Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/921

NAME PEASLEE 899 PEASLEE early days of pathological work. In 1851 he published an address delivered before the class of the medical school in Maine on "The Com- parative Intellectual Standing of the Medical Profession." In 1852 he gave an address to the New York Medical College. In 1853 he con- tributed to medical literature a report of a case of amputation at the shoulder joint which is found in the New York Journal of Medicine for that year. In 1854 he made a great con- tribution to medicine in the form of a book on Human Histology which consisted of 616 pages. This book is said to be the first sys- tematic work on normal histology printed in the English language. It was a comprehensive treatise translated from Robin and Verbeil with original additions, and was the outgrowth of his knowledge and study in histology. Dr. Fordyce Barker states that in 1845 there were but few in this country who could be called microscopists, and Edmund Randolph Peaslee was among the number. He was among the first to systematically apply the miscroscope in teaching physiology, pathology, and his- tology. This fact alone distinguishes him as a man far in advance of his day and genera- tion. In 1858 he delivered the anniversary address before the New York Academy of Medicine and in this same year he gave ad- dresses to other medical and literary societies. In 1860 he published a most important paper on "Uterine Displacements." This contribu- tion consisted of eight lectures and attracted great interest in the new field of gynecology, a science at that time more or less new to the profession. In 1865 he published a paper on the statistics of one hundred and fifty (col- lected) cases of ovariotomy, and the same year another article on "Retro-flexion of the Unimpregnated Uterus." In 1870 he pub- lished an article on intra-uterine medication; in this same year a monograph on the fetal circulation, and his publication was fol- lowed by general articles on the treatment of ovarian tumors. In one of these con- tributions he advocated washing out the peri- toneal cavity. He also published various papers on gynecological surgery. In 1872 he published the great literary work of his life, which consisted of a book on "Ovarian Tumors, Their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, Especially by Ovariotomy." This book was the first great contribution to ovariotomy and contaihed up to this time all the scientific knowledge upon the subject. It embraces all the literature, the author's per- sonal experience, which was very large and of great value to the medical profession. In this book he established the claim of Ephraim McDowell of Kentucky as the first ovari- otomist and likewise that America was the country in which this great discovery was made, a discovery that as far back as 1878 is said to have added, according to Dr. Fordyce Parker, at least 40,000 years to the lives of women. Thirty years previous to this date ovariotomy was condemned "as so fearful in its nature, often so immediately fatal in its results, that whenever performed a funda- mental principle of medical mortality is out- raged." As an operator he was most successful and painstaking. He was skilled in the use of the scalpel, and though he never at- tempted great celerity, he was not slow in the execution of his operation. He was a bold operator, since in the early days of ovari- otomy it required great courage to perform this operation against the general consensus of opinion of the profession. He performed his first ovariotomy in 1850, and in the same year a second one which was a double ovari- otomy, the first double ovariotomy in New England and the second one of its kind in America. During his lifetime he performed ovariotomy many times and with brilliant suc- cess, considering that modern aseptic methods were not in vogue at that time. Dr. T. Gail- lard Thomas (q. v.), the brilliant ovarioto- mist, in speaking in 1878 of Peaslee's repu- tation as a pioneer in abdominal surgery, said : "Up to fifteen years ago in New York he stood alone, an arbiter in this department of surgery." He assisted Thomas by special request in his first ovariotomy, and Thomas graciously acknowledged the valuable assistance. In 1851 he removed the entire uterus with subsequent death. Hysterectomy was seldom performed in those days. As a scholar he was thorough and erudite and even late in life kept up his interest in the classics. He was a linguist, reading French, German, Spanish and Italian. He was also a fine mathematician, and during his life kept up his studies in this science. Edmund Randolph Peaslee was honored by the presidency of many medical societies, among which may be mentioned the New York Pathological Society in 1858. the New York County Medical Society in 1867, the New York Academy of Medicine in 1871, the New York Medical Journal Association in 1875, the New York Obstetrical Society in 1875, the American Gynecological Society in 1877. He was a cor- responding fellow of the Obstetrical Society of