Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/559

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WHITEHEAD


499


WHITEHEAD


sary for fifteen years, visiting surgeon to the Presbyterian Hospital for three and a half, and to the City Hospital on Black- well's Island for seventeen years, also edited the "Medical Register, New York, New Jerse}^ and Connecticut," for fifteen.

In May, 1860, he married Evaline J., daughter of Jeremiah Springer, of Litch- field, Maine, who died in 1885, leaving three daughters. Two years later he married Mary A., daughter of Captain James D. Barstow, of Bath, Maine. He died in 1893 of cardiac hypertrophy, from degeneration of the heart walls.

For many years he was a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine; also a member of the New York County Medical Society, and one of the founders of the New York State Medical Association, and of the New York County Medical Association.

Med. Register of New York, 1S94, vol. xxxii (port.).

Whitehead, William Riddick (1831-1902).

Born at Suffolk, Virginia, December 15, 1831, he was the son of William Boykin Whitehead of Southampton County, Virginia, of English descent and kinsman of William Whitehead, poet laureate of England, who emigrated during the reign of Cromwell. His father was a sugar planter in Louisiana, his mother was Miss Riddick of Suffolk, Virginia, descendant of Col. Willis Riddick of the Revolutionary War.

He married his cousin, the daughter of Thomas Benton of Suffolk.

In 1851, he graduated at the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, studied medicine one year at the University of Virginia and graduated from the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1853 after which he studied medicine in Paris. Thence he went to Vienna and appUed to Gortchakoff, the Russian Ambassador to the Austrian Court, for a position as surgeon in the Russian Army, then engaged in war with France, England and Turkey. The minister received him most graciously, secured him a Russian passport and gave him letters to his


cousin, Prince Gortschakoff, the com- mander-in-chief of the armies of Southern Russia. His diploma was sent to St. Petersburg and he was appointed staff surgeon and sent to Odessa where, for several months he remained enjoying the gay, fashionable life of officers in his position. At his request, he was assigned to active duty with the army at Sevas- topol. On arrival, he found Dr. Turnip- seed, of South Carolina, ill with typhus fever and in the same room with the body of Dr. Draper of New York City, who had just died of the same disease, both in the service of Russia. Here Dr. Whitehead was under the guidance and teaching of the great surgeon, Pirogoff, who treated the young American surgeon with much kindness and consideration. On Piro- goff's recommendation at the close of the war. Dr. Whitehead was given, by order of the Emperor, the cross of Knight of the Imperial Russian Order of St. Stanislaus. Shortly before the treaty of peace, he was honorably discharged and returned immediately to Paris and resumed his duties in its hospital and dissecting room.

In 1860, he received the degree of M. D., de la Faculty de Paris; then return- ed to New York and was elected pro- fessor of clinical medicine in the New York Medical College.

After the fall of Fort Sumter, he returned to his native state, Virginia, and was subsequently appointed by Mr. Davis, surgeon of the Forty-fourth Vir- ginia Infantry. He was present at the battle of Chancellorsville and put the wounded "Stonewall" Jackson in the ambulance and sent him to the rear. After the battle of Gettysburg he took charge of the wounded of Jackson's old corps, and on the retreat of the Confeder- ates, the camp fell into the hands of the Federals who permitted Dr. Whitehead to remain in charge and furnished him with necessary supplies for the wounded.

A month later, he, with others, was sent to Baltimore and imprisoned at Fort McHenry, instead of being exchanged as he anticipated. In the meantime, his