Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/44

ALMON He was very absent-minded, a characteristic which gave rise to many amusing anecdotes. Readers of Marryat's "Newton Foster" will readily recall the awkward predicament in which the hero's uncle was placed when he discovered himself unexpectedly in a bedroom with a woman not his wife. The incident is based on a misadventure of Dr. Almon's, which was related to Marryat by the family when the sailor-novelist was on the Halifax station. On another occasion, when paying a professional call on the Hon. Richard Bulkeley, he inadvertently slipped a gold watch and chain, which was lying near, into his pocket, where it was found that evening by his wife, but not before its loss was being proclaimed by the town crier.

In 1785 he married Rebecca Byles, a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, and had a large family. His son, Dr. William Bruce Almon, succeeded to his practice.



Almon, William Johnston (1816–1901)

William J. Almon was the son of Dr. William Bruce Almon. He was born at Halifax in 1816 and died there January 18, 1901.

At King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia, he took his arts course, as his father had done before him, and after graduating as B. A. at King's, took his professional course at Edinburgh and Glasgow, graduating from the latter as M. D. in 1838.

He was a member of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, and its president in 1855, 1856, and 1865. He began practice in Halifax about 1837 and succeeded his father as surgeon of the Provincial Poors' Asylum in 1840. He was elected one of the members to represent Halifax in the Dominion House of Commons in 1872, and was a member of the Dominion Senate from 1879 till his death.

Succeeding his father in 1840, he soon secured a large practice and high social standing. He was a strikingly handsome man, of commanding presence, of great vigor, much of which he retained even beyond his fourscore years, along with his head of abundant dark curly hair, even then but little streaked with gray. Antiquarian research and relics connected with notable persons and places always greatly interested him, and his home, "Rosebank," on the North West Arm, was a veritable museum of curios. Just a few specimens may be mentioned: a brass mortar captured from the Russians at the Redan the day after the death of the Nova Scotia heroes, Parker and Welsford; a St. Helena medal, such as were given to the survivors of the Napoleonic wars; a Louis XIV chair which had belonged to Governor Wentworth the last of the Royalist governors of New Hampshire; and a vast collection of old walking sticks, including one that had belonged to Major Andre whom Washington hanged as a British spy; and another, a malacca with gold head owned by Dr. Benjamin Rush. He had also quite a collection of original letters and autographs of distinguished people, such as letters of the poet Pope, Benedict Arnold, Isaac Watts, Benjamin Franklin, the Duke of Wellington, and autographs of Queen Anne, George II, and Lord North.

In 1840, Dr. Almon married Elizabeth, a daughter of Judge Ritchie, sister of Sir William Ritchie, chief justice of Canada. He had a family of six sons and five daughters.

His eldest son, Dr. William Almon, a graduate of Harvard, became a surgeon in the Confederate Army and died of fever in Virginia in 1862.

Another son, Dr. Thomas R. Almon, educated at King's College, Windsor, and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, was associated in practice with his father, but died April 20, 1901, three months after him.



Alter, David (1807–1881)

Physician and electrician and discoverer of the principles of the prism in spectrum analysis, David Alter was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the locality now embraced by Allegheny Township, not far from Freeport. His father was a Swiss from near Lucerne, his mother of German nationality.

At the age of eight or nine he read the life of Benjamin Franklin, and was strongly drawn to the study of electricity. Independently of the labors of Morse and Wheatstone he perfected an electric telegraph in 1836 which consisted of seven wires, the electricity deflecting a needle on a disc at the extremity of each wire. So perfect was his system that he was enabled to transmit messages from his workshop to the members of his family in the house. In 1837 Dr. Alter invented a small machine which was run by electricity and on June 29, 1837, published in the Kittanning (Pennsylvania) Gazette an elaborate article on the use of electricity as a motive power under the title of "Facts Relating to Electro Magnetism." This article was widely read and was referred to in Silliman's "Principles of Physics." In 1845 Dr. Alter, in association