ROBY
328
RODGERS
finally able to resume practice. After
another few months, however, gangrene
of the left foot ensued, and the disease
made constant progress despite am])uta-
tion at the knee. With very remarkable
fortitude he struggled on, conscious to the
last day of his life, which was .June 'AO,
1S72. .1. A. S.
TraiLs. .Maine Med. .\s.'<ot'.
Roby, Joseph ( 1S()7-1S00).
A native of AViscasset, .Maine, he was born in the year 1807. Graduating at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 182S, he began to study medi- cine in Boston, under Drs. .Jackson and Channing, distinguishing himself as an insatiable reader. He took his M. D. from Harvard University in 1831, and settled in Boston. Roby's happiest days were passed in his "den" at the college, and he lingered aroimd this spot during the last years of his life, as if drawn thither by some fascination, while the deadly consumption was consuming his frail Itody, until a fatal hemorrhage cut short the slender thread of life on June 3, 1860. He was buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, at Boston.
Many important improvements were made during his connection with the Baltimore school, and largely through his efforts, as, the introduction of gas into the dissecting-room, compulsory dissec- tion, and attendance upon clinics, and instruction in histolog}', patholog}- and the use of the microscope.
He held the professorship of anatomy and surgery at Bowdoin College, Maine, 1837; of materia medica and anatomy, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 1840; of anatomy and physiology. Uni- versity of Maryland, 1842.
He left a widow and children when he died in 1860. E. F. C.
The Librarj' and Hist. Jour., Brooklyn, 1906 Boston Daily Advertizer, .Tune 7, 1860.
Rockwell, William H. (1800-1873).
William H. Rockwell, alienist, was born February 15, 1800, graduating from Yale College in 1824 and from the medical
siile of the same in 1830. Soon after, he
was made assistant physician to the
Retreat at Hartford, Connecticut, and in
1836 superintendent of the Brattleboro
Asylum, Vermont. This place had then
no money for the erection of buildings,
and (luring Rockwell's administration,
largely through his efforts, nearly
$200,000 was actually earned and put to
this use. His whole medical life was
devoted to the most imselfish care of the
insane. He died at Brattleboro, Nov.
30, 1873, after having been confined to
bed from a fracture of the thigh caused
by a fall from a carriage eighte(Mi mouths
previously.
Am. J. of In.sanity, 1877-78, xxxiv.
Tr. Ver. M. Soc, 1874-6, St. Albans, 1877.
Boston M. and S. .1., 187:5, Ixxxix.
Rodgers, John Kearny (1793-1851).
The eldest son of a physician of Scotch descent, John Kearny Rodgers was born in the City of New York in 1793, and fortunately has a good and kindly biogra- pher in Dr. S. D. Gross, from whom I quote freely.
When Rodgers was a Princeton student under Dr. Stanhope Smith (with whom he was not a favorite) the latter one day told him in a fit of anger that if he did not mend his ways he might as well shut up his books for he could never become use- fid or distinguished, judging from his present liehavior. To this the future surgeon promptly replied "The world shall see. Sir." and indeed the world did see. His ambition was stimulated, his dormant energies roused. His early studies were under Dr. AA'right Post, pro- fessor of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, from which i>lace in 1816 Rodgers graduated, yet even before that, acted as demon- strator of anatomy for his master. After serving as hou.se surgeon to the New York Hospital he went to London to study and became much interested in ophthalmic surger}' and very soon after his return established with his friend, Dr. Edward Delafield, and others, the New York E5'e Infirmary. In 1818 he
