Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/448

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all connection with the school. He removed to Boston, where he remained for a time, but later returned to Wood- stock, where he died October 12, 1849.

His best work, the full title of which is "Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont from its First Settlement to the Year 1815 with a Consideration of Their Causes, Phenom- ena and Treatment to which is added Remarks on Pulmonary Consumption," was published in 1815 in Boston. It is a work which involved apparently considerable labor and without doubt represented correctly the views of that day in regard to epidemic diseases. He published a more elaborate work in two volumes on the "Institutes of Medicine" in 1839 and besides these was a prolific writer of papers to the state medical societies. He was a com- manding figure in the medical profession of Vermont for at least two decades.

Dr. Gallup married Abigail G. Willard in September, 1792. Their children were Lewis A., who became a doctor, Harriet A., and George G.

C. S. C.

Gait, Alexander D. (1777-1841).

This alienist, the son of Dr. John M. and Judith Craig Gait, was born at Williamsburg on December 27, 1777, his father the chief surgeon of the mili- tary hospital located at Williamsburg during the Revolutionary War. He received his education at William and Mary College, and studied medicine for a time under his father, his profes- sional education being completed in London, where, as a pupil of Sir Ashley Cooper, he attended lectures at Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals.

Returning to Virginia in 1796, he began to practise in his native town and unremittently engaged in its duties to the end of his life. He was made physician to the Hospital for the In- sane at Williamsburg in 1S00, and filled the position for forty-one years, intro- ducing the most approved methods of treatment.


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He studied his cases with great care, used great judgment in the selection of remedies, keeping notes on the history and treatment of cases and results ob- tained. So accurately were these record- ed that from his notes his son, Dr. John M. Gait, compiled and published in 1845 a work entitled "Gait's Practice of Medicine."

He married, in 1812, Mary D. Gait, of Richmond, and had four children, two of whom, a son and a daughter, survived him. This son was Dr. John M. Gait, the second of the name, and a well-known alienist. In June, 1S40 his health had become so enfeebled as to confine him to the house, but as long as he was able, he saw patients in his room, his old patrons constantly applying to him for relief. His last illness was characterized by much suffer- ing, but in the intervals of freedom from pain he noted down his symptoms and the remedies used. On the twen- tieth of November, 1840 he died and was buried in old Bruton Church- yard near the graves of his parents. R. M. S.

Gait, Dr. John Minson (17- -180S).

It is not known when this surgeon of the Revolution was born, nor where he received his education, but he was a physician of great eminence, and chief surgeon of a military hospit- al located at Williamsburg during the Revolutionary War. In 1795 he was appointed visiting physician to the hospital for the Insane at Williamsburg, the first hospital of the kind to be established in this country, and filled the position until his death, his son, Dr. A. D. Gait, and his grandson, Dr. John M. Gait, holding the office for forty-one and twenty years respectively. Beginning with James, the first keeper, who was appointed in 1773, and ending with the death of Dr. J. M. Gait in 1862, the connection of the family with the hospital extended over a period of nearly a century.

Dr. Gait's wife was probably Judith