Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/894

NAME OWEN 872 PACKARD charter member and an honorary fellow of the Medical Society of Virginia, and the first president of the Lynchburg Medical Associa- tion. He was a man of great vigor and endurance and did an enormous amount of work, per- forming for many years nearly all the obstetrical and surgical operations in his town and the surrounding country. As early as 1816 he resected the entire shaft of the tibia, preserving the periosteum, the patient recovering with a useful limb. In 1832 he devised an anterior splint for fractured femur, which has ever since been in use in Lynchburg, and known as his invention. A gentle and kind man, he was much beloved by his patients. In spite of his enormous practice, he never forgot nor neglected the poor who needed his services, and died in very moderate circumstances, when he might have left quite an independent fortune, had he been less indulgent. Dr. Owen married ^liss Latham, a sister of Dr. Henry Latham, a physician of Lynchburg, and one of his sons, William O. Owen (q. v.), became a surgeon. After several years of failing health he died on the twenty-second of January, 1875, in the eighty-eighth year of '"^ ^^'^' Robert M. Sl.ughter. Dr. J. M. Toner's Lives of Two Thousand Five Hundred Pliysicians, unpublished. Owen, William Otway (1820-1892) He was the son of William Owen (q. v.), a skilful surgeon and obstetrician of Lynchburg, Virginia, and was born in that city, October 20, 1820. He began life as a civil engineer, but yielding to the wishes of his father, studied medicine, graduating from the University of New York in 1842. Entering immediately into practice in Lynchburg, he was a prominent doctor in that city for half a century. He was a surgeon in the Confederate Army, and appointed surgeon-in-chief of the hospitals at Lynchburg, a position for which he was particularly well qualified. He was a mem- ber of the Medical Society of Virginia. Dr. Owen was a skilful surgeon and per- formed many important operations, such as ovariotomies, lithotomies, perineal sections, etc. In his work he was tireless, watchful an'i faithful, and while always dignified and posi- tive, he was yet warmly sympathetic, and greatly beloved by his patrons. He married, in 1863, Alice Lynn, and was survived by four sons and two daughters. His oldest son, R. O. Owen, was a physician. He died at his home in Lynchburg, Virginia, on the fifteenth of February, 1892, in the sev- enty-second year of his age, his death the re- sult of a severe attack of epidemic influenza, complicated with organic trouble and general physical decline. Robert M. Slaughter. Trans. Med. Soc. of Va., 1892. Packard, Frederick A. (1862-1902) Born November 17, 1862, at Philadelphia, he was the son of John Hooker Packard (q. v.), and Elizabeth Wood Packard. After receiv- ing his preliminary education at Rugby Acad- emy, he graduated from the Department of Arts of the University of Pennsylvania in 1882. He entered the Department of Medicine of the same institution and graduated at the head of his class in 1885, having during his course achieved a number of prizes for his work as a student. ' He was appointed a resi- dent physician to the University Hospital. After completing that service, he was elected resident physician to the Pennsylvania Hos- pital and served in that capacity until the completion of his term, when he entered into practice in the city of Philadelphia. Dr. Packard very early achieved marked profes- sional success. He was a very hard worker and possessed a most pleasing personality, in addition to professional skill of the highest order. He was especially interested in clinical laboratory work, and as that was the epoch at which microscopic examination of the blood and sputum for diagnostic purposes received its first great impetus, he early acquired repu- tation as a thorough, skilful, and progressive internist. He served at various times during his life as visiting physician to the Episcopal, the Methodist Episcopal, and the Philadelphia hospitals, but in his last years confined his services to two hospitals, the Children's and the Pennsylvania. His hospital work was al- ways of the highest order and many of those who had served as internes under him still recall the enthusiasm for their profession with which he- inspired them. Dr. Packard was a firm believer in the edu- cational value of the medical society and he took a prominent part in the procedures of many of them. He was a member of the fol- lowing local Societies : The College of Phy- sicians of Philadelphia; its Section on General Medicine ; the Pathological Society ; the Neurological; the County Medical Society; and the Pediatric Society. Of the state and national societies he was a member of the Pennsylvania State Medical Society ; the Asso- ciation of American Physicians ; the American Pediatric Society and the American Medical Association. He served as president of the