American Medical Biographies/Potter, Hazard Arnold
Potter, Hazard Arnold (1810–1869)
Hazard Arnold Potter was one of our bold original pioneer surgeons who lived in New York state about the middle of the last century. He was born in Potter township, Ontario (now Yates) County, New York, December 22, 1810, and died in Geneva, New York, December 3, 1869.
He graduated in medicine at Bowdoin in 1835 and began practice in Rhode Island, but soon returned to his native town, where he practised from 1835 to 1853. He settled in Geneva in the latter year and passed the rest of his life in that town.
In 1837 he called attention to the presence of arterial blood in the veins of parts paralyzed by injury to the spinal cord; he trephined the spine for depressed fracture of the arches of the fifth and sixth vertebrae, in 1844, and did the same operation four times subsequently, twice with success. He ligated the carotid artery five times, with success four times; he removed the upper jaw six times and the lower five times. He advocated abdominal operations and did a gastrotomy in 1843 to relieve intussusception, with success. He operated upon fibroid tumors through the abdomen five times, with three successes; and did twenty-two ovariotomies, fourteen being successful, one of these was what was known as a double ovariotomy at that time. Again he did a second operation on a patient within seventeen months. He was regimental surgeon of the 59th New York Volunteers in 1862.
He had the reputation of being a clever and capable surgeon, very profane, and a fairly hard drinker. He had two daughters and two sons, and is remembered by his townsmen as being a one-legged man.