Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/749

MC CANN 727 MC CAW McCann, James (1837-1893) About the year 1825 a certain Thomas Mc- Cann of Scotch-Irish ancestry married one Sarah Wilson and settled on a farm near Verona, Penn Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and on this farm James McCann was born April 12, 1837. His education was obtained in the public schools in which, at the completion of his course, he served as teacher for one or two years, after which he entered at Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, but ter- minated his studies before graduating. About 1858 or 1859 he went to Pittsburgh and for a time was employed at clerical work; later becoming a student of medicine under Dr. John Dickson, before attending medical lectures in the University of Pennsylvania. He did not, however, complete his studies at the University at this time, but entered the Union Army as assistant surgeon of the Fifth Pennsylvania Artillery, in which capacity he first saw service at the battle of Gettysburg, July, 1863. Returning to graduate, he took his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania, March 23, 1864. In 1893, on the day of his death, the LL. D. was conferred on him by Heidelberg College, of Tiffin, Ohio. Steps towards conferring the same degree were also taken by the Western University of Pennsyl- vania, but his death occurred beforehand. Dr. McCann was a member of the Amer- ican Surgical Association and of the county, state and national medical societies. He was president of the Allegheny County Medical Society. While originally a general practitioner Dr. McCann soon gravitated towards surgery and at the time of his death occupied the foremost rank in that branch of medicine in Western Pennsylvania. From the time of the estab- lishment of the West Penn Hospital until he died he filled a position of surgeon on the staflf. In 1885 he was largely instrumental in organ- izing the Western Pennsylvania Medical Col- lege — now the medical department of the Uni- versity of Pittsburg, where he occupied the chair of principles and practice of surgery from its inception to the time of his death. In 1862 he married Sarah Boyd and had nine children. His wife died in April. 1883, and in 1889 he married Martha Scott, by whom he had a daughter. His oldest son, Thomas, born April 22, 1863, graduated M. D. at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1887 but died of a chronic pulmonary affection in 1903. Another son, John B., also adopted his father's vocation and settled in Pittsburg. James McCann died July 13, 1893, at his house No. 928 Penn Avenue, Pittsburg, Penn- sylvania. Several years before his death he sutlered from septic infection, following an operation on a patient, from which he never fully recovered. The direct cause of death was a cerebellar abscess due, it was believed, to this infection. His contributions to medical literature were numerous and continued over a long period. Among them may be mentioned : "Clinical Observations in the Treatment of Severe Rail- road Injuries of the Extremities" ("Trans- actions, American Surgical Association," 1884, vol. ii) ; "Splenectomy for Dislocated or Wandering Spleen; Recovery" (Ibid., 1887, vol. v) ; "Enterectomy for Removal of Sar- coma of Mesentery; Recovery" (Ibid., 1892, vol. x) ; Chapter on "Wounds," in Keating's "Encyclopedia of Diseases of Children." His portrait is in the assembly room of the Allegheny County Medical Society, in the Pittsburg Free Dispensary. Adolph Koenig. McCaw, James Brown (1823-1906) An army surgeon, he was born in Rich- mond, Virginia, on July 12, 1823. He came of a race of doctors, being the great-grandson of James McCaw, a Scotch surgeon from Wigtonshire, who came to Virginia in 1771 and settled near Norfolk. His son, James D. McCaw, a pupil of Benjamin Bell, of Edinburgh, and an M. D. of the University of that city, returned to Virginia, and practised in Richmond until his death in 1842. Dr. William R. McCaw was the father of the subject of this sketch. James was educated in Richmond schools and studied medicine at the University of New York, graduating in 1843, being a pupil of Dr. Valentine Mott. Then he soon removed to Richmond, his home during the rest of his life. He was a founder and a charter member of the Medical Society of Virginia, and a mem- ber and at one time president of the Rich- mond Academy of Medicine. Dr. McCaw was editor, or co-editor, of the Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal from April, 1853, to December, 1855, and co-editor of the Virginia Medical Journal from Janu- ary, 1856, to December, 1859; in 1864 he be- came editor of the Confederate States Medical Journal, of which only fourteen numbers ap- peared — the only medical journal published under the Confederacy. In April, 1871, he be- came one of the editors of the Virginia Clinical Record, of which three volumes were issued. At the outbreak of the war, in 1861, he was