Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/731

NAME LITTON 709 LIVINGSTON Dr. Timtothy Little died at Portland, No- vember 28, 1849, his widow surviving him un- til 1853. James A. Spalding. Communication from Dr. Frederick Henry Ger- rish, Portland. Mss. Transactions, Maine Med. Soc. Litton, Abram (1814-1901) Abram Litton was born in Dublin, May 20, 1814, and was brought to the United States by his parents when he was three years old. In 1831 he graduated from the Nashville, Kentucky, university and at once began life as a teacher. He was made professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the University of Nash- ville in 1839, before he went abroad to study. He visited Paris, Berlin, Bonn and Heidelberg, looking for laboratories open for study, but found at Giessen, with the great Liebig, the opportunity he sought to perfect himself in methods of precision. He spent three and one-half years abroad, and on May 15, 1843, was appointed professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Medical Department of the St. Louis University. This college was later known as the St. Louis Med- ical College, or Pope's, and now is recognized as the Medical Department of Washington University. His slender salary was $300, la- ter increased to $600, and finally placed at $1000. He added to this income by his labors in connection with the Geological Surveys of Iowa and Missouri, and by his employment as chemist in the Belcher Sugar Refinery. The first effort of the Washington Univer- sity towards advanced education was in start- ing a scientific school. They sought a profes- sor of chemistry, and endeavored to find him in the East. Judge Treat, a director of the university, conferred with Prof. Horsford, of Harvard, concerning the best available man. He replied, "Why not Litton, of St. Louis?" This aroused their interest in a man emi- nently qualified for the place, who had labored in their midst for more than ten years as a teacher and as a scientist. Later the Rev. W. G. Eliot asked Dr. Litton to take the pro- fessorship, telling him that they wanted to establish a scientific school of high grade in the city, but that they lacked money. Dr. Litton responded to this appeal and offered his services. This was in 1857. For fully forty-nine years he held his place in the St. Louis Medical College. He resigned in 1892, much to the regret of the faculty, and against their earnest protest. He died Sep- tember 22, 1901. Every student must remember the expres- sion of hopeless despair manifested not only in his mobile face, but in his whole body, as some particularly dull boy disappointed his oft-repeated efforts to force comprehension of the facts he so clearly presented. His labor- atory was a storehouse of living truths to him. I remember well the rush he would make down its stairway, every angle of his bony frame bristling with exclamation points, if sounds of disaster in some beloved experi- ment reached him. Though immersed in the fumes of his lab- oratory and enveloped in the mysteries of the phenomena of the material world, his love of humanity ever kept in touch with those who came to him for help and advice. Remarks made in behalf of the Alumni Asso. of the St. Louis Med. School. Henry H. Mudd, on the Life and Character of Dr. Abram Litton and Dr. John T. Hodgen. There is a portrait in Wash. Univ., St. Louis, Mo. Livingston, Robert Ramsey (1827-1888) Robert Ramsey Livingston, of Plattsmouth, was undoubtedly the most prominent of Ne- braska's early physicians. A Canadian by birth, of Scotch-Irish descent, he was born August 10, 1827, in Montreal. His early edu- cation was received in the Royal Grammar School in the same city. Having received the degree of M. D. at McGill University he later attended lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and for a time after gradua- tion acted as superintendent of the Lake For- est Mining Company near Houghton, Michi- gan. In 1857 he abandoned this work and came to Plattsmouth. In 1861, while acting as temporary editor of the Plalte Valley Herald, he received the news that the flag had been fired upon at Fort Sumter. He immediately stopped the press as an edition of the paper was being issued and printed a circular calling for volun- teers to serve the Union. As a result of this. Company A of the First Nebraska was organ- ized at Plattsmouth with Livingston as cap- tain (July 12, 1861). In July of the same year he was promoted to the rank of major; in June, 1862, lieutenant-colonel of the First Nebraska Regiment. Gen. John M. Thayer, who later became governor of Nebraska, always spoke in the warmest terms of the activity and ability of Dr. Livingston. He continued to advance, in the summer of 1863 being promoted to the position of commander of the St. Louis Post and a few months later commander of the dis- trict. In the spring of 1865 he was brevet