Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/872

NAME NICHOLS 850 NICKLES the Medical Eclectic. He wrote "Theory and Practice of the Eclectic School of Medicine" ; "Eclectic Treatise on the Diseases of Children" (with W. B. Powell) ; and edited several works. He died of apoplexy at New York, October 9, 1881. Dr. Newton's son, Robert Safford Newton, Jr., was born in Cincinnati, September 2, 18SS, and received his M. D. at the Eclectic Medical College (New York), in 1876, then studied in London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin until 1880. From 1876 to 1877 he was clinical as- sistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hos- pital, and held other medical positions in London until 1878. On his return to New York he became professor of diseases of the eye, throat and skin in the Eclectic Medical College, and dean of the faculty (1881-1886). He edited the New York Quarterly Cancer Journal (1880-1881); and the New York Medical Eclectic (1877-1885). History of the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincin- nati, O.. H. W. Felter, M. D., Cincinnati, 1902. Portrait. Nichols, Charles Henry (1820-1889) Born on October 19, 1820, at Vassalboro. Maine, Dr. Nichols stood long in the front rank of American superintendents of insti- tutions for the insane, and was associated with very much of their work. He went as a boy to the schools of Maine and Providence, Rhode Island, and after- wards to the Universities of New York and Pennsylvania. He held his M. D. from the last, 1843, also A. M., Union College, and an LL. D. from Columbian College, District of Columbia. His tutorage in ministering to the insane was under Dr. Amariah Brigham (q. v.), in the State Asylum at Utica, New York, where he was chosen medical assistant in 1847. In 1849 he was appointed physician to the Bloomingdale Asylum, New York City, and resigned in 1852. He was mentioned by Miss Dorothea Dix and selected by President Fillmore to superin- tend the construction and take charge of the government hospital for the insane at Wash- ington. It was a great work, demanding a capable, broad man, and the manner in which he administered his trust showed that the President had made no mistake in his choice. He had looked to the end to some purpose; an end that justified all his labors of love; that built twenty-five of the best years of his life into those hospital walls. He saw his plan reproduced in Australia, in New- foundland, and in many state institutions. At considerable pecuniary sacrifice to himself he doubled the hospital land, he extended its ac- commodations, he kept the institution in every- thing abreast of the most enlightened, cura- tive treatment of the time, so that when after a quarter of a century they called him back to Bloomingdale Asylum, creatmg the left St. EHzabeth's a hospital the most per- office of medical superintendent for him, he feet of its kind. He was, for a succession of years, president of the Association of American Superinten- dents of Institutions for the Insane. He was also an honorary member of the Medico-Psy- chological Association of Great Britain. He died on December 16, 1889. In the jurisprudence of insanity, those who remember the Mary Harris case do not need to be told how he stood. But his principal work was in the daily hospital routine. D.A.NIEL Smith Lamb. Appieton'p Cyclop. Amer Biog., 1888. Med. Record, New York. 1S89, vol. xxxvi. .mer. Jour. Insanity, 1889, vol. xliv. Nichols, James Robinson (1819- James Robinson Nichols, son of Stephen and Ruth Nichols, was born at West Ames- bury, Massachusetts, July 18, 1819, the first years of his life being spent on a farm, until, in his eighteenth year, he worked with his uncle, a druggist in Haverhill. After three years, he entered the medical department of Dartmouth College. His course here was in- terrupted by illness and the degree of M. D. was conferred on him in 1867. Being, by illness, obliged to give up active practice. Dr. Nichols returned to the drug business in Haverhill and gave his time to lecturing and chemistry. In 1856 he established a laboratory in Boston, where for sixteen years he worked successfully. His next venture was an experi- mental farm near Haverhill. As a member of the Board of Agriculture, Dr. Nichols was able to give practical help to the farmers of the state. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The Boston Journal of Clu'inislry, later called the Popular Science News, was founded by Dr. Nichols in 1866. His writings include : "Chemistry of the Farm and Sea," 1867; "Fireside Science," 1872, and "Whence, What and Where," 1883. He married Harriet Porter in 1844. and Margaret Gale in 1851. After a long illness from chronic gastric disturbances he died at Haverhill, on January 2, 1888. M.^RGARET K. Kelly. Personal communication. Austin P. Nichols. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1888, vol. cxviii. Nickles, Samuel (1833-1908) Samuel Nickles was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, August 8, 1833, the son of Francis and