Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1006

■rives 984 ROBERTS Rives, Landon Cabell (1790-1870). Landon Cabell Rives was born in Nelson County, Virginia, October 24, 1790; the son of Landon C. Rives, and graduated from William and Mary College, Virginia, receiv- ing his M. D. from the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1821. After graduation he practised in his native State until 1829, when he went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and, until 1860, had a large practice. At this time he retired from active practice. In May, 1835, when the medical department of Cincinnati College was founded, he was made professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. In 1849 Dr. Rives was elected professor of materia medica in the Medical College of Ohio, and in 1850 was transferred to the chair of obstetrics. In 1854 he resigned the professorship. In this year he' edited John Lizar's "Anatomy of the Brain." During the last ten years of his life he rested from active professional work. He vfzs never married. He died in Cincinnati, June 3, 1870. A. G. Drury. Trans. Ohio State Med. Soc., 1870. E. B. Stevens. Robbins, James WaUon (1801-1879). James Watson Robbins was the first to describe Potamogeton Robbinsii, a species of pondweed, and Asa Gray gave the plant his name. The son of Ammi Ruhama and Salome R. Robbins, he was was born at Colebrook, Connecticut, November 18, 1801. He fitted for college with Reverend Ralph Emerson, of Norfolk, Connecticut, and after graduating from Yale in 1822, taught school in Enfield. Connecticut, and then served as a private tutor in the family of 'illiam L. Brent, of Pamunkey Creek, Maryland, Brent at that time being a member of Congress from Louisiana. Removing with Mr. Brent to Georgetown, D. C, he spent the year 1824 in his family. The two years following he had a school in the family of Dr. Chandler Pay- ton, of Gordonsdale, Virginia, numbering among his pupils Robert E. Lee, later General of the Confederate armies. Dr. Robbins fitting him for West Point. Dr. Robbins acquired a love for the study of botany while in college and through life continued' a devotee to this science, taking up the study of medicine with Professor Eli Ives (q. v.), one of the founders of the Yale Medical School, a pioneer botanist. Robbins received an M. D. from Yale in 1828; next year he made an extended tour through the New England States, collecting specimens of their flora, the expense of the expedition being borne by William Oates of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Robbins retaining one-half of the specimens collected as a recompense. Dr. Robbins settled in practice in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, in 1830, continuing his resi- dence in that town until 1859, all the time add- ing to his valuable herbarium while practising medicine. He was a fellow of the Massa- chusetts Medical Society from 1836 to the time of his death. In 1859 he became physician to the Pewabic copper mines, on the shore of Lake Superior. Here he remained four years, prac- tising and botanizing and being in cor- respondence with the leading botanists of this country and Europe. To enlarge his botani- cal knowledge, an expedition was made through Michigan and Illinois, down the Mis- sissippi to New Orleans and thence to Cuba, for a three months' stay, constantly collecting specimens. Returning to Uxbridge, he resumed the practice of medicine, in which he continued until his death, January 10, 1879, at the age of seventy-seven. It was said that he rendered valuable aid to Professor Gray in his botanical researches, especially in the genus Potamogeton. The plants collected by the government exploration of the fortieth parallel were submitted to him for classification and arrangement. At the time of his death he was engaged in the examination of a large collection of the flora of the state of California. Excessive modesty and a retiring disposition prevented his work from being generally known. Walter L. Burrage. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1879, vol. c-100, pp. 169-170. Roberts, Algernon Sydney (1855-1896). Algernon Sydney Roberts had an un- fortunately brief professional career. He died in 1896, only nineteen years after his gradu- ation in medicine. The verdict of prominent orthopedic men, like Dr. James K. Young, Dr. De Forest Willard (q. v.) and Dr. Newton M. Shaffer, as well as others like Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and Dr. W. W. Keen, was to the effect that he was not only a man of great promise, but that he left a distinct mark on orthopedic surgery. His personal contributions to orthopedics were : "Club-foot ; Talipes," "Roberts and Ketch in the Reference Hand-book of the Medical Sciences," William Wood and Com- pany; "Pott's Disease," Keating's Cyclopaedia, vol. iii; "The Spinal Arthropathies," Medical Ne'ci's, February 14, 1885; "Clinical Lectures