STRUDWICK
425
SUTHERLAND
most of the surgeons of a later period.
His after-results were in some cases
quite surprising and were uniformly
better than was the rule in those days.
He performed the operation for lacerated perineum several times, in- variably using silver wire, but under- took no trachelorrhaphies. His prac- tice was always to sew up a perineal tear immediately after confinement and his success in these recent cases was noteworthy. Another anticipation of modern methods was his habit of never employing applications to the interior of the uterus, but of advocating and using intrauterine injections of salt solution.
The most important operation of Dr. Strudwick's career was one about which, unluckily, the record is meager. It was, however, probably in 1842, that he suc- cessfully removed from a woman a large abdominal tumor, weighing thirty-six pounds.
Dr. Strudwick was married in 1828, two years after beginning practice, to Ann Nash, whom he survived but two years. They had five children — two girls and three boys. The girls died in infancy, and two of the boys became doctors.
He was exceedingly active and actually up to his final hours his energy was com- parable to that of a dynamo. His fine condition of health was aided also by his simple habits. He was not a big eater, and was extremely temperate. He also had the gift of taking " cat naps " at any time or place — a habit that William Pepper, the younger, did so much to celebrate. Dr. Strudwick fre- quently slept in his chair. He was an early riser, his life long, the year round. And one of his invariable rules — which illustrates the sort of stuff of which he was made — was to smoke six pipefulls of tobacco every morning before breakfast. He was a most insatiate consumer of tobacco, being practically never free from its influence.
He bought all instruments and books as they came out. In a flap on the dash- board of his surry ho kept a bag in M'hich
were stored a small library and a minia-
ture instrument shop. And often he
would return with his carriage full of
cohosh, boneset, etc., indicating his
familiarity with medical botany.
He was once called to a neighboring county to perform an operation. The night was dark and cold; the road was rough; the horse became frightened at some object, ran away, upset the buggy and threw the occupants out, stunning the country doctor who had met him, and who, it was afterwards learned, was addicted to the opium habit, and break- ing Dr. Strudwick's leg just above the ankle. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered himself. Dr. Strudwick called aloud, but no one answered and he then crawled to the side of the road and sat with his back against a tree. In the meantime the other physician, who had somehow managed to get into the buggy again, drove to the patient's home where for a time he could give no account of himself or his companion. When the doctor's buggy came back again at sun- rise, he got in, drove to the house, without allowing his own leg to be dressed, and sitting on the bed, operated upon the patient for strangulated hernia with a successful result.
The going out of this great man's life was as tragic and unusual as his career had been brilliant and useful. In pos- session of his customary good health, at the age of seventy-seven, he succumbed to a fatal dose of atropine taken by mis- take from drinking a glass of water in which the drug had been prepared for hy- podermic employment in an emergency.
N. Carolina M. .!.. 1S80, v.
Abridged from a memoir by H. A. Roaster.
Sutherland, Charles (1831-1895).
A son of the Hon. Joel Barlow Suther- land, a })hysician, soldier, statesman and jurist, the first president of the Society of the War of 1812; he was educated in the private schools of Philadelphia and at Jefferson Medical College, and received his M. D. in 1849. He entered the mili- tarv service in October, 1851, as acting
