McHENRY
135
McKECHNIE
"Gun-shot and Other Wounds of the
Peritoneum." ("Transactions of the Med-
ical Society of Virginia," 1873.)
Other articles in the latter journal are "The Choice of Anesthetics," "Nervous Disturbances Following Urethral Stric- ture," and " Cases of Supra-pubic Cystot- omy and its Results."
R. M. S.
" Virginia Medical Semi-Monthly," Sep- tember 21, 1900.
" Transactions of the Medical Society of Virginia," 1900.) Brit. M. J. Lond., 1900, ii. Tr. South. Surg, and Gynec. Ass., 1902, Phila., 1903, xv. (port.).
McHenry, James (1753-1816).
James McHenry, army surgeon, was the son of Daniel and Agnes McHenry and born in Ballymena, Antrim, Ireland. He persuaded his father to emigrate to America and the family settled in Balti- more, James studying medicine in Phila- delphia under Benjamin Rush. Then came his military life. In 1776 surgeon of the fifth Pennsylvania battalion; then recommended by Congress as hospital surgeon. He was captured by the Brit- ish at Fort Washington but was exchanged in 1778 and appointed surgeon of the Flying Hospital. Later on, an assign- ment as secretary to Gen. Washington ended his active medical career, and in 1780 he became nominal aid but really mentor to the Marquis de la Fayette. As a politician he also did good work in the Maryland Senate, Assembly and Conven- tion. His last appointment was the sec- retaryship of war in Washington's cabinet and afterwards in that of Adams. To him the army owes many radical and enduring reforms, and Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, is named in his honor. It was off here that Francis Scott Key, while prisoner on a British man o'war, wrote "The Star Spangled Banner."
After a long and crowded period of work McHenry went to live in his house near Baltimore and died there on May 3, 1816.
J. E. P.
James Evelyn Pilcher, Jour. Ass. Military
Surgeons of the U. S. A., vol. xvi, 1905.
The Surgeons-general of the United States
Army, Carlisle, Pa., 1905.
There is a portrait in both these vols.
McKechnie, John (1730-1782).
Fortunately for his Ufe-history, this pioneer and log-cabin physician left behind him a diary containing a good deal of information, medical and biograph- ical, well worth rescuing for a while from the oblivion of more than a cen- tury. Dr. John McKechnie was born in Scotland about 1730, studied medi- cine either at Aberdeen or Edinburgh, obtained a license or a degree in 1752, and practised in his native land for three years. Accomplishing but little in that time he decided to come to America, the land of promise. Em- barking on the brig " Crawford Bridge, " Curry her captain, he, with sixteen others, left Greenock, Scotland, at 4 p. M. July 26, 1755, and landed all well on board at the end of Long Wharf in Boston, September 12, of the same year, at 7 p. m., as his diary exactly informs us.
It is not known how long he prac- tised medically in the neighborhood of Boston, but it is a fact that weary- ing of the attempt to make a hving as physician or a teacher, he became an official of the Plymouth Land Com- pany with the rank of Lieutenant and the position of a land surveyor. With this Association he remained four years. We find farther traces of his engagement with the Kennebec (Maine) Company in 1760 and later, during which period he surveyed large tracts of land on the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers. His work was so accurate that it has to this day remained the standard, and farms still pass from owner to owner under the so-called "McKechnie" surveys. While thus oc- cupied he went occasionally on business to Boston, both for the Company as well as for his private affairs, and in one old receipt we find him signing as Lieut. McKechnie. The earhest docu-
