Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/571

ROMANS 549 HOMANS out to dinner the most gifted woman in Eu- rope. Always standing erect, well costumed, alert, she went out to India to meet her daugh- ter, the wife of an Anglo-Indian, when seventy- two years old, entirely alone. Their son, John Homans 2d, was born in Boston, March IS, 1857, graduated fram Har- vard in 1878, and from Harvard Medical School in 1882, was house surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, studied abroad, and practised general medicine in Bos- ton. A single man, member of social clubs, he had a great executive ability and a rare gift in managing men. His friends, and he had many, knew him as "Young John" to dis- tinguish him from his uncle. To his enthu- siasm and persistent labor was due, in a large measure, the gathering of the funds for the erection of the building of the Boston Medical Library at 8 The Fenway, dedicated a year before his death. A member of the executive committee of that organization for the last ten years of his life, he worked early and late to advance its interests, making the Library more democratic, acting as chairman of the house committee, and helping to build and to main- tain a dignified home for the medical profes- sion of Greater Boston. As president of the trustees of the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary, a position also held by his father, he was instrumental in erecting a new building. Other positions he held were : di- rector of the Home for Aged Men and of the Asylum Farm School for Indigent Boys, secre- tary Massachusetts Cremation Society, presi- dent Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association, assistant secretary Massachusetts Humane Society. He died of heart disease, May 4, 1902, at the age of forty-five. Walter L. Burrage. Boston Med. and Surg. Tour., 1886, vol. cxv. p. 268. Hist. Har. Med. School, T. F. Harrington. New York, 1905. Hist. Boston City Hosp., 1906, 202-204, D. V. Cheever. Private Sources. Homans, John (IS^e-lQO.^V John Homans, a pioneer ovariotomist in New England, was born in Boston, Noveinber 26, 1836. His grandfather, of the same name, was a graduate of Harvard College, 1772, and an army surgeon during the War of Indepen- dence. His father, also John, was a graduate of Harvard College, 1812, the Medical School, 1815, and practised medicine in Worcester, Brookfield and Boston, being president of the State Medical Society, 1859-1862. John Homans the third, was graduated from Harvard College in 1858, and received his M. D. from her Medical School in 1862. The same spirit which inspired his grandfather in 1776, impelled him, at the outbreak of the Civil War, to offer his services to the government. He was at that time house surgeon in the Massachusetts General Hospital, and had not yet taken his medical degree. In January, 1862, he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the United States Navy, and served on the gunboat Aroostook during the search for the disabled United States steamship I'er- mont, in Hampton Roads, and later on the James River, during McClellan's campaign. He was at the battles at Fort Darling, Virginia, and at Malvern Hill. In November, 1862, he was given a commission as assistant surgeon in the regular army, and was at New Orleans, and later, on the staff of Gen Banks, took part in the disastrous Red River expedition. Those of his friends who were fortunate enough to have heard his informal accounts of that ill-advised expedition and of the search for the Vermont will not soon forget them. As side-lights upon much that passes for his- tory, they were instructive as well as entertain- ing. Subsequently he was ordered to Wash- mgton, and held various surgical appointments in connection with the Army of the Shenan- doah. He was surgeon-in-chief of the first division of the Nineteenth Army Corps, was present at the battles of Winchester and Cedar Creek, and ultimately became medical inspector on the staff of Gen. Sheridan. He resigned from the army May, 1865, after an eventful career of a little over three years, and immedi- ately went to Europe for studv and travel, spending most of his time in Vienna and Paris. In November, 1866, he returned to Boston and began to practise, being appointed suc- cessively surgeon to the Boston Dispensary, the Children's Hospital, and in August, 1868, to the Carney Hospital. His second ovariotomy was done there in April, 1873, and he became consulting surgeon in 1880. It was here that he did many ovariotomies and demonstrated that the operation was not as serious as imagined. He developed an antiseptic technic and trained the sisters in charge of the operating-room with great care. Later he transferred his ac- tivities to St. Margaret's Hospital, where came for operation patients with ovarian tumors from all over New England and the provinces. Many times Dr. Homans paid the patient's expenses out of his own pocket. Be- tween 1872 and 1900 he performed six hundred and one ovariotomies. He was among the first to open the abdomen for abscess of the appen- dix. It was considered a great honor bv the