Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/421

NAME FORBES 399 FORBES chusetts, May 1, 1796, and died in New Haven, Connecticut, November 17, 1877. With his parents he went to Sherburne, New York, in 1798, and there later studied medicine with Dr. Samuel Guthrie (q. v.), obtaining a Hcense to practise from the Chenango County Medical Society in 1815 and beginning practice in Jamestown, N. Y., the first physician in the town. In 1813 he was chairman of a meeting of physicians of the county called to organize the Chautauqua Co'unty Medical Society, and was first president of that body. He was a member of the legislature in 1820 and in 1826-27; from 1818 to 1823 he held the office of associate judge of common pleas and in the last year becaine the first judge of Chautauqua County, retaining the position un- til 1843, when he retired. He owned the land on which the city of Jamestown was buik and presented the sites for three of its churches, being known as the "father of Chautauqua County.'' About the year 1840 Dr. Foote became in- terested in homeopathy, as practised by Dr. Alfred W. Gray, a brother of Dr. John F. Gray ; in 1845 he removed to New Haven, Conn., where the rest of his life was spent. He practised homeopathy and became a mem- ber of the American Institute of Homeopath) in 1850; when the Connecticut Homeo- pathic Medical Society was reorganized in 1864, Dr. Foote delivered the inaug- ural address, largely historical in charac- ter, having reference to homeopathy in that state. He helped found the New Haven Colony Historical Society, and collected niucli material relating to the early history of Chautauqua County that formed the basis of the history of that county by A. W. Young (Buffalo, 1875). Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., New York. 1S8S, vol. ii, 2195. Hist, of Homeopathy. W. H. King. M. D., 190S, vol. i. 20.!. Forbes, William Smith (1831-1905), William Smith Forbes, the son of Murray Forbes and Sally Ennis Thornton Forbes, was born in Falmouth, Stafford County, Virginia, on February 10, 1831. His grandfather. Dr. David Forbes, emigrated to America from Edinburgh in 1774. Dr. Forbes received a classical education at Fredericksburg and Concord acadeinies ; he began his medical studies under Dr. George Carmichael, and attended lectures at the Uni- versity of Virginia from 1850 to 1851, complet- ing his course at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia (1852), and while attending lectures was an office student of Joseph Pan- coast (q. v.), at that time professor of anatomy there. He graduated in 1852 and in 1853 be- came resident physician in the Pennsylvania Hospital, where he served as interne until March, 1855. Dr. Forbes then served in the English Military Hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War. Upon returning to America, he opened in Philadelphia, opposite the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, a private school of anatomy and operative surgery, a school which was sus- pended during the Civil War, but afterwards re-opened and continued until 1870. In 1862 Dr. Forbes ^as appointed surgeon of the United States Volunteers, serving as medical director of the thirteenth Army Corps until 1863, and afterwards as contract sur- geon in charge of the Summit Hospital at Philadelphia. In 1866 he took his M. D. at Pennsylvania University. From 1879 to 1886 he was deinon- strator of anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College, and from 1886 up to the time of his death was also professor of anatomy and clini- cal surgerj'. One of the greatest services rendered by him was the drawing up of the anatomical law passed by Pennsylvania in 1867. This law was slightly amended in 1883, and is one of the best of its kind in the country, and has served as the basis of many similar acts. Cur- iously enough. Dr. Forbes, fifteen years after this act, was arrested for complicity in the crime of robbing graves in Lebanon Cemetery, but was later aquitted of taking part in a traffic he had done so much to suppress. Per- haps the most important of Dr. Forbes' pub- lications is his "History of the Anatomical Act of Pennsylvania." Dr. Forbes was a popular teacher and after his appointment to the chair of anatomy at the Jefferson Medical College, his practice was subordinated to collegiate duties. He died December 17, 1906, in Philadelphia. His chief writings included: "Harvey and the Transit ol' the Blood from the Arteries to the Veins," 1878. "The Liberating of the Ring Finger, in Musicians, by Dividing the Accessory Tendons of the Extensor Com- munis Digitorum Muscle," 8vo, Philadelphia, 1884 (reprinted from "Proceedings of Phila- delphia County Medical Society," 1884) ; "The Removal of Stone in the Bladder" (reprinted froin Medical Nezvs," Philadelphia, 1894, vol. Ixiv). Charles R. Bardeen. Memoir of Dr. William S. Forbes. Frederick P. Henry. Rep. from Trans. Coll. Phys., Phila- delphia, 1897.