Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/183

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BRYANT 161 BUCHANAN appointments, notably those of medical health commissioner of New York City, 1887-93 ; sur- geon with the rank of major, in the 71st Regi- ment National Guard, New York, 1873-82; surgeon-general, ranking brigadier general, on the staffs of Governors Cleveland, Hill, and Flower; and his most recent appointment, lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps, U. S. A. He was not a prolific writer; his most com- prehensive effort was "Operative Surgery" in 2 volumes. He was an officer or fellow of a great many medical societies and associations : president of the New York Academy of Medi? cine, 1895 ; president of the New York State Medical Association, 1898; president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, 1905 and 1906; president of the American Medical Association, 1907. He received the degree of LL.D. from the New York Univer- sity in 1907. In the Department of Health he inaugurat- ed a crusade against pulmonary tuberculosis, and secured the systematic enforcement of the tenement house law against overcrowding; he was active in preventing the invasion of cholera. He was chairman of the committee of the American Medical Association on national in- corporation, and worked strenuously to secure recognition by Congress. The subcommittee of the committee on judiciary, of the House of Representatives of the fifty-eighth session, le- garded the bill as unconstitutional, particularly the clause "to hold or convey real estate and transact business anywhere in the United States," so the Association still operates un- der a charter from the State of Illinois. Dr. Bryant married Annette Amelia, daugh- ter of Samuel and Jane Crum, at Bath, N. Y., in 1874; they had one child, Florence Annette, who married Frederick Augustus de Peyster. It was not known until twenty-five years later, after his own death, that he had per- formed a serious operation upon Grover Cleveland, when President of the United States. This operation was for sarcoma of the left upper jaw. Almost the entire upper jaw was removed, except the floor of the orbit. The operation took place July 1, 1893, on Com- modore E. C. Benedict's yacht, the Oneida. Dr. Bryant had in consultation, Drs. E. G. Jane way, W. W. Keen, R. M. Reilly (later Surgeon-General) and John F. Erdmann. Dr. Bryant was the family physician and warm personal friend of Grover Cleveland as gov- ernor and as president. A story is told of him while serving in the New York Department of Health. His strin- gent measures to keep out cholera, antagon- ized a group of merchants. "You will stop commerce," they cried. Bryant replied calm- ly, "I don't give a continental, but I'll stop cholera." Bryant was a keen observer, an excellent diagnostician, and a conservative operator; he was particularly kind to the poor. Though long ill with diabetes, he continued his professional and public work until death, April 7, 1914. George David Stewart. New York State Jour, of Med., 1914, xiv, 229- 230. Portrait. Buchanan, George (1763-1808) A founder of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, Dr. Buchanan was of Scotch descent, the son of Andrew and Susan Lawson Buchanan, and grandson of George Buchanan, the emigrant who laid out Balti- more town in 1730. He was born at "The Palace," Baltimore County, Maryland, Septem- ber 19, 1763, and studied under Dr. Charles Frederick Wiesenthal (q.v.), a famous Prus- sian surgeon of Baltimore, and under Dr. Wil- liam Shippen (q.v.) of Philadelphia. Under the latter he served in the Revolution. He received an M. B. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1785. He then spent about three years in Eu- rope, chiefly in medical study at Edinburgh Uni- versity. While there he held the office of presi- dent of the "Royal Physical Society." Return- ing to America, he received from Pennsylvania University his M. D. in 1789, his thesis being "Dissertatio Physiologica de causis Respiratio- nis ejusdemque Affectibus." He began prac- tice in Baltimore the same year. With Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal (q. v.) he also attempted to found a medical school, and lectured during the winter of 1789-1790 to a class of nine stu- dents on "diseases of women and children and the Brunonian system." In connection with this enterprise he published a treatise on "Ty- phus Fever," the proceeds of which he desired to go towards the founding of a lying-in hos- pital. Unfortunately dissensions, the nature of which are not now evident, arose and, not- withstanding the efforts of Dr. Buchanan, the society was dissolved and the school aban- doned. In 1790 he issued a letter to the in- habitants of Baltimore in which he urged the registration of deaths, the creation of a pub- lic park, and the establishment of a humane society. In a fourth-of-July oration the fol- lowing year he discoursed on "The Moral and Political Evils of Slavery." He retired from practice on account of bad health in 1800 and