Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/194

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BLANC


BLATCHFORD


though a reserved manner made her rather awe-inspiring to strangers.

She lived to see her views, which had been scouted half a century earlier, accepted as commonplaces and the re- forms for which her youth had been given growing and flourishing.

She died of an enterocolitis, September 8, at her summer home at York Cliffs, Maine. A. B. W.

Mary Putnam Jacobi. Women in Medicine,

in Woman's Work in America.

A. S. B. Woman's Journal, Boston, Sept. 10,

1910.

New York Evening Post, Sept. 8, 1910.

Personal information from colleagues.

Blanc, Henry (1859-1896).

Henry William Blanc was born in Louisiana, 1S59, and died in New Orleans July 25, 1896. After graduating in medicine from Tulane University he spent two years in Europe studying dermatology in Vienna, Hamburg and Paris, then became lecturer in dermatol- ogy at the Tulane University and visit- ing dermatologist to the Charity Hospital, New Orleans. He was the founder of the New Orleans Polyclinic; associate editor on The " New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal" staff and a frequent contributor to medical journals on der- matology, his writings on leprosy showing rare knowledge in one so young, and, had he lived, he would, undoubtedly, have been one of the world's best-known authorities on this disease.

J. M. W.

Blatchford, Thomas Windeatt (1794- 1S66).

Thomas W. Blatchford was born in Top- sham, Devonshire, England, on the twentieth of July, 1794. His father, the Rev. Samuel Blatchford, removed to this country in the year 1795, when Thomas was an infant, and first settled in Bedford, New York.

Blatchford's early studies were prose- cuted under the direction of his father, in Lansingburgh Academy, of which his father was the principal. In October,


1S10, he began to study medicine in the office of Dr. John Taylor, of Lansing- burgh, and in November, IS 13, matric- ulated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In August, 1814, he was ap- pointed resident physician, for one year, of the New York State Prison, in Green- wich Street, then a suburb of New York. At the end of the year he received an offer to travel in Europe as physician to a gen- tleman, a purser in the United States Navy, who during the War of 1S12 had become suddenly wealthy and thereby lost the balance of his mind But the patient attempted to kill Blatchford, so upon landing at Liverpool the engagement was concluded, and he went to London, where he attended two courses of lectures at the united schools of Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals, given by Sir Astley Cooper and Prof. Cline. In the spring of 1S16 he returned to New York, and after attending another full course of lectures at the college at which he had previously matriculated, he graduated in 1S17. His graduating thesis was upon "Feigned Diseases," being the result of his observations and experience dur- ing his residence as physician at the New York State prison. Immediately after receiving his degree he practised at No. 85 Fulton Street, New York, for one year. At this time he was induced to remove to Jamaica, Long Island, and in February, 1S19, married Harriet, the daughter of Thomas Wickes, a descend- ant of one of the original patentees of the town of Huntington in 1666.

After nine years, in consequence of arduous duty, he was attacked with fever which brought him very low, and in 1S28 he began practice in Troy.

Dr. Blatchford was favorably known by his published papers and essays, which are as follows: "Inaugural Disser- tation on Feigned Diseases," in 1817; "Letter on Corsets," in 1S23; a work entitled "Letters to Married Ladies," about 1S25; "Homeopathy Illustrated," 1842; "Report on Hydrophobia," 1S56, read before the American Medical Associ- ation and published in their transac-