American Medical Biographies/Batchelder, John Putnam
Batchelder, John Putnam (1784–1868)
John Putnam Batchelder was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, August 6, 1784; he was an only child and his devoted parents did everything in their power to further his ambition and bring out his latent powers. He was allowed to pursue the bent of his own inclination and even before he regularly entered anyone's office, or notified the community of his determination to study medicine, we find him prescribing for the various ailments of the family servants, and giving vegetable powders to his father's domestics. Finding that even when a boy he did not kill anybody, he soon moved one grade higher and sought to cure the afflicted and accordingly entered the office of Dr. Samuel Fitch and Dr. Matthias Spalding, of Greenfield, New Hampshire, obtained a license to practise in 1807, and was rewarded with a medical degree at the Harvard Medical School in 1815, after defending a thesis "On the disease of the heart, styled Aneurism." He practised in Charlestown, New Hampshire, during which time he was a very active member of the New Hampshire Medical Society, and later practised in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Utica, New York, and finally in New York City. Although Dr. Batchelder did not enter a classical college, his general education was liberal and so creditably did he avail himself of surrounding advantages that Middlebury College gave him an A. M. in 1821 and Berkshire Medical Institution an honorary M. D. in 1826.
He was a celebrated lecturer on anatomy and surgery in his era and was professor on both these topics in the Castleton, Vermont, Medical School as well as at the Berkshire Medical Institution in Massachusetts. He wrote many papers on medical topics, such as: —"Cholera;" "Compressed Sponge;" "Tracheotomy;" "Fractures" and "Paralysis." He was also a remarkable operator for those early days of surgery, doing many lithotomies with great success, extracting cataracts most delicately and otherwise operating upon the eye, of which he made a sort of specialty; he became famous for a ligation of the carotid (1825) to cut off the blood supply from a large sarcoma of the jaw, which he later removed entirely. It is said that he was the first surgeon in America to remove successfully the head of the femur and he actually first performed in this country rhinoplastic, as well as plastic, operations for congenital defects of the lower lip (1828).
Dr. Batchelder was exceedingly clever as an inventor and improver of surgical instruments and apparatus, and invented the first craniotome that could be worked with one hand. He died in New York City, April 8, 1868, aged 83 years.
He was an eloquent man and helped himself in his lectures with shorthand notes, but as time went on his memory failed him in the very system that he had himself invented and at his death immense piles of his shorthand books had to be thrown into the fire, for nobody could decipher them.