Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/968

NAME PUTNAM 946 PUTNAM children, and in the latter part of 1871 began to devote himself to his profession in Boston. Although he always carried on a general practice, he paid especial attention to pediatrics, and did some excellent pioneer work in ortho- pedics, then a branch of medicine that was but little known. In 1898 he was president of the American Pediatric Society. He lec- tured at the Harvard Medical School on the diseases of children from 1873 to 1875, and was clinical instructor in the same branch from 1875 to 1879. As for his social service work, this was described so well by his relative, Mr. Joseph Lee, in a paper first published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal for May 7, 1914, that I will complete this brief record by the following quotations from that source : "Dr. Putnam had been since the beginning of his practice of medicine a leader in charit- able and social work — almost from the begin- ning the most important leader of such work in Boston, the first to take hold and the last to let go of each new and important enter- prise. Dr. Putnam was one of the founders, in 1873, of the little-known but extremely im- portant Boston Society for the Relief of Des- titute Mothers and Infants, which was a pio- neer in establishing the policy of keeping mother and child together, and was president of the society from 1904 until his death. In 1875 he became physician to the Massachu- setts Infant Asylum, and from 1898 to 1910 he was also president of the board of trus- tees. The ordinary death-rate in such insti- tutions was at that time something over ninety per cent, a year. The Massachusetts Infant Asylum had already brought the rate down to less than a quarter of that figure when Dr. Putnam became connected with it, and he by his skill and devotion again reduced it by two-thirds or more. He was one of those who in 1879 took part in the movement for establishing the Associated Charities, the sec- ond charity organization society in this coun- try; and he was always one of the sustaining members of that society in the real, not the conventional, sense, working in many capaci- ties, as president of a conference, as director, as chairman of many committees, including the present important one on inebriety, and, since 1907, as president. From 1892 to 1897 Dr. Putnam took a lead- ing part in the very important movement for the reorganization of the Boston Institutions for the care of prisoners, of the poor, and of poor, neglected, and delinquent children, being on the special committee appointed by Mayor Matthews in 1892, chairman of the board of visitors of 1893-94, chairman of the standing committee on pauper institutions of the advisory board appointed by Mayor Quincy in 1896, a steady fighter for the reor- ganization bill of 1897. When the new sys- tem of separate unpaid boards of trustees was established he was appointed a member of the Board of Children's Institutions, and was its chairman from 1902 to 1911, performing in that capacity a great and harassing, though invisible and unappreciated, service to his fellow-citizens. He was active in the campaign against tuberculosis and a director of the Mental Hygiene Association. He was one of the fir^t to take up broad social questions from the legislative end, was the first experienced charity worker to enlist in the Massachusetts Civic League, and helped secure the establish- ment of the State Board of Insanity. He was among the earliest supporters of Dr. James R. Chadwick (q. v.) in founding the Boston Medical Library, of which he was an original member in 1875 and an incorporator in 1877, and which he served upon important committees until his death. He helped to organize and for many years carried on, practically unaided, the Directory for Nurses, under the direction of the Library. Dr. Putnam's most distinctive characteristic was the power of enlistment. In each of the many services he undertook it seemed to those he served and to his fellow workers as if that must be the only thing he had to do. There are in every enterprise the helpful men, the wise, the brilliant men, the steady work- ers. And then there are the essential men, those without whom the thing will not be done. In an extraordinary number of in- stances Dr. Putnam was among these last. Whatever happened, however badly things might go, whoever else became lukewarm or discouraged, his associates knew that he, at least, would see the thing through, that he had enlisted for the war, intended doing as much, be it more or less, as might be necessary. Dr. Putnam's wife, Lucy Washburn, and three children, Charles Washburn, Tracy Jackson, and Martha, survived him. James J. Putnam. Putnam, Israel (1805-1876) Israel Putnam was born in Sutton, Massa- chusetts, December 25, 1805, and a good Christ- mas present he proved to his parents, for he became a noted physician and citizen, and