Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/572

NAME HOMBERGER 5S0 HONYMAN medical student of the time to be selected as one of his operative assistants at St. Mar- garet's. As an operator he was fearless and painstaking though somewhat excitable when in a tight place. Trouble for the assistants was sure to follow when he began to hum "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls." He was no respecter of persons and would have his joke, no matter what happened. He was surgeon to out-patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1879 to 1882, and visit- ing surgeon from 1882 to 1889, when he was retired on account of age limit. He did comparatively little writing, his pub- lications being "Three Hundred and Eighty- four Laparotomies for Various Diseases," 1887, and various papers for the medical journals. Honians was clinical instructor in the diag- nosis and treatment of ovarian tumors in the Harvard Medical School after 1881, and mem- ■ber of the American Surgical Association. He died in his hoine in Boston, February 7, 1903, in his sixty-sixth year, after a short ill- ness, leaving a widow, three sons and three daughters. One son of the same name became a surgeon in Boston. Walter L. Burrage. Boston Med. and Surg. Tour., vol. cxlviii, p. 191. Bull. Har. Med. Alumni Assoc, April. 1903. There is a has relief in bronze in The Warren Museum, Har. Med. School. Homberger, Julius Julius Homberger, a well known American ophthalmologist of early days, an eccentric character, and the first ophthalmic editor in the United States, was born in Germany, date and place unknown. He lived for a time in Paris, was assistant to Julius Sichel, seems to have resided also at Wiirzburg (where he pub- lished a tiny pamphlet entitled "Spinal Curva- ture"), removed to America, and settled in New York City in January, 1861. In 1861 he was made one of the two New York representatives to the supplementary committee on the organization of the Univer- sity Society of Ophthalmology. The following year he founded The American Journal of Ophthalmology, the first ophthalmic journal in the United States. It was published in New York City, appeared bi-monthly, and contained Some original articles, but was mostly com- posed of letters, notes and queries, together with abstracts and translations of European articles which had been already printed. Vol- ume I. appeared complete, but volume II at- tained to its second number only. For the fol- lowing fifteen years there was no journal of ophthalmology published in the entire United States. Then The American Journal of Oph- thalmology, the second of its name, was founa- ed by Dr. Adolph Alt of St. Louis, who, according to Dr. Edward Jackson, in the present (the third) of the periodicals to bear the specific title, "Journal," did not know that the name had ever been used before. After the demise of his journal. Dr. Hom- berger, who had given many signs of eccen- tricity even in the pages of his periodical, grew more and more peculiar. He began to make extravagant claims for his skill, adver- tised extensively, and, at length, in 1868, was expelled from the American Medical Associa- tion. He then removed to New Orleans. Dr. Homberger, in answer to the act of the association, claimed to have resigned from membership in 1866, and that the association, therefore, had no jurisdiction over him in 1868. In fact, he published at New Orleans, in 1869, a pamphlet (which is now among the rarities of American ophthalmic literature) entitled "Batpaxomyomaxia : A Fight on Ethics."* In this "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," Hom- berger claimed that he had resigned from the American Medical Association in 1866, and his resignation had been mislaid; therefore, the association had no power to expel hiin, and that such advertising as he did was sanctioned by usage. A few years later Dr. Homberger became insane, and, according to a private letter to the writer from one of the doctor's old and intimate friends — Mr. Salomon Marx of New Orleans — was confined in "The Louisiana Re- treat," where, in the course of time, he died. The date of his passing cannot now, it seems, be ascertained. Thomas Hall Shastid. was meant, of course, was Batrachomyomachia, i. e., Battle of the Frogs and Mice. The mis- take was by no means due to ignorance on Homberger's part, but the Greek letter rho being the same in form as the English P, and the Greek chi being the same in form as the Eng- lish X. our author must, inadvertently, in the act of transliterating from Greek to English, simply have brought these two Greek letters over unchanged. Thus, B.TPAXOMYOMAX- lA. instead of BATRACHOMYOMACHIA. Honyman, Robert (1752-1824). Robert Honyman, Revolutionary surgeon and physician, was born in Scotland about 17S2 and educated at Edinburgh University, from which he graduated in medicine and entered the British Navy, but resigned and emigrated to America, settling in Louisa County, Virginia. in 1774. He espoused the cause of Jiis adopted country when the Revolution began, and fought as a private, being soon promoted to the rank of regimental surgeon. After the war he resumed his work, an extensive one, in Louisa
 * Such is the actual title of the pamphlet. What