Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/468

NAME GODMAN 446 GOFORTH his magnum opus meant much labor outside his usual duties. Undertaking the task he pro- duced in 1826 three volumes of "American Natural History," a valuable addition to the scientific literature of the country, and did all this, added to reviews for the Quarterly and Latin, French and German translations, also his annotated edition of Sir Astley Cooper's "Dislocations and Fractures." He also co- edited the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, beginning in 1824, and contributing to it until his death. He wrote a philippic against Dr. Richard W. Harlan, author of "Fauna Americana," in a letter addressed to Dr. Thomas P. Jones, editor of the Franklin Journal, Philadelphia, 1826. During this time of constant toil which brought in little pecuniarily he was offered the chair of anatomy in Rutgers Medical Col- lege, New Jersey (1826). It was a post of honor and he accepted and lectured with almost unparalleled popularity the ensuing winter. But by the next winter his health began to give way. It was evidently advanced tuberculosis. A spring at Santa Cruz failed to relieve him and he began to labor with his pen to support his family, continuing to work for the En- cyclopedia Americana, the natural history sec- tion being entirely intrusted to him. On the seventeenth of April, 1830, this com- paratively young leader in the profession de- parted this world cheerfully trusting in God, after a life in which he had sought no relaxa- tion save change of occupation. He married, in October, 1821, a daughter of Peale, the artist. From Liberty Halt and Gazette of June 22, 1822, I copy the following "card." "A Card "Dr. John D. Godman respectly informs the public that the apparatus for sulphurous fumigations will shortly be ready for use at his office. The success with which diseases of the skin have been treated by this method is such as to astonish and gratify all who have witnessed its application. In Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities it is daily becom- ing more known and justly esteemed. .A printed description of the origin and impor- tance of the remedy, with numerous cases of disease cured by it, will in a few days be ready for delivery." Two weeks later a further an- nouncement appeared as follows : "The ap- paratus is now established at the office of Dr. J. D. Godman, and will be ready for the re- ception of patients after the fourth of July (1822). Poor persons afflicted with diseases of the skin, chronic rheumatism, palsy, etc., who are recommended as proper objects of charity by a clergyman, physician, or respect- able citizen, will be operated on free of charge." On August 17, 1822, appeared a card stating that "a number of patients have been benefited and many cured. Charges fifty cents an application." S. D. Gross, in his "Autobiography" says : "I had heard so much of Godman and saw before me a thin, frail sickly man with a pallid face, black hair and eyes and a clear sonorous voice. Godman was poor all his life. Poverty literally pursued him from the cradle to the grave. Gifted beyond most of his professional contemporaries he failed in almost everything. With great powers as an anatomical teacher he attracted large but unremunerative classes. For eighteen months after he took to literary pursuits he daily performed an astonishing amount of work, breathing as he did, with only one lung. His was a life of true heroism. His 'Rambles of a Naturalist,' 1823, has had many admirers on account of the beauty and fascination of its style." A. G. Drury. Lives of Eminent Am. Phys. and Surgs., S. D. Gross, 1861. The Medical Annals of Maryland, E. F. Cordell, 1903. A Narrative of Med. in Amer., J. G. Mumford. 1903. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1887. Goforth, William (1766-1817) William Goforth, born in the city of New York, was the son of Judge Goforth, one of the earliest and most distinguished pioneers of Ohio. Equipped with a good preparatory education he had for medical professor Dr. Joseph Young, a physician of some eminence, who in 1800 published a small volume on "The Uni- versal Diffusion of Electricity, and Its Agency in Astronomy, Physiology and Therapeutics." speculations which his pupil cherished through life. He also enjoyed the more substantial teachings of an anatomist and surgeon. Dr. Charles Knight, but the school was dispersed by a mob raised against anatomists. Goforth went West with his brother-in-law. Gen. John S. Gano. and on the tenth of June, 1788, landed at Maysville, Kentucky, then called Limestone. Settling in Washington, four miles from the Ohio River, he was soon popular, and for eleven years held the prin- cipal practice around. In 1799 he came to Columbia, a suburb of Cincinnati, where his father lived and in 1800 removed to the city, occupying the house known as the Peach-Grove House, bringing