Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/823

NAME MITCHELL 801 MITCHELL in the autumn of 1878. From 1879 to 1884 he was adjunct professor of obstetrics in the Medical College of Ohio, but resigned this position to accept the professorship of ob- stetrics in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, which he held many years. He was for several years professor of gyne- cology in the Woman's Medical College, and the same in St. Mary's Hospital from April, 1896, until his death. He was a member of the Academy of Medicine of Cincinnati from 1875 (its president in 1891) ; of the Cincinnati Obstetrical Society; of the Ohio State Med- ical Society, and the National Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. His A. M. was conferred by the Indiana University. Rare skill as an operator placed him in the front rank as a gynecologist, and his genial man- ner won for him a very large clientele. Dur- ing the latter years of life he devoted himself to gynecology. On May 11, 1875, he married Mary A. Reamy, daughter of his partner. She died on April 18, 1876, leaving a son who lived only three months, and on October 22, 1883, the doctor married Esther De Camp, of Cincinnati, who survived him. They had no children by this marriage. Dr. Mitchell died of angina pectoris, May 5, 1904. Though for two years a sufferer from the disease, he died in harness, visiting his patients on the very day of his death. Alexander G. Drury. Cincin. Lancet-Clinic, 1904, n. s., vol. liii. Mitchell, John (1680P-1768) — This botanist, the date of whose birth is uncertain, was born, educated and took his M. D. in England, but as there were several scholarly John Mitchells of that time it is difficult to identify his birth. He came over to America about 1700, and lived in Virginia, at Urbanna, on the Rappahannock. During his stay in Virginia he was interested in every- thing scientific, especially botany, and made long excursions to gather plants, and wrote on electricity, yellow fever, politics and prob- ably published a map of the British and French dominions in America (1755), said to mark an era in the geography of North America Like most doctors and scientists of that time, he kept his interests wide by corresponding with European confreres, especially with Linnaeus, who named the partridge vine or squawberry after him, MitchcUa rcpcns. Every fresh plant seems to have been sent by the American botanist to their acknowl- edged head in Sweden, and the great man always most courteously thanked these friends and ofttimes pupils for remembering him. Mitchell's "Dissertatio Brevis de Principiis Botanicorum et Zoologorum" was dated Vir- ginia, 1738, and "Nova Plantarum Genera," 1741. Mitchell returned to London about 1746 and became a fellow of the Royal Society, the fruits of his labors in America being given to the learned Society in several addresses, among them one on "The Preparation and Use of Various Kinds of Potash," 1748, and one on "The Force of Electrical Cohesion." Another paper was "Essay on the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates," read before the Royal Society, by Peter Collinson, 1744. The following have been credited to his authorship : "The Con- test in America between Great Britain and France, by an Impartial Hand," anonymous, about 1757; "The Present State of Great Britain and North America," 1767. Among his manuscript papers was "An Ac- count of the Yellow Fever which Prevailed in Virginia in 1737 to 1741 and 1742, in Letters to Cadwalader Golden and Benjamin Frank- lin," published by Rush in the American Med- ical and Philosophical Register, vol. iv. Howard A. Kelly. Some Amer. Med. Botanists, H, A. Kelly, 1914. Amer. Med. and Phil. Register, vol. iv. Diet, of National Biog., Stephens. Contributions to the Annals of Medical Progress, J. M. Toner, 1874. Gentleman's Magazine, 1768. Mitchell, John Kearsley (1793-1858) John Kearsley Mitchell, early American scientist and father of the eminent writer and investigator, S. Weir Mitchell (q. v.), was born in Shepherdstown, Virginia, May 12, 1793, and died in Philadelphia, April 4, 1858. His father, a physician of Scotch birth, sent him at the age of eight to be educated in Scot- land at Ayr and Edinburgh. Returning in 1813, he began to study medicine with Dr. Kramer of Jefferson County, Virginia, entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School under Dr. Nathaniel Chapman (q. v.), and graduated in 1819. After making three voy- ages to China and the East Indies on account of impaired health, acting as a ship's surgeon, he settled in Philadelphia in 1822, and began to practise medicine and to teach physiology. In 1824 he lectured on the institutes of medi- cine and physiology in the Philadelphia Medical Institute ; in 1826 he held the chair of chem- istry in the same school, and in 1833 was select-