HISTORY OF GYNECOLOGY IN AMERICA xxxix
tinguished themselves by their scientific investigations or literary con- tributions to medical science, there are a number who will always hold a prominent place in the history of medicine. One of the brightest stars is William Beaumont, who was a pioneer in the physiology of gastric digestion and whose name is mentioned in every text-book of physiology. Tripler occupies a prominent place as a writer on military surgery. The writings of Barton and Ruschenberger, of the navy, commanded attention outside of America. Barton's works on "American Plants" belong to the best that has been written on this subject. Hammond was a noted writer on surgery; his works have been translated into the principal foreign languages. The names of Otis, Huntington, Smart and Woodward, the authors of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," will always be mentioned conspicuously in the history of military surgi- cal and sanitary science. Elliott Coues of the army distinguished him- self as a writer in ornithology, zoology and comparative anatomy. The brilliant work of Reed, Carroll and Lazear needs no mention here; it has become the property of the civilized world.
A. Allemann.
History of Gynecology in America.
The history of gynecology seems to me more full of dramatic interest than the evolution of any other medical or surgical specialty. What used to be called gynecology by the ancients, Soranus, for example, in the second century of this era, and what passed for gynecology in the collec- tions of Bauhin, Wolf and Spach in the last half of the sixteenth century bears no resemblance whatever, except in name (" Gynaeciorum, etc."), to the fair specialty we know to-day. Gradually out of the inchoate mass transmitted to us through the centuries, in the course of the last hundred years, there has arisen a specialty which has aroused more interest, and whose development has been followed with more enthusiasm than that of any other branch of our art.
The uncertain, fragmentary, speculative and pottering gynecology of the ancients came to an odd fruitage in the last century in such books as Dewees' (1768-1841) "Treatise on the Diseases of Females" (1826), where inflammation of the uterus and hysteria are the dominant ailments, and in the work of Hugh L. Hodge (1796-1873), " Diseases Peculiar to Women," Philadelphia (1860), where nervous irritation and irritable uterus, and " irritable " diseases occupy 2.30 out of 436 pages, and displace- ments of the uterus demand 150 pages for their non-surgical treatment.
The last writings of this kind, which reached (heir acme in the pessary school of gynecologists, emanated from the pen of Grailey Hewitt (1828- 1893), "The Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of Women," Lon- don, 1863.
