1846 to November 28, 1858, he retained his position in the University, and then moved to Brooklyn. Hardly had he got fairly settled in his new home, and become the first professor of surgery that the Long Island College Hospital ever had, when he entered the army as a volunteer regimental surgeon, being assigned to the thirty-first New York Infantry. On February 9, 1863, he was appointed, by the president and senate, medical inspector of the United States Army, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After two years and four months of active service he resigned his commission and returned to New York on September 10, 1863.
In April, 1861, he became professor of military surgery, fractures and dislocations, and professor of clinical surgery in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He remained in these positions until May, 1868, when, upon the resignation of Dr. James R. Wood (q. v.), he was made professor of the principles of and practice of surgery and surgical pathology and continued in this capacity until March 15, 1875, when he resigned.
His writings include:
"Life and Character of Dr. T. Romeyn Beck." Published by order of the Senate of New York State, 1856, "Compound Fractures of Long Bones," 1857; "Treatise on Fractures and Dislocations," 1860; Second edition, 1862. "Treatise on Military Surgery and Hygiene." First edition, 1862. Second edition, 1865.
Many articles of his also appeared, at various times, in the Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal. "A treatise on the Principles and Practice of Surgery" was first published in 1872, a third edition of which was issued a few weeks before his death. "Surgical Memoirs of the War of the Rebellion," edited by him, was published in 1871 under the direction of the United States Sanitary Commission.
Skin-grafting was probably first suggested by Hamilton, then of Buffalo, in 1847. In 1854 he reported a case in which he had successfully grafted a large raw surface caused by a heavy stone falling on a man's leg.
As an inventor and contributor to the armamentarum chirurgicum, he dispensed with the useless and clumsy for the practical and efficacious. He rendered more precise the methods of amputation through the joints by a resort to so-called "keys" and "guides."
In 1855 he was chosen president of the New York State Medical Society; in 1857 was president of the Erie County Medical Society; in 1866 of the New York Pathological Society; in 1875 and 1876 of the New York Medico-Legal Society; in 1878 of the American Academy of Medicine; in 1878 and 1885 of the New York Society of Medical Jurisprudence; from 1880 to 1884 he was vice-president of the New York Academy of Medicine. In 1868 he was made Honorary Associate Member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in 1869 the trustees of Union College conferred upon him the degree of doctor of laws.
His conduct as consultant in the case of the lamented Pres. Garfield, at whose bedside he was a conspicuous figure, and his candor in joining in the publication of the true causes of the embarrassments in treatment, as revealed by the necropsy, have passed into the noted annals of surgery.
Dr. Hamilton was twice married. His first wife was Mrs. Mary Virginia McMurran, a daughter of Isaac Van Arsdale, a planter, living near Shepherdstown, Virginia. She died on April 8, 1838, leaving one son, Theodore B. He married a second time on September 1, 1840, his bride being Mary Gertrude Hart, daughter of Judge Orris Hart, of Oswego, New York. By his second wife, who died in July, 1885, Dr. Hamilton had three children. His valuable library was purchased by Dr. J. B. Hamilton (q. v.) of the United States Marine Hospital Service, and his unique collection of surgical specimens was bequeathed to the Army Medical Museum in Washington. He died in full possession of his faculties at his home in New York, of fibrous phthisis, on August 11, 1886, after protracted suffering.
Hamilton, John B. (1847–1898).
John B. Hamilton, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a successful surgeon and writer and a worker for reform in the United States Marine Hospital Service, the son of Rev. Benjamin Brown Hamilton, was born in Jersey County, Illinois, on December 1, 1847. He graduated from Rush Medical College in 1869, and married, in 1871, Mary L. Frost, having two children, Ralph Alexander and Blanche.
He entered the Marine Hospital Service by competitive examinations, where, rising rapidly to the rank of supervising surgeon-general, he reorganized the whole department; he introduced the physical examination of seamen and managed campaigns against yellow fever. His surgical skill won for him a position in Rush Medical College, and while in Washington he was surgeon to Providence Hospital and professor to Georgetown University, medical department, for eight years, and this university
