Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/729

NAME LINSLEY 707 LITTELL Post-graduate Medical School, a position he held for four years until his health compelled him to abandon it. During this time he be- came enthusiastically interested in bacteriology and spent some time in Berlin in 1890 under Prof. Koch. Soon after his return from Berlin, Koch's famous discovery of tuberculin was announced and Linsley was sent back to Berlin by the Post-graduate Medical School to secure what information he could in regard to the new serum and he brought back the first bottle of tuberculin used here. Soon after, he trans- lated Fraenkel's standard work on bacteriol- ogy, but his health, never rugged, broke down at this time and he was compelled to abandon work. He held relations with the medical depart- ment of the University of Vermont during his stay in New York and was later made professor of histology, pathology and bacteri- ology, a position he held until 1899. In 1891 he returned to Burlington to live, but on account of his health was able to do only a limited amount of teaching and private lab- oratory work. In 1897 Linsley proposed to the Vermont State Board of Health to give the people of the state, especially the physicians, an object lesson in the use of the laboratory in pre- venting disease. An arrangement was made with this Board by which Linsley agreed to examine specimens, from practitioners of the state, of suspected cases of diphtheria and typhoid fever without remuneration for his services. The Board, however, agreed to re- imburse him as far as possible for the neces- sary equipment. The success of the experi- ment undertaken at his suggestion by the State Board was instantaneous. With char- acteristic energy, Linsley undertook to inter- est the Legislature of the state in the useful- ness of a State Hygienic Laboratory and, equipped with his microscope and other tech- nical apparatus, proceeded, after the gather- ing of the next General Assembly in 1898, to Montpelier. The result was the present State Laboratory of Hygiene, one of the best of its kind in this country, and from the day of its foundation, through Dr. Linsley's efforts, to the present time, one of the most com- pletely equipped in the country. It is his best and most enduring monument, and in it, as director, he did his last and most valuable work, besides writing many papers for state and other societies. He was married in July, 1880, to Nettie, daughter of Harmon A. Ray of Burlington, and had one son and a daughter, Daniel Ray and Patty Hatch Linsley. He died of meningitis at his home in Bur- lington, February 17, 1901. Charles S. Cavesly. Amer. Pub. Health Asso. Rep., 1899, Columbus, muo, vol. XXV. Portrait. Jour. Amer. Med. Asso., Chicago, 1897, vol. xxix. South. Prac, Nashville, 1898, vol. xx. i'raiis. Med. Soc, Tennessee, Nashville, 189S. Littell, Squier (1803-1886) The Littells were among the earliest emi- grants to America, the line beginning with George Littell who with his brother Benja- min came from London to Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, about 1630. Squier was the third child of Stephen and Susan Gardiner Littell and was born in Burlington, New Jersey, December 3, 1803. Both par- ents died early and the boy was adopted by his uncle, Dr. Squier Littell of Butler County, Ohio, and had an education at such schools as the country then possessed, afterwards studying medicine with his uncle and dividing time between the farm and his studies. In 1821 he began to work under Dr. Joseph Parrish of Philadelphia, and three years later graduated at the University of Pennsylvania with a thesis on "Inflammation." Before set- tling in Philadelphia, he visited Buenos Ayres hoping to get a post there, but failed in this, yet was made a licentiate by examination of the Academy of Medicine there. Some time after his return to Philadelphia he married Mary, daughter of Caleb Emlen, but she died early, leaving him with an infant son and daughter. On the Wills Hospital being organized in 1834 he was elected one of the surgeons; a fellow in 1836 and afterwards a councillor. Although a general practitioner in every sense, he was best known as an ophthalmologist and as a patient and cautious physician bold in execution when operation was necessary. When no longer young he devoted himself to mastering the difficulties of the ophthalmo- scope (then new) and using it daily. His "Manual of Diseases of the Eye" was one of the earliest American books on the subject and was favorably received here and abroad. He edited The Monthly Journal of Foreign Medicine. Although he always practised vaccination, he believed neither in the efficacy of that nor in the malarial origin of disease, not from nar- row mindedness, for he had read widely and studied. He was a staunch churchman and one of the committee to revise the Prayer Book in