HOMANS
ROMANS
nil iiiur drugs, mercury, antimony,
opium nnil quinine. He did little
surgery niul iluring his entire practice
is wiid never to have witnessed the
amputation of a limb. He was pre-
ceptor to thirty-five medical students
and was thus a prominent factor in
mcdic.il education in the days before
the schools.
In a long personal letter to John F. Watson, Esq., of Gcrmantown, written on his hundredth birthday he Kiys: "My health is good. That is, I have a good appetite and sleep as well as at any period of my life, and, thanks to a kind Providence, suffer but little pain except now and then pretty severe cnimps; but my mental faculties are impaired, especially my memory for recent events." W. L. B.
Mass. Med. Society Transactions, vol. iv.
£H>nnon by John Brazer, 1829.
Hist. Har. Med. School, T. F. Harrington,
vol. i.
As to Founding of Mass. Med. Socy., Bost.
Med. and Surg. Jour., vol. civ.
Homans, John (1S36-1903).
John Plomans, a pioneer ovarioto- mist in New England, was born in Boston, November 26, 1836. His grandfather, of the same name, was a graduate of Harvard College, 1772, and an army surgeon during the War of Independence. His father, also John, was a graduate of Harvard Col- lege, 1812, who practised medicine in Boston.
John Homans the third graduated from Harvard College in 1858 and re- ceived his M. D. from her Medical School in 1862. The same spirit which inspired his grandfather in 1776 im- pelled him, at the outbreak of Civil War, to offer his services to the govern- ment. He was at that time house surgeon in the Massachusetts General Hospital, and had not yet taken his medical degree. In January, 1862, he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the United States Navy, and served on the gunboat "Arostook" during the search for the disabled United
States steamship " Vermont," in Hamp-
ton Roads, and later on the James
River, during McClellan's campaign.
He was at the battles at Fort Darling,
Virginia, and at Malvern Hill. In
November, 1862, he was given a com-
mission as assistant surgeon in the
regular army. He was at New Or-
leans, and later, on the staff of Gen.
Banks, took part in the disastrous
Red River expedition. Those of his
friends who were fortunate enough
to have heard his informal accounts
of that ill-advised expedition and of
the search for the "Vermont" will
not soon forget them. As side-lights
upon much that passes for history,
they were instructive as well as enter-
taining. Subsequently he was order-
ed to Washington, and held various
surgical appointments in connection
with the Army of the Shenandoah.
He was surgeon-in-chief of the first
division of the Nineteenth Army
Corps, was present at the battles of
Winchester and Cedar Creek, and ulti-
mately became medical inspector on
the staff of Gen. Sheridan. He resigned
the army from May, 1865, after an event-
ful career of a Uttle over three years.
He immediately went to Europe for
study and travel, spending most of his
time in Vienna and Paris. In No-
vember, 1866, he returned to Boston
and began to practise, being appointed
successively surgeon to the Boston
Dispensary, the Children's Hospital,
and in August, 1868, to the Carney
Hospital. His second ovariotomy was
done there in April, 1873, and he became
consulting surgeon in 1880. It was
here that he did many ovariotomies
and demonstrated that the operation
was not as serious as imagined. He
developed an antiseptic technic and
trained the sisters in charge of the
operating-room with great care. Later
he transferred his activities to St.
Margaret's Hospital, where ovarian
tumors from all over New England
and the provinces came for operation.
Many times Dr. Homans paid the pa-
