Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/945

PORTER He died November 19, 1895, leaving to his children that great heritage, a name untarnished.



Porter, Charles Burnham (1840–1909)

Charles B. Porter came of a long line of medical men, being a descendant of Daniel Porter, who In the first half of the seventeenth century practised in Connecticut. His father was (q. v.).

Born in Rutland, Vermont, January 19, 1840, Charles Burnham took his A. B. and M. D. at Harvard University in 1862 and 1865 respectively, and was surgical interne at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, from 1864 to 1865. In April, 1865, he was appointed acting assistant surgeon in the army and served at the Armory Square Hospital in Washington until mustered out. At one time here he had the care of seventy-four compound fractures. He was assistant demonstrator of anatomy at Harvard Medical School in 1867; demonstrator in 1868. This latter position he held for eleven years. In 1868 and in 1870 he visited Europe, doing post-graduate work in Berlin, London and Vienna. In 1879 he was made instructor in surgery; in 1882 he became assistant professor of surgery; in 1887 professor of clinical surgery. His connection with the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital began as surgeon to out-patients in 1866. He was appointed, in 1875, surgeon, and served in this capacity until 1903 when he was retired under the age limit, going on the consulting board. He also resigned his professorship in the medical school.

Dr. Porter's professional career began before the revolution in' surgery started by Lister. His activity began when surgery was always risky and extended into the time when it became nearly always safe, provided it was clean. He early won renown as an unusually skilful and very judicious surgeon. He taught operative surgery on the cadaver; his rapid and precise operating in the surgical amphitheatre was the delight of the medical students. His counsel was much sought, and for many years his physical endurance seemed unlimited. In his last term of hospital service he operated on a policeman for an extremely complicated intestinal obstruction with innumerable adhesions, requiring multiple resections. The patient was under ether six and one-half hours. The house-officers were exhausted and Dr. Porter was fresh at the close of that time. The patient recovered and continued his customary work.

The end came as one thinks he would have wished, May 21, 1909. He was visiting a patient, a warm, personal friend, when he was stricken, soon became unconscious and died in less than twenty-four hours, truly in harness. He left a widow, who was Miss Harriet A. Allen, three daughters (one the wife of Dr. Percy Musgrave of Washington, D. C.), and a son, Charles Allen Porter, whose appointment as assistant professor of surgery in the Harvard Medical School was one of the closing joys of his father's life.



Porter, Charles Hogeboom (1834–1903)

Charles Hogeboom Porter, chemist and medico-legal expert, was born of Dutch and English ancestry at Ghent, Columbus County, New York, November 11, 1834.

His degree in arts was from Yale in 1857, his medical degree from the Albany Medical College in 1861. Settling in Albany, he devoted especial attention to legal medicine, but throughout the Civil War was assistant surgeon of the Sixth New York volunteer heavy artillery.

In 1855–6 he was professor of chemistry at the Vermont Medical College, and from 1859 till 1864 professor of chemistry and medical jurisprudence in the Albany Medical College.

He contributed largely to the literature of medical jurisprudence. Among his more important articles are: "Arsenic in Common Life" (Berkshire Medical Journal, 1856); "Arsenic, and Cases" ("Transactions, Medical Society of New York," 1861); "A Statement of the Case of the People vs. Fere" (Journal of Psychological Medicine, New York, 1870).

Dr. Porter was of medium height and thickly set. His skin was dark, his hair thin and black, and his eyes a deep brown. These eyes were very expressive. A former student of the doctor relates that, once, after a lecture, he went to Dr. Porter to ask him some trivial question, not at all in an earnest way but only to "annoy the professor." Dr. Porter fixed his quiet, steady eyes upon the student, and kept them there for some time without uttering a word. "I slunk away," relates the former student, "most thoroughly ashamed." Dr. Porter was slow and deliberate in speech and action, always weighing his words most carefully. On the witness stand he was admirable, chiefly for the exactness and care of his utterances. He did not have "a host of friends," but to the few he did possess he was just and loyal.