ORDRONAUX
227
ORDRONAUX
Clark, who bore him one child, and died
in 1889.
The doctor himself died at his home December 18, 1900, of apoplexy.
His portrait by Jacques Busbee, and the gift of the North Carolina Medical Society, was presented to the State Library on October 29, 1902, Senator Ransom delivering the oration.
H. A. R. Carolina Medical Journal, Jan., 1901, vol. xlvii. No. 1. Transactions N. C. Medical Society, 1901.
Ordronaux, John (1830-1908).
John Ordronaux, medico-jurispru- dentist, only son of John and Eliza- beth (Charreton) Ordronaux, was born in New York City, August 3, 1830. His father, a Frenchman, served on the American side in our second war with England, at one time commanding the privateer Prince of Neufchatel. The father dying in 1841, the lad was adopted by John Moulton, who owned the prop- erty now known as the William Cullen Bryant estate, at Roslyn, Long Lsland. Ordronaux received his A. B. at Dart- mouth in 1850, and his LL. D. at Harvard in 1852. For two years he practised law at Taunton, Massachusetts, then removed to New York. Here he received the M. D. from the National Medical College in 1859. On the breaking out of Civil War he was made examining surgeon for volunteers in Brooklyn, and in 1864 was appointed assistant surgeon of the Fifteenth Regiment, National Guards, State of New York. During his services in these capacities he pubUshed the first American work on mihtary hygiene, "Hints on Health in Armies," and also a "Manual for Mihtary Surgeons on the Examination of Recruits and Discharge of Soldiers." His most important works were "Jurisprudence of Medicine" (1869) and "Judicial Aspects of Insanity" (1878), both of which went through several editions. He also wrote copiously for the medical and legal press. But, though Dr. Ordronaux was widely known as a writer on legal medicine, it is chiefly as a teacher of that important branch
that his fame will always rest. For
forty-eight years he was professor
of this subject in various prominent
schools of law and medicine, and probably
under his care a larger number of doctors
and lawyers have received their medico-
jurisprudential instruction than under
any other man. His teaching record is
as follows: 1860-1906, Columbia Law
School; 1864-1908, Dartmouth Medical
School; 1865-1873, National Medical
College, Washington, D. C, and in the
law school of the same (Columbia)
University; 1865-1873, University of
Vermont, Medical Department; 1872-
1889, Boston University Law School.
In 1870 he received the degree of LL. D. from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and in 1895 the same degree from Dartmouth.
Dr. Ordronaux was a small, slender, frail-looking man ("of the ramrod type," as one of his army comrades expressed the matter) but very well built and wiry. His hair was red, in later life white. His complexion was absolutely pallid, his eyes were keen, luminous, and dark. He was slow, methodical, and thought- ful, except when excited; then he was rapid indeed, and voluble.
He was a timid man physically and socially. He was a bachelor, and for many years lived at Roslyn with a widow and her family, after her death obtaining quarters with a neighbor who continued to take care of him when at home up to the time of his death. He was so very sensitive that the slightest physical hos- tility, or even opposition which savored of hostihty, caused the doctor, like the leaves of a sensitive plant when touched, to fold up within himself. If, when he was testifying as expert in coiu-t, the cross-examination became of an over- bearing or brow-beating character, he could scarcely (as he often informed his friends) refrain from bursting into tears. He was pertinacious and stuck to his guns, but the mental and emotional strain was unduly great, and sometimes made him ill. He had few friends, in the ordinary acceptation of the word,
