Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/829

NAME MITCHILL 807 MOHER panied Fulton on his first voyage in a steam- boat, in August, 1807; and, with Williamson and Hosack, he organized the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York in 1814. Griscom, Eddy, Colden, Gerard, and Wood found him zealous in the establishment, with them, of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. Mitchill's translations of our Indian War Songs gave him increased celebrity; and I believe he was admitted, for this generous service, an associate of their tribes. The Mohawks had received him into their fra- ternity at the time when he was with the commission at the treaty of Fort Stanwi.x. As a physician of the New York Hospital, he never omitted to employ the results of his investigations for clinical application. The simplicity of his prescriptions often provoked a smile on the part of his students, while he was acknowledged a sound physician at the bedside. His first course of lectures on natural his- tory, including geology, mineralogy, zoology, ichthyology, and botany, was delivered, in extenso, in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in 1811, before a gratified audience, who recognized in the professor a teacher of rare attainments and of singular tact in un- folding complex knowledge with analytic power. He was the delight of a meeting of naturalists ; the seed he sowed gave origin and growth to a mighty crop of those disciples of natural science. He was, emphatically, our greatest living ichthyologist. The fishermen and fishmongers were perpetually bringing him new specimens ; they adopted his name for the streaked bass (perca Mitchilli). When he had circumnavigated Long Island, the light- house at Sands Point was called the Mitchill, and the topographers announced the highest elevation of the Neversink Hills as Mount Mitchill. The records of state legislation and of Congress must be consulted to comprehend the extent and nature of his services as a public representative of the people. He man- fully stood by Fulton in all his trials, when navigation by steam was the prolific subject of almost daily ridicule by our Solons at Albany; and when the purchase of the Elgin Botanic Garden, by the constituted authorities, was argued at the Capitol, he rose in his place, and won the attention of the members by a speech of several hours' length, in which he gave a history of gardens, and the necessity for them, from the primitive one of our first parents down to the last institution of that nature, established by Roscoe, at Liverpool. It is probable that no legislative body ever received more instruction in novel informa- tion than the eminent philosopher poured out on this occasion ; and even the enlightened regents of the university imbibed wisdom from his exposition. With his botanical Latin occasionally interspersed, he probably ap- peared more learned than ever. 'hen Mitchill was quite a young man he would return from church service and write out the sermon nearly verbatim. There was little display in his habits or manners ; his means of enjoyment corresponded with his desires, and his Franklinian principles enabled him to continue superior to want. With all his official honors and scientific testimonials, foreign and native, he was ever accessible to everybody — a counsellor of the young, a dic- tionary for the learned. Even the captious John Randolph called him the "Congressional Library." His writings included : "Remarks on the Gaseous Oxyd of Azote or of Nitrogene, etc ;" "Observations on the Canada Thistle;" "Catalogue of the Organic Remains," pre- sented to the New Y^ork Lyceum of Natural History, 1826. He was co-editor of the Medical Re- pository from 1797-1824. Dr. Mitchill died in New York, on Sep- tember 7, 1831. In the prime of his manhood, Dr. Mitchill was about five feet ten inches in height, of comely, rather slender and erect, form. He possessed an intelligent expression of counte- nance, an aquiline nose, a gray eye, and full features. His dress at the period he entered into public life was after the fashion of the day. the costume of the times of the Napole- onic consulate: blue coat, buft'-colored vest, smalls, and shoes with buckles. Samuel W. Francis. Abridged from Gross' Lives of Eminent Amer. Phys. S. W. Francis. 1861. Eulogy on the Life of S. L. Mitchill. F. Pas- calis, N. Y., 1831. Reminiscences of S. L. Mitchill enlarged from Valentine's City Manual, S. W. Francis, N. Y.. 1859. Moher, Thomas J. ( -1914) Thomas J. Moher, medical superintendent of the Hospital for Insane at Cobourg, Ontario, was a son of William Moher, ex- Reeve of Douro, where he was born. He was