Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/339

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DAVEIS 2

Alice Mitchell and had one son and three daughters. His second wife (in 1S70) was Mrs. Sarah Sage, but he had no more children. Daugherty died of apoplexy on May 23, 1904 at his own home.

M. M. C.

Daveis, John Taylor Gilman (1816- 1873).

This careful and punctilious physician, one of the earliest practitioners in diseases of the eye in Maine, was born in Port- land, Maine, March 21, 1816, the son of Charles S. Daveis, a distinguished lawyer, and Frances Ellen Gilman, a daughter of Governor Gilman, of New Hampshire.

Gilman Daveis, as he was generally called, was educated in the public schools, studied medicine in Portland under the direction of Dr. John Taylor Gilman, graduated with honor from the Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia, and received the eundem degree from the Medical School of Maine in 1863, when a little over twenty.

Immediately after, he settled in Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, practised there for five years, and then returned to Portland, where he practised success- fully for thirty years. Among the cases which early helped him to local fame and practice was one of club-foot, which he cured after it had been repeatedly treated in vain by others, and also a successfully operated case of squint. As an oculist he gained more than a local recognition, and did many success- ful operations. He read before the Maine Medical Association, one or two excellent papers on ophthalmology.

He owned an excellent medical library, and read abundantly on contemporary literature, in fact was one of the best read physicians in Maine.

He wore a broad black tie, in a bow knot, and his coat always had a black velvet collar. Small tabs of beard ornamented each cheek, and he had a radiant, agreeable face.

It is curious that so little can be learn- ed concerning a man so widely known,


r DAVIDGE

but an anecdote of this fashion may not be out of place.

A physician calling upon Dr. Daveis in a hurry to ask him to attend a con- sultation rushed into the office without scraping his feet. Thinking that the doc- tor was behind him, and not turning his head around, he said. "I want you to come just as soon as you can, to see a patient in an emergency." He turned his head, but no Dr. Daveis was to be seen. He moved to the office door, and saw the doctor approaching with a pan and brush to take from the hall rug some bits of mud left by the thought- less physician in his hurry to get advice for a suffering patient.

The death of this physician came without a warning, for while preparing to operate upon a patient, he was seized with a violent pain in the right shoulder, which rapidly extended downwards and involved his entire side, so that he had to leave his patient and take to his bed. Pneumonia set in, and he died in a few days on May 9, 1S73. J. A. S.

Trans. Maine Med. Assoc, 1S73.

Davidge, John Beale (176S-1S29).

This surgeon, founder of the University of Maryland, was born in Annapolis in 1768, his father an ex-captain in the British Army, his mother Honor Howard of Anne Arundel County. At an early age he was deprived of his father, and his mother wanted to apprentice him to a cabinet-maker. But, resolved to have an education and obtaining aid from friends and coming into possession of some slaves through the death of a relative, he entered St. John's College and there took his A. M. in 17S9, begin- ning to study medicine with Drs. James and William Murray, of Annapolis, and spent several years in Edinburgh, when he devoted himself especially to the study of anatomy. His voyage to Scotland was made in a sailing vessel, and among his shipmates were Drs. Hosack, Brockenbrough, and Troup; and they, encountering very rough weather, were compelled to work hard at the