BERNAYS
81
BEST
County, then for two years was resident
physician, Presbyterian Eye, Ear and
Throat Hospital, Baltimore. Afterwards
he studied ophthalmology and otology at
the University of Vienna and in hospitals
of Paris, Berlin and London, next taking
a post-graduate course in histology and
pathology at Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore and acting as visiting surgeon.
In October, 1SS9, he removed to Washing-
ton and practised his specialty and mar-
ried, on May 18, 1899, Miss Emily Walker
Norvel. But after seven years of wed-
ded life a great catastrophe overtook the
family.
Dr. Belt, with his two sons, aged six and seven years, lost their lives in the railroad wreck at Terra Cotta, District of Columbia, December 30, 1906.
Belt was the originator and one of the organizers of the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and was surgeon and executive officer there. Also opthalmologist and otologist, Freedmen's Hospital, District of Columbia, and con- sulting ophthalmologist to the City and Emergency Hospital at Frederick, Mary- land. He was professor of ophthalmol- ogy and otology at Howard Medical School, District of Columbia. He was president of the Society of Ophthalmol- ogy and Otology, Washington; Surgeon, Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and published in the medi- cal journals many papers upon his specialty. D. S. L.
Amer. Med. Biug. Diet.
Minutes of Medical Society, D. C, January
16. 1907.
Washington Medical Annals, vi, 1907— S.
Lamb's History of Medical I'rpurirnent,
Howard University, D. C.
Bernays, Augustus Charles (1854-1907).
Augustus Charles Bernays was born in 1854 and was not yet eighteen when his remarkable career of scientific study and achievement commenced. He ma- triculated at the University of Heidel- berg in 1872 and graduated there. He also took the membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was intimately associated in his surgical
training with Simon, Lister, Marion
Sims, Lossen and von Langenbeck, the
last of whom he always characterized
as the prince of surgeons.
It was his original investigations on the anatomy of the knee-joint and of the heart which first made his name known everywhere where medical sci- ence is taught. His papers included:
"Ideal Cholecystotomy, a Successful Case; with critical remarks on the patho- logy and the different operative proce- dures practised on the system of gall vessels," 1SS5.
"Chip No. vii. Kolpohysterectomy. Successful cases of total extirpation of the uterus through the vagina," 1885.
"Chip No. viii. A case of cystic tumor of the jaw in a negro, and some new observations on the pathological histo- logy of this disease," 18S5.
"The Complete Method of Operation in Cases of Cancer of the Breast," 1885.
He died May 22, 1907, at the age of fifty-two, from the rupture of a cardiac aneurysm. He had been endowed with an intuitive diagnostic ability which was so marvelous at times as to be termed by those near him almost a gift of second sight, and now we are struck by the recollection that at various times in recent years he had discussed with us the possibility of an aneurysm of the aorta in his own case, although no physical evidences of the same were ever apparent. W. B.
Med. Mirror, St. Louis, 1894, v, port. (I. N.
Love).
St. Louis Medical Review, June, 1907. (W.
Bartlett.)
Best, Robert (1790-1830).
A native of Somersetshire, England, and born in 1790 he came to America in 1803. As a child he had but three months' schooling being early trained in the watch and clock-making trade, but he devoted his leisure to the study of mechanical sciences, and extended his skill to the manufacture of various kinds of scientific instruments. In ISIS the Western Museum of Cincinnati
