From 1860 until his death he was surgeon-general of Wisconsin, organizing medical service for the state, selecting and nominating all the surgeons. With a staff of assistants he was sent to the field whenever any number of Wisconsin regiments became engaged.
His boyhood in country life made him an athlete of unusual proficiency, and developed unfailing physical stamina. He was an expert shot with rifle and gun, and could use a sling with the accuracy of aim of a David. His hands were models of nervous energy and accuracy of touch, the left hand being almost equal in dexterity to the right. Clark Mills, the sculptor, took a cast of the head of Dr. Wolcott in Washington and stated that it was the only one in his collection of five hundred that measured mathematically the same on both sides.
He was tall and straight as an arrow and an accomplished horseman. His physical perfection, his gentleness, generosity and unfailing courtesy, with his professional attainments, made him a prominent figure in the community and his death was felt as a great public loss.
Married in 1836, his wife died in 1860, having lost three children in infancy and leaving two. In 1869 Dr. Wolcott married a second wife, Laura J. Ross, M. D., one of the earliest women graduates.
Dr. Wolcott died January 5, 1880, of pneumonia after an illness of five days, the result of prolonged exposure to very severe cold.
Although he never reported his work, to him is due the credit of having performed the first nephrectomy, which was recorded by C. L. Stoddard in the Philadelphia Medical Reporter (1861–62, vol. vii, p. 126).
His surgical activities were fostered by his accurate knowledge of anatomy, his nerve, clear judgment and great deftness. Working as he did in pre-antiseptic days he was aided by his own scrupulous cleanliness of hands and instruments and by the comparative freedom from bacteria of a newly settled community. He had few trained and frequently no assistants, often administering his own anesthetic, therefore his success in plastic surgery, in that of the head and abdomen, including oophorectomy, lithotomy and in Cesarean section must be considered remarkable.
Wolcott, Oliver (1726–1797)
Dr. Oliver Wolcott, governor of Connecticut and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born of a heroic, patriotic family November 26, 1774, in Windsor, Connecticut, the son of Roger Wolcott, who had been governor of Connecticut and second in command to Sir William Pepperell in the famous expedition which took Louisburg from the French. His elder brother was a brigadier-general in the Revolution and later supreme court judge in Connecticut. Oliver graduated from Yale College in 1747, and was at once appointed captain of a company of colonial soldiers in the war between the French and the English. He studied medicine with his brother Alexander, a physician. In 1751 he was made sheriff of Litchfield County and so entered his political career, becoming in course member of the council, judge of the court of common pleas, and judge of probate in the district of Litchfield. He also rose to the rank of major-general in the state militia. In July, 1775, he was appointed by the Continental Congress a commissioner, to obtain the adherence, or if possible, the neutrality, of the Iroquois Indians, but failed.
After the riot in Bowling Green, New York, in 1770, in which the lead statue of George the Third was overthrown, the statue was converted into rebel bullets in his house in Litchfield for use against His Majesty's soldiers. In 1776, as a member of the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1777 he was active in raising troops for the Continental Army and commanded a militia brigade in the battle of Saratoga. In 1780 he was reelected and remained a member of Congress until 1784. In 1796 he was elected governor of the State of Connecticut.
He died in Litchfield, December 8, 1797, universally respected for his great ability and integrity. His son, Oliver, Jr., succeeded Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury.
Wood, Edward Stickney (1846–1905)
Edward Stickney Wood, chemist, teacher, toxicologist and medico-legal expert, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was born at Cambridge, April 28, 1846 the second son of Alfred Wood, of Wood and Hall, grocers of Cambridge, and Laura Wood, born Stickney, coming of old New England stock. He was, in fact, a descendant of William Wood, who came from England in 1638, and of William Stickney,
