MOTT, VALENTINE. 



595 



town, L. I., and in 1804 entered Columbia 

 College as a medical student, becoming a pri- 

 vate pupil in medicine at the same time, of his 

 relative, Dr. Valentine Seaman. In 1806 he 

 was graduated M. D., and proceeded almost im- 

 mediately to Europe, where he visited regularly 

 for months, St. Thomas', Bartholomew's, and 

 Guy's Hospitals, where he enjoyed the advan- 

 tage of the clinical instruction of Abernethy, 

 Sir Charles Bell, and Sir Astley Cooper, choos- 

 ing the latter as his private preceptor, and 

 attending also the lectures of Currie and 

 Haighton. From London he went to Edin- 

 burgh, where he attended the lectures of Hope, 

 Playfair, and Gregory, as well as the prelections 

 of Dugald Stewart. His skill and intrepidity 

 as an operator, even at this early period, began 

 to win him renown ; and on his return to the 

 United States in 1809, he was at once called to 

 fill the chair of surgery in Columbia College. 

 This responsible position he held with credit to 

 himself and the college till the medical depart- 

 ment of Columbia College was merged in 1813 

 in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 

 when he was immediately called to the same 

 chair in the new college, where he remained 

 till 1826, when some difficulties arising between 

 the trustees and professors on the principles of 

 collegiate government, he resigned, withdrew 

 from the school, and with Drs. Hosack, Mitchill, 

 Francis, and others, founded the " Rutgers Medi- 

 cal College," which, however, was prevented 

 from further action by the Legislature, in con- 

 sequence of an alleged invalidity of its charter, 

 after an existence of four years. In 1830 Dr. 

 Mott returned to the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons as Professor of Surgery, where he 

 remained till 1840, when he became President 

 of the Faculty and Professor of Surgery and 

 Eelative Anatomy in the new University Medi- 

 cal School. Of the science of Relative Anato- 

 my, one of the greatest importance to the 

 surgeon, he is considered the author. In 1860 

 he retired from the active duties of his profes- 

 sorship, after a service of more than fifty years, 

 and was immediately elected Professor Emeritus. 

 In this capacity he occasionally lectured to the 

 classes during each subsequent year. He was 

 the first to introduce in this country clinical 

 instruction in surgery. 



But while maintaining a high character as 

 a lecturer and teacher of surgical science, Dr. 

 Mott was winning a magnificent reputation as 

 a practical surgeon. Cool, calm, and always 

 thoroughly self-possessed, he spared no labor 

 or pains to make himself perfectly master 

 of the anatomy of whatever portion of the 

 body was to be the subject of his operations. 

 Through life it was his uniform practice never 

 to perform an important operation upon the 

 living subject until he had first performed it 

 on the cadaver. When but thirty-three years 

 of age, in 1818, he placed a ligature around the 

 bracheo-cephalic trunk or arteria innominata, 

 only two inches from the heart, for aneurism 

 of the right sub-clavian artery, for the first 



time in the history of surgery. The patient 

 survived the operation twenty-eight days, and 

 thus demonstrated the feasibility of this haz- 

 ardous and thus far unparalleled undertaking. 

 He discovered in this case that though all 

 supply of blood to the blood-vessels of the 

 right arm was apparently cut off, the circula- 

 tion was kept np by the interosculating blood- 

 vessels, the pulsation at the wrist maintained, 

 and no evidence of loss of vitality or warmth 

 manifested in the limb. The patient finally 

 died from secondary hemorrhage. In July. 

 1864, Dr. A. W. Smyth, of New Orleans, per- 

 formed the operation successfully, and the pa- 

 tient entirely recovered, thus demonstrating 

 that it was both possible and justifiable. 



In 1828 he exsected the entire right clavicle 

 for malignant disease of that bone, where it 

 was necessary to apply forty ligatures, expose 

 . the pleura, and look for arteries displaced to an 

 almost incredible degree, by the abnormal 

 growth of a cancerous tumor. This, the most 

 dangerous and difficult operation which can 

 be performed on the human body, had never 

 before been attempted, and though com- 

 pletely successful (the patient still living and 

 enjoying perfect health), it was thirty years be- 

 fore it was again performed, either in Europe 

 or America. In 1821 he performed the first 

 operation for osteo-sarcoma of the lower jaw. 

 In 1822 he introduced his original operation 

 for immobility of the lower jaw. He was the 

 first surgeon who removed the lower jaw for 

 necrosis, and the first to tie successfully the 

 primitive iliac artery for aneurism. Other of 

 his original operations were cutting out two 

 inches of the deep jugular vein, inseparably im- 

 bedded in a tumor, and tying both ends of the 

 vein, and closing, with a fine ligature, wounds 

 of large veins of a longitudinal or transverse 

 kind, even where an olive sliced piece had been 

 cut out. He tied the common carotid artery 

 forty-six times ; cut- for stone one hundred and 

 sixty-five times; and amputated nearly one 

 thousand limbs. Sir Astley Cooper, his former 

 preceptor, himself one of the most eminent 

 surgeons of modern times, said of him : " He 

 has performed more of the great operations 

 than any man living, or that ever did live." 

 Yet it would be doing a great injustice to Dr. 

 Mott's memory, to intimate that he was ambi- 

 tious to operate under all circumstances. No 

 surgeon ever investigated his cases with 

 more conscientious care and thoroughness, or 

 weighed with more deliberation the question, 

 " Is an operation necessary ? " That he decid- 

 ed in favor of operating when some of his 

 associates hesitated, as was sometimes the case, 

 was due rather to his large experience than to 

 an overweening fondness for the use of the 

 knife. Gifted with a constitution of remarka- 

 ble vigor and nerves of extraordinary steadi- 

 ness, he continued to operate with his usual 

 success, and to lecture on surgery with great 

 ability, till within a few days of his decease. 

 But though surgery was his favorite depart- 



