Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/548

HILDRETH 526 HILDRETH graduate of Harvard (1814), and a man of rare scholarly attainments. His mother was a daughter of Jonathan Zane. He was graduated at Kenyon College in 1840, and at the Medical College of Ohio, in Cincinnati, in 1844. After serving as resident physician of the State Hos- pital for one year, he settled in Wheeling. He was president of the Wheeling Board of Edu- cation; also of the Medical Society of West Virginia, in 1876 and 1877, and served on im- portant committees of the American Medical Association. Dr. Hildreth was a member of the State Board of Examiners for surgeons in the army, and from 1873 till 188S a member of the United States Board of Surgeons for pensions. Among his contributions to medical literature may be nained, "Ice in Obstetric Practice" (18.S0) ; "Climatology and Epidemic Diseases in West Virginia" (1868); (Topog- raphy, Meteorology, Climatology and Epi- demics of Ohio County," (1870) ; "A Report on Medical Botany in West Virginia" (1871). Dr. Hildreth was a consistent Christian and an active member of the Episcopal Church. He was one of the founders of the West Vir- ginia Hospital for the Insane, and a member of the first Board of Directors in 1864. Frank Le Moyne Hupp. Hildreth, Samuel Prescotl (1783-1863). Samuel Prescott Hildreth, one of the earliest and best of the pioneer physicians of Ohio, was born in the town of Methuen, Essex Coun- ty, Massachusetts, September 30, 1783, the son of Dr. Samuel Hildreth. His early life was passed upon a farm, but eventually he decided to study medicine, and studied under Dr. Thomas Kittredge of Andover. In 180S he settled down to practise in Hempstead, New Hampshire. In September, 1806, he mounted his horse, carrying with him all his possessions, and directed his course towards Marietta, Ohio. On reaching the town, October 4, 1806, he began practice at once, but the inhabitants of a flourishing town called Belprie (Belpre), some fourteen miles further down the river, appealed to him to come to them, because they had no physician among them, and Dr. Hil- dreth went at once, reaching there December 10, 1806, the very night on which the unfortun- ate Blennerhasset abandoned forever his fairy isle, which lay just off Belprie in the river. In the following summer an extensive epidemic of malarial fever prevailed along the course of the Ohio river, and Dr. Hildreth found his hands full. However, in August he managed to snatch sufficient time from the pressing du- ties of his profession to marry Rhoda Cook, an immigrant from New Bedford, Massachusetts. An attack of lameness in one of his hips, due, it was believed, to excessive riding on horse- back, induced Dr. Hildreth to return to Mari- etta in March, 1808, and there he remained until his death on July 24, 1863. Dr. Hildreth was always interested in the advancement of the medical profession, and in 1811 drafted and secured the passage of a bill for the regulation of the practice of medicine and for the organization of medical societies in Ohio. This bill became law. As a medical writer Dr. Hildreth was one of the best known of his day, and his papers were received with pleasure by the few journals then existing. As early as 1808 he contributed to the New York Medical Repository (vol. x) a very full account of the epidemic of malarial fever which had prevailed in the Ohio valley during the preceding year. In 1812 he con- tributed to the same journal (vol. xv) a de- scription of the American Colombo, with a drawing of the plant, and in 1822 (vol. xxii) articles on hydrophobia and a curious case of Siamese twins occurring in his own practice. In 1822-23 a widespread epidemic of malarial fever again prevailed throughout the Ohio val- ley, and was described in the following year (1824) by Dr. Hildreth, who had himself suf- fered from the disease and recovered under the treatment of "Jesuits" bark in quarter ounce doses every two hours, alternated with a solu- tion of arsenic." This description was in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Phy- sical Sciences, and followed by an article on the sequelae of the epidemic, which appeared in the Western Journal of Medicine at Cincin- nati in 1825. For nearly forty years he contributed to Silliman's Journal on meteorology, geology and paleontology. Some of his writings were : "History of the Diseases and Climate of Southeastern Ohio" 1837; "Pioneer History," 1848; "Lives of the Early Settlers of Ohio," 18.S2; "Contributions to the Early History of the Northwest," 1864. Dr. Hildreth became an honorary member of the Masachusctts Medical Society in 1837; he was president of the Ohio Medical Convention of 1839, and on retiring from office delivered a valedictory address on the diseases and the climatologj' of southeastern Ohio, most inter- esting and valuable in character. {Journal of Proceedings of Medical Convention," Ohio, 1839.) But, in addition to these strictly medical sub- jects. Dr. Hildreth was an earnest and enthu- siastic student of natural history, geology and