NICHOLS
216
NICKLES
work, demanding a capable, broad man
every way, and the manner in which he
administered his trust slunved that the
president had made no mistake in liis
choice. He had looked to the end to
some purpose; an end that justified all
his labors of love; that built twenty-five
of the best years of his life into those
hospital walls. He saw his plan repro-
duced in Australia, in Newfoundland, and
in many state institutions. At consider-
able pecuniar}' sacrifice to himself he
doubled the hospital land, he extended
its accommodations, he kept the institu-
tion in everj-thing abreast of the most
enlightened, curative treatment of the
time, so that when after a quarter of a
century they called him back to Bloom-
ingdale Asylum, creating the office of
medical superintendent for him, he left
St. Ehzabcth's a hospital the most per-
fect of its kind.
He was, for a succession of years, presi- dent of the Association of American Superintendents of Institutions for the Insane. He was also an honorary mem- ber of the Medico-Psychological Associa- tion of Great Britain. He died on December 16, 1889.
In the jurisprudence of insanity, those who remember the Mary Harris case do not need to be told how he stood. But his principle work was in the daily hospi- tal routine.
D. S. L.
Appleton's Biog., 1888.
Med. Record, N. York, 1889, vol. xxxvi.
Amer. Jour. Insanity, 1889, vol. xliv.
Nichols, James Robinson (1819-1888).
James Robinson Nichols, son of Stephen and Ruth Nichols, was born at West Amesburj', Massachusetts, July 19, 1819; the first years of his life being spent on a farm, until, in his eighteenth year he worked with his uncle, a druggist in Haverhill. After three years, he entered the medical department of Dartmouth College. His course here was interrupted by illness and the degree conferred on him was by courtesy in recognition of scien- tific work. Being, by illness, obHged to
give up active practice Dr. Nichols re-
turned to the drug business in Haverhill
and gave liis time to lecturing and chem-
istry. In 1856 he established a labora-
tory in Boston where for sixteen years he
worked successfully. His next venture
was an experimental farm near Haverhill.
As a member of the Board of Agriculture,
Dr. Nichols was able to give practical help
to the farmers of the state. He was also
a member of the Massachusetts Medical
Society. The " Boston Journal of Chem-
istry," later called the "Popular Science
News," was founded by Dr. Nichols in
1866. His writings include: "Chemistry
of the Farm and Sea," 1867; "Fireside
Science," 1872, and "Whence, What and
Where," 1883.
He married Harriet Porter in 1844, and Margaret Gale in 1851. After a long illness from chronic gastric disturbance he died at Haverhill, on January 2, 1888.
M. K. K.
Personal communication, Austin P. Nichols. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1888, vol cxviii.
Nickles, Samuel (1833-1908).
Samuel Nickles was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, August 8, 1833, the son of Francis and Mary Winkerman Nickles, of Berne, Switzerland, who came to Cincinnati just before his birth. Owing to the death of his father while he was still an infant, Samuel's early years were passed in com- parative poverty, but the sterhng quali- ties of his mother, coupled with the lad's insatiable thirst for knowledge led him to gain a good common school education.
Later, while supporting his mother and sisters as an employe in various mercan- tile houses he devoted all his spare time to studying medicine. German was to him as his mother tongue.
In 1856 he graduated from the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati; in 1862 he served as surgeon to the Eighty-first Ohio Reserve MiUtia, and in 1865 gradu- ated from the Medical College of Ohio, and was at once appointed its demon- strator of anatomy, a position held until 1869, when he was made professor of
