American Medical Biographies/Young, Daniel S.
Young, Daniel S. (1827–1902)
Daniel S. Young, surgeon, artist and inventor, was born in New York in 1827 and graduated in medicine at the Albany Medical College, New York, in 1855, settling in Cincinnati. During the war he was surgeon of the 21st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, afterward lecturing on surgery in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He contributed some valuable papers on military surgery to the Cincinnati Journal of Medicine, which was edited by G. C. Blackman, accompanying them with beautiful colored illustrations, all his own work, he being an expert draftsman, painter, engraver, lithographer and block-cutter. Young was engaged in writing a "Surgical History of the Civil War," but abandoned the work when the War Department announced the preparation of such a work by the surgeon-general's office. He was for some years connected with the surgical staff of the Cincinnati Hospital and had a wide reputation as a surgeon and obstetrician. He died in 1902.
Dan Young, as he was known, was a versatile man. Years ago he discovered that zinc plates might be used for engraving but never thought of patenting his invention. He was a master of the art of etching and modelling; and some beautiful samples of his work are to be found in the library of the Cincinnati Hospital. He was also a violin-maker; in fact, there was hardly any kind of handiwork in which he did not excel. In making splints or dressings of any kind he was quick as he was resourceful and artistic. It is but natural to suppose that he possessed the eccentricities of genius to a liberal extent.
Young in 1867 reported a case of gangrene of the heart, a pathological curiosity. In 1880 he made a drawing within twelve hours after the shooting of President Garfield, showing the exact location of the bullet; and the autopsy, made many weeks later, proved the correctness of Young's diagram.