Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/754

MC CLURG 12,2 MC COSH tion in these subjects. During the war of the Revolution he served as a surgeon in the earlier years, and later as a medical di- rector, making for himself a great reputation. He was a member of the convention which framed the Federal Constitution in Philadel- phia in 1787, but did not sign that document. For many years he was a counsellor of the state also. A member of the Medical Society of Virginia, he was elected its president in 1820 and 1821, though then too feeble to take any part in its proceedings. When Richmond became the seat of gov- ernment. Dr. McClurg removed from Wil- liamsburg to that city, and was for the suc- ceeding forty years its leading physician, the latter period of his life being almost entirely given up to consulting practice. The Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physicial Sciences was in 1820 dedicated to "The Elegant Scholar and Accomplished Phy- sician, Dr. McClurg." This shows that his reputation extended beyond the confines of his own state. He married, about 1780, Mrs. Elizabeth Sel- den, and they had two children, one of them Elizabeth, became the wife of John Wickham, attorney-general of the United States. McGurg died in Richmond, July 9, 1823, at the age of seventy-seven, and it may truly be said of him that of the many eminent phy- sicians Virginia has given to our profession none stood higher than he. His inaugural essay entitled "De Calore" was regarded as an original and profound pro- duction, but wa? never published. It is said to have contained suggestions from which were thought to have originated some of the opinions afterwards demonstrated by the founders of the French school of chemistry. While residing in London he published a paper entitled "Experiments upon the Human Bile and Reflections on the Biliarj' Secretions, with an Introductory Essay" (London, 1772), which attracted much attention both on account of its originality and charming and elegant style. It was translated into several languages. He made several contributions to the Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences, one of them was "Reasoning in Medicine." The collection of portraits in the Library of the Surgeon-general at Washington con- tains a likeness of Dr. McClurg. Robert M. Slaughter. Virginia Med. and Surg, Jour., 1854, vol. ii. Portrait. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1888. McCosh, Andrew James (1858-1908) Born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1858, Andrew J. McCosh was the son of the Reverend Dr. James McCosh, who came from a profes- sorship in Queens College to be president of Princeton College, now Princeton Univer- sity. Although only iifty years old, he was one of the leading surgeons of this country, and, in spite of active practice, had contributed much to the advancement of his profession along the modern lines of scientific research. He graduated from Princeton in 1877, took the master's degree in 1878, and received his degree of doctor of medicine from the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880, and then had a two-year post-graduate course in medicine at the University of Vienna. He began practice in New York in 1883, becoming attending surgeon to the Presby- terian Hospital in 1888, and retaining this posi- tion until his death. In 1905 Columbia Uni- versity conferred upon him the degree of LL. D., and Princeton paid him a similar honor a year later. Dr. McCosh was professor of clinical sur- gery in the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, Columbia University, a fellow of the American Surgical Association and president of the New York Surgical Society for two years. Books written by Dr. McCosh, many of which were translated into foreign languages, included : "Appendicitis in Children" ; "Iodo- form Poisoning" ; "Observations on the Results in 125 Cases of Sarcoma"; "Remarks on Spinal Surgery" ; "Four Cases of Brain Surgery" ; "The Treatment of General Peri- tonitis," and "Surgical Intervention in Benign Gastric Lesions." He assisted Dr. M. Allen Starr in writing "A Contribution to the Local- ization of the Muscular Sense." The records of the Presbyterian Hospital show that Dr. McCosh had performed 1,600 operations for appendicitis alone. He made yearly trips abroad and made it a point to keep in touch with surgical progress, holding, in later years, a monthly meeting at his office of the younger men connected with his hos- pital. He was a man of unassuming modesty and of many social and philanthropic inter- ests. He died at the Presbyterian Hospital, December 2, 1908, as a result of an accident, in which he was thrown from his carriage and his skull fractured. New York Even. Post, Dec. 3, 1908. N. Y. State Jour. Med., 1909, vol. ix, p. 24.