Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/718

NAME LEIGH 696 LE MOYNE cated to him in September, 1881, known as the Leidy Column and the Leidy Stalactite. Majestic in noble simplicity, unassuming in greatness, appiOachable by all seeking knowl- edge, the last to allude to his own achieve- ments, a soul filled with human kindness tem- pered by unswerving devotion to the truth — such a man was Joseph Leidy. Charles A. Pfender. Professor Joseph Leidy: His labors in the field of vertebrate anatomy, .Science, N. Y., Nov. 13, 1891, vol. xviii, 274-276. Biographical sketch of Joseph Leidy, M.D., In- ternal, ain., Phila., July, 1891, pp. 9-15. Por- trait. Dr. Joseph Leidy, G. A. P., Obituary, Med. & Surg. Reporter, Phila., 1891, vol. Ixiv, 544- 546. Memoir of Joseph Leidy, M. D., LL.D., Henry C. Chapman, Proc. Acad. Nat. Soc, Phila., June 30, 1891, 342-388. A sketch of the life of Joseph Leidy, M.D., LL.D., W. S. W. Ruschenberger, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., Phila., April 20, 1892, vol. xxx, 135-184. An address upon the late Joseph Leidy, M.D., LL.D., William Hunt. His university career and personal history, Phila., 1892, vol. Ixvi, pp. 80. Portrait. Joseph Leidy. Proc. Amer. Arts & Sci., Boston, 1893, n. s., vol. xix, 437-442. A memorial of Dr. Joseph Leidy, Proc. Acad, of Nat. Sci., Phila., 1898. 465-167. Joseph Leidy, M.D., LL.D., Henry Baldwin Ward, Arch, de parasitol., 1900, Par. vol. iii, 269- 279. Joseph Leidy, William Keith Brooks, Pop. Sci. Month, N. Y., 1907, vol. Ixx, 311-314. Por- trait. A tribute to Joseph Leidy, Charles S. Minot, Science, N. Y., May 30, 1913, n. s., vol. xxxvii, 808-814. Prof. Joseph Leidy as a helminthologist, Charle.i A. Pfender. Important contributions to medicine. Bull. Soc. Med. Hist.. Chicago, Jan., 1917. Also reprint vol. 8, pp. 80. Portrait in the Surg. -gen. 's Lib., Washington, D. C. Leigh, John John Leigh, author of "An Experimental Inquiry into the Properties of Opium and Its Effects on Living Subjects . . . ," 144 pp., Edinburgh, 1786, is supposed to be the John Leigh who was a student at William and Mary College in 1769, son of Francis Leigh and Elizabeth Roscoe. His brother William, also, was a physician. They were members of the Leigh family of King William County, Virginia, to which belonged Benjamin Wat- kins Leigh (1781-1849), United States senator, and Hezekiah G. Leigh (179.S-18S8), who, with Gabriel P. Desosway, founded Randolph-Ma- con College. John Leigh's medical education was obtained in Europe, where he received an M. D., but his name would be lost to posterity except for his disputation which gained the Harveian prize in 1785. The motto was: Quae priores nondum comperta cloquciitia percoluere, re- rum fide tradcntur. (Tacitus.) The dedica- tion was to George Washington, the place, Edinburgh, and the date. May 15, 1785. He writes: "Upon this subject very few original observations can be expected; the only demand that can be made upon an author is to collect and arrange with accuracy those opinions which are best established." Then follows a list of opinions, and a series of pharmaceutical experiments testing the value of the opium preparations on the market of the London and Edinburgh pharmacopoeias, showing the amounts of inert matter often present and the superfluous ingredients of many preparations, while utterly rejecting oth- ers as foolish, such as Philonium, Mithridatum and Theraiaca. E.xperiments on animals follow, beginning with the injection of opium into the eyes of puppies (he injected opium into his own eye also); he experimented on rabbits; injected it into the urethra of man, into the vagina of a bitch ; experimented on men and women with three and four grains of opium by the mouth and noted the effects, observing nausea and drowsiness ; he noted the time it took various preparations to act; he cites the use of opium in typhoid (Cullen) and in smallpox (Syden- ham) ; and in dysentery after cleaning out the bowel. Leigh had a good friend in Dr. James Ram- say, of Virginia, who took thirty drops of thebaine tincture as an experiment on himself, and then in more than three pages gives what is the equivalent to a homeopathic proving of the drug. Leigh's thesis may be described as a care- ful, crtical experimental study of opium as used in his day, taking the right lines for in- vestigation, namely, first a careful preliminary pharmaceutical examination of preparations in use, and then an elaborate experimental in- quiry into its effects on man and on animals. The result was slight, owing to the uncertainty of preparations and the absence of accurate chemical knowledge. There was no substan- tial discovery, nor did he open any immediate door of promise, but Leigh's work was, how- ever, the dawning of the critical experimental spirit destined to yield such a harvest in the next century. Howard A. Kelly. Information from President Lyon G. Tyler, Will- iam and Mary College, Mr. H. R. Mcllwaine, Virginia State Librarian, and Mr. Leigh Bon- sal, member of the Leigh family. LeMoyne, Francis Julius (1798-1879) Originator of cremation in America, LeMoyne was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, Sep-