Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/809

NAME METTAUER 787 MICHEL common sense ever guided him in his work. In power of endurance and capacity for work he must have been as untirable as it was possible to be. In the latter part of his career, in order to operate, he sometimes un- dertook journeys requiring several weeks. On one occasion he went in his carriage as far as Georgia, and it is said that he received $1,000; in that day a stupendous fee. Much of his time was given to work from which he derived neither fame nor fortune and he seems to have placed no value upon money. He invariably wore a tall stovepipe hat which nothing would induce him to remove, and he wore it everywhere and on all occa- sions, even at meals, and it is said, also when in bed. He never attended service in any church, a fact attributed to his unwilling- ness to remove his headgear, but was more probably due to the fact that he would not take the time from his work. When called upon to testify in court, he always declined to remove his hat. He even left directions that he should be buried with it on, and that there should be placed in his coffin a number of instruments and the letters of his first wife. He would never assist in an operation, as he had an insuperable objection to watching another's work. He was also remarkable for the care and detail of his preparation for an operation, being far ahead of his time in this. In the last week of his life he did three successful ones, for cataract, for stone, and an excision of the breast, though then in his eighty-eighth year. "Facile princeps of the medical and surgical profession of the world" was the opinion of him expressed by Dr. Mutter (q. v.), a Philadelphia surgeon of note, in 1845. He is accredited, said the American Journal of the Medical Sciences after his death, with more improvements in operations and inventions of instruments to date than any other man. Dr. Mettauer was married four times ; to a Miss Woodward of Norfolk; to Miss Carter of Prince Edward County; to Miss Mansfield, of a northern state, and to Miss Dyson, of Norfolk. He had six children, three sons and three daughters. His sons were all physicians, the last of whom was Dr. Archer Mettauer, of Macon, Georgia. His long and laborious career came to an end in November, 1875. Having been called to a case of morphine poisoning a short dis- tance from his house, he got his feet wet in a tramp through the snow and forgetting him- self in his interest in the patient, neglected proper precautions and contracted a cold which developed into pneumonia, and in two days he was dead. A truly heroic death crowned the long and useful life. Volume n (No. 1) of the Virginia Medical Monthly contains an article on the "Prophy- laxis of Childbed Fever," which was probably his last published contribution, as it appeared in April, 1875. The only known likeness of Dr. Mettauer was a small photograph, in the possession of Dr. George Benjamin Johnston, of Richmond, Virginia. Robert M. Slaughter. Trans. Am. Surg. Assoc, 1905. G. B. Johnston, Portrait. Metz, Abraham (1828-1876) Abraham Metz was born in Stark County, Ohio, but early in life lost both parents and was compelled to rely almost entirely upon his own exertions for a living. Nevertheless he was able by dint of perseverance to acquire sufficient elementary education to enable him to teach a district school at the age of twelve and he thus saved money enough to start him in the study of medicine. At the age of sixteen he studied medicine with Dr. Kahler in Columbia County, and soon after attended a course of medical lectures in the Willoughby Medical College. The outbreak of the Mex- ican War interrupted his studies and he was detailed in the position of acting surgeon. On the close of the war he returned to Ohio. Finally, he was able to attend a course of lectures in the Cleveland Medical College and to graduate there in 1848. Dr. Metz settled finally, 1848, in Massillon, Ohio, where he made his permanent home. Fortune placed in his care an unusual number of cases of dis- eases of the eye, and his success with these was such that similar cases flocked to him for treatment and finally enabled him to con- fine his practice entirely to ophthalmology. In 1864 he was called to the chair of oph- thalmology in the newly organized Charity Hospital Medical College in Cleveland, and he continued to hold this position until his death, February 1, 1876. Dr. Metz was a member of the Ohio State Medical Society and presented to that body reports on the progress of ophthalmology in 1860, 1864 and 1865. He also published a treatise on "The anatomy and histology of the human eye." Philadelphia, 1868. Henry E. Handerson. Michel, Charles Eugene (1832-1913) Charles Eugene Michel, an ophthalmologist of St. Louis, Missouri, was born May 9, 1832, at Charleston, South Carolina, son of John