Malpractice, Medical Evidence, and In- sanity." This not very large work (only 594 pages, een in the last edition) contained in compact form the law so clearly and thorough- ly stated that the volume at once became a leading authority not only in .merica but also in Canada and Great Britain, going through four editions. It did not profess to cover the whole of the field, but the portion