Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/857

NAME MUNRO 835 MUNSON tary history of Denver. For the first time the interests of public health were intelHgently and conscientiously studied. In the division of duties in the Health Department the de- partment of contagious diseases was assigned to Munn. Dr. Munn was the first physician in Colorado to employ antitoxin in the treat- ment of diphtheria, and he recognized also the dangers of implanting an indigenous tu- berculosis through the presence of invalids seeking Colorado for the benefits of the cli- mate ; therefore he led in the organization of a society for the control of tuberculosis long before there was any general national awakening on the subject. In 1893 Dr. Munn was appointed a member of the Colorado State Board of Health, to serve six years. But time and again it was found that the sanitary recommendations first made by Munn were thought too radical to be practicable, yet were afterwards adopted. Though devoted to the public health serv- ice, Munn found it necessary to give attention to private practice ; his chosen field being genito-urinary surgery, in which he secured an enviable distinction. He was elected presi- dent of the Denver Arapahoe County Medical Society in 1894 and president of the Colorado State Medical Society in 1900. He paid the cost of a strenuous life, for while his en- ergies were diverted from consideration of his own health, the insidious disease which had first ostracised him to Denver made scr cret strides and, after a series of hemorrhages, he died, in the flower of his age, on March 12, 1903; Henry Sewell. Munro, John Cummings (1858-1910) Born in Lexington. Alassachusetts, March 26, 1858, a Franklin medical scholar and graduate of the Boston Latin School, J. C. Munro en- tered Harvard University in 1877, graduated in 1881, and received the M. D. from Harvard Medical School four years later. Establish- ing himself in general practice in Boston, he soon began to specialize in surgery, develop- ing a rare skill which placed him early in his career in the front rank of the profession. Dr. Munro was associated with the Harvard Medical School as assistant in anatomy from 1889 to 1893 ; assistant demonstrator of an- atomy from 1893 to 1894; assistant in clinical surgery from 1894 to 1895 ; instructor in sur- gery, 1896 to 1902, and lecturer m surgery, 1903 to 1905. He was keenly interested in the development of surgery, towards which his work was a great contribution. He was sur- geon at the Boston City Hospital, 1893 to 1903 ; consulting surgeon. St. Luke's Home, 1901 ; special consulting surgeon, Quincy Hos- pital, 1902; consulting surgeon, Framingham Hospital, 1905 ; and surgeon-in-chief, Carney Hospital, 1903. He was a member of the Association of American Anatomists, Ameri- can Surgical Society, Clinical Surgical So- ciety, of which he was president in 1905, and member of the Southern Surgical and Gyne- cological Association. He died at his home in Boston, December 6, 1910. from recurrent cancer of the bladder, for which operation had been performed three years before. Munro will be best known for his surgical clinic at the Carney Hospital instituted in 1903, which was the first continuous surgical service to be established in New England. His work there served a most useful purpose in va- rious ways. It demonstrated the possibility of doing satisfactory surger}', successful m its results, with simplicity of plant and tech- nic and with a minimum of red tape. In its instruction, it had to do with and reached not so much the undergraduate in medicine as the general practitioner, the worker in the surgical field, the visitor in search of sensible ideas and their application in the field of surgery. Dr. Munro was well known both in this country and abroad. His contributions to the literature of surgery were numerous and on a variety of subjects. His skill as a surgeon was acknowledged by all. Back of it, however, and revealed to but few, were qualities of mind and heart that deserve more admiration than his skill and made the man even greater than the surgeon. Munro was keen in observation of men and their methods, he was always charitable in his judgments of both. Traveled, well versed in general lit- erature, appreciative of art in all its aspects, he made a most charming companion. His influence on his fellows was wide and stimu- lating. A hard worker himself, he incited younger men to action, and his hand was ever ready to aid and encourage them. Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc, 1910, vol. Iv, 2167. Munson, Eneas (1734-1826) Organizer of the Connecticut Medical So- ciety, clergyman, a physician renowned for. knowledge of materia medica and the nat- ural sciences, Eneas Munson was born in New Haven, June 13, 1734, the eldest child of Benjamin Munson, a mechanic and whilom schoolmaster. He graduated from Yale in 1753, and im- mediately after taught school in Northamp-