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here he passed his youth, manifesting unusual fondness for investigations in natural history. His powers of obser- vation were early developed, and he was soon recognized as a boy bound to get at the bottom of everything, his anatomical studies, even at the age of twelve, being suggestive of the future.
He had an ordinary school educa- tion, and at seventeen went to Augusta as clerk to his grandfather, register of deeds. In that office he had access to books, and devoted his spare time to Latin, natural history and the con- struction of apparatus. He lived at one time with Dr. Dexter Baldwin, of Mount Vernon, and from seeing him ride about, he got the desire of being a doctor. At the age of twenty-one he studied with Dr. Gage, of Augusta, Dr. Amos Nourse of Bath, and Dr. John Hubbard, of Hallowell, who was destined to be governor of Maine. After attending two courses of lectures at the Medical School of Maine he graduated at the University of Penn- sylvania Medical School in 1836 and, returning to Augusta, opened an office in which he practised for fifty-three years.
A mechanical genius, he turned early to surgery, and did many successful operations at a time when such were regarded as nothing short of miraculous. He invented surgical instruments which proved of great utility and value. He was a member of all the old Maine Medical Societies, and later on one of the founders of the Maine Medical Association, one of its early presidents, ami aided largely in building up the Medical School of Maine and the Maine General Hospital. Among his papers read before the Maine Medical Association was one on "Cystitis" in 1875. Perhaps his best paper was on "A Case of Popliteal Aneurysm cured by Pres
Soon after beginning practice he mar- ried Sarah Ann Carpenter, of Augusta, ami she dj ing in is? I. In- mart ied in 1880 Clara Lothrop Dalton, of Norridgwock, but he had no children.
3 HILL
Personally I recall Dr. Hill as tall and slim, with a long face, clean shaved upper lip, long beard, a keen aspect, and a man full of talk. As Carlyle says, he was a loose talker, meaning that his words flowed long and even, yet always full of sense.
Hill was honored with the A. M. from Colby in 1883. Although appar- ently as well as he had been for some time, in October, 1889, when making a call in consultation he fell on a dark stairway and injured his right hip.
From this injury he was not to re- cover, but, confined first to his house and then to bed, he gradually failed and died December 2, 1889, conscious to the last, at 2.30 in the afternoon.
Hill was a remarkably interesting man, and it is to be regretted that more intimate details of his life are not at hand.
J. A. S. Trans. Maine Med. Assoc., 1890, vol. x.
Hill, William Nevin (1857-1908).
Willi.-) m Nevin Hill was born Decem- ber 30, 1856, and died December 25, 1908. He practised medicine in Baltimore continuously for thirty-three years, but during the years of small-pox epidemic became a specialist in the treatment of that disease, and devoted himself heroically to the suffering poor among whom it was raging, taking the dis- ease himself as an incident to l.i. work. Hill graduated at the Washington University in 1874 and afterwards at the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, being then only eighteen years of age. lie was an enthusiast in matters of civic duty, taking special interest in political reforms. He was a prolific letter writer on such ques- tions, his articles being marked by originality and force, lie was a mem- ber of the Medical and Chirurgical So- ciety of Maryland.
In the last two years of liis life he
ppointed by the health commis- oi Baltimore City to have i of the work oi exterminating mosquitoes.
