Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/397

FAGET J75 PARISH combativeness of any country or people means success, growth and development. When Dr. Paget joined La Societe Medi- cale de la Nouvelle-Orleans, he soon became a propagandist of the infectious school of the spread of disease, while his distinguished con- freres, Charles Delery, Beaugnot and Ranee, were of the contagionist school. It was dur- ing the interminable polemiques between these scientists that most of the work and labor of these gentlemen was told, couched in language most polite, but with sarcasm most biting, while they broke their lances against one another, and enunciated their theories and re- lated the facts they had as proofs. Dr. Paget read many letters before the society, which were published in La Gaaeltc Medicalc, all to prove that the old school which believed that the natives never had yellow fever were wrong ; that the yellow fever, which was diagnosed by them with the then specific symp- toms of black vomit, was not yellow fever, but most often a pernicious malarial fever which, properly treated, answered to massive doses of quinine. P'inall}', on July 15, 1859, Paget proved the difference between these cases and real yellow fever, a fever of one paroxysm with sometimes a remission, a flushed face, red gums, frequently hemorrhagic pums, pointed coated tongue, red and thin at ihe edges. First day, high fever, puhe in proportion; second day, high fever and fall- ing pulse, some albumin in urine; third, fourth and fifth day, still these sj'mp- toms, more pronounced, the pulse falling, often to sixty, even fifty, while the tempera- ture is maintained. This important ob- servation, made and given out by Dr. Paget in 1859, was bitterly assailed at the time, but its truth was quickly recognized by Dr. Thomas Layton and later by Dr. Just Touatre. In 1870 the latter, who had used for years in his service as a French marine surgeon a large rectal centigrade thermometer, was able to absolutely confirm the observation of Dr. Paget, that often in the first twenty-four or thirty-six hours, with a rising temperature, as shown by the thermometer, the pulse instead of becoming more rapid is proven by the watch to be gradually falling, losing entirely its usual correlation. This is undoubtedly due to some intense toxin absorption affecting the sympa- thetic nervous system. Often a rising tempera- ture of 105° or 104° Fahrenheit shows a pulse of sixty, or as low as fifty per minute. For this most important clinical observation and also his "Different Symptomatic Signs in Hema- temesic Paludal Fever," after the epidemic of yellow fever of 1858, he was decorated by the French government as a Chevalier de la Le- gion D'Honneur. And for his "Type and Specific of Malaria with Watch and Ther- mometer he received twenty-four votes out of fifty-three for his candidature as a member of the Academic Medicale de Paris. Dr. Paget was made a member of the Louisiana State Board of Health, and in 1864 he was a mem- ber of a sanitary commission named by Gen. Banks, drawing up the report that was sent to Washington. His personality was an ideal one, for be- sides his great medical ability he had splendid qualities of heart and mind, modest and pure; he was a consistent Christian and always a thorough and honorable gentle- man. This well spent life, when it ended, September 4, 1884, had certainly been a most useful one and the Paget law of pulse and tem- perature is as well known in the entire yel- low-fever zone as the mosquito dogma is to-day. He was married in 1844 to a daughter of Dr. Ligeret de Chazey, of the faculty of Paris. One of the sons, Charles Paget, Jr., was dem- onstrator of anatomy in the L'nivcrsity of New Orleans. „ ^ „ Lout.s G. Le Boeuf. Phvs. and Slugs, of U. S. W. B. Atkinson, 1878. Parish, Henry Greggs (1770-1856). Henry Greggs Parish, son of a Commis- sary in the British Army, was born in Brook- lyn, New York, about 1770, and was engaged first as assistant surgeon and later as surgeon in the British Navy and after practising for a time in England, came to Nova Scotia and settled in Yarmouth in 1803, where he re- mained in active practice till his death fifty- ihree years later. In addition to his duties as medical practitioner he filled for many years, with singular ability and integrity, many im- portant public offices. He was naval officer, collector of excise, registrar of deeds, and an able magistrate. Three of his sons adopted medicine as a profession. Joseph and James C. settled in Yarmouth, and Henry G. in Liverpool, Eng- land. Dr. Parish must have been extremely methodical in all his ways, otherwise he could not have successfully carried on a large prac- tice in conjunction with his many public duties. .-s a proof of the careful and conscientious manner in which he cared for his patients, there is no better evidence than the record of 2,148 cases of labor attended by him. The Parish obstetrical record was published