Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/574

540 edged. He contributed to periodicals and to the "Philadelphia Book," and wrote a "Life of Stephen Girard" (Philadelphia, 1832).

SIMS, Alexander Dromgoole, congressman, b. in Brunswick county, Va., 11 June, 1803; d. in Kingstree, S. C., 11 Nov., 1848. He was educated at the University of North Carolina, and was graduated at Union in 1823, studied law, and after practising in his native county, removed to Darlington, S. C., where he taught for five years, and afterward practised his profession with success. He wa- a member of the legislature in 1840-'4, and was elected to congress as a state-rights Democrat, serving from 1 Dec., 1845, till his death, he published a controversial paper on slavery and a novel entitled "Bevil Faulcon" (1842). His brother, Edward Dromgoole, educator, b. in Brunswick county, Va., 24 March. 1805 : d. in Tuscaloosa, Ala., 12 April, 1845, was graduated at the Uni- vei-Mty nf North Carolina in 1824, became principal of an academy at La Grange, Ala., was afterward professor of mathematics in La Grange college, entered the Tennessee conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1831, and. after serving for two years as an itinerant preacher, became professor of ancient languages at Randolph Macon college. lie went to Europe in ls:',ii. studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac for two years at the University of Halle, spent a year in travel, and on his return to the United States assumed the chair of English literature at Randolph Macon. From 1842 till his death he taught the same subject in the University of Alabama. He was the first to teach Anglo-Saxon in connection with English literature in the south, and was preparing grammars of English and Anglo-Saxon at the time of his death.

SIMS, Charles N., cleergyman. b. in Union county, Ind., 18 May. K!5. lie entered the Methodist ministry in 1857 and was graduated at Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) university in 1859. In 1860 he became president of Valparaiso college, Ind., and in 1862 was appointed to a pastoral charge in Richmond, Ind. He was subsequently pastor at Wabash, Evansville, and Indianapolis, Ind., Baltimore, Md., Newark, N. J., and Brooklyn, N. Y. Since 17 Nov., 1880, he has been chancellor of Syracuse university. In 1882 and 1883 he was appointed commissioner to the Onondaga Indian nation. He was a delegate to the general conference of his church in 1884 and 1888. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by De Pauw university in 1870, and that of LL. D. in 1882. Dr. Sun- has done much literary work for periodicals, and is the author of a "Life of Thomas M. Eddy" (New York, 1879).

'''SIMS. Henry Augustus''', architect, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 22 Dec., 1832 ; d. there, 10 July, 1875. He was educated at the Philadelphia high-school, studied civil engineering, and followed that profession in Canada. Georgia, and Minnesota. Subsequently he studied architecture, and practised that art 'in Canada from 1860 till 1866, and afterward in Philadelphia till his death. He was long the secretary for foreign correspondence of the American institute of architects. He designed many city and country residences and. among other public buildings, the Columbia avenue and 2d Presbyterian churches in Philadelphia, the chapel at Mercersburg, Pa., the court-house at Hagerstown, Md., and the almshouse of Montgomery county, Pa. His brother, Clifford Stanley, author, b. in Dauphin county, Pa., 17 Feb., 183!); d. in Trenton, N. J., 3 March, 1896. was educated at the academy of the Episcopal church in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in 1860, but never practised. He served as acting assistant paymaster in the U. S. navy in 1863. and was chosen lieutenant-colonel of the 4th Arkansas infantry in 1MU, but was taken prisoner before he could be mustered in. He was judge-advocate-general of Arkansas in 1864 '9, a delegate to the Arkansas constitutional convention in 1867-'8, a commissioner to digest the statutes of Arkansas in 1868, and a representative in the legislature in 1868-'9. For the next nine years he was U. S. consul for the district of Prescott, Canada. Mr. Sims had published "The Origin and Signification of Scottish Surname-., with a Vocabulary of Christian Names" (Albany, 1862); "The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey " (1866); and an edition of William Noye's "Maxims of the Laws of England," with a memoir of the author (1870). Another brother. James Peacock, architect, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 15 Nov.. 1849; d. there, 20 May, 1882, was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1868, and studied architecture with his brother Henry. He designed, besides many private residences, the building of the Royal insurance company. Christ church and Holy Trinity memorial chapels, Philadelphia, and Christ church in Germantown.

SIMS, James Marion, surgeon, b. in Lancaster county, S. C., 25 Jan., 1813; d. in New York city, 13 Nov., 1883. He was graduated at South Carolina college in 1832, began the study of medicine with a physician of his neighborhood, entered Charleston medical school when it was opened in November, 1833, and completed his course at Jefferson medical college, Philadelphia, in 1835. He began practice in Lancaster, where his parents resided, but became discouraged at the loss of his first patients, and removed to Mount Meigs, Montgomery co., Ala., and, after his marriage in December, 1836, to Macon county. He was successful there, but severe attacks of malarial fever impelled him to change his residence. Near the close of 1840 he settled in Montgomery, where in a short time he gained a good reputation as a surgeon. He was the first practitioner in the south to operate for strabismus or to treat club-foot successfully. In 1845 he published a paper on the cause and the proper mode of treatment of trismus nascentium, in which he attributed the disease to mechanical pressure on the base of the brain, and affirmed that it could be prevented by not placing newborn infants in a constrained posture, and often cured by simply laying them on their side. He explained his hypothesis in the &ldquo;American Journal of the Medical Sciences&rdquo; in 1846 and 1848, and subsequently in an &ldquo;Essay on the Pathology and Treatment of Trismus Nascentium, or Lock-jaw of Infants&rdquo; (Philadelphia, 1864). His view was not generally accepted by the profession, although a few doctors used his method with success, and the doctrine was confirmed more than thirty years