778 
German industry, especially when we come to 
the, Meyers, Miillers, Schmidts and Schmitts. 
In other words, many able physicians are of 
that exclusively local importance so well de- 
scribed in Sainte Beuve’s famous reply to 
Matthew Arnold: “He was important to us.” 
The introduction to this Cyclopedia con- 
sists of a series of valuable historical sketches 
on the development of different branches of 
medical science in America, notably those of 
Dr. Charles R. Bardeen on anatomy, Dr. 
Martin B. Tinker on surgery, and the his- 
tories of gynecology and obstetrics by Dr. 
Kelly himself. Few specialists seem to know 
-or care so little about the history of their sub- 
ject as gynecologists, probably because its de- 
velopment has been mainly technical and in- 
strumental. In this regard, Dr. Kelly’s sketch 
may be pronounced the best history of Ameri- 
ean gynecology that has yet appeared. It is 
memorable that operative gynecology, which 
had no existence as a specialty before the 
nineteenth century, is largely of American 
origin—in the first instance, an expedient to 
repair the sequels of backwoods obstetrics, 
and that its principal founders—McDowell, 
Marion Sims, Battey, Nott, Emmet, Boze- 
man, Gaillard Thomas—have been natives of 
the southern states. 
Of especial historical interest are the no- 
tices of the colonial pamphleteers on smallpox 
and vaccination, the eighteenth century lead- 
ers (Rush, Morgan, Shippen, Physick), the 
pioneers in the surgery of the vascular system 
and the joints, the discoverers and exploiters 
of surgical anesthesia, the medical botanists, 
the medical jurisconsults, the important 
physicians of the Philadelphia group, and such 
later worthies as William Pepper, Walter 
Reed, Nicholas Senn or Elizabeth Blackwell. 
A biography of Hezekiah Beardsley, who, 
in 1788, described congenital hypertrophic 
stenosis of the pylorus, appears for the first 
time. There have been some omissions, per- 
haps unavoidable in works of this kind, in par- 
ticular, Bowditch the physiologist, Bigelow 
-the surgeon and the clinicians James Jackson 
and John K. Mitchell. Of John C. Otto, of 
Philadelphia, who, in 1803, first described 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 907 
hemophilia,’ perhaps “Non dat quod non 
habet.” It is doubtful if Ricord and Brown 
Séquard can properly be included among 
Americans, since both were of French origin 
and all their life-work was identified with 
French medicine. On similar grounds, the 
omission of William Charles Wells, of South 
Carolina, memorable to physicists for his 
“ Hssay on Dew,” seems not improper. A few 
points in priority in Dr. Tinker’s surgical 
introduction may be noted. It is frequently 
asserted that Dr. Dixi Crosby, of New Hamp- 
shire, was the first to perform the inter-scap- 
ular-thoracie amputation (excision of arm, 
scapula and clavicle) in 1836. It had al- 
ready been performed by Ralph Cuming, an 
English naval surgeon, in 1808.2 Dupuytren 
cured a popliteal aneurism by compression in 
1818,* long before Jonathan Knight (1845) 
or O’Bryen Bellingham (1847), although 
Knight is undoubtedly entitled to the credit 
of doing this by digital compression. If Dr. 
Heine Marks really sutured a wounded heart 
before Farina and the Italian surgeons, it re- 
mains for him to prove it, as he mentions not 
a stitch of it in his published paper. 
These volumes are embellished with many 
interesting portraits, those of Asa Gray, 
Fordyce Barker, Dewees, Agnew, Senn and 
Leidy being particularly good, while those of 
John Morgan, Physick, Horner (of Horner’s 
muscle), Caspar Wistar, J. P. Mettauer and 
Willard Parker are probably copied for the 
first time. Many of the biographies have pre- 
served traits of eccentricity in medical men 
who happened to be oddfish, more especially 
those from the piquant pen of Miss Davina 
Waterson. The following sentences of Joseph 
Leidy on introducing himself before a lecture 
are an example of the utter freedom from 
swagger and snobbery which distinguishes 
the true man of science: 
My name is Joseph Leidy, doctor of medicine. 
I was born in this city the ninth of September, 
1823, and have lived here ever since. My father 
* Med. Repository, New York, 1803, VI., 1-4. 
3 Lond. M. Gaz., 1829-30, V., 273. 
* Bull. Fac. de méd. de Par., 1818, VI., 242. 
5 Med. Fortnightly, St. Louis, 1893, III., 44-46. 
