Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/279

 lltuit,-r //"//,/, s McGuire, M. D., LL. D. 273

General Gordon, and remained as Medical Director till the surrender at Appomattox.

SOME NOTABLE INNOVATIONS.

In May, 1862, at the battle of Winchester, Va., Surgeon McGuire inaugurated the plan of releasing captured medical officers. Eight federal surgeons were set free upon the simple condition that they would endeavor to procure the release of the same number of Con- federate surgeons. Afterwards General Jackson himself approved of this action. A few weeks after this, all of the medical officers who had been confined by both parties as prisoners of war were re- leased and returned to their respective commands. Although this plan of exchanging medical officers as non-combatants was inter- rupted by some disagreement between the Commissioners for the Exchange of Prisoners, yet Dr. McGuire continued to release sur- geons whenever it was in his power. As late as February, 1865, he liberated the Medical Inspector of General Sheridan's army. When Surgeon McGuire was himself captured at Waynesboro', in March, 1865, General Sheridan showed his appreciation of Surgeon McGuire's action by immediately ordering his liberation.

Surgeon McGuire was the first to organized Reserve Corps Hos- pitals in the Confederacy, in the spring of 1862, in the Valley cam- paign. About the same time he succeeding in perfecting the "Am- bulance Corps."

HIS LIFE IN RICHMOND.

The war being ended, Dr. McGuire, in November, 1865, removed to Richmond, having been appointed to fill the chair of surgery in the Medical College of Virginia, made vacant by the death of Dr. Charles Bell Gibson. This position he held until 1878, when the demands of an extensive practice compelled him to resign it, the College conferring upon him in 1880 the title of Emeritus Professor. In his new home he rapidly acquired an extensive practice, both medical and surgical. His remarkable successes in lithotomy, lith- ority. ovariotomy, etc., placed him in the first rank of civil surgeons. As a teacher, he was fluent, lucid and impressive, and as a writer had contributed many instructive and interesting articles to North- ern and Southern journals.

In 1883 Dr. McGuire established St. Luke's Home for the Sick a private infirmary for the accommodation of his surgical cases. The institution has grown until now it contains between fifty and sixty