Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/966

NAME PRYOR 944 PURPLE Dr. Prince held membership in many med- ical societies ; he was a member of the board of education, a philanthropist, a cool-headed, energetic, public-spirited citizen. He died in Jacksonville, December 19, 1896, survived by two sons, who were physicians, and a daughter the wife of a physician. Trans. 111. St. Med. Soc, 1890, 26-27. Portrait. Phys. and Surgs. of U. S., W. B. Atkinson, 1878. Pryor, William Rice (1858-1904) William Rice Pryor, gynecologist of New York City, was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father, the Hon. Roger A. Pryor, was min- ister to Greece in 1855, and a justice of the Supreme Bench in New York. Pryor was educated in Virginia, then entered Princeton University, and in 1881 took his AI. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, being appointed as- sistant gynecologist in the New York Poly- clinic in 1866 and afterwards, in 1895, pro- fessor of gynecology, retaining that position till his death. He was also on the staff of the Charity and St. Elizabeth's Hospital. He became a fellow of the American Gyne- cological Society in 1892. His principal work consisted in improving the technic of vaginal hysterectomy, advocating more rational methods of treatment in puer- peral infection, especially by the vaginal route whenever practicable, and in treating retro- posed uteri by pelvic gauze packing through a vaginal incision. In 1903 appeared his "Text-book of Gyne- cology," written in his characteristic style, and giving an excellent resume of his teaching. His health began to fail in the spring of 1904 and he died August 25, 1904, in St. Vincent's Hospital, New York. He vias a man of fine presence and cordial manners, and of enthusiasm. A complete list of his writings, some fifty- eight, is given by his biographer. Dr. J. Whitridge Williams, in vol. xxx, 1905. of the American Gynecological Society's Transac- tions. Buffalo Med. Tour., 1904-5, n. s., vol. xUv. Trans. Am. Gyn. Soc., Phila., 1905, vol. xxx. Portrait. Trans. South. Sur. and Gyne. Asso., 1904, Bir- mingham, 1905, vol. xvii. Pulte, Joseph Hippolyte (1811-1884) Joseph H. Pulte, pioneer homeopathic phy- sician, was born in Meschede, Westphalia, Ger- many, October 6, 1811. The son of a phy- sician, he had a fine classical education at the gymnasium of Soest and received his M. D. from the University of Marburg in 1833. Emi- grating to America the following year, with the intention of joining a brother in St. Louis, Joseph became converted to homeopathy by an enthusiastic Hahnemannian in New York, translated Hahnemann's works into English, went to AUcntown. Pennsylvania, and practised there for six years, aiding in the establish- ment of the Allentown homeopathic college. Al! the end of this time the college went out of existence and Pulte moved to Cincinnati. He was a man of good scholarship and of progressive ideas. In 1846 he published "Organon of the History of the World," a work that excited a good deal of interest in such men as Humboldt, Bunsen and William Cullen Bryant, and two years later he visited Europe for the purpose of submitting to some of the governments a plan for encircling the globe with an electric telegraph, connecting North America with Asia across Behring Sea, a proposition that was regarded as chimerical. Returning to Cincinnati in 1849. Pulte was active in treating Asiastic cholera during the epidemic of that year and soon published his first medical work, "Domestic Medicine," a book that was translated into Spanish and re- published in London. In 1852 he began the publication of the Aiiierican Magazine of Homoeopathy and Hydropathy, with Dr. H. P. Gatchell, filling at this time the chair of clin- ical medicine in the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College; later he was transferred to the chair of obstetrics. In 1853 Pulte pub- lished another successful medical book, the "Woman's Medical Guide;" in 1855 he was the principal speaker at tlje celebration at Buffalo of the centennial of the birth of Hahnemann. Altogether he was regarded as an able and successful citizen. He published poems that were highly spoken of. W^ealth came to him and when Dr. J. D. Buck (q. V.) and Dr. D. H. Beckwith decided to found a medical college for the teaching of homeopathy. Dr. Pulte assisted to such an extent that the college was named for him. The first session began in 1872, Dr. Pulte fill- ing the chair of clinical medicine. He died in Cincinnati, February 24, 1884, at the age of seventy-three years. Daniel Drake and His Followers, O. Juettner, 1909. Hist, of Homoeopathy, W. H. King. N. Y., 1905. Diet. Amer. Biog., F. S. Drake, Boston, 1872. Purple, Samuel Smith (1822-1900) There is an old proverb that "A shoemaker should stick to his last," but fortunately for medical libraries there was one lad who worked with a book on the bench as he made shoes, who got up at four in the morning