Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1270

WISLIZENUS 1248 WISTAR settled in Indianapolis. He was the last sur- vivor of the group of eighty-four physicians who, in 1849, organized the Indiana State Medical Society and was its president at the fortieth annual meeting. He was president of the Indianapolis Medical Society not long before giving up active participation in his profession, and upon his retirement on his eighty-ninth birthday, received a beautiful parchment appropriately inscribed as a token of esteem. Dr. Wishard was the author of historical papers dealing with early medicine and physicians of Indiana. He married Har- riet Newell Moreland in 1840 and they were the parents of nine children. He was an active ch'urch man, serving as elder in the Presbyterian Church for more than seventy years, and he frequently repre- sented his presbytery as commissioner in the General Assembly, the highest body of the church. He had almost reached his ninety- eighth birthday when he died December 9, 1913. Of the many tributes paid to his memory the following epitomizes his character : "Dr. Wishard believed that no man had greater opportunities for usefulness than a physician and never failed to use every oc- casioti for sowing seeds of righteousness as he went about doing the work, of the beloved physician. He ministered to the sin-sick, as he healed their bodies ; he preached the gospel of love and kindness as he went in and out of the homes of the well-to-do, the poor and the outcast. His daily life was an exempli- fication of the highest ideals of Christian manliness ; his character was spotless and bore no stain of dishonesty or professional trickery. He had a deep, abiding faith that never wavered; a hope and trust that kept him joyful Bnd full of anticipation for the future." Elizabeth M. Wish.rd. Wislizenus, Frederick Adolphus (1810-1889) In the Lancet, London, 1889, volume ii, page 936, it is stated that the romance of medicine might well claim Wislizenus as one of its he- roes. He was born in Koenigsee, Germany, in May, 1810, and at the usual age left the gymna- sium for the university to study medicine and took his M. D. in 1834 from Ziirich University. He worked at Gottingen, Jena, and Wurzburg, until, shortly before graduation, he became compromised in the famous "Frankfiirter Attentat," and had to flee the country. In the spring of 1833 a conspiracy had been formed in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, to avenge itself on the Federal Diet which by its severely restrictive press laws had roused the citizens, particularly the younger portion, including many students in the several faculties, to something little short of madness. In this conspiracy Wislizenus, with Matthia and others of the medical "Durschenschaft," took B leading part — the design being to blow up the Diet. On April 3, 1833, the attempt was made. The guard house was carried by storm, and the conspirators were within an ace of effecting their purpose when the military ap- peared in the nick of time, arrested nine of the youths, and put the others to flight. Among those who, after hairbreadth escapes, eluded arrest was young Wislizenus, who found his way to Switzerland, where, at the University of Ziirich, he resumed his studies and grad- uated M. D. with distinction, and in 1835 came to the United States. Ultimately settling in practice at St. Louis, he rapidly formed an extensive clientele, of which his compatriots were the nucleus, and was enabled to give time to pure science and also to travel in and beyond the United States. He made memorable visits to Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, and published most interesting records of his obser- vations and experiences. By all classes he was looked upon as an enthusiastic and large- minded reformer, an honest and benevolent survivor of the "Vor Achtundvierziger" men, as the precursors of the revolution of 1848 are ifamiliarly called. He died in St. Louis, Missouri, on Septem- ber 22, 1889. Daniel Smith Lamb. Smithsonian Institution, Ann. Report, 1904. Wistar, Caspar (1761-1818) The parents of Caspar Wistar were of German extraction, and belonged to the So- ciety of Friends, of which they were highly respected members. His grandfather, Caspar Wistar, founded at Salem, New Jersey, the first glass works in this country. Wistar was born in Philadelphia, September 13, 1761, and went as a boy to the well-known Friends' School, founded by William Penn, in Phila- delphia. The school at that time was in charge of Mr. John Thompson, an able teacher of Latin and Greek. Wistar is said to have acquired a desire for medical study during the battle of Germantown, October 4, 1777, when he helped to care for the wounded. He be- came a private pupil of John Redman (q.v.) and also attended the practice of John Jones (q.v.), at the same time going to the medical lectures of Drs. Morgan, Shippen, Rush and Kuhn, at the recently organized medical school of Philadelphia. Such teachers aroused in Wis-