Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/978

NAME RANDOLPH 956 RANDOLPH eral Court in 1781 for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Medical Society, in the subse- quent welfare of which he took a deep interest. He was on the first board of "Counsellors," read papers before the society and served it in minor offices until 1798 when he was elected president, an office he held until 1804. As a pupil of Dr. Lloyd he assisted in taking the practice of obstetrics from the midwives and placing it with the physicians ; to perfect him- self in the art he visited Europe, giving up a very large practice in order to make the jour- ney, and returning, gave himself largely to an obstetrical career. In 1810 Dr. Rand was elected an overseer of Harvard College, at a time when that body consisted of only three members in addition to fifteen congregational ministers, the governor and the state officers. He served on the board for five years and held membership in the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Academy and a cor- responding membership in the London Med- ical Societ}'. In 1799 Harvard conferred on him its honorary M. D. In later j-ears Dr. Rand devoted himself to a study of theology and to reading. He died in Boston, December 11, 1822. A son, the third Isaac Rand (1769-1819), graduated at Harvard in 1787, joined the Mas- sachusetts Medical Society in 1800, and prac- tised medicine in Boston, but did not survive his father. The writings of Isaac Rand, senior, are : "A Case of Emphysema Successfully Treated by the Operation," Trans. Mass. Med. Soc'y, vol. i, series i, p. 66 ; "Observations on the Hydroceph- alus Internus," idem. p. 69; "Observations on the Phthisis Pulmonalis and the Use of Digi- talis Purpurea in the Treatment of that Dis- ease; with Practical Remarks on the use of the Tepid Bath," idem, p. 129, the Annual Dis- course before the Massachusetts Medical So- city in 1804, the first oration to be given and delivered in the year after the reorganization of the society. Walter L. Burrage. Amer. Med. Biog:. James Thacher, M. D., Boston, 1828. Hist. Har. Med. Sch. T. F. Harrington, M. D., New York, 1905. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., New York, 1887. Randolph, Jacob (1796-1848'). Jacob Randolph, eminent surgeon and lithot- omist. was born in Philadelphia, November 25, 1796, the sixth son of the patriot Edward Fitz-Randolph, whose ancestor of the same name came over in 1630 from England. He received his early education at the Friends' School on Fourth street, and in 1814 began medicine with Woollens, and after his death with Cleaver. He entered the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1817. He took a position as ship's surgeon for China, but was obliged to leave his ship at her first stop in England on account of intense sea- sickness. After visiting Scotland and France, he returned home and began practice in Phila- delphia. Becoming acquainted with Dr. Philip Syng Physick's (q. v.) family, he married his eldest daughter in 1822. He was appointed surgeon to the Almshouse Infirmary in 1830, and in the same year be- gan lecturing upon surgery in the School of Medicine, an institution established for sum- mer teaching. He succeeded Flewson in the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1835. He was in Europe in 1840-1842, and while abroad was a close student at the Paris hospitals ; he was obliged to decline at this time an election to the professorship of operative surgery in the Jefferson Medical College, as it would have necessitated his immediate return. After hold- ing the position of lecturer upon clinical sur- gery for some time, he was elected to the professorship in the University of Pennsylvania in 1847. Randolph's greatest reputation was as an expert lithotomist and I well recall the vivid descriptions of his dexterity by my old friend. Dr. Robert P. Harris (q. v.), who saw him at the Pennsylvania Hospital. He was noted for a sound, discriminating judgment and a clear eye, a stead}' hand and a manual dexterity, so necessary in pre-anesthetic days. In 1829 he removed the lower jaw for osteosarcoma with success (Ameriean Journal of Medical Science, November, 1829). He wrote on hip joint disease in the same journal in February, 1831. He introduced the lithotrite in 1S31, follow- ing Baron Heurteloup, in Europe. Randolph undertook his crushing operations after thorough preliminary studies on the dead in the Almshouse, where he would put a stone in the baldder and then practise catching it, and crushing it ; in this way he also acquired dexterity in introducing and withdrawing the instrument, and "a prudent confidence in his ■ abilities which led to success." He preferred simple instruments and had no desire to op- erate quickly or to do too much at one sitting. "The fear of the loss of fame, or the desire of notoriety as an operator, had no influence with him ; and more than once, when un- expected difficulties arose in seizing the stone or its fragments, he would close and with- draw the instrument and disappoint the spec-