Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/768

NAME MC KEEN 746 UC KEEN He was a faithful physician, travelled long distances for his few patients, grew aged be- fore his time and was worn out in looking after the interests of his practice, his business, and his large family of thirteen children. None of these, however, appear to have taken up their father's practice. The cause of his death, April 14, 1782, is unknown, but he is said to have died suddenly. He was a deeply religious man, as these few titles of books from his library prove: "The Unbloody Sacri- fice," "Justification" and "The Four Fold State." Oddly enough, his widow, surviving him, married again, a curious man, who was willing that his wife should be buried beside her first husband, but as for himself he would never consent to be buried in that lot of ground, because a man whom he had hated all of his life was already buried there. James A. Spalding. Waterville, Maine, Centenary, Dr. F. C. Thayer. Family Papers from Dr. F. H. McKecbnie. McKeen, James (1797-1873) Probably one of the ablest physicians ever practising in Maine was James McKeen, son of Joseph McKeen, first president of Bowdoin. Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, November 27, 1797, he graduated at Bowdoin in 1817 and while a student was noted for his scien- tific zeal and attainments, being considered a careful observer and excellent thinker. He read much about Napoleon and followed him in his marches by pins stuck into the map of Europe. He was fond of astronomy. One night the college president observed a lan- tern shining on the steps of one of the dormi- tories. Suspecting some silly trick on the part of the students he crept up to ascertain what was going on, and found young McKeen studying the heavens with a sidereal map; the lantern was to display the positions of the constellations on the map after he had gazed at them in the skies above him. After graduating from Bowdoin, he studied with Dr. Matthias Spalding of Amherst, New Hampshire, a man very active in vaccination and more than once president of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Later, he studied with Dr. John Ware (q. v.) of Boston, and graduated at the Harvard Medical School in 1820. He then established himself at Topsham, Maine, a small town near Brunswick. Maine, the seat of Bowdoin College, and practised there with great success for more than fifty' years. In 1825 he was chosen professor of obstetrics in the Medical School of Maine, a position occupied honorably to himself and beneficially to his scholars for fourteen years, and was also professor of theory and practice of medi- cine in the same school. He was one of the founders and incorpora- tors of the Maine Medical Society. He wrote several papers ; one in 1829 was an essay "On the Influence of the Imagination upon the Fetus in Utero." Later on, this Society dying out. the Maine Medical Association was established, largely upon his initiative, and of that he was long secretary and second president. He was a life-long student of medicine. During a yellow-fever epidemic in New York (July, 1832), he was so much interested in satisfying his medical curiosity regarding the symptoms and studying the best treatment so as to be ready if it should break out in Maine, that he left Topsham without telling anybody where he was bound, and braved the terrors of a stage-coach journey and all the risks of contagion in New York. No one in our times can have any idea of the terror in those days of epidemics. Public travel was paralyzed for fear of spreading the dis- ease. One very delightful episode of this long journey, so valuable medically to McKeen, was that while waiting in New Haven for the coach for New York he was accosted by a handsome stranger who asked if he were not a physician and, having come through Boston, could he give him any idea of the chances of cholera there. McKeen told him the situ- ation, and one thing leading to another they talked until four o'clock in the morning when the coach was ready. Finally he regretfully shook hands with Daniel Webster, then on his way home from Washington. Setting out for Europe in 1837, Dr. McKeen was obliged, owing to the unsettled state of financial credit, to take with him eleven hun- dred dollars in silver coin for his expenses. Arriving in Dublin he took lodgings which he soon found to be disreputable. He accord- ingly transferred his silver dollars, bag by bag of a hundred each, to a respectable place, but darkness coming on during his last trip with a single bag he was waylaid by two footpads. He shook ofT both assailants, but one of them had captured his umbrella. Not intending to lose even that, he chased the rascal and hitting him on the back with the remaining bag of hard cash knocked him end over end. Policemen then came on the scene, and Dr. McKeen was charged with having committed an assault, but fortunately for him he received a quick discharge when the char- acter of the assaulted man was verified by the police. He had great presence of mind, for occa-