SHAKESPEARE
- u>o
SHATTUCK
seem to care little or nothing about
posthumous reputation but devote them-
selves entirely to mastering every subject
for the sake of exact knowledge and
teaching. He was one of the three sons
of Israel and Lucinda Pierce Seymour
who were among the early settlers of
Troy, New York, where WilUam was
born October 17, 1S25. He worked as a
schoolboj' under Prof. Charles H. Anthony
and, graduating from \\'illiams College
in 1841, studied medicine with Dr.
Alfred Wotkyns, whose daugliter he
afteru-ards married in 1852. He gradu-
ated from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1848 and the following year began to
practise in Troy. After filling many
appointments, 1870 saw him professor of
obstetrics at the Albany Medical College,
and, added to this three years later the
professorship of gynecology. A student
of Hodge, he j'et corrected errors of that
time and recognized in the human pelvis
three straits or planes having their
appropriate diameters and their axes
decussating at a similar angle of 130
degrees to the planes of entrance, rota-
tion and exit, lea\dng the teaching of
Levret as to the two straits and axes to
the lower animals, where it belongs.
His statement as to the infectivity of pneumonia, made in 1868 before the Rensselaer County Medical Society, met with strong opposition, and ten years before his strong advocation of operation for appendicitis, then called typhlitis, was deemed impossible. Those who knew him best, however, and were educated to follow him, appreciated his ability and mental worth.
He died on April 7, 1893, passing away
quietly as if falUng asleep. He left two
sons, Alfred W. and William Wotkyns,
the latter follo^^^ng his father's profession.
Stone's Eminent Amer. Phys. and Surgs.
Shakespeare, Edward Oram (1846-1900). Edward Oram Shakespeare was born May 19, 1846, in Delaware, and graduated at Dickinson's College in June, 1867, taking his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1869. After practising
in Dover, he removed to Philadelphia in
1874. He was made lecturer on opera-
tive surgery at the University of Penn-
sylvania and wrote a number of oph-
thalmological papers.
He investigated tlie cause of a great epidemic of tjphoid fever in Wyoming Valley near Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and discovered the cause in the contami- nation of the mountain water, which report was of great value. In 1885 he was sent as United States representative to Spain to investigate cholera, and made an elaborate report to Congress. During the war with Spain he was appointed brigade-surgeon .
He died June 1, 1900. H. F.
Stone's Biography of Eminent American
Physicians and Surgeons.
.Journal Am. Med. Assoc, June 9, 1900.
Shapleigh, Elisha Bacon (1823-1892).
Best known as an expert in forensic medicine, Ehsha Bacon Shapleigh was born in York County, Maine, on Novem- ber 6, 1823, a descendant of one Nicholas Shapleigh who emigrated from England in 1630.
His A. B. was from Yale in 1846, his M. D. from the University of Penn- .sylvania, in 1849.
Immediately after graduation he set- tled in Lowell, Massachusetts, but in 1851, removed to Philadelphia, where he married in June, 1864, Anna, daughter of William Lloyd.
He was a copious ^\Titer for the medical press, especially on subjects connected with toxicology and legal medicine.
Dr. Shapleigh was a man of medium size, but heavy build. He had dark skin, hair and eyes, and wore a full beard. He was slow and deliberate in speech, but fond of telUng stories; he was ever saying "that reminds me." He was read almost as widely in law as in medicine. T. H. S.
Memoir, J. Collins, 1893.
Shattuck, Benjamin (1742-1794).
Benjamin Shattuck was a descendant of Wilham Shattuck, who was born in