Bell.] -1- < fr " [March 21, 



had, several years previously, indicated his creed on the subject, by 

 introducing to the profession, by an introduction and notes, short mono- 

 graphs by Hey, Armstrong, and Lee, in 1842. 



The Treatise on Child-bed Fevers was pronounced by the Edinburgh 

 Journal to be superior to any one work upon the same subject. 



Memoir on the Ovum, Philosophical Society Transactions, translation 

 from the French of a small volume of Floureus on Phrenology. 



Dr. Meigs was no silent member of the different societies with which 

 he became connected. The Records of the Philadelphia College of 

 Physicians, of which he was some years Secretary, the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, and the Academy of Natural Science, bear proofs of his 

 professional and scientific zeal. Notice has already been taken of the 

 large share he had in editing and contributing to the North American 

 Medical Journal. He was also a contributor to Chapman's Journal of 

 Medical and Physical Sciences, and its successor in due sequence ; the 

 American Journal of Medical Science ; also the Medical Examiner, and 

 the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. 



Dr. Mei<£s, when Secretary of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 

 introduced to that body two gentlemen from New England, delegates to 

 i epresent in different quarters the flood of evil resulting from the use of 

 intoxicating liquors, and to take measures for diminishing its violence 

 and destructive effects, by discontinuing the use of distilled spirits. His 

 own habits always temperate, and finding in a fervid imagination incen- 

 tives to thought, he never sought the unnatural excitement of the bottle; 

 and hence readily adopted the first steps in the temperance reformation, 

 by his abstaining steadily from the use of distilled spirits, and withhold- 

 in" - them, as far as possible, from his patients. He did not carry his 

 detestation of alcohol so far, however, as to inhibit its use in fermented 

 liquors, and tobacco found in him a. regular customer. 



Dr. Meigs allowed himself but little respite from professional toil, and, 

 with few exceptions, took no vacations, such as are of right, and almost 

 of necessity, the practice of most medical men in the summer months. 

 In the year 1842 he visited Mackinaw and the Falls ol St. Anthony, to 

 recruit his almost exhausted energies, and in 1845 he visited Europe for 

 a similar purpose. During a few months absence on this occasion, he 

 made the acquaintance of many of the medical notabilities of France 

 and England, who were prepared, by the reputation which he had 

 acquired, and a knowledge of his works, to receive him with appreciative 

 cordiality. In Paris he read a paper on Cyanosis, in French, before the 

 Academy of Medicine, and received warm commendation from some of 

 the members, not only for his very ingenious view of the subject, but for 

 his good idiomatic and well-spoken language on the occasion. 



At a later period, in his Treatise on Certain Diseases of Young Chil- 

 dren, he enters into anatomical and physiological details, explanatory of 

 the cause of Cyanosis, and of his new method of treating it. The novel 

 feature in the latter consisted in turning the child on its right side, and 

 slightly raising its head and shoulders. Several instances are given by 

 the author of the success of this procedure, which, considering that 



