Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1222

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WASHINGTON 1200 WATERHOUSE for mankind and tender sympathy for all {orms of suffering. After finishing a very creditable course at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina, he studied medicine with Dr. Parker, a phy- sician of Kinston, and afterwards attended medical lectures at the University of Pennsyl- vania. Graduating there in 1826, he went to Paris, where, through an acquaintance with LaFayette, he obtained the favor of Louis Philippe, thereby gaining access to all the French institutes and academies, the then cen- ters of medical science. His stay in Paris was probably from 1830 to 1832. On his return to America, Washington set- tled in New York City, where he soon won distinction. The people would come in great numbers from far and near to procure the benefit of his marvellous skill and kindness. ■ It was told that on one of these visits, he was called to see a very poor woman who was desperately ill. Finding no one in the house of an age to assist him, he went out, cut the wood, filled a pot with water, heated it, and using an old hogshead in lieu of a tub, gave her a bath himself. It is needless to say that she recovered. He was noted for his courtly manners and great personal magnetism. Although such a scholarly man, he never wrote anything. He spent most of his time in getting 'up improved instruments and in investigating the nature of disease ; this latter seems to have interested him from his earliest years. His fame was great in the South and West, also in Europe. It is probable that he had more patients from a distance than any other physician of that period. A grateful Scotch patient had the celebrated sculptor David make a beautiful bronze medallion of him, which, within recent years, was in the possession of his family. Washington became deeply interested in the experiments with crude morphine begun by LaForgue in 1836. He would cure neuralgia by scraping the skin and dusting it with mor- phine. In 1839 he used a morphine solution and injected it under the skin with an Anel's eye syringe. This was four years prior to the invention of Dr. Wood of Edinburgh. Dr. C. B. Woodley of Kinston says Prof. A. Smith used to tell his students at the old Bellevue Hos- pital Medical College that Washington in- vented the hypodermic syringe. December 2, 1834, he married Anna W. Con- stable of Schenectady, New York. He died in 1847, survived by six children. A relative tells that in his last illness, which was some form of stomach trouble, he said to those sur- rounding his bed that if he could only operate on himself he could be cured, as he knew the exact location of his disease. LiDA T. I<ODM.N. From a newspaper sketch of Dr. Vashington published in Kinston, N. C, October, 1892, Dr. H. O. Hyatt. Editor. Waterhouse, Benjamin (1754-1846) Benjamin Waterhouse was the introducer into the United States of vaccination for the prevention of smallpox ; he was the first pro- fessor of theory and practice in the Harvard Medical School; he was the first to give sys- tematic lectures on natural history subjects in America; he was the founder of the Botanical Gardens at Cambridge, and he started the collection of mineralogy at Harvard. Waterhouse was . born in Newport. Rhode Island, March 4, 17.54, the son of a tanner, Timothy Waterhouse, who moved from Ports- mouth, Rhode Island, to Newport, where he later became a judge of the court of common pleas and a member of the Royal Council for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. His mother, Hannah Proud, was the niece of the then prominent Dr. John Fothergill of London, England. Both sides of the family were of the sect of Friends. Gilbert Stuart, the painter, was a schoolmate of Waterhouse, who also at one time thought of becoming a painter. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed to Dr. John Halliburton of Newport, studying with him until sailing for Europe in 1775. He left Boston in the last ship allowed by the British to sail from that port, and arrived in England in April, 1775. Just before leaving, his portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart, and it is at present in the Redwood Library at Newport. Arriving in London, he went directly to his greatuncle. Dr. Fothergill, studied with him for a time, and later went to Edinburgh for medical lectures and hospital experience. While there he also acted as secretary for the Royal Societj' at its meetings. On his return to London, he studied still further under the direction of Dr. Fothergill, and in 1778 was sent to the LIniversity of Leyden, at that time the most noted medical school in the world. There he remained four years, taking his degree in 1781. He had attracted attention by enrolling himself as "a citizen of the free and LTnited States of America," but the faculty refused to allow him to have that title on his diploma. When not engaged in the study of medicine, he evidently made use of his time in travels about Europe, meeting Franklin and John Adams, and during the semesters at one time,