Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/808

METTAUER 786 METTAUER therapeutics, materia medica, midwifery and medical jurisprudence in the medical depart- ment of Randolph-Macon College. He also served for a short time as professor of sur- gery in the Washington University of Balti- more, Maryland. Of the many able men that Old Dominion has given to the medical profession, Dr. Mettauer was, unquestionably, the most re- markable. By nature a great surgeon, he was also an able physician, and a voluminous con- tributor to medical literature. His marvelous surgical skill and ingenuity soon obtained for him such a reputation that, despite the fact of his work lying in an obscure country vil- lage and before the day of numerous rail- roads, patients flocked to him from all around, some even from abroad. He performed almost, if not every, operation known in his day and it is certain he did 800 operations for cataract; some have put the number far above this. In operations for vesical calculus, his total exceeded by 175, Dudley's 225, making in all 400. His many contributions to surgery, which were freely given to the profession in his published articles, should have obtained for him the position he deserves among the world's greatest surgeons, but this has never been accorded him. In medical history he has received scant mention, and yet, to him, unquestionably, belongs the priority of the cure of vesico-vaginal fistula. His first successful operation was done in August, 1838, and pre- ceded Dr. Hayward's by nearly a year, and Sim's by ten. In this operation he used a conoidal speculum, curved scissors and lead- wire sutures. He was a strong advocate of lead-wire as a suture material in all plastic work. He was the first surgeon in Virginia, and one of the first in the United States, to operate successfully for cleft palate, his first operation having bee/i done in 1827. The most notable of his articles was one entitled "The Continued Fever of Middle Virginia from 1816 to 1829," which shows con- clusively that he recognized typhoid fever as a distinct disease, and was familiar with its characteristic lesions. In other papers he advo- cates new methods of treatment and new uses of remedies, often showing that he was far ahead of his time in his views and practice. Almost every medical journal of Virginia pub- lished his papers. During the whole of his professional life he was a constant contributor to medical jour- nals, though the period of his greatest literary activity was from 1825 to 1845. He contributed articles to almost every medical journal pub- lished in this country in his time. Beside his articles he left in addition a large num- ber of manuscripts which were in the pos- session of Dr. George Ben Johnston (q. v.), of Richmond, Virginia. Triere was one work on surgery of 3,000 closely written legal-cap pages. Why he never published it was not known. "This work shows," says Dr. Johnston of Richmond, Vir- ginia, "an intimate and enormous knowledge of all the directions that surgery in his time took, and not a little of the choicest fruit of elegant acquaintance wiih the older literature is scattered here and there throughout the work." Many young men who desired to study medi- cine became his private pupils, and the need of assistants and nurses in his enormous work led to the organization of these students into a medical school in 1837. From that- date until 1848, the school was known as Mettauer's Medical Institute, and from 1848 to its dis- continuance about 1860, it was a chartered institution, termed the Medical Department of Randolph-Macon College. The sessions of this school were ten months in length, and on its rolls were usually from thirty to thirty- five students. Some of these students gradu- ated, but it is improbable that any went imme- diately into practice, though the school was recognized by some of the best larger city colleges. In 1848 the faculty consisted of three doctors, John Peter Mettauer and his brother and son, both named Francis Joseph. There is ample authority for the statement that for forty years Dr. Mettauer had always from forty-five to sixty surgical cases under his care. Not only was his private hospital constantly filled, but also the hotels at Kings- ville and Worsham, neighboring villages, and many private residences were often occupied by patients awaiting their turn for operation, or just recovering from one. Dr. Mettauer was an ingenious mechanic, and under his direction many of his instru- ments were made by his students in the shop of old Peter Porter in Farmville. Some of these instruments are the property of Dr. George Benjamin Johnston. Some are made of iron and others of silver. Some were made by the doctor himself, and others by an old negro in the county who was a skilful artisan in gold and silver. In appearance Mettauer was a man of strik- ing personality, tall, well-formed and robust, his forehead was high and intellectual; his eyes piercing black and overshadowed by heavy brows. In his habits he was exclusive, admit- ting few to intimacy. In versatility, originality and skill he was unsurpassed, and practical