Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/818

NAME MINER 796 MINER other injuries; he removed the entire fibula successfully and the ulna with the elbow- joint, so saving an arm; twice he removed foreign bodies from the lumen of the left bronchus; in operating for recto-vaginal fis- tula he instituted a procedure as successful as it was novel and ingenious. Many of these operations call for boldness and originality even at our stage of development in surgery ; nearly all were specially noteworthy at that time and form a list of major operations equalled by few contemporary surgeons. His operation for ovarian tumor in 1869 will be regarded as his greatest addition to surgery (Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal, June 1869). He had previously (1866), for the first time in the history of ovariotomy, tied sepa- rately the vessels of the pedicle, cut the liga- tures short and returned the pedicle to the abdominal cavity with success. In an emer- gency he ligated the radial artery with a pocket knife and an aneurysm needle fashioned from a hairpin. As one said, speaking as a lay- man : "With nerves of tempered steel, he had a gentle hand, a tender heart, a compassion- ate nature." In 1867, while operating upon a charity pa- tient, he pricked his thumb with a spicula of bone and received the infection which eventually ended his life. Iritis and other symptoms followed, but it was not until 1873 that serious results were observed. His lec- tures in 1881-82 were delivered sitting and nt their close he resigned and became emeritus professor. His paper on "Ovariotomy by Enucleation without Clamp, Ligature or Cau- tery" appeared in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1872, vol. Ixiv. Late in the summer of 1886 I saw him for the last time. Our talk ran on the production of his old friend, the late Austin Flint (q. v.), and we talked of the ideas he had so well set forth in that address. Thd end came early on the fifth of November, 1886. He sought in religion as he had sought .in medicine, to know the truth, and had found it and faced death with the same cheerfulness with which he had met the weariness of protracted illness. Edward N. Brush. Abridged from an Address on the Life and Character of Tiilins F. Miner, by Dr. E. N. Brush, Phila., 1888. Buffalo Med. and Surg. Jour., 1886-7, vol. xxvi. New York Med. Tour.. 1886, vol. xliv. Med. Press, Western New York, Buffalo. 1885-6, vol. i. Miner, Thomas (1777-1841) An early investigator of epidemic cere- brospinal meningitis, one of the most learned physicians of his day, Thomas Miner was born in Westfield, the northwest parish of Middletown, Connecticut, October 15, 1777. His father was the Congregational minister in that town and saw to it that he received a good elementary education. Finally Miner was fitted for college under Dr. Cyprian Strong, of Chatham, and graduated in 1796 from Yale, with the degree of A. B. The next three years were spent in teaching in Goshen, New York, the work, however, being sadly interrupted by two attacks of intermit- tent fever. Returning to Middletown in December, 1799, he began the study of law, only to discontinue it during 1810, on account of a serious attack of rheumatism. In the autumn of 1801 his health permitted him to take charge of an academy at Berlin, where he taught for two years, or until ill health again interfered with his plans. He was able, however, when twenty-five years of age, to study medicine under Dr. Osborne, of Mid- dletown, and continue with Dr. Smitli-Clark of Haddam. In t-he spring of 1807 he began to practise at his father's house, but, in the autumn, removed to Middletown, and finally settled at Lynn, only to remove, in two years, back to Middletown, where he practised until an affection of the lungs and heart suddenly ended, for the great part, his professional career, and left him, at the premature age of forty-one, a confirmed valetudinarian. Subsequently he practised in consultation, and for two or three years did some literary work for the Medical Recorder of Philadel- phia, engaging himself in making selections, abridgments and translations from the French In 1823, with Dr. Tully (q. v.), he published "Essays on Fevers and other Medical Sub- jects," which received much criticism on ac- count of the doctrines it advanced. Two years later there appeared his admirable account of an epidemic of "Cerebrospinal Meningitis in Middletown," 1823. In it he called the affec- tion typhus syncopatis. He received the honorary degree of M. D. from Yale in 1819. He was a member of many important committees in the Connecti- cut State Medical Society, and in 1832 was made its vice-president. Two years later he was promoted to the presidency, an office which he held for three years. He married Phebe, daughter of Samuel Mather. She died February 5, 1811. His death at the home of his friend. Dr. S. B. Woodward (q. v.), in Worcester, on April 23, 1841, was due to complications re-