Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/922

NAME PECK 900 PECK Berlin and of the London Obstetrical Society of London. He was an honorary fellow of the Louisville, Boston and Philadelphia Obstetrical Societies. Of the various social clubs in which he had membership were the Century, Union League, and New England Society. He was a member of the American Geographical Society, the New York Academy of Science and the American Social Science Association, the New York Historical Society and many others. Edmund Randolph Peaslee was a versatile teacher, a fine operator, a prolific writer, an accomplished scholar, and a pioneer in ab- dominal and pelvic surgery. He possessed many accomplishments, among which may be mentioned his talents as a musician, both vocal and instrumental. He was leader of the choir during his college days at Dartmouth. He has left his impress upon medical and surgical literature and has established principles in the technique of surgery which today are accepted Frederic S. Dennis. Trans. Amer. Gynec. Soc, 1878, vol. iii. Amer. Jour. Obstet.. N. Y., 1878, vol. xi. Med. Rec. N. Y., 1878. vol. xiii. There is a portrait in the Surg.-gen.'s collection. Wash., D. C. Peck, William Dandridge (1763-1822) William D. Peck, professor of natural his- tory in Harvard University, son of John Peck, was born in Boston, May 8, 1763. His mother, whose original name was Jackson, died when he was seven years old. Though so young he felt it keenly and cherished her memory with fond aiifection, and it is not iinprobable that the event contributed with other circum- stances, to cast that shade of melancholy over the mind of the son which at times required the best influence of his friends to disperse. Admitted bachelor of arts at Cambridge in 1782, he was considered one of the best stu- dents of his class, being greatly in love with natural history, studies which occupied and delighted him through life. He was, however, destined for commercial pursuits and passed a regular apprenticeship in the counting house of the Hon. Mr. Russell, where his exactitude and industry acquired for him the confidence and lasting friendship of that distinguished merchant. . Mr. Peck's father was a man of very great genius in the mechanic arts. He was the most scientific, as well as the most successful naval architect which the United States had then produced. The ships built by him were so superior to any then known, that he attracted the attention of Congress, and was employcl by them to build some of their warships. But he made very little money and, disgusted with the world, retired to a small farm in Kittery, Maine, resolved that his models, founded as his son always affirmed, on mathematical calcu- lations, should never be possessed by a country which had treated him with so much ingrati- tude. The failure of his father's schemes de- feated young Peck's prospects as a merchant; and at an early age, he too, with not a little of his father's discontentedness, went to the same obscure village and kept in touch with the scientific world only by correspondence and occasional visits. For nearly twenty years he led a most ascetic and secluded life, seldom emerging from his hermitage. But his mind, so far from being inactive, was assiduously and intensely devoted to the pursuits to which the bent of his genius and taste inclined him. At a time when he could find no companion nor any sympathy in his studies, except from the venerable Dr. Cutler, of Hamilton, who was devoted to one branch of them, botany, Peck made himself an able and profound botanist and entomologist, under all the dis- advantages of very narrow means and the extreme difficulty of procuring books. But his studies extended to zoology, ornithology and ichthyology, in which his knowledge was more extensive than that of any other man in this part of the United States. During Mr. Peck's stay in Kittery and during the two or three years when he lived in a delight- ful spot in Newbury, Mass., where the river Artichoke joins the Merrimack, prior to his removal to Cambridge, he made a most beauti- ful collection of the insects with which our country abounds, with many fine preservations of aquatic plants and of the more rare species of fish to be found on our coasts, rivers and lakes. On March 27, 1805, he was elected first pro- fessor of natural history at Cambridge. The Board of Visitors wished him to visit the scientific establishments of Europe, so he spent three years abroad, visiting men of science in England and France, but his longest stay was in Sweden. During his absence he col- lected a valuable library of books connected with his own subjects, together with many exquisite preservations of natural subjects and rare specimens of art, many of viihich were presented to him by the scholars and men of science in Europe. Mr. Peck inherited his father's taste for mechanical philosophy and as an artist he was incomparable. His most delicate instruments in all his pursuits were the products of his own skill and handicraft. He was a good classical scholar and a lover and a correct judge of the fine arts, fond of painting and