1917-18.] 
Obituary Notices. 
13 
The following Notice is contributed by Professor 
J. Clarence Webster. 
Nicholas Senn was born in Switzerland in 1844. In 1852 his family 
migrated to the State of Wisconsin, where his early education was obtained. 
He studied medicine in Chicago, where he graduated in 1868. After 
several years of practice in Wisconsin, he studied in the University of 
Munich, where he obtained a medical degree in 1878. He then practised 
in Milwaukee until 1893, when he took up his permanent residence in 
Chicago. 
From this time until his death on January 2, 1908, he was one of the 
foremost surgeons in America, and he established a reputation which was 
recognised in every civilised country. From 1884 to 1888 he was Professor 
of Surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago, and there- 
after, until the time of his death, he was Head of the Department of 
Surgery in Rush Medical College, affiliated with the University of Chicago. 
He is generally credited with having been the first to introduce modern 
scientific and experimental methods in American surgery. He was a 
recognised authority in military surgery, and founded the Association of 
Military Surgeons of the United States in 1891. He was Surgeon-General 
of the State of Illinois, and served in an important position in the Spanish- 
American War. 
He was famous as an operator, as a teacher, and as an investigator. He 
had an extraordinary capacity for hard work, which was carried on as 
a sacred duty in the service of his fellow-men. His benefactions were 
numerous, among them being gifts of a very valuable medical library 
to one of the leading libraries of Chicago, and of a clinical building to 
Rush Medical College. 
In his later years he was a great traveller, accounts of his journeys 
having been published in six volumes. He wrote many books and medical 
articles, and was the recipient of many honours from his own and foreign 
countries. 
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1902. 
