Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/43

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HUTCHISON


27


HUTCHISON


bard's School, the Utica Academy and at Yale, afterwards studying medicine in the Long Island Medical School and grad- uating M. D. from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1866.

Like most young men at that time he went to the war and was successively surgeon to the third Maryland Volunteer Infantry and the one hundred and thirty-seventh New York Volunteers, taking charge in the latter of Gen. Geary's hospital under Gen. Sherman in his famous march through Georgia.

At the close of the war he settled down in New York and became known for his surgery, especially in eye disease, though his right forearm, through an early acci- dent, was almost immovably fixed.

Very much he recognized the need of a hospital for proper treatment of those who could pay and those who could not, so, along with his friend Dr. J. E. West, an embryo hospital was established, to grow gradually larger and attract stu- dents because of its founder's skill.

In 1866 he married Miss Christine Rosswog and found time to write valu- able articles on his specialities to the "American Journal of Insanity" and the "New York State Medical Transactions." But during the last four years of his life he had to go south every winter and suc- cumbed at last to kidney disease in the hospital he had founded. Only a few days before his death he joined the Ro- man Catholic church though reared as a Protestant. "I loved him dearly" writes his biographer " for he had an ami- ability, a tenderness, a love of all things beautiful — rare among men."

Trans. Med. Soc. New York, ISSS (Dr. T. H. Pooley).

Hutchison, Joseph Chrisman (1827-1887). Joseph Chrisman Hutchison was born in old Franklin, Missouri, February 22, 1827, the son of Nathaniel Hutchison, M. D., a native of Armagh, Ireland, and of Mary Chrisman, of Farquier County, Virginia. He graduated from the Uni- versity of the State of Missouri, at Columbia, and in 1848 received his M.


D. from the University of Pennsylvania, after a partial course in Jefferson Medical College.

For a few years he practised medicine in Missouri, but in 1853 removed to Brooklyn, with the interests of which, medical, sanitary, and educational, he became closely and actively identified. In 1854 he had charge of the cholera hospital in Brooklyn, and the successful treatment of cholera patients was in a large part due to his skillful, and well organized efforts. His constant interest in the medical work of the city was manifested in the various positions of public medical trust held, as attending surgeon to the Brooklyn Hospital, sur- geon-in-chief of the Orthopedic Dispen- sary, etc.; and the numerous hospitals to which he was attached as consulting surgeon show the confidence of their medical officers in him.

With aU his professional work, he found time to contribute to medical liter- ature the results of his chnical observa- tions, in clear, concise, and well digested articles, always of a practical character, and bearing evidence of being written from the bedside rather than the study. One of the last papers prepared by him was on "Transfusion," read before the New York Medical Association in 1884. He held membership in many societies, local, national, and international and also added to his other labors that of teacher, having held the position of lecturer on the diseases of women from 1854 to 1856, inclusive, in the University of the city of New York, and from 1860 to 1867 that of professor of operative and clinical surgery in the Long Island College Hospital. His talents found abimdant use also in departments closely connected with medical practice. From 1873 to 1875 he was health officer of Brooklyn. He was also the author of a work on Physiology and Hygiene, long in use throughout the coimtry.

The suffering and distress that are incident to a weak and failing heart and pulmonary edema were borne with a patience and bravery that are the out-