CROSBY 262 CROSBY larger center, at Gilmanton, New Hampshire, and in the winters attended the lectures at the medical school at Dartmouth, where he was graduated in 1824. During his medical student life various instances of his surgical audacity are recorded. One, in which in spite of the protests of older but timid attending physicians, he amputated the gangrenous leg of an apparently moribund patient success- fully, and another in which to save the patient's life he utilized an ordinary carving knife, carpenter's saw and chisel, to amputate a leg high up, and was again completely successful. How much truth belongs to these youthful out- bursts of fearless surgery, is really unknown, but they seem to justify the belief that in them was the germ of that surgical courage soon to make itself known throughout the State. He practised in Gilmanton with his father for ten years, then in Laconia, and finally in Hanover, when he was called to the chair of surgery in 1838 in the Dartmouth School of Medicine. His practice in Hanover was very large, many patients being attracted by the high reputation of the school, while the personal ability of the man spread far around for many miles. The chair of surgery at Dartmouth he occupied for many years, then gradually retired from that in favor of his son, "Dr. Ben," but continued as professor of obstetrics and diseases of women until 1870, when he resigned, was made pro- fessor emeritus and continued as such until his death three years later. As a lecturer he was straightforward and to the point and he had also a gift of dry humor that kept the attention of his scholars. "See with your own eyes, feel with your own fingers, use your own judgment and be the disciple of no one man." . . . "Operate, not quickly, but surely, so that your work shall be for the benefit of the patient." Among the novelties which he suggested was one for reducing dislocations of the thumb by bending the phalanx backward, forcibly, and then by pressure from below, the bone ■was sent quickly into place. At one time he was known as "Elbow Crosby" from his method of breaking up adhesions at that joint, while his brother Josiah was known as "Sticking Plaster Crosby," for his frequent use of that material in fractures. Although Dr. Dixi Crosby performed some famous operations, he might be called a care- ful, rather than a brilliant operator. He said, "An operation, gentlemen, is soon enough done when well enough done." He learned all the new methods of practice by frequent visits to metropolitan hospitals ; he went to Boston to see just how ether was used, and later on to study chloroform, which he preferred in his practice, if he had the services of a skilled anesthetist like his son Benning. No statistics of his operations have been preserved, but he had the reputation for years of doing more surgery than any other man in New Hamp- shire. He was the cynosure at the meetings of the New Hampshire Medical Society, was honored with every office within its gift, was twice chosen president, and was a dignified presiding officer. He spoke often at the meet- ings, which he attended regularly for years, from the date of his election as a member in 1826. Although on each occasion as presi- dent he may have delivered an address, no record of his topics has been preserved. Care- ful study, too, of the society's records, shows that set papers were rarely read, most of the meetings being occupied with the exhibition and discussion of the treatment of cases. Dr. Crosby once read a paper "On Tumors of the Pelvis" and another "On Trusses." He exhibited in .1835 the case which made his name noted in American surgery, in which in March of that year he removed after a bloody operation, and before the days of ether, be it emphasized, an enormous osteoma involving clavicle, shoulder-joint and scapula. Amputating all of the parts involved, the gigantic mass was removed. The operation was so completely successful that when shown in the June following, the patient who had been an emaciated skeleton of 80 pounds, was then a "monstrous healthy fellow weighing over 200." This operation was first performed by Ralph Cuming, an English naval surgeon, in 1808, as reported by A. Copland Hutchinson in the London Medical Gazette, 1829-30, vol. v, 273. No account of the life of Dixi Crosby would be complete which failed to mention his ex- traordinary law suit, which originating in 1845 was not tried until 1853, and tried anew m 1854 with acquittal. It was extraordinary, be- cause it was the first time in this country ni which a consulting surgeon was ever sued, and it was the first in which so long a time elapsed from the date of the original visit before proceedings were brought. Early in 1845, a man was covered with gravel in a pit, and taken out with a broken leg, Crosby was called as consultant, and advised the use of Gibson's splint. When this was ready the next morning he applied it and never saw the patient again. He was sued, because abscesses and gangrene supervened, with shortening of
