Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/652

NAME JOHNSTON 630 JOHNSTON graceful carnage, his large and classic head. He died October 11, 1891, from an attack of diphtheria contracted while operating. He married Miss Sallie C. Smith, daughter of Benjamin Price Smith, of Washington, District of Columbia; she died a few years before him. They had four sons ; the eldest, Christopher, became professor of oriental his- tory and archeology in the Johns Hopkins Un- iversity. Eugene F. Cordell. Annals of Maryland, E. F. Cordell, 1903. Portrait. Johnston, George Benjamin (1853-1916) George Ben Johnston was one of the pioneer surgeons of the South and it was largely through his efforts that the Medical College of Virginia was raised to its present efli- cient standard; that the Memorial Hospital, the Virginia Hospital and the Johnston-Willis Sanatorium were built in Richmond, and that progressive medical and health legislation were attained in Virginia. Dr. Johnston was active in every sphere of civic life and was a man of far reaching vision, large ideas and splendid accomplishment. He possessed a personality which although dominant was at the same time lovable. George Ben Johnston was born in Tazewell, Virginia, July 25, 1853. His mother, Nicketti Buchanan Floyd, was the daughter of Dr. John Floyd, Governor of Virginia from 1849 to 1852, and his father was John Warfield John- ston, United States senator from Virginia. Among his ancestors were many pioneers, sol- diers and statesmen. General Joseph E. John- ston of Confederate Army fame was his uncle. Reared among the Alleghany mountains in southwestern Virginia, George Ben Johnston grew strong in body and in mind. He first went to school at the Abingdon Academy, Abingdon, Virginia, and then' to St. Vincent's College, Wheeling, West Virginia ; from there he went to the University of Virginia, first taking academic studies and then one year in medicine. In 1875 he went to the University of the City of New York and graduated from this institution in medicine in 1876. After his graduation he refused several offers to settle in New York and came back to Abingdon, Vir- ginia, where he practised medicine for two years, associated with Dr. E. M. Campbell. In 1878 Dr. Johnson came to Richmond and prac- tised medicine in that city until his death. Dr. Johnston was twice married. In 1881 he married Mary McClung, who died in 1882. On the 12th of November, 1892, he was mar- ried to Helen Coles Rutherford of Rock Cas- tle, Va., and they had four daughters. He was a man of domestic tastes, an affectionate husband and father, and his home was always the rendezvous of his relatives, near and re- mote. In religion he was of the Roman Catholic faith. Dr. Johnston first held several minor teach- ing positions in the Medical College of Vir- ginia and then was elected in 1884 professor of didactic and clinical surgery and in 1896 the chair was changed to professor of practice of surgery and clinical surgerj' ; again in 1907 to professor of gynecology and abdominal sur- gery, and in 1913 to professor of surgery. He resigned this chair in 1914 to become a mem- ber of the board of visitors of the Medical College of Virginia. Among other honors Dr. Johnston was an ex-president of the Rich- mond Academy of Medicine and Surgery, of the Medical Society of Virginia, of the South- ern Surgical and Gynecological Association, of the American Surgical Association and of the Norfolk and Western Railway Surgeons' As- sociation. He was an ex-meraber of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association and a member of its Judicial Council, and a delegate from the American Surgical Association in 1903 to the Interna- tional Medical Congress at Madrid. He was also a delegate from the United States to the International Periodical Gynecological Con- gress in 1896. He was a member of the In- ternational Surgical Society, a fellow of the College of Surgeons, a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, and received the degree of LL. D. from the College of St. Francis Xavier in New York and fr»m Hampden-Sidney Col- lege in Virginia. Dr. Johnston performed the first operation in Virginia under Listerism (aseptic surgery) in 1879. He contributed to Keene's System of Surgery, to Bryant and Buck's System of Surgery, and wrote many papers, among them being "The Treatment of Osteomyelitis of the Tibia," "Fixation of the Kidney" and a "De- scription and Report of the Cases of Opera- tion of Splenectomy." Dr. Johnston's opera- tions on the kidneys and spleen were well known, performed in conjunction with his partner. Dr. Murat Willis; the Johnston- Wil- lis operation for ventral suspension was in- troduced in 1914. Dr. Johnston was a man of broad sympathy and was especially generous to young doctors beginning their professional careers. Not one or two, but scores of physicians owe their successful start to this unselfish man. He was interested in the health and civic welfare of Virginia and was a member of the state board