Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/621

JACKSON they are constantly flaunting in our faces. If liberty consists in killing the wounded, starving the sick and letting them languish in the hospitals on bad salt pork for their only meat, I do not want to be much farther employed in such a glorious cause."

Despite his discouraged state of mind, neither Gen. Lee nor Gen. Sullivan would hear of his abandoning the sick to inferior physicians and it was not until October that he was able to return home for needed rest and then to make up for time lost to his patients and practice.

Ultimately, the New Hampshire Assembly honored Dr. Jackson with the thanks of the province, paid him fifteen pounds a month and proper rations for himself and his horse and elected him surgeon to the New Hampshire troops in the Revolutionary Army. In return for these favors he enlisted a body of men and drilled them into a company of heavy artillery with four guns from a fort in Portsmouth harbor. In the next year he was surgeon-in-chief in Col. Pearse Long's regiment and after that probably retired from active service and paid attention to his private practice.

The rest of Dr. Jackson's life was spent in active medical work. He was a first-rate surgeon, and regarded as clever as an obstetrician; he paid a good deal of attention to couching of cataracts, and with the needle had remarkable results in curing the blind. He was elected an honorary member of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1783, and in 1793 received the honorary degree of M. D. from Harvard College. He took great interest in smallpox inoculation.

His life was terminated, like many others of our profession, by an accident occurring while on his rounds of duty. In September, 1797, while "turning out" for another carriage his own was overturned and he was thrown and suffered a fractured rib. Fever soon ensued and September 28, 1797, he died. Hardly any other medical name in New Hampshire stands out brighter than that of Hall Jackson, for he was kind to the poor, charming in manners, genial in society, skilful in every branch of medicine which he practised, and above all an honest patriot.



Jackson, James (1777–1867)

James Jackson was born in Newburyport, Oct. 3, 1777, and died in Boston, August 17, 1867. His ninety years of busy life stretched from the middle of the war of the Revolution to the close of the Civil War, a notable figure in the New England of his day, and one who played a significant part in the medical history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during its formative period. At the time of his birth medical practice was emerging from a crude infancy, in which the functions of the doctor and clergyman were often united; before he died the modern era had become fairly inaugurated. While a young physician he rendered conspicuous service in the founding of the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital whose histories have been so notable, and he set up a standard of ideals in medical practice not to be surpassed. His volume of "Letters to a Young Physician," 1855, are still profitable to the student who sees not only his patient but the man and fellow-citizen as well. This small book deserves a place on every doctor's shelf.

The founder of the Jackson family in America was Edward Jackson, who, with his older brother John, came from London to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1643, as a pioneer settler in New Cambridge, known as Newtown or Newton. He represented his town in the General Court for many years and was active in behalf of the commonwealth and of his community. Thirty-eight of his descendants fought in the War of the Revolution, and, fourteen of the descendants of his great-grandson Jonathan Jackson, the father of our subject James, fought in the Civil War of 1861.

James Jackson's grandfather married Dorothy Quincy, and lived in Quincy until his death in 1757. Their son Jonathan graduated from Harvard College in 1761 and removed to Newburyport to be near his intimate friend John Lowell. This friendship proved eventful for the later history of the family in many ways. In 1772 Jonathan Jackson married Hannah Tracy, daughter of Patrick Tracy, a prominent public-spirited merchant of Newburyport; they had nine children, of whom James Jackson was the fifth.

Industry and enterprise were the fashion in those stirring times, and the five sons of Jonathan and Hannah early established themselves in professional life or business. The three brothers, Charles, James and Patrick, who long survived the other two, occupied an important place in the life of their community.

Jonathan Jackson was unable to do more than was absolutely essential toward the education of his sons. James went to Harvard