Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/482

442 surgery and surgical and pathological anatomy. In 1835 he resigned in order to rest from exhaust- ing labors and repair his health by travel. He was already recognized in Europe as one of the first surgeons of the age. After a visit to London and a tour on the continent, he returned to the United States at the end of sixteen months. Finding that his health was not fully restored, he returned to Europe, and made annual excursions from Paris into various countries till 1841, when he came back to Xew York completely reinvigorated. In Paris he spent much time in the hospitals, and became interested in a new bi'anch of oi'thopedic surgery. He intended to open an institution at Blooming- dale for the treatment of orthopedic cases on his return, but was dissuaded by his friends. When visiting Constantinople he removed a tumor from the head of the Sultan Abdul Medjid, and was in- vested for this service with the order of the Med- jidieh. He was the principal founder of the New York university medical college, and became pro- fessor of surgery and relative anatomy, and presi- dent of the faculty on its establishment in 1841. In 1850 his lectures were interrupted by a third visit to Europe. From 1853 till his death he was emeritus professor and lectured occasionally to the classes every year. He never committed to memory or wrote out his lectures, but spoke from carefully digested notes, with the dissection be- fore him. He drew his subject-matter and illus- trations largely from his own experience, and paid little attention to theories. After his return from Europe in 1841 he was again surgeon to the New York hospital till 1850. He was subsequently for fifteen years senior consulting surgeon to Belle- vue hospital, and for different periods served in the same capacity for St. Luke's, the Hebrew, St. Vincent's, and the Women's hospitals. Dr. Mott early gained a world-wide reputation for boldness and origmality as an operative surgeon. Through life it was his constant practice before every novel or important operation first to per- form it upon the cadaver. When but thirty-three years of age he was the first to place a ligature around the innominate artery for aneurism of the right subclavian artery. The neighboring arteries became involved, and the patient died from second- ary hfemorrhage, due to ulceration on the twenty- third day. Dr. von G-raefe, of Berlin, repeated the operation three years later, with the same result, and it was not till 1864 that Dr. Andrew W. Smyth performed it and insured the recovery of the patient by tying also the common carotid and the vertebral arteries. In 1821 Dr. Mott excised the right side of the lower jaw for osteo-sarcoma, having first ligated the primitive carotid artery in order to prevent hiemorrhage, and afterward he thrice removed the bone at the temporo-maxillary articulation. He performed a successful amputa- tion at the hip-joint in 1824. In 1827 he ligated the common iliac artery for a large aneurism of the external iliac artery, placing the ligature within half an inch of the aorta. The artery had been secured once before for the arrest of haamorrhage, with a fatal result, but never for the cure of aneu- rism. Another of his original operations was cut- ting out two inches of the deep jugular vein, which was imbedded in a tumor. He was also the first surgeon to tie both ends of that vein, and the first to close with fine ligatures longitudinal or trans- verse wounds in large veins, even when slices had been cut out. He tied the common carotid artery iorty-six times. In 1828 he removed the right •clavicle, on which a large sarcomatous tumor had formed that had contracted adhesions with impor- tant structures on every side. In this, his '• Water- loo operation." as he called it, he tied the jugular vein in two places and not less than forty arteries. Although the patient recovered, it was thirty years before any surgeon had sufficient confidence in his dexterity, strength, and knowledge of surgical anatomy to attempt a similar operation. In 1830 he effected a cure for hydrorachitis or cleft spine, removing a tumor in the lower part of the back, and later performed the same operation at the neck. From an early period in his practice he was remarkably successful in rhinoplastic operations, and in many instances restored the form of cheeks and lips that had been badly mutilated through the excessive use of mercury. Immobility of the lower jaw, caused by the same practice, engaged his attention soon after his settlement in New York city, and he finally devised an instrument on the screw and lever principle for prying open the jaw, after a preliminary operation with the scalpel, which he put into use in 1822. He was the first to remove the lower jaw for necrosis. He was one of the foremost lithotomists of his day, operating by the lateral method with the bistoury. He removed one stone that weighed more than seventeen ounces, and operated 165 times altogether, losing only one patient in tw^enty- seven. His amputations numbered nearly a thou- sand. Dr. Mott possessed all the qualifications for a great operator. His keenness of sight, steadiness of nerve, and physical vigor were extraordinary. He could cut with one hand almost as well as with the other, and developed a dexterity in the use of the knife that has never been surpassed. He culti- vated and refreshed his knowledge of surgical and pathological anatomy by constant dissections and post-mortem examinations, and collected a large museum of morbid specimens, at a period when the law obstructed these practical methods of study that are now allowed and protected. Although the most intrepid operator of his age, performing, as said Sir Astley Cooper, '• more of the great opera- tions than any man living, or that ever did live," yet he was a friend and advocate of conservative surgery, and never pei'formed an operation withoixt weighing the question of its necessity with much deliberation. His success in capital operations was due not simply to his sui'gieal knowledge and skill, but in a large measure to his care in the after- treatment of the patient and to a knowledge of therapeutics that brilliant operators rarely possess. In addition to his surgical practice, Dr. Mott's ser- vices as a physician were often sought. He in- vented many admirable surgical and obstetrical implements, and till the end of his life was eager to adopt in practice the inventions and improve- ments of others in surgery or medicine. The intro- duction of anaesthetics was facilitated by his early and frequent use of them. His health and vigor lasted till the end of his life, and in his old age he was still able to perform difficult surgical opera- tions. In 1864 he went with other physicians to Annapolis to investigate and report on the condi- tion of prisoners of war released from Confederate jails. Dr. Mott received the honorary degree of M. D. from the University of Edinburgh, and in 1851 that of LL. D. from the regents of the New York state university. The medical societies of several states of the Union, the Imperial academy of medicine of Paris, the Paris clinical society, and the medical and chirurgical societies of London and Brussels each made him a fellow, as well as King's and Queen's college of physicians of Ireland, which has elected only twenty new members within two hundred years. He was for a long period