Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/697

NAME KUHN 675 KUHN and Salome Carpenter Krieder, and grandson of Michael and Susan Carpenter Kreider; be- ing thus doubly descended from Dr. Henry Carpenter (Zimmermann), a Swiss physician who settled in Germantown in 1698. Michael attended school in Huntington, and acquired, for that day in the West, an unusually good education. On the death of his mother in 1820 the home was broken up and with a younger brother he walked over the Allegheny Mountains and made his home for two years with an uncle in Delaware County, Ohio, in 1822 beginning to study medicine with Dr. Samuel Parsons in Columbus. In 1825 after an examination, there being no medical schools in the West at that time, he was given a license to practise by the State Medical Board, and settled in Royal- ton, Ohio. In 1841, having retired from politi- cal office, he took up the practice of surgery with energy and became widely known as a surgeon, probably operating more than any other surgeon in Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. Of physicians, Dr. M. Z. Kreider stood at the head, and in surgery surpassed all others. Far and near he was called upon to per- form all the capital operations. He was a self-made man, who by indomitable perse- verance and energy attained a commanding position. He was a very large, broad-shoul- dered man, well proportioned, with a large nose, bright eyes, and a generally keen and alert expression, with strong and rapid move- ments. Not only a noted physician, he was a successful preacher and politician as well. He married, first, Sydney Ann Rees, daugh- ter of Gen. David Rees, and had one son, Ed- mund Cicero, and four daughters. His second wife was Mary Ann Carpenter, his cousin, by whom he had two children. He contributed frequently to the Ohio Medical Journal of Columbus and Cincinnati. In 1853 he suffered a sun stroke while trav- eling in Michigan. Diabetes mellitus caused his death, July 20, 1855, at the early age of • fiftj-two. George Noble Kreider. Hist, of the Carpenter Family, S. D. Carpenter, M.D., 1907. Hist, of Huntington County, Penn., 1883. Hist, of Fairfield County, Ohio, Scott, 1871. Hist, of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio, 1900. Kuhn, Adam (1741-1817) Concerning this young botanist, on the twen- ty-fourth of February, 1763, the great Linnae- us wrote to Adam Kuhn pere, living in Phila- delphia, and in fine Latin thus commends his pupil : "He is unwearied in his studies and daily and faithfully studies materia medica with me. He has learnt the symptomatic history of dis- eases in an accurate and solid manner. In natural history and botany he made remark- able progress. He has studied anatomy and physiology with other professors." This was high praise from such a master. The boy was born at Germantown near Phil- adelphia November 17, 1741. His grand- father, John Christopher Kuhn, and his father, Dr. Adam Simon Kuhn, came from Heilbronn, Swabia, to Philadelphia in September, 1733. Adam first studied medicine with his fath- er, then sailed for Europe in 1761 and arrived at Upsala by way of London. Linnaeus named an American plant Kuhnia (Kuhnia Eupatorioides) after Adam and when the latter returned to Philadelphia wrote very intimate and graceful letters to him in Latin. One has this in it. "I pray and entreat thee send some seeds and plants among which I ardently desire the seeds of the Kuhnia, which perished in our garden." Kuhn went to London in 1764 and studied there a while, and in 1767 was in Edinburgh where he took his M. D. that same year on the twelfth of June. His thesis, on "De Lavatione Frigida," was dedicated to his friend Linnaeus. He visited France, Holland and Germany but whether before or after Edinburgh is not very clear. In 1768, after his return to Philadel- phia, he became professor of materia medica and botany in the University of Pennsylvania and helped in 1774 in vaccinating a population considerably decimated by small-pox. Kuhn's name as professor of materia medi- ca and botany in the College and Academy of Philadelphia is upon the diploma of John Archer, the first ever granted by a medical college in America, dated 1768, which hangs on the wall of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore. Of Adam Kuhn Dr. Charles Caldwell (q. v.), cold, cautious, and sarcastic, says: "He was by far the most highly and minutely furnished specimen of old-school medical pro- duction I have ever beheld. He wore a fash- ionable curled and powdered wig ; his breeches were black, a long skirted buff or white waist- coat, his coat snuff colored. He carried a gold headed cane and a gold snuff-box ; his knee and shoe buckles of the same metal. His footsteps were sternly and stubbornly regular; he entered the sick-room at a given minute and stayed a given time and never suffered deviation from his directions. "'Doctor, if the patient should desire toast, water or lemonade he may have it?" asked the nurse sometimes. He would turn and reply