MERCER
102
MERCER
the Sanitary Commission, both in the
field and at home.
When the Miami Medical Colles;e was founded, 1S52, Dr Mendenhall was elect- ed professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, which position he held until 1S57, when the school was united with the Medical College of Ohio, where he became professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children and professor of obstetrics in 1859. When the Miami Medical College was re-estab- lished, in 1865, he was again professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children there until 1873. He was dean of the Miami Medical College from 1853 to 1857; and again from 1865 to 1873.
Dr. ]\Iendenhall was on the staff of the Cincinnati Hospital from 1858 to 1872. October 7, 1838, he married Elizabeth S. Maule, of Philadelphia and had seven children. Upon his return from Europe in 1873, he was stricken with paralysis, from the effects of which he never re- covered, and died in Cincinnati, June 4, 1874. Mendenhall was not well known as an author, but his "Students Vade Mecum," passed through eighteen editions and was for a long time much consulted by students.
A paper on "Vaccination " by Dr. Men- denhall will be found in the Transaction of the Ohio State Medical Convention of 1848; another on "Nitric Acid as an Antiperiodic" m the same Transactions for 1854, and a report on "The Epi- demics of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan made to the American Medical Associa- tion in 1852.
A. G. D.
From Appleton's Biographical Encyclo- pedia, and in C. T. Greve's Centennial His- tory of Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Lancet and Observer, vol. xvii (1874), and the Trans, of the Ohio State Medical Society for 1874.
Mercer, Hugh (1725-1777).
An eminent physician, captain in Brad- dock's war and general in the Revolution, he was born in Aberdeen in Scotland, son of a minister of the Church of Scot- land. He studied at the University of Aberdeen and entered the Medical School
of Marschall College in 1740, graduating
in 1744.
He espoused the cause of Prince Char- les Edward the Pretender and was with his army at Culloden, but escaping the fate of so many of his comrades, he sailed from I.eith in the fall of 1746 for America. Landing at Philadelphia, he soon set out for the western border of Pennsylvania and settled near Mercersburg, then known as Greencastle. Dr. J. M. Toner says that he founded Mercersburg. Plere, until the beginning of the French and Indian war he practised, living the life of a country doctor in a wild, sparsely settled region. Possessing the natural instincts of a soldier, he joined Braddock's army as captain of a company and took part in the ill-fated expedition against Fort Du Quesne. In the assault he was wounded and left behind, but after a perilous journ- ey through the wilderness, he succeeded in joining his comrades. In 1756 he was commissioned captain of one of the com- panies raised to protect the residents against the Indians and their French allies, his company being stationed at McDowell's Fort, now Bridgeport. Here he also acted as surgeon to the garri- son and practised among the people. In one of the numerous fights with the Indians he was again wounded and aban- doned, and again made his way over one hundred miles through the forest and joined his command at Fort Cumberland. On this weary tramp he was forced to live on roots and herbs, and the carcass of a rattle-snake, and so closely was he pursued by his foes that he once had to take refuge in the hollow trunk of a tree, around which the Indians rested.
Mercer was again wounded while com- manding one of the companies which cap- tured an Indian settlement at Kittanning in 1756. For his services in these Indian wars he received from the Corporation of Philadelphia a note of thanks and a mem- orial medal.
The summer of 1757 saw him in com- mand of the garrison at Shippensburg, December, promoted to the rank of major and placed in command of the forces of
