FRANCIS 409 FRANCIS liamstown, Massachusetts, one of the heroes of the Revolution. Impelled by a desire to move further west, in the spring of 1843 he went to Wisconsin, settling on lands which afterwards became a part of the township of Fitchburg in Dane County, about ten miles south of Madison. Here in 1843 he began the erection of a log cabin which, though composed of but two rooms, became famous throughout the region for its splendid hospitality, it being said that no wayfarer ever knocked at the doctor's door without receiving a generous welcome. In 1844 the doctor moved his family and be- longings by prairie schooner to their new Wisconsin home. He was accustomed to say that wolves gave him the most trouble and the greatest fear; that he was seldom molested by highwaymen, never by Indians, with whom he was always fast friends and their mucli revered "medicine man." Four daughters and one son composed his family. The second daughter, Adeline, died unmarried at twenty-one ; the others were Catherine, Anna, Lucia and Arthur O. His experience as a pioneer settler and physician covers nearly the entire annals of both territory and state, and he has left an honorable record as a noble and good man. He died upon his farm at Oregon, Dane County, Wisconsin, October, 1883, and accord- ing to his wishes was buried in the Oregon Cemetery, which overlooks the spot he selected for his pioneer Wisconsin home and is al- most within sight of the log cabin which lie built in 1843. The professional success of William H. Fox became an inspiration to young men of his family connection, several of whom studied and practised under him, so that, to- day, there are numerous physicians of the Fo.x family throughout the state. Arthur O. Fox. Hist, of Dane County, Wis., vol. iii issue of 1906. The Fox Family, a private publication by Melville E. Stone, 1890. Francis, John Wakefield (1789-1861). John Wakefield Francis, medical editor and writer, had for father a German immigrant who kept a grocer's shop in New York, where John was born on November 17, 1789. First a printer's apprentice, he afterwards went to Columbia University and graduated thence in 1809 and from the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, New York, in 1811, be- tween these years studying under Hosack (q. v.) and becoming his partner on graduat- ing. One year before this Hosack started The Medical and Philosophical Register. Up to 1812 it appeared anonymously, but thereafter with the co-editorial names of Hosack and Francis, the latter able to sign himself pro- fessor of the institutes of medicine and ma- teria medica in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, though only twenty-five. In the first volume appeared Francis' "Case of En- teritis," which was really one of septic peri- tonitis due to strangulation of the ileum by a Meckel's diverticulum coincident with an appendicitis. The four volumes are full of in- formation and owe their delightful tone to his writings. Francis was most popular as a lecturer. Up to 1820 he was incessantly teaching, writ- ing and practising, his receipts for that year amounting to $15,000, a large sum for a young man but nine years in practice in a small city such as New York then was. His work broke him down and he went to Europe for a year, returning in 1815 when he was made professor of the institutes of medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons; in 1817 of medi- cal jurisprudence, and in 1819 of obstetrics. In 1826, with Hosack, Mott, McNevin and Mitchell, he resigned from the college and organized Rutgers' Medical College, where lie became professor of obstetrics and forensic medicine. After five years the institution was ended by legislative act, and with this the teaching of Francis also. Thirty years later this busy popular physician died on the eighth of February, 1861, and Dr. James G. Mumford has given pleasant glimpses of him in his "Narrative of Medicine in America" (1903). His writings included : "A Case of Enteritis," 1810; "An Inaugural Dissertation on Mer- cury," 1811; "An Historical Sketch of the Origin, Progress and Presei't State of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New York," 1813; "Cases of Morbid Anatomy," 1815; "Letter on Febrile Contagion," 1816; "New York During the Last Half Century," 1857; "Rem- iniscences of Samuel Latham Mitchill," 1859. Eulogy on the late Tolm VV. Francis. Valentine Mott. New York. 1861. -^mer. Med. Monthly and New York Key., 1861, vol. XV. A. K. Gardner. .Amer. Med. Times, New York, 1861. vol. ii. Bui. New York Acad. Med., 1862, vol. i. Med. and Surg. Reporter, Pliila., 1861, vol. v. North Amer. Med.-Chir. Rev., Philadelphia, 1861, vol. v. There is a portrait in the Surg. -gen. 's Library at Washington, D. C. Francis, Samuel Ward (1835-1886). This physician, who did so much biographi- cally to perpetuate the meniorv of his --nn-
