SEMMES 1033 SEMMES born. Three sons and a daughter survived him and two of the sons, William (q. v.) and Henry, became physicians. He died on July 18, 1849, his last illness presenting the symptoms of cancer of the stomach. Robert M. Slaughter. Semmes, Alexander Jenkins (1828-1898) Alexander Jenkins Semmes was born December 17, 1828, in the District of Colum- bia; graduated A. B., 1850; A. M., 1852, Georgetown College, District of Columbia; M. D., 1851, Columbian College, District of Columbia. He was the son of Raphael Semmes, Esq., of Nanjemoy, and Matilda Neal Jenkins, of Cobneck, Charles County, Maryland ; his pater- nal and maternal grandfathers were officers of the Maryland line of the Revolutionary Army, and came to Maryland between 1636 and 1650. He studied medicine three years with Grafton Tyler, and after graduating at the National Medical College, District of Columbia, settled in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was a resident physician of Charity Hospital, New Orleans, in 1860. He was appointed surgeon of the Eighth Louisiana Volunteers, June 19, 1861, and July 4 was commissioned a surgeon in the Confederate Army, serving from 1861 to 1863 as surgeon and brigade surgeon in Hay's Louisiana bri- gade, of Stonewall Jackson's corps in the army of Northern Virginia and surgeon in charge of the third division of the Jackson Military Hospital at Richmond, Virginia. After the close of the war he returned to New Orleans, then removed to Savannah, Georgia, and from 1870 to 1876 was professor of physiology in the Savannah Medical Col- lege. Subsequently he took orders in the Roman Catholic Church and in 1886 became president of the Pio Nono College, Macon, Georgia. He was the author of "Medical Sketches in Paris," 1852; "Poisoning by Strychnine," 1855 ; "Medico-Legal Duties of Coroners," 1857; "Gunshot Wounds," 1864; "Notes from a Surgical Diary," 1866; "Surgical Notes of the Late W^ar," 1867 ; "Medical Reviews and Criticisms," 1860-61 ; "Revaccination : Its Effects and Importance," 1868; "Preparations of Manganese," 1868; "Evolution of the Ori- gin of Life," two papers read before the Georgia Medical Societj', 1873 ; "The Influence of Yellow Fever on Pregnancy and Parturi- tion," paper read before the Georgia State Medical Association, 1875; and other papers both numerous and important. He also wrote frequently for literary and other non-profes- sional periodicals. He married, October 4, 1864, at Savannah, Georgia, Sarah Lowndes, daughter of John Macpherson Berrien, attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of Pres. Jackson, and for many years United States Senator from Georgia. He died, September, 1898, at New Orleans. Daniel Smith Lamb. Phys. and Surgs. of the U. S., W. B. Atkinson, 1878. Appleton's Cyclop, of Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1887. Biog. Emin. Amer. Phys. and Surgs., R. F. Stone, 1894. Semmes, Thomas (1778-1833) The eldest son of Edward and Sarah Mid- dleton Semmes, of Prince George County, Maryland, he was born on August 13, 1778. The Semmes family was of French origin, and the first to receive a grant of land in the colony of Maryland was one Joseph Semmes, as shown by a record now in the state archives. His family were Roman Catholics and it was the intention of his parents that he should become a priest, but their design was frus- trated by the death of both parents before the boy was twelve. After having acquired a good classical education, he read medicine with Dr. Elisha C. Dick (q. v.), of Alexan- dria, District of Columbia, and, later, attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1801. His inaugural thesis on the general effects of lead, and the nature and properties of lead acetate, presented many striking and original observations. After graduating he went abroad and spent a year studying in Paris and St. Petersburg, after which he returned home and settled in Alexandria, District of Columbia, where he continued to live and practise until his death. He soon obtained in the highest degree the confidence of the public, and his success was almost unprecedented. He repaid that con- fidence by untiring assiduity, especially in times of calamity, as when the epidemics of 1803 and 1822 visited his people. In both of these years yellow fever came, and in 1832 there occurred one of Asiatic cholera, so-called. His success as a practitioner was remarkable, as was well evinced in the latter epidemic, demon- strated by the fact that while there were hun- dreds of deaths from the disease in Wash- ington and Georgetown, there were only about thirty in almost an equal number of cases in Alexandria. In 1808 he married Sophia Wilson, the
