Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/756

NAME MC CRAE 734 MC CREERY The lines seem singularly to combine the two opposite traits in his character-the sense of gaiety, of laughter, and the mmor note present in his poems. In religion he had a strong faith and was strict in observing its outward signs. When fourteen John McCrae joined the Guelph Highland Cadets, becoming 1st lieu- tenant; he transferred to the Artillery and rose from gunner to major. When the South African War began he served in the field force in 1899-1900; saw hard fighting and received the Queen's medal with three clasps. In the autumn of 1914 he entered into service with the rank of major; went to the front but on June 1, 1915, was ordered to No. 3 General Hospital at Boulogne, his rank now being lieutenant-colonel. His wishes were all for action, but as a medical officer he "did his work and did it well"; he had suf- fered many years from asthma and his health was growing worse. In December the com- mand of No. 1 General Hospital fell vacant and Dr. McCrae was offered the post, but a few days later a higher honor appeared m store for him, that of consultant to the Brit- ish Armies in the field. Before matters were concluded Colonel McCrae was taken ill with pneumonia and died at No. 14 General Hos- pital at Wimereux, January 28, 1918. He was buried in the cemetery at Wimereux, with full military pomp, attended by many officers and men and a hundred nursing sis- ters in caps and veils. His biographer says "Through all, his life dogs and children fol- lowed him as shadows follow men. To walk in the streets with him was a slow proces- sion." His dog, Bonneau, and his horse. Bonfire, were his companions and friends; the horse, led by two grooms, and wearing the white ribbon, led the funeral proces- sion. Colonel McCrae was survived by his father and mother, a sister, Mrs. F. Kilgour, and a brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Mc- Crae, M. D., professor of medicine in Jef- ferson Medical College. John McCrae's book of poems ("In Flan- ders Fields and other Poems," New York, 1919) edited bv Sir Andrew Macphail, con tains a sketch of McCrae (pp. 47-141), which is of almost equal interest with the poems; sympathetic and restrained in composition— it is a literary gem. Howard A. Kelly. The chief source of information is Sir. Andrew Macphail's Essay, with newspaper clippings and personal knowledge. McCreery, Charles (1785-1826) The following extract is from a letter of Miss Tula Clay Daniel of Hardinsburg, Ken- tucky, a grand-daughter of Dr. Charles Mc- Creery. She writes: Family records show Dr. McCreery to have been of Scotch-Irish descent. His grandfather moved to this coun- try and settled in Maryland in 1730. His father married Mary McClanahan, and Charles, the seventh son, the youngest of nine children, was born June 13, 1785, near Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky. His brother Robert was father of Thomas Clay McCreery, the noted Senator, lawyer, orator from Daviess County, and his brother James the grandfather of Senator James B. Mc- Creery. Dr. McCreery studied medicine under Dr. Goodlet of Bardstown, moved to Hartford, Ohio County, Kentucky, in 1810. In 1811 he married Ann Wayman Crowe, whose parents came from Maryland with their relations, the Tevis family. In Hartford a family of seven children were born to them. Dr. McCreery did a large practice in Ohio and adjoining counties, making extended rides on horseback and yet found time to deliver lectures regularly in his home to his own as well as other students. His surgical instru- ments were made under his own supervision by an expert silversmith in Hartford. His chief operation, the one that makes his fame enduring, was the extirpation of the entire collar bone in 1813, the first on record {"New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Janu- ary, 1850). This operation, done upon a young man, though the bone was said to be scrofulous, was a decided success, the patient making a complete recovery, with perfect use of the arm and hving past middle life. "This bold, delicate and extraordinary operation was executed for the first time in America in 1813 by the late Charles McCreery of Hartford, in this State. The subject of the case, as I learn from Charles F. Wing, Esq., of Greenville, who was intimately ac- quainted both with the patient and his sur- geon, was a youth of the name of Irvin, fourteen years of age, laboring under a scrofulous affection of the right collar bone. A disease of a similar kind existed at the period of the operation in the right leg, from which several pieces of bone were subse- quently removed, and which became so much curved and shrunken as to be upwards of two inches shorter than the other. By de- grees the part got well, but the disease recurred two or three times afterwards, though it was always amenable to treatment. The loss of the bone did not impair the func-