Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/577

NAME HORNER 555 HORNER knowledge of technical details characteristic of Horn. Horn was profoundly influenced by Darwin. In 1882 he published a paper on variations in Cicindela (tiger beetles), a warning to those who hasten to describe new species based on color differences. His last note in October, 1886, deals with some of that interesting and beautiful order, the North American Bupres- tids. A specialist in the narrower sense of the word, he did good work by combining the study of American with European forms, and by adjusting the classifications. As David Sharp says, "he felt a genuine interest in his work and was therefore master of the patience indispensable for any satisfactory study in entomology." His collection of Coleoptera and his entomo- logical library of about 950 volumes went at his death to the Academy of Natural Sciences. His biography has been written by Philip P. Calvert, and a list of his entomological writings and an index to the genera and species of Coleoptera described and named is furn- ished by Samuel Henshaw, in the Transactions of the American Entomological Society, vol. XXV. Howard A. Kelly. Horner, Gustavus B. (1761-1815). He was born in Charles County, Maryland, on January 27, 1761, and went as a boy to the local schools, afterwards studying medicine with Dr. William Brown of Alexandria, Virginia. When fifteen he entered the Continental Army as a private soldier, and served as such until made surgeon's mate, in February, 1878. When the war ended he settled at Warren- ton, Virginia, and very soon had a good prac- tice, especially as a surgeon, before his death being called upon to do practically all the big operations in a large surrounding territory. At one time his health became delicate, and as recreation he took to politics, and served in the State Legislature and was several times a presidential elector. Regarded as an authority in his communtiy, his opinion in all questions in medicine and surgery was final. He married and left children, and several of his descendants were prominent physicians. In the winter of 1814-15 there prevailed in Eastern Virginia an unmanageable and fatal epidemic of a disease variously termed pneu- monia vera, pneumonia biliosa, pneumonia ty- phoides, bilious fever, typhus fever and ca- tarrhal fever, but which was, judging from the descriptions of it, probably a malignant type of epidemic influenza, in which he became much interested. He saw a great many cases and de- vised a treatment of a very depleting nature for the disease. Contracting the disease him- self he insisted that he would personally try his own course of treatment, which was car- ried out, but he died on the first of January, 1815. Robert M. Slaughter. Homer, William Edmonds (1793-1853). William Edmonds Horner was the son of William and Mary Edmonds Horner and was born on June 3, 1793, in Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia. His grandfather, Robert Horner, was a inerchant who had einigrated from England to Maryland liefore the Revolu- tion, and had later moved to Virginia. Several of Horner's relatives on both sides of the family were physicians. Horner was a delicate child, so light in weight that "his rude companions would fre- quently snatch him up unceremoniously, great- ly to his annoyance, and, in spite of his struggles and resistance, run off with him in bravado to display their greater strength." When twelve years old, Horner went to school in Warrenton under Charles O'Neill, clergyman. The teacher was neither deep nor thorough. In consequence, Horner was more or less hampered in his subsequent career. In 1809 Horner began to study medicine under Dr. John Spence (q. v.), an Edinburgh graduate, and during this period attended two sessions at Pennsylvania University. In his studies he showed a special partiality for anat- omy. The following extract from a letter to his father written in May, 1811, shows his feelings at this time : "The books you sent to me gave great satis- faction. Instead, however, of satisfying my present anxiety to become well acquainted with the structure of the human body, they have excited in me an enthusiastic zeal to commence practical anatomy. A man, with the assistance of maps, may obtain a tolerable knowledge of countries, but it is only by traversing them that he becomes the geographer in reality. In like manner it is with the anatomist, for no ana- tomical plates can give him that confidence as to induce him to undertake a surgical opera- tion, or give him as good an idea of the sub- ject of dissection." In 1813 Horner continued his medical studies in Philadelphia. In July, 1813, a year before taking his M. D., Horner was commissioned surgeon's mate in the Hospital Department of