Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1175

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1153
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TONER 1153 TONER ress uf mt-dicine, particularly that which re- lated to the care and treatment of the insane. He wrote much on topics connected with his special work, but did not hesitate to discuss general medical problems as he saw them among ihose who were under his care. Al- though his views on pathology were looked upon by some of his associates as unique, they were fundamentally sound. He was an ardent debater and speaker and a genial and whole- some companion, and had many friends in Minnesota. He was a member of the American Medico- Psychological Association, the American Neur- ological Association, the New York Medico- Legal Society, the Philadelphia Neurological Society, the Minnesota Academy of Medicine, the Minnesota State Medical Association, the Minnesota Valley Medical Association, and the National and State Conference of Charities and Corrections. He married, in April, 1884, Miss Mary Van- dever of New Castle, Delaware. On February 24, 1913, he had a cerebral hemorrhage which produced complete left-sided hemiplegia, and died at his home in W'illmar, on May 30, 1913. William A. Jones. Institutional Care of the Insane in the U. S. and Canada. Henry M. Hurd. Balto.. 1917. Toner, Joseph Meredith (1825-1896). Toner, himself a faithful biographer of his medical confreres, well deserves that his own biography should' be written. He was born on April 30, 1825, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and went, as a boy, to the Western University of Pennsylvania, and Mt. St. Mary's College, Maryland. His medical education was received at the Vermont Academy of Medicine and the Jefferson Medical College, where he took his M. D. in 1853. He practised successively at Summitsville and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and finally at Wash- ington, District of Columbia, where he estab- lished himself in November, 1855. He was president of the American Medical Associa- tion ; a member of the Medical Society and Medical .'ssociation of the District of Colum- bia ; an honorary member of the New York and California State Medical Societies. He was a founder of Providence Hospital and St. Ann's Infant Asylum, Washington, to which he was visiting physician, and from 1856 was attending physician to St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum, Washington. In consideration of the perishable character of much of the early medi- cal literature of this country. Dr. Toner devised a scheme for a repository of medical works that should be under the control of the medi- cal profession of the United States and situ- ated at the National capital. His resululion on that subject was adopted by the American Medical Association in 1868 and resulted in the establishment of the library of that organi- zation. The collection was placed in the Smithsonian Institution and reached the num- ber of several thousand volumes, including pamphlets. In 1871 Dr. Toner founded the Toner lec- tures, by placing $3,000 (which afterwards in- creased to nearly double that amount) in the hands of trustees charged with the duty of annually procuring two lectures containing new facts valuable to medical science ; the in- terest on the fund, save ten per cent,' which was added to the permanent fund, was paid to the authors of the essays. These lectures were included in the regular list of publica- tions of the Smithsonian Institution. It was the first attempt in this country to endow a course of lectures on such conditions. Dr. Toner devoted much time and research to early medical literature, collected over a thousand treatises published before 1800, and besides publishing numerous monographs, had in preparation a "Biographical Dictionary of Deceased American Physicians," of which more than four thousand sketches were com- pleted. He was an authority on the medical, biographical and local history of the District of Columbia, and devised a system of symbols of geographical localities adopted by the United States Post Office Department. A member of numerous medical, historical and philosophical associations, he published more than fifty pa- pers and monographs upon subjects of in- terest to the medical profession. His more important publications are: "Ar- rest of Development of the Cranial Bones- Epilepsy," 1861 ; "Propriety and Necessity of Compelling Vaccination"; "History of Inocu- lation in Pennsylvania," 1865; "Anniversary Oration before the Medical Society of the District of Columbia"; "The Portability of Cholera and Necessity for Quarantine," 1866, joint paper with Charles A. Lee, M. D. ; "His- tory of Inoculation in Massachusetts" ; "Medi- cal Register of the District of Columbia," 1867; "Address at Dedication of Medical Hall, Washington," 1866; "Necrology o' the Physi- cians of the Late War," 1870; "Medical Regis- ter of the United States," 1871; "A Sketch of the Life of Dr. Charles A. Lee"; "Facts of Vital Statistics in the United States, with