McREERY
126
McDERMONT
"This bold, delicate and extraordi-
nary operation was executed for the
first time in America in 1813 by the
late Charles McCreary of Hartford,
in this State. The subject of the case,
as I learn from Charles F. Wing, Esq.,
of Greenville, who was intimately ac-
quainted both with the patient and
his surgeon, was a youth of the name
of Irvin, fourteen years of age, labor-
ing under a scrofulous affection of the
right collar bone. A disease of a simi-
lar kind existed at the period of the
operation in the right leg, from which
several pieces of bone were subse-
quently removed, and which became
so much curved and shrunken as to
be upwards of two inches shorter than
the other. By degrees the part got
well, but the disease recurred two or
three times afterwards, though it was
always amenable to treatment. The
loss of the bone did not impair the
function of the corresponding limb"
(Gross).
The case of Dr. Valentine Mott of New York, performed in 1828, which Dr. Mott supposed was the first opera- tion of the kind done in the United States, and about the wonders of which surgical writers at the time said much, was not a complete removal, for about one inch of the acromial end of the clavicle was left.
Dr. McCreery was a fine historian, a great reader, eloquent speaker, ready writer and close student. The love of his patients for him bordered on idolatry, his name being to them a synonym of kindliest sympathy and readiest helpfulness. His home life was characterized by unusual sweet- ness and tenderness and an intense appreciation of child nature. He was a well formed, handsome man with fine dark eyes.
Dr. McCreery died of cardiac dropsy, August 26, 1826, at West Point on his return from Shelbyville, where he had gone to bring his two oldest daughters home from Science Hill Academy.
A. S.
President's Annual Address, Kentucky
State Medical Society, forty-sixth meet-
ing, James 11. Letcher.
McCurdy, John (1835-1890).
John McCurdy, of Youngstown, Ohio, was born in Ireland, January 11, 1835, of Scotch-Irish extraction, his parents coming to this country when he was eight years of age. His father, a physician, receiving his de- gree from Edinburgh, abandoned the practice of medicine on coming to this country and engaged in stock- raising. John was educated at Jeffer- son Medical College in 1857 and at Cleve- land Medical College in 1858. For more than a year he was house-surgeon to the United States Marine Hospital in Cleveland; then engaged in practice with T. Woodbridge of Youngstown. During the Civil War he served with distinction at the front as assistant surgeon of the twenty-third Ohio Vol- unteer Infantry, and medical director of the fourteenth Army Corps and acting medical inspector of the Army of the Cumberland. He was twice taken prisoner, spending almost three months in Libby Prison. He was a frequent contributor to medical journals and was one of the founders of the Mahoning County Medical Society, several times its president ; and an active member of the Ohio State Medical Society.
J. N. B.
Tr. Ohio State Med. Soc, Toledo, 1890 (port).
McDermont, Clarke (1823-1881).
Born in County Antrim, Ireland, Clarke McDermont immigrated to this country in 1840, and, having had a classical education, was able to become principal of a private school in Lexington, Kentucky.
He began to study medicine under Dr. Dudley, professor of surgery in Transyl- vania University and the most noted Hthotomist in America, in 1849 graduat- ing from the University of New York, and immediately going to Edinburgh and Dublin for post-graduate work. Returning to this country, for a while
