Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/505

HAMILTON also a physician, had preceded him to Annapolis, Maryland, where he was practising medicine in 1727. Hamilton was the preceptor of (q. v.), of Calvert County, Maryland, who settled in Philadelphia and founded the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1752. In 1745, with Jonas Green, editor of the Maryland Gazette, he organized at Annapolis the Tuesday Club, of which he was secretary and orator, and "life and soul," during its ten years of existence. The manuscript minutes of the proceedings of this club are in possession of the Maryland Historical Society, constituting three volumes, illustrated with caricatures by the pen of Dr. Hamilton himself. He is truly depicted therein as "Loquacious Scribble, Esq'r." On May 29, 1747, he married Margaret Dulany, daughter of the Hon. Daniel Dulany, of Annapolis, "a well accomplished and agreeable young lady with a handsome fortune."

There lately appeared (1907) a remarkable diary of a journey of 1,624 miles made in 1774 by Hamilton to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and back to Annapolis. It is called the "Itinerarium."

Hamilton bore letters of introduction to several eminent physicians, but he found the profession in a very low state, many of the doctors whom he met, especially in New York, being mere "drunken roysterers." He attended several meetings of a "Physical" (Medical) "Club," at Boston, which was presided over by the celebrated (q. v.), a Scotchman of learning, but a cynical mortal," so full of himself that he could see no merit in anyone else. At these meetings they "drank punch, smoked tobacco and talked of sundry physical matters." One subject of discussion with his medical colleagues was the microscope, in which he shows himself an adept, having "seen Leeuwenhoek," the great Dutch microscopist, "and some of the best hands upon that subject."

His literary tastes are shown by his buying and reading a "Homer" in Boston, and by his allusions to current and classical literature. He also took the Physical News, a medical journal published at Edinburgh.

Regarding the history of the manuscript, it was given by the doctor shortly after his return to an Italian gentleman who visited him at Annapolis, and was carried by the latter to Italy. In course of time it was sold and thus got into the book stores of London, where it was found and purchased by Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis. Recognizing its historical value, this gentleman printed a small edition at his own expense for private distribution. Hamilton died on May 11, 1756.



Hamilton, Frank Hastings (1813–1886).

Frank Hamilton was the second son of Calvin and Lucinda Hamilton, born September 10, 1813, in the hamlet of Wilmington, Windham County, Vermont. He came from ordinary people, his father being a farmer and owning a line of stages which ran between Bennington and Brattleboro, across the mountains.

In 1816 his parents moved to Schenectady, New York, where he studied at the Lancasterian School and "The Academy;" in July, 1827, he entered the sophomore class of Union College, and graduated A. B. from this institution. He then studied under Dr. John G. Morgan, of Auburn. During this period he kept bright his anatomical knowledge by painting in oil nearly every part of the human form. A full course of lectures at the Fairfield College of Physicians and Surgeons, in 1831, a license from the Cayuga County Medical Censors, and a formal graduation in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1835, gave him the needed authority for his life work.

"About this time," says the late (q. v.), "young Hamilton was appointed demonstrator of anatomy, made all the dissections, lectured to attentive students, and subsequently, when Dr. Morgan was called to the professor's chair at Geneva Medical College, in accordance with the wishes of those around him he delivered a full course of lectures on anatomy and surgery. He continued to lecture until the year 1838. On January 23, 1839, he assumed the chair of surgery in the Western College of Physicians and Surgeons, and then again, August 10, 1840, took a corresponding position in the Geneva Medical College. Here he remained for nearly four years, when, his ambition once more getting the better of him, he gave up his chair and went to Buffalo to resume practice as a surgeon. In 1843 and 1844 a visit to Great Britain and the Continent, extending over a period of seven months, supplied materials for a diary, which soon after appeared in the Buffalo Medical Journal.

In Buffalo Hamilton met, Sr. (q. v.), and the two became great friends. In 1864 they, together with (q. v.), also of Buffalo, added to the University of Buffalo a medical department, which rapidly became one of the features of the institution. Dr. Hamilton became its professor of surgery. For twelve years, from