Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/388

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
NAME
366
NAME

ENGELMANN 366 ENGELMANN Oak." However, his publications on the North American vines should be particularly mentioned, for they have become very import- ant to the grape-growers of this country as well as of Europe. A list of Engelmann's botanical papers has been published by Prof. C. S. Sargent in Coul- ter's Botanical Gazette for May, 1884, who enumerates one hundred and twelve entries, and also counts thirly-eight scientific societies of which Dr. Engelniann was duly elected a member. In 1856 lie originated the St. Louis Academy of Science, of which he was first president. The Shaw Botanical Garden owes much of its beauties to his original ideas and plans. He was a man of medium stature, well-pro- portioned, with a square German head and a countenance beaming with intelligence and kindness. Before coming to America he spent a year in Paris to enlarge his knowledge of surgery, medicine and obstetrics. He remained there in 1832, although cholera was raging. Dissatisfied with the political situation of Germany, and attracted by the glowing descrip- tions which Dresden had published of Western America, at the end of 1832 he embarked at Bremen for Baltimore, and after a long and tedious journey arrived near Belleville, Illinois, at the home of his uncle, who had preceded him. He soon began his explorations of the coun- try, visiting Southern Illinois, Missouri, Ar- kansas and Louisiana, paying particular atten- tion to his favorite studies and discovering many plants which he afterwards described. In one of his excursions through the wilds of Arkansas he stayed one night at a farmer's rude cabin, and while cleaning the large knife which he used to dig out plants and roots, the fanner watched him closely, and thinking that Englemann had some murderous design, stepped forward and said, "Look ye here, stranger, let us swap knives," and at the same time brandishing a vicious looking "Arkansas toothpick." Englemann was at some trouble to convince this backwoodsman that he used his knife only to dig out roots. After making several excursions in the above states, he concluded in 1835 to settle down and begin practice at St. Louis, then only a small frontier town of ten thousand inhabi- tants. In order to defray the expenses of fur- nishing his modest office, then on Chestnut and Second Streets, he was compelled to dispose of his guns and pistols, but did not sell his favorite horse, so necessary in those primitive times. Practice from the first was very successful, especially among the numerous French families, who became his warmest friends. Even dur- ing the last years of his life, and with failing health, he would not refuse his professional services to any one, even at night. Owing to his obstetric skill he became the most popular accoucheur of those days, and was the first man who successfully used the forceps, in spite of the opposition of the mem- bers of the profession. In about four years he had accumulated sufficient funds to enable him to leave his patients in the care of his trusted friend, Dr. F. A. Wislizenus (q. v.), and to return to Germany for the purpose of marrying Doro- thea Horstmann, of Kreuznach, to whom he had been engaged ten years. In June, 1840, be brought his young wife to his new home in St. Louis. In 1856 he took another trip to Europe, where he remained two years to superintend the engraving of the plates for his great work on the "Cactaceae of the Boundary." In 1868 he repeated his European tour, ac- companied by his wife and his only son, George, whom they left abroad to cornplete his studies. In 1879 his wife, the constant companion of his journeyings, died of nervous exhaustion. Englemann was inconsolable, and in spite of attempted consolation by his friends, of whom I had the honor to be one, and occasion- al visits to the Rocky Mountains and Colo- rado, he gradually succumbed to the intensity of his sorrow. Louis C. BoisLiNu'iRE. Amer. Jour, of Science, New Haven, 1884, 3 s., vol. xxviii. A. Gray. Top. Science Mon., New Yorl<, 1886,^ vol. xxix. St. Louis Med. and Surg. Jour., 1893, vol. Ixv. L. C. Boisliniere. Portrait. Science, Cambridge, 1884, vol. iii. Weekly Med. Rev., Chicago, 1884, vol. ix. Engelmann, George Julius (1847-1903). George Julius Engelmann, A. M., M. D., master in obstetrics, Vienna, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, July 2, 1847; only son of George Engelmann (q. v.), who was born in Frankfort-on-Main, in 1809, and died in St. Louis in 1884. His mother was Dorothea Horstmann, who was born at Bacharach-on- the-Rhine in 1804, and died in St. Louis in 1879. His early education was guided by his moth- er until 1856, when he was taken by his parents to Europe to study in the great centers, which his father sought in the interest of botanic research. He returned to St. Louis in 1858, and entered Washington University, where he