American Medical Biographies/Harlow, Henry Mills

2781511American Medical Biographies — Harlow, Henry Mills1920James Alfred Spalding

Harlow, Henry Mills (1821–1893).

Well known for his long superintendency of the Maine Insane Asylum at Augusta, Henry Mills Harlow was born in Westminster, Vermont, April 19, 1821, inheriting from his parents an excellent physical and mental constitution. He studied at the Ashby, Massachusetts, Academy and at the Burr Seminary in Vermont, teaching school when very young and studying medicine with Dr. Alfred Hitchcock (q. v.), of Ashby, in 1841. He then took a course of lectures at the Harvard Medical School and graduated at the Berkshire Medical Institution in 1844. He also took private instruction in nervous diseases from Prof. Rust Palmer, at Woodstock, Vermont, where he also attended lectures.

After graduating he was appointed assistant at the Vermont Insane Asylum. Busy in the study of the insane, he contributed papers of great value upon this topic to the meetings of the Maine Medical Association, of which he was President in 1861.

He was also active in the Society of Superintendents of the Insane Asylums of America, being often called upon by the law courts to advise concerning the mental condition of alleged criminals and never failing to give satisfaction to the bench, bar and jury.

Few physicians have met with as many misfortunes as did Dr. Harlow during the course of his life. He had, for instance, the misfortune to lose largely the sight of both eyes from iritis so that for a long time he was unable to read, except with the greatest difficulty. He also lost a charming daughter, and had the additional and triple misfortune to lose almost in a single day, from acute appendicitis, his eldest son, Henry Williams Harlow, a most promising medical graduate.

Dr. Harlow married Louisa Stone Brooks, of Augusta, Maine, October 14, 1852. Two children survived him, a daughter, who married Dr. Oscar Davies of Augusta, Maine, and a son, George Arthur, A. B. Amherst 1887, M. D. Harvard 1893.

At the end of thirty-two years of devoted care to the insane, Dr. Harlow resigned and retired to his homestead; attended to some small medical works, gave opinions when sought, and died one day quite suddenly, as he was dictating a letter, on April 5, 1893.

Trans. Maine Med. Assoc.
Personal Recollections.