Agnew's contributions to ophthalmic literature and his inventions are numerous and valuable. He devised, for example, an excellent operation for divergent strabismus, which he described in detail in the Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society, for 1886, under the title, "A Method of Operating for Divergent Squint." His "operation for thickened capsule" is also an important procedure, often described today by European ophthalmologists even in their smaller manuals.
As a lecturer, Agnew was always simple, clear and interesting. According to one of his assistants, Dr. Charles H. May, of New York, "In his first lecture, I remember, he always laid stress upon the necessity for the ophthalmologist being observant, and he regularly illustrated the difference between seeing and observing by the following anecdote: A man was preparing to end his day's work one summer afternoon and found that he had allowed comparatively little time for catching the boat which connected with his train. He hastily closed up his office, and rushed to the pier. He saw the ferry boat in the slip, with a space of one or two feet between the boat and the slip. He made up his mind that he could just catch the boat by running. He ran, and, giving a final jump, landed on the boat, knocking down one or two passengers at the same time. Picking himself up, he was accosted by one of the passengers whom he had inconvenienced, with the remark: 'You big goose, the ferry boat is coming in, not going out.' Agnew used to lay stress upon the anecdote, saying that the man saw the ferry boat and the fact that it was not in the slip, but he failed to observe that it was coming in and not going out."
Dr. Agnew was a man of slender build and middle height, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned, and when the present writer knew him. with the remains of a raven blackness still lingering in his rapidly whitening hair. He was gently dignified in manner and even in serious conversation had a way of smiling softly from time to time, as if a pleasant undercurrent of thought were playing beneath the more immediate matter. The writer recalls with a kind of poignant gratitude the fact that his own fast-failing, but afterwards excellent, eyes were tested for the first time by this careful and courteous physician. He recalls especially the manner in which, when he had received from Dr. Agnew's hands the folded bit of paper containing the results of the test, he was taken gently by the shoulders, while a pleasant voice observed: "Young man, be there in you much or little, the glasses which you will get in accordance with this prescription will certainly prove to be a kind of turning-point in your life." Then—that characteristic smile.
Agnew was a very religious man, and took an abiding interest in things pertaining to the welfare of the church. He was never intolerant, however, but, as in his scientific labors, was thoughtful, earnest, careful never to offend and more attentive by far to the duties which he himself had to perform than to looking up defects in the services of others.
Agnew, David Hayes (1818–1892)
D. Hayes Agnew, born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, November 24, 1818, was the son of Dr. Robert Agnew and of Agnes Noble, a woman of extraordinary strength of character. On both his mother's and father's side he was of Scotch-Irish descent. He studied at the Moscow Academy, Chester County, at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, and at Delaware College, Newark, Delaware, and entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1835, where he graduated in 1838.
Upon graduation he practised near Nobleville, Chester County, until 1843, when he joined his wife's brothers in establishing the firm of Irwin and Agnew, iron-founders, continuing the business left by his father-in-law. In 1846 the firm failed, and Dr. Agnew resumed practice in Chester and Lancaster counties.
In 1848 he removed to Philadelphia for the purpose of devoting himself specially to the study and teaching of anatomy and surgery, and in 1852 became connected with the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, where for ten years he gave instruction. He was exceedingly popular as a lecturer and an eminently practical teacher, being remarkable for his simple, plain, straightforward methods, his entire disregard of oratorical effort and his faculty of making clear and easily comprehensible even the abstruse portions of his subject. When he took charge of the class it first numbered only nine students, but rose to two hundred and fifty, and would have been larger but for lack of accommodation. Agnew at this period was an indefatigable worker. He
