OTIS
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OTIS
Hospital, New York, he became a surgeon
to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,
and hved in Panama. He remained in
the steamship company's employ until
1S59; in 18G0 he settled in New York, and
took up general practice.
He was first lecturer and in 1871 professor of venereal and genito-urinary diseases in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. His principal writings were upon genito-urinary disease, although he contributed some well- known articles on syphilis. His volume of six hundred pages entitled "Practical Lessons on Syphilis and Genito-urinary Diseases," was an exhaustive work on the subject.
He was the inventor of the Otis Urethrometer and the Otis Dilating Urethrotome. He was a member of the New York State and County Societies and the New York Academy of Medicine. In 1859 he married Frances H., daughter of Apollos Cooke, of Catskill, New York.
The last few years of his life ill health compelled him to abandon active prac- tice, and he died in New Orleans, May 26, 1900.
J. M. W.
Boston M. and S. J., 1900, cxlii. Brit. M. J., Lond., 1900, i. Med. Rec, X. Y., 1990, Ivii.
Otis, George Alexander (1830-1881).
George Alexander Otis, surgeon and brevet lieutenant-colonel, United States Army, curator of the Army Medical Museum, and editor of the surgical volumes of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of Rebellion," died at Washington, D. C, February 23, 1881, at the comparatively early age of fifty years. His great-grandfather, Ephraim Otis, was a physician who practised at Scituate, Massachusetts. The father of Otis, also George Alexander Otis, married Maria Hickman, and George Alexander was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November 12, 1830. In 1846 he entered Princeton College and graduated, with the degree of A. B., in 1849, and she conferred upon him the degree of A. M. in
1852. In the fall of 1849 he went to
Philadelphia, and matriculated in the
medical department of the University of
Pennsylvania. That institution con-
ferred upon him the degree of M. D.
in April, 1851. During a stay in
Paris Otis made diligent use of the oppor-
tunities afforded for professional im-
provement. Moreover, he took a deep
interest in the stirring panorama of
French politics, as shown by a series of
letters he took time to write to the
" Boston Evening Transcript."
In the spring of 1852 Otis returned to the United States. Immediately after his return he established himself at Rich- mond, Virginia, where he opened an office for general medical and surgical practice, and where his tastes and ambition soon led him to embark in his earUest enterprise in the domain of medical Uterature. In April, 1853, he issued the first number of " The Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal." Dr. Howell L. Thomas, of Richmond, was associated with him as co-editor, but the financial risk was assumed entirely by Otis; its most striking characteristic was the number of translations and abstracts from current French medical literature which appeared in its pages. Otis had, by this time, become dissatisfied with his prospects of professional success in Rich- mond, and circumstances led him to select Springfield, Massachusetts, as his place of residence. Another journal, "The Steth- oscope," was united with "The Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal," under the title of "Virginia Medical Journal," with McCaw as editor, and Otis as corre- sponding editor, until 1859. The War of the RebelUon changed the whole tenor of his Mfe. During almost the whole time Surg. Otis accompanied his regiment — the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts Volun- teers — and shared its fortunes. January 22, 1864, he was detached and ordered to Yorktown, Virginia, to assimie the duties of surgeon-in-chief of Gen. Wistar's command. June 26, 1864, he tendered his resignation and received an appoint- ment as assistant surgeon of United
