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Berlin, and Paris, and received an honor- ary A. M., in later life, from Georgetown University, and a rather large number of honorary degrees from various institu- tions in Europe.
His life as a doctor began with his entry into the position of clinical assistant in the Baltimore Infirmary, where he served with marked distinction, but resigned to enter the United States Army wherein as army surgeon he lived at various posts throughout the west and south. Once he was quarantine officer for Georgia, and in this capacity was present on Tybee Island during the outbreak of cholera there. A little later he was appointed quarantine oflScer at Brazos, Santiago, Texas, and also saw much service on the staff of Gen. Henry Hunt, in North Carolina, during the troubles with the Ku Klux Klan.
Rosse was at one time professor of nervous and mental diseases in the Georgetown University. He was also vice-president of the Medico-legal So- ciety of New York, and a member of numerous social, literary, and scientific clubs and associations.
He married, when forty-seven years of age, Florence James, of New York, a granddaughter of Gen. Worth, and had one child, a son.
Dr. Rosse died of ptomaine poisoning at Washington, District of Columbia, May 3, 1901.
Dr. Rosse was an extensive writer, and his literary work was valuable both for its contents and its form. He assisted in the preparation of the " Medico-Surg- ical History of the Rebellion." Later, he had in charge the force which com- piled the " Index-Catalogue of the Surgeon-general's Library," doing much personal work on the latter. He wrote voluminously, too, as correspondent for the "New York Herald" and the "San Francisco Examiner," and contributed numerous scientific articles to the press of this and of various foreign countries. He was one of the crew on the famous ship Corwin, which sailed in 1881 to the relief of the Jeanette. While on this
ROSSE
cruise he ascended the supposedly
inaccessible Herald Island, and was the
first human being in history to set foot on
Wrangle Island. For these and other
exploits he was created a fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society of England.
On his return he wrote two books: "The
Cruise of the Corwin" and "The First
Landing on Wrangle Island." One of
the most remarkable of Dr. Rosse's
writings is an article on "Personal
Identity," contributed to volume i, of
Witthaus and Becker's "Medical Juris-
prudence, Forensic Medicine, and Toxi-
cology." This article displays the widest
range of scholarship combined with pro-
found and original research. As he was
interested greatly in lego-medical matters,
he wrote very much on this topic. No
list of all, or even the most, of his writ-
ings, could possibly be given within the
bounds of this sketch.
He was a great athlete and once, when crossing the Atlantic, persuaded the captain of the steamer to stop the vessel while he took a plunge in the ocean. On another occasion, when quarantined in a small boat for a number of days, with only a single companion, he used, to relieve the tedium, to stand upon his hands. He had very little to say to those who did not interest him, but was affable and communicative in the pres- ence of those whose tastes were similar to his own. He did not like animals, and was not fond of children. He loved books, but did not collect, or keep, them. He used to say he had his library in his head, and, certainly, whatever he read he stored in his mind most carefully. He delved but little in other fields than the scientific, but, in that realm of never- ending spaces, his range was wide indeed. In the field of mental and nervous dis- eases, and in the field of medical juris- prudence, and in the field of geographical exploration, and, most of all perhaps, in the field of editing and general author- ship. Dr. Rosse's work possesses much of a high and enduring value.
Some of his other articles were: "Re- versive Anomalies in the Studies of the
