Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/294

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CUSHMAN 272 CUTTER to enjoy, he was always at his best. His exten- sive reading and his large and varied experi- ence, coupled with a retentive memory, made him able to speak intelligently and authori- tatively on any subject. He could have delivered a creditable course of lectures in any of the departments of medicine, as he was a man of fine intellect, endowed with quick and clear perception and always a student. Dr. Gushing was one of the best posted men in the country on army and navy affairs. Helen Watterson Moody lately repeated a statement made years ago : " 'Most of the work of the world is done by the men and the women who are not very well', said a wise physician to me once," and she adds that the "wise physician" was Henry Kirke Gushing. Besides being an eminently successful prac- titioner his energies were ever directed to- wards the advancement of scientific medicine; a fitting tribute in this respect was the naming in his honor of the new laboratory of experi- mental medicine of the Western Reserve Uni- versity. He married Betsy M. Williams in 1852; she died in 1903, leaving him with six children, William E., Alice K., Henry P., Edward F., George B., and Harvey, who, with Edward, followed his father's profession. Personal Communication. "H. H. P." in Cleve. Med. Jour., 1910. Cushman, Nathan Sydney Smith Beman (1810-1890) This thin, erect, dignified and skilful country doctor, with so many names, deserves a place among the medical worthies of Maine, al- though he left but few, if any, remembrances of his practice, unless we include the numerous infants he brought into the world, through the mediation of women and his great obstet- rical skill. He rarely, if ever, wrote a medical paper, but travelled far and wide around Wiscasset, and did excellent surgical and medical work for many years. He was born in Wiscasset August 26, 1810, lived and died there. He was educated at the Academy, taught school for a while in order to earn some money, and finally at- tended medical lectures at the Medical School of Maine, where he graduated in the class of 1836. He left an almost unequalled record for a country practitioner of five thousand obstetric cases. His fame in medicine may rest upon the fact that as a common country doctor, in a small town, he reduced skilfully eight hip-joint dislocations, amputated twice the knee-joint of gangrene, both patients be- ing over eighty years of age. They lived several years after the operation and died of some other affection. He was fond of referring most diseases to an overloaded liver, equally fond of giving calomel as a cure, and was excessively opinion- ated and obstinate in these two beliefs. It is said of him that he attended his very last case of confinement while suffering from epidemic influenza. To its insidioiis in- fluence he finally succumbed a day or two later, from double pneumonia. He departed from the scenes of his busy life January 24, 1890, in Wiscasset, to which town, and to its people, he had devoted, with untiring energy, his entire life. James A. Spalding. Trans. Maine Med. Assoc, 1891. Cutbush, Edward (1772-1843) Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ed- ward Gutbush, surgeon of the United States Navy, obtained the degree of M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1794, having been resident physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1790 to 1794. In 1799 he entered the navy and for several years held the posi- tion of chief surgeon of the Mediterranean fleet. Returning to the United States he was stationed chiefly at Washington. In 1829, after thirty years of faithful service in the navy, he resigned his position and retired to Geneva, New York, where he was elected professor of chemistry and dean of the med- ical faculty of the college. Besides a number ' of articles in various medical journals he pub- lished a volume entitled "Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health of Sailors and Soldiers" (1808), which, in its time, com- manded considerable attention. Albert Allemann. Williams, Am. Med. Biogr., Greenfield, 1845. Cutter, Ammi Ruhamah (1705-1746) Ruhamah is a woman's name, and in the early days of the Gutter family belonged to an aunt of the Rev. Ammi Ruhamah Gutter of North Yarmouth in the District of Maine. This gentleman, named half for an uncle and half for an aunt, was the father of Dr. Gutter of Portsmouth, but a doctor of medicine him- self, one who gave service to the state as compiler of a vocabulary of words in the Indian language and to the country as sur- geon in the army. Rev. Ammi Gutter, of North Yarmouth, was the son of Samuel and Rebecca Rolfe Cutter of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, and was baptized there May 6, 1705. He was graduated at Harvard in 1725, an! after studying divinity accepted a call from the church at North Yarmouth, at a salary