Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1256

WIGGLESWORTH 1234 WILBUR cal Association, also corresponding member of the New York Dermatological Societj-. His contributions to the literature of dermatology were many and valuable, espe- cially in the earlier part of his professional life, and though later partially disabled by failing health he was still keenly interested in the work of his colleagues and in the progress of his specialty. Among his earlier publica- tions were papers on "Alopecia," read before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1871 ; contributions to the Archives of Derma- tology, of which he was a founder, on "Fibromata of the Skin," and on "Sarcoma of the Skin," in 1875 ; on the "Auto-inoculation of Vegetable Parasites," and on "New Forma- tions," in 1878; and on "Faulty Innervation as a Factor in Skin Diseases," in the Ncii' York Hospital Gazette, in 1878. In 1882, in conjunc- tion with E. W. Gushing (q.v.), he published in the "Archives of Dermatology," a paper on "Buccal Ulcerations of Constitutional Origin;" in 1883 a communication on "Purpura from Quinine" appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; and in 1896 he delivered the annual address before the American Derma- tological Association. Throughout his active career there was but little medical work of general importance to his commtmity in which he was not a partici- pant. He devoted considerable time and money imsuccessfullj- to the popularizing of the metric system, and was a founder of the Boston Medical Library Association in 1875, serving on its executive committee until his death. He did active service as one of the committee to raise the large sum necessary to establish the Harvard Medical School in its building on Boylston Street, and was actively interested in the early attempts to secure reg- istration of physicians in order to protect citi- zens of his native state against quackery and extortion. As a member of the health depart- ment of the American Social Science Associa- tion he spent jears of faithful and persistent effort in promoting its unselfish objects. Although through inheritance he might have lived solely for his own pleasure, his life was one of continued devotion to the welfare of others. A hater of shams and uncompromising in his own sense of right, he was neverthe- less tolerant of the views of others. While still in practice, and apparently still fit for years of continued tisefulness, he died at the age of fifty-five. Death came as he would have wished, swiftly and surely, without suffering. A preliminary brief attack of un- consciousness, followed by such slight dis- comfort that the few intervening days were rather those of rest than prostration, and the final apoplectic stroke, so immediate and so beneficent that to him at least, the blow was surely full of mercy. He died in January, 1896, of apoplexy following Bright's disease. In 1882 he was married to Sarah Willard Frothingham, who with two children survived him. Pri.vce a. Morrow. Wilbur, Hervey Backus (1820-1883) This philanthropic physician, educator of the feeble-minded, was born in Wendell, Massachusetts, August 18, 1820; his father was a Congregational minister and known as a lecturer on natural historj-, and the author of a pop'ular work on astronomy. The S"n graduated from Amherst College in 1838, and from the Berkshire Medical Insti- tution at Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1842, then practised medicine at Lowell and Barre and married Elizabeth Holden. After her death he married Emily Petheram of Skaneateles, New York, and was survived by two sons by his first wife, Charles H. and Harry, and by his second wife and two sons, Hervey and Dr. Fred Petheram Wilbur. Hearing of Dr. Edward Seguin's success in the teaching of idiots at Bicetre, he became interested and eagerly read Seguin's book on the subject. Later, his preceptor at Lowell left his practice temporarily in his charge. In this duty he visited the County Home where he found a feeble-minded man, possessing only a good memory for dates. The belief that from this one faculty the man's mind could have been educated to a certain degree, took possession of him, and in 1848, at Barre, Massachusetts, in his own house, he opened the first school for the feeble-minded in this country. A physician. Dr. Frederick F. Backus (q.v.), of Rochester, New York, then a mem- ber of the New York Senate, became interested in Dr. Wilbur's work in Massachusetts and succeeded in having the state open an experi- mental school at Albany in 1851. Dr. Wilbur was called to the charge of it, and, in 1854 it was made a permanent charity of the state under his care and removed to Syracuse. He died suddenly on May 1, 1883, of rup- ture of the heart. A tablet in the w'all of the main building of the New York State Institution for the Feeble-Minded says: "The first in America to attempt the education of the feeble-minded, and the first superintendent of this Asylum. By his wisdom, zeal, and humanity he secured its permanent establishment." He wrote the article on idiocy for John-