FRANKLIN 411 FREEMAN "Franklinism," as it has been called — but gives a very reserved opinion upon its value. Interested in vital statistics and the mor- tality of different diseases, he wrote about the great death rate of foundlings and among children not nursed at the breast by their own mothers, and on the growing habit among the French to neglect this duty. He discussed the doctrines of life and death. On several oc- casions he wrote about the possibility of in- fection remaining for long periods in dead bodies after burial. His ability and kno-vl- edge in everything pertaining to medicine led the King of France to appoint him a mem- ber of the commission which investigated Mes- mer's work, and it was Franklin who wrote the reporj:. He proved himself a comparative anatomist in a description which he wrote about some fossil elephant teeth that he ex- amined. Even Dr. Jan Ingenhousz, physician to Maria Theresa and Joseph IT, sought his advice before inoculating the young princes. One of Franklin's papers was "A Conjecture as to the Cause of the Heat of the Blood in Health and of the Cold and Hot Fits of Some Fevers" (1750?). A curious Utile pamphlet is a "Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout," dealing with the hygiene and treatment of the disease which plagued him. It was written during one of his visits to Passy. The principal founder and first president of the Pennsylvania Hospital (1751), he wrote by request "Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital from its First Beginning to the Fifth Month, called May, 1754." Fifteen hundred copies were printed in quarto at his own press. Desirious of helping those who knew little of vaccination, he wrote "Some Account of the Success of Inoculation for the Small- pox in England and America, together with Plain Instructions by Which any Person may be Enabled to Perform the Operation and Conduct the Patient through the Distemper." London. Printed by W. Strahan, MDCCLIX. Franklin received the Copley medal from the Royal Society in recognition of his dis- coveries in electricity and held the LL. D. from St. Andrews ; the Yale and the Harvard A. M. for the same reason. The Medical Side of Benjamin Franklin. W. vV^F^I; ,'^"'- °^ Pennsylvania. Med. Bull., Philadelphia. June, 1910, vol. xxiii. No 4 iiemarnin Franklin from the Medical Vievypoint. I. u.^ Cuniston, New ork Med. Jour., 1909, Oeuvres completes. P. J. G. Cabanis. Paris, 1825 vol. V. ' The Story of a Famous Book (Franklin's Auto- biography). S. A. Green. Boston. 1871 J^7J'^^A°^ ""^ Sisn?rs of the Declaration of Independence. T. Cowperthwait, Philadelphia, I Frazee, Louis J. (1819-1905). Louis J. Frazee, son of Dr. Ephraim Frazee, of Mayslick, Mason County, Kentucky, was born in that town, August 23, 1819. He read medicine with his uncle. Dr. Anderson Doni- phan, in Germantown, Kentucky, and gradti- ated from the Louisville Institute (now Uni- versity) in March, 1841, settling in Mays- ville in 1842. With the exception of an ab- sence of eighteen months during 1844-1845 in Europe, he practised medicine there until December, 1851, when he removed to Louis- ville. In 1849 he published "The Medical Student in Europe," a volume of 197 pages, de- scriptive of his trip, and referring to some of the objects worth seeing in Europe, witth sketches of the prominent physicians, sur- geons, and hospitals of Paris. A second edition appeared in 1852. He was editor of the Transylvania Journal of Medicine in 1852 and 1853; also of the Louisville Medical Ga-
- ct!c in 1859, and wrote a report on "Indige-
nous Botany," and one of the "Mineral Waters of Kentucky," both published in the Trans- actions of the Kentucky State Medical So- ciety. He also contributed some articles to journals and held the chair of materia medica and therapeutics in the Kentucky School of Medicine for seven years, and the same chair during one session in the University of Louis- ville. For four years he was dean of the faculty of the first-named school. Phys and Surgs. of the United States. W. B Atkinson, 1878. Freeman, Nathaniel (1741-1827). Nathaniel Freeman was eminent as a physi- cian both in civil and military life. He was born at Dennis, Massachusetts, April 8, 1874, studied medicine under Dr. Cobb in Thomp- son, Connecticut, and in 1765 settled at Sand- wich, Massachusetts, to practice. During his early days there he read law under the cele- brated James Otis, a relative of his mother. He was active in patriotic work from the very outset of the trouble with Great Britain, being chairman of the Committee of Safety and the Committee of Correspondence of his town. He was a delegate to the House of Representatives of Massachusetts in 1775 ; became colonel of the provincial miliiia, and throughout the Revolution held various posi- tions of trust. From 1775 to 1881 he was judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and ultimately chief justice of the Court and of the Court Sessions, and for many years register of probate. From 1781 to 1793 he was briga- dier general of the miliiia. In spite of these military and legal entanglements his mind
