Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/615

Rh quently U. S. consul at Honolulu. di-i-lim-d tin- governorship of Colorado territory, and be- c: a counsel in Washington, D. C., for the nil- lection of claims. At the timr of his death he- was connected with a building; association in XVa-liini;- ton, D. C. Gen. William T. Sherman said of him : "He was one of the bravest men in action I ever knew." His brother, Giles Alexander, soldier, b. in Jefferson county. X. V.. '.".i Srpi.. 1829; d. in Bloomington, 111., s Nov., IsTii. rngaged in the <ln -_ r oods business in Cincinnati, and subsequently in Bloomington. 111., and at the beginning of the civil war was the proprietor of a hotel in the last- named town. He became captain in the 8th Mis- souri volunteers in 1861, was engaged at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Corinth, and be- came lieutenant-colonel and colonel in 1802. He led his regiment at the first attack on Vicksburg, was wounded at Arkansas Post, and in the capture of Vieksburg rescued Admiral David Porter and his iron-dads when they were surrounded and hemmed in I iv the enemy. In August, 1863, he was pro- moted brigadier-general of volunteers " for gallant and meritorious conduct in the field." He com- manded his brigade in the loth army corps in the siege of Chattanooga and the battle of Missionary Ridge, in which he was severely wounded. He led a brigade in the loth corps in the Atlanta cam- paign, was transferred to the command of the id division of the 17th army corps, fought at Atlanta, and. in Sherman's march to the sea, engaged in all the important movements, especially in the opera- tions in and about Columbia. S. C. After the sur- ivnder of Gen. Robert E. Lee he was transferred to the 2oth army corps, became major-general of volunteers in 1S65, and continued in the service till 1866, when he resigned, declining the commission of colonel of cavalry in the regular army, and set- tled in Bloomington, 111. He was a defeated can- didate for congress in 1868, was second assistant postmaster-general in 1869-V2, but resigned on account of failing health. He was a founder of the Society of the Army of Tennessee.

SMITH, Nathan, physician, b. in Rehoboth, Mass., 13 Sept., 1702; d. in Xew Haven, Conn., 26 July, 1828. He enlisted in the Vermont militia during the last eighteen months of the Revolu- tionary war, and, having accompanied his father to an unsettled part of Vermont, subsequently led the life of a pioneer and hunter, having no educa- tion and no advantages. He decided to become a physician when he was twenty-four years of age, studied under Dr. Josiah Goodhue, and practised for several years in Cornish, N. H., when he en- tered the medical department of Harvard and received the degree of M. B. in 1790, being the only graduate of that year and the third of the department. At that time the practice of medicine was at a low ebb in the state, and physicians were poorly educated and unskilful. To procure bet- ter advantages for them, he established the medical department of Dartmouth in 1798, was appointed its professor of medicine, and for many years taught all, or nearly all, the branches of the pro- fession unaided. He held the chair of anatomy ami surgery till 1810, and that of the theory and practice of medicine till 1813. He w-as given the degree of A. M. by Dartmouth in 1798, and that of M. D. by that college in 1801 and by Harvard in 1811. He went to Great Britain about 1803. attended lectures in Edinburgh for one year, and on his return resumed his duties. He was elected professor of the theory and practice of physics and surgery in the medical department of Yale in 1813, and held the chair from that date until his death, also delivering courses of lectures on medi- cine and surgery at the University of Vermont in 1 S'J-'-Ti, and at Bowdoin on the theory and practice of medicine in 1820-'o. His practice extended over four states, and while he was conservative in his methods, he was more than ordinarily successful as an operator. It has been asserted that he was the first in (his country to perform the operation of extirpating an ovarian tumor, and that of staphylor- raphy. He devised and introduced a mode of am- putating the thigh which, although resembling methods that had previously been employed, is sufficiently original to bear his name, and he de- veloped important scientific principles in relation to the pathology of necrosis, on which he founded a new and successful mode of practice. He invent- ed an apparatus for the treatment of fractures, and a mode of reducing dislocations of the hip. He published " Practical Essays on Typhus Fever " (New York, 1824), and " Medical and Surgical Memoirs," edited, with addenda, by his son, Na- than Ryno Smith (Baltimore, Md., 1831). His son, Nathan Byne, surgeon, b. in Concord, N". H., 21 May, 1797; d. in Baltimore. Md.. 3 July, 1877. was graduated at Yale in 1817. and studied medicine un- der his father there, receiving his degree in 1820. In 1824 he began the practice of surgery in Burling- ton, Vt., and in 182.5 he was appointed professor of surgery and anatomy in the University of Ver- mont. In 1827 he was called to the chair of sur- gery in the medical department of the University of Maryland, but he resigned in 1828 and became professor of the practice of medicine in Transyl- vania university, Lexington. Ky. In 1840 he re- sumed his chair in the University of Maryland, which he held until 1870. He invented an instru- ment for the easy and safe performance of the operation of lithotomy, and also Smith's anterior splint for treatment of fractures of the thigh. In addition to articles in the "American Journal of Medicine," Dr. Smith published "Physiological Essay on Digestion " (New York. 1825) ; " Address to Medical Graduates of the University of Mary- land " (Baltimore. 1828) ; " Diseases of the Internal Ear," from the French of Jean Antoine Saissy, with a supplement (1829): "Surgical Anatomy of the Arteries" (1832-'5); "Treatment of Fractures of the Lower Extremities by the Use of the An- terior Suspensory Apparatus'" (1867) ; and a small volume entitled' Legends of the South," under the pen-name " Viator." Nathan Ryno's son, Alan Penneman, physician, b. in Baltimore, Md., 3 Feb., 1840; d. there." 18 July, 1898. He received his instruction from private tutors, and was gradu- ated in 1861 at the school of medicine of the Uni- versity of Maryland. In 1868 he was elected ad- junct professor of surgery in that university, and in 1875 professor of surgery. He was connected with nearly all the hospitals of Baltimore as consulting physician or surgeon, and had performed the oper- ation of lithotomy more than 100 times, successfully in every instance. He was one of the original trus- tees of Johns Hopkins university, a ml was a member of many foreign and American medical societies.

SMITH, Nathaniel, jurist, b. in Woodbury, Conn.. 6 Jan.. 1702; d. there, 9 March. 1822. He studied law under Judge Tapping Reeve at Litchfield, Conn. From 1789 till 1795 he was a member of the legislature, in whose deliberations he took an energetic part in abolishing slavery, founding the public-school system, and settling t'he public lands belonging to Connecticut. From 1795 till 1799 he was a member of congress, and assisted in ratifying the Jay treaty with Great Britain, which closed the century. Mr. Smith declined a re-election to