Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/679

NAME KING 657 KING been done at all, so Kimball required a good deal of courage when he set out to rescue the some forty per cent of women likely to die of the disease. Even before this, in 1853, he was a pioneer in extirpation of the uterus for fibroids. About 1870, writes his friend, Dr. F. H. Davenport, he joined Dr. Ephriani Cutter (q. V.) in the treatment of fibroids by electrolysis. Outside of gynecology he did two amputations at the hip-joint (one successful), a ligation of the internal iliac artery, unsuc- cessful, of the external iliac, the femoral, the common carotid and subclavian arteries, all successful. Kimball gave up work only when his health obliged him so to do a few years before his death. When he died at Lowell on July 27, 1892, his eighty-seven years had not impaired his mental vigor and his interest in things medical was as keen as ever. He was twice married; first to Mary, daughter of Dr. Henry Dewar of Edinburgh, Scotland, then to Isabella Defrier of Nan- tucket, Massachusetts. His writings were chiefly on subjects con- nected with ovariotomy and the treatment of fibroids and may be found in the Boston Med- ical and Surgical Journal, 1855, 1874 and 1876, and in the "Transactions of the American Gynecological Society." Both Yale and Williams gave him an honorary M. D., and Dartmouth her honorary A. M.; he was a fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York; vice- president of the Massachusetts Medical So- ciety in 1877-78, and president of the American Gynecological Society in 1883. Amer. Jour. Obstet. N. Y., 1892, vol. xxvi. Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc, 1892, vol. xvii, 481-485. F. H. Davenport. King, Albert Freeman Africanus (1841- 1914) Albert F. A. King was born in Oxfordshire, England, January 18, 1841, the son of Dr. Edward King and Louisa Freeman. His father, an enthusiastic worker in the coloniza- ation of Africa, dubbed his son for this rea- son Africanus. From 1847 to 1851 King at- tended school in Bichester near Oxford; he came to Virginia with a brother and two sis- ters in 1851 when his father arrived with im- migrants, carrying out a colonization scheme. The father and one daughter are buried at Alexandria, Virginia ; a brother, Dr. Claudius E. R. King, is a practitioner in San Antonio Texas. King studied medicine and graduated in 1861 at the National Medical College (now the Medical Department of the George Wash- inton University) in Washington, D. C. His early efforts to practise at Haymarket, Vir- ginia, were interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War, when he attended the wounded after the Battle of Bull Run. He was acting assistant surgeon in the Lincoln Hospital, on the site of the present Lincoln Park in Wash- ington. He took a degree in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1865, and on re- turning South settled in Washington, D. C. He was at the theatre, witnessed Lincoln's as- sassination, and scaled the footlights to the box, and helped carry the dying president to a house across the street. This same year (1865) finds him enrolled as a lecturer on toxicology in his alma mater. In 1870-71 he was an assistant in obstetrics, and in 1871, at the age of thirty years, he be- came professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, a position held until 1904, when gynecology and pediatrics were di- vorced from the cognate obstetrics, and King was continued in the latter chair until he died. His professorship of obstetrics thus lasted for forty- four years! He was Dean of the Med- ical Department of Columbia College (George Washington University) from 1879 to 1894 and was notably precise and methodical in everything pertaining to the college order. LIpon the completion of the college year in Washington it was his custom to visit the University of Vermont and give a brief "in- tensive" course in obstetrics. Following this came the short vacation with wife and three children. He held an obstetric service in Co- lumbia Hospital, was president in 1883 of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, and of the Washington Obstetrical and Gyne- cological Society 1885, 86, 87 — he was also connected with a number of other societies which affect a general membership. He was an interesting, forceful speaker, urbane in manner and with a strong sense of humor which was especially apt to crop out in a debate. He received the degrees of A. M. (1884) and of LL. D. (1904) from the University of Vermont. He married Ellen A. Dexter of Boston, Oc- tober 17, 1894. His methodical habits showed in the index- ing of the Transactions of the Washington Medical Society from 1838 to 1866; he wrote the biographical sketches of Dr. D. W. Pren- tiss (1899), Dr. W. W. Johnston (1902) (q. v.), and the Dr. Walter Reed address for the Memorial meeting, Dec. 31, 1902, as well as one upon Dr. Thomas C. Smith (1913).