Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1193

TYLER 1171 UPSHUR board, who had attempted suicide. Twitchell's case was not published until 182S. In 1810 Dr. Twitchell removed to Keene, New Hampshire, where he practised until he died. He joined the New Hampshire Medical Society in 1811 and was its president^ 1827- ' 1830. Although always busy he found time to attend its meetings, and was the idol of the society. He' was an indefatigable worker, with a practice so extensive that he had an arrange- ment of post-horses at country inns, so that he was enabled to travel at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. In 1838 he removed successfully the arm and clavicle for malignant disease. In 1840 he had diagnosed and operated upon three cases of suppuration in the medullary canal. He frequently operated for stone in the bladder, did excisions of joints, and had per- formed several ovariotomies before McDow- ell's case was published. Although offered professorships at Dart- mouth, Vermont, and Brunswick Medical Col- leges, he declined them all. He was an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, and in 1838 became an honorary member of the Massachusetts Medi- cal Society. In addition he was one of the founders of the American Medical Association. Dr. Twitchell was an abstainer in regard to the use of alcohol and was a vegetarian for many years. He married Miss Elizabeth Goodhue in June, 1815, but they had no children. He died of heart disease May 26, 1850. Ira Joslin Prouty. Med. Commun.. Mass. Med. Soc. 1850. New Hamp. Jour. Med., Concord, 1850-1. Tyler, John (1763-1841). The son of Samuel and Susanna Tyler, whose people came from England and France about 1600; this ophthalmologist was born in Prince George County, Maryland, June 29, 1763, and began to study medicine under Dr. Smith, of Georgetow-n. He was a pupil at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1784, where he received his diploma and studied also with John Hunter, Fordyce, Baillie and Pott. He began practice in Frederick City, Mary- land, in 1786, and was. according to Quinan, the first oculist in America, acquiring great reputation in ophthalmology and being one of the first in the United States to operate for cataract. Patients came long distances, even from adjoining states to obtain the benefit of his skill in couching. It is recorded that he was an officer in the "Whiskey Insurrection" in Pennsylvania, and his name figures as a co- founder of the Medical and Chirurgical Fac- ulty of Maryland, and an elector of President Jefferson. Being possessed of a competency, he retired from practice as his hearing became dull from age and disease. He died unmar- ried in Frederick City, October IS, 1841. Dr. Charles Frederick Wiesenthal (q. v.) mentions him in a letter to his son, Andrew, then pur- suing his medical studies in London. After urging him to seek to acquire skill in surgical operations, especially in lithotomy and extrac- tion of cataract, he says: "There is a young man returned lately, Mr. Tyler, who is settled in Frederick and has successfully couched two or three persons, which has at once made him very conspicuous, and he has made a consid- erable good match on the strength of it (June S, 1787)." Eugene F. Cordell. Hist, of Western Maryland. J. T. Scharf. Toner"s Ms. Biographies, Nat. Lib., Washington, D. C. Upshur, George Littleton (1822-1855) Born in Northampton County, Virginia, January 14, 1822, George Littleton Upshur was the oldest son of John Evans Notting- ham and Elizabeth Parker Upshur, of North- ampton County, a sister of Judge Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Nav.v, and Secre- tary of State, in President Tj-ler's Cabinet. Before Upshur attained his majority his ma- ternal uncles, Judge Upshur and Capt. George P. Upshur, United States Navy, fearing that the name would become extinct, advised that he and his brother, Admiral John H. Upshur, United States Navy, should apply to the Legis- lature of Virginia for permission to take their mother's maiden name, and an act of Assembly was passed accordingly. The founder of the LTpshur family in Vir- ginia settled upon the Eastern Shore some three hundred years ago. George Upshur's early education was re- ceived in the common schools of the County, and at the age of sixteen he graduated from William and Mary College with the degree oE master of arts; his medical degree was received from the University of Pennsylvania in 1843. He established himself in Norfolk, Va., and soon gained a large practice. He had the habit of making notes and then giving the re- sults of his observation to the profession in carefully prepared papers which appeared in the medical periodicals. As brief as was his professional career, it was long enough for him to acquire a high reputation, and the abso- lute confidence and esteem of his fellow towns- I men.