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gynecology and abdominal surgery, a position retained until death.
He took great interest in medical societies, and belonged to the Louisville Surgical Society, Jefferson County Med- ical Society, Kentucky State Medical Association, and the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, of which he was elected president in 1900.
Perhaps the greater number of his contributions to surgical literature were read before this society, his last con- tribution being "Some Remote Symp- toms and Effects of Cholelithiasis." He was also one of the editors of the " Louisville Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery."
He married Ella Powers Gardner in 1S86, who preceded him to the great beyond but a few months and by whom he had one child, a daughter.
He had the distinction of removing the largest ovarian cyst in medical history, a report of which appears in "Annals of Surgery" of January, 1900 — " Mammoth Ovarian Tumors with Re- port of a Cyst weighing Two Hundred and Forty-five Pounds." He died May 4, 1908, of acute pulmonary edema. R. L. I.
Cassels, John Lang (1S0S-1879).
John L. Cassels, a physician and scientist, of Cleveland, Ohio, was born near Glasgow, Scotland September 15, 1808 and went to Glasgow schools, then on to the University. During his second year financial reverses at home compelled him to resign the career which he had chosen, and in 1827 he came to the United States with an older brother, who had lived for some years near Utica, New York. After a brief visit the young man es- sayed to support himself by teaching school and wandered fortuitously to Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York, where was located the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons of the western district of the state of New York. Apparently inspired by the genus loci, he at once decided to study medicine, and in 1830 became pupil to Dr. Moses Johnson of
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Fairfield. He also attended the lectures of the college, and exhibited such energy and aptness that he was speedily appoint- ed demonstrator of anatomy by Dr. James McNaughton, then professor of anatomy. Here too began his associa- tion with Dr. John Delamater, the pro- fessor of surgery in the Fairfield College, an intimacy which greatly influenced his later life. Graduating in 1834, in the following year he began to practise in Chenango County, New York, but was almost immediately called to the chair of chemistry in the Willoughby Medical College, Ohio, which position he occupied for eight years. In 1837 Dr. Cassels, who was an expert geologist, was appointed by Gov. Marcy first assistant geologist of the New York State Geological Survey, and succeeded to this position without interference with his college work. On the organization of the Cleveland Medical College in 1843, he cast in his lot with Drs. Delamater, Kirtland and Ackley, and accepted the chair of materia rnedica in the new institution. In 1S56, on the resigna- tion of Prof. St. John, Dr. Cassels was chosen his successor in the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and toxicology, and continued to occupy this position with eminent ability and success until disabled by a stroke of apoplexy in 1873. Upon his retirement he was made emeritus professor.
The popularization of science had always been one of his hobbies, and in 1S39 and again in 1849 he had given pop- ular lectures in Cleveland on chemistry. Even after his disablement, during the remaining years of his life he beguiled the tedium of confinement by the com- position and publication in the journals of the day popular lectures on various branches of science. Dr. Cassels died in Cleveland, June 11, 1879.
He married in 1838 Cornelia Olin, daughter of Judge John H. Olin of Shaftsbury, Vermont, by whom he had one child, a daughter. He was a member of the State Society in 1852, and was elected a corresponding member of the
