MEIGS
161
MENDENHALL
ing as Dunglison had done, to phj'.siology.
Like one imbued with his work he carried
his class with him and frequently vivisec-
ted an animal to impress the lesson. If
he had one fault it was a love of detail
which made him take two sessions for the
ordinary course, but can this be called a
fault? "I often urged him" says S. D.
Gross " to write an elaborate treatise on
philosophy, as no man in America could
better grapple with its great problems.
He always said he would but died with-
out doing it."'
Of the man in his personal life only all that is sweet and tender can be said. Much of his leisure was spent among his beloved books and with his old parents. Mutual love could not have been stronger and he seldom spent an evening from home except for a play, of which he was very fond. One idea he had was to save money enough to gain leisure for teaching and authorship, but his unexpected death came on November 9, 1S79 from embol- ism of the heart or lungs after two or three days invalidism. His fortune of some .$200,000 gained chiefly among mid- dle class patients went to his father, who was very proud of his son and frequently went to the class room to hear him lec- ture. His friends had often urged him to take more time for recreation and literary pursuit but without avail. He seldom absented himself from the city even in the heat of summer; in fact he led what might be called a suicidal life.
His papers on Anthropology are among the best he wrote; they include: "Re- lation of Atomic Heat to Crystalline Form;" Cranial Characteristics of the Races of Men;" "Hints to Craniograph- ers on the Exchange of Du- plicate Crania;" "Observations on the Form of the Occiput in the Various Races of Men;" "On the Mensuration of the Human Skull;" " Observations on the Cranial Forms of the American Aborig- enes" also his "Correlation of the Vital and Physical Forces."
He held many appointments besides those mentioned, notably; physician to the Howard Hospital; professor of the Vol. 11-11
institutes of medicine in the Philadelphia
College of Medicine; consulting physician
to the Philadelphia Hospital at Blockley;
member of the biological section of the
Academy of Natural Sciences; of the
Medico-Legal Society of New York; So-
ciete d' Anthropologic, Paris; and the
Anthropological and Ethnological Socie-
ties of London.
D. W.
Boston Med. and Surg. .Jour., 1879, vol. ci.
Med. Bull. Phila., 1880, vol. ii and iii.
Med. Rec, N. Y., 1879, vol. xvi.
Phila. M. Times, 1879-80, vol. x.
Tr. Coll. Phys., Phila, 1S81, .3 s., vol. v. (H.
C. Chapman.)
Mendenhall, George (1S14-1874).
George Mendenhall was the son of Aaron and Lydia (Richardson) Menden- hall and was born at Sharon, Pennsylvan- ia May 5, 1814.
In 1844 he went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he practised until his death.
While he enjoyed a large general pract- ice, his reputation was made in obstetrics, in which he was an authority.
Mendenhall was of quaker ancestry. The family came to America in 1682, and formed a part of William Penn's colony at Philadelphia, one of his aunts, Mary Mendenhall, married Benjamin West, the artist. Dr. Mendenhall had his primary education in a country school; Latin he studied at odd times behind the count- er of a country store.
In 1834 he graduated from the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania and to help in obtaining this coveted education he sold the horse he had ridden over the mount- ains from his country home.
He was a member of several state and national societies. The only vacations he took were at the times of attendance on the sessions of the American Medical Association. In 1870 he was its presi- dent, when it met in Washington. In 1873 his health began to fail, and he went to Europe to recuperate. During his stay in Wiesbaden the honor of member- ship in the Royal Obstetrical Society of London was given him. During the war between the states he was prominent in
