SEYMOUR 1038 SHAKESPEARE was buried in Pere La Chaise. In his will he left one thousand dollars for the education of the deaf and dumb and smaller sums to the Philadelphia Dispensary and to the Orphan Asylum ; another bequest will be understood from an extract from his will : "Whereas it is my opinion that some of the unfortunate convicts who are discharged from the Phila- delphia Penitentiary after having undergone the penalty of the law, without having the means to procure a morsel of food or a night's lodging, might be prevented from the com- mission of further crimes were they provided with a moderate sum of money. I do request you to subscribe in my name five hundred dol- lars towards a fund to be established for the purpose aforesaid, according to such rules and regulations as may be adopted by a majority of the board of Inspectors of the Penitentiary aforesaid. . . . My opinion is that every convict discharged as above mentioned should receive from the fund aforesaid as much money as would enable him to purchase food for two days and lodging for two nights." Seybert's son, Henry, who never married, at his death in 1883 left $60,000 to the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania to endow a chair of intellectual and moral philosophy on condi- tion that the University appoint a commis- sion (the widely known Seybert Commission) to investigate modern spiritualism ; a pre- liminary report was published in 1887. National Gazette, Philadelphia. July 8. 1825. Data supplied by Dr. Ewinff Jordan. Autobiography of Charles Caldwell. University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1900, J. E. Cham- berlain, 1902. Seymour, William Pierce (1825-1893) William Pierce Seymour did not leave much written work, but was one of those who, a generation ahead of the profession, seem to care little or nothing about posthumous repu- tation but devote themselves entirely to master- ing every subject for the sake of exact knowl- edge 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 William was born October 17, 1825. He worked as a schoolboy under Professor Charles H. Anthony and, graduating from Williams College in 1845, studied medi- cine with Dr. Alfred Wotkyns, whose daughter he afterwards married in 1852. He gradu- ated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1848, receiving an A. M. from Williams the same year, and the following year began to practise in Troy. From 1857 to 1862 he was professor of materia medica and therapeutics in Castleton Medical College and from 1858 to 1863 held the same chair in the Berkshire Medical Institution, being professor of ob- stetrics in the last named institution for two years, 1863-65. The year 1870 saw him pro- fessor of obstetrics and diseases of children at the Albany Medical College, and there was added to this three years later the pro- fessorship of obstetrics and gynecology. A student of Hodge, he yet 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, rotation and exit, thus departing from the teaching of Levret that there are two straits and axes as in the lower animals. His statement as to the infectiousness of pneumonia, made in 1868 before the Rens- selaer County Medical Society, met with op- position, and ten years before, his strong advocacy of operation for appendicitis, then called typhlitis, was deemed heretical. Those who knew him best, however, and were edu- cated to follow him, appreciated his ability and mental worth. He died on April 7, 1893, passing away quietly as if falling asleep. He left two sons, Alfred W. and William Wotkyns, the latter following his father's profession. Eminent Amer. Phys. and Surgs., R. F. Stone, 1894. p. 677. Shakespeare, Edward Oram (1846-1900) Edward Oram Shakespeare, who was de- scended from a brother of the poet, was born May 19, 1846, in New Castle County, Delaware. He graduated at Dickinson's Col- lege in June, 1867, taking his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1869. After practising in Dover, he removed to Philadel- phia in 1874. He was made lecturer on op- erative surgery at the University of Pennsyl- vania and wrote a number of ophthalmological papers. He investigated the cause of a great epi- demic of typhoid fever in Wyoming Valley near Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and discov- ered the cause in the contamination of the mountain water, a report which 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. Harry Friedenwald. Biogr. of Emin. .^mer. Phys. and Surgs., R. F. Stone, 1894. Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc, June 9, 1900.
