a brief but just estimate: "The earliest of Dr. Handerson's papers recorded in the Index Medicus is 'An Unusual Case of Intussusception' (1880). Most of his other medical papers, few in number, have dealt with the sanitation, vital statistics, diseases and medical history of Cleveland, and have the accuracy which characterizes slow and careful work. This is especially true of his historical essays, of which that on 'The School of Salernum' (1883) is a solid piece of original investigation, worthy to be placed beside such things as Holmes on homoeopathy, Weir Mitchell on instrumental precision, or Kelly on American gynecology. To the cognoscenti, Dr. Handerson's translation of 'Baas' History of Medicine' (1889) is known as 'Handerson's Book'; he has added sections in brackets on English and American history which are based on original investigation and of permanent value to all future historians. Handerson's Baas is thus more complete and valuable than the Rhinelander's original text." Dr. Handerson contributed many well written biographies to the "Cyclopedia of American Medical Biography," 1912.
Dr. Handerson was professor of hygiene and sanitary science in the medical department of the University of Wooster, 1894–96, and the same in the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons (medical department of Ohio Wesleyan University) 1896 to 1907. He was a member of the Cuyahoga County Medical Society and its president in 1895; also a member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, of the Ohio State Medical Society, and of the American Medical Association. He was one of the founders of the Cleveland Medical Library Association and its president from 1896 to 1902. He was a lifelong member and trusted officer of the Episcopal Church. In later life Dr. Handerson retired entirely from practice, and two years before his death became totally blind, though retaining his other faculties perfectly until two days before his death, which occurred April 23, 1918, from cerebral hemorrhage.
Educated in the North and South, and having many associations and friendships on both sides of the Mason and Dixon Line, naturally of a judicial and philosophical mind, Dr. Handerson was broad in his views and sympathies, and his opinion on any subject was much valued by his colleagues. He was tall and dignified in appearance, quiet in manner, yet genial. His sterling character was recognized, and he was held in high regard by both profession and laity.
Hanks, Horace Tracy (1837–1900).
Horace Tracy Hanks was born at East Randolph, Vermont, on June 27, 1837. As a boy he went to the Orange County, the West Randolph, Vermont, and the Royalston, Massachusetts, academies. He taught in the last-named academy, and also in the public schools, like many New England boys who have been compelled to rely upon their own efforts in procuring a professional education, and in 1859 he was studying medicine under Prof. Walter Carpenter, of Burlington, Vermont, and attending lectures at the University of Vermont. In 1861 he graduated from the Albany Medical College. One year was spent in the Albany City Hospital, and early in 1862 he received his commission as assistant surgeon in the Thirtieth Regiment, New York Volunteers. After serving in the field for one year and participating in several of the principal battles fought by the Army of the Potomac— notably those of Fredericksburg, under Gen. Burnside, and Chancellorsville, under Gen. Hooker—he was ordered to Washington, and for a considerable time was in charge of the Armory Square Hospital.
Returning to Royalston, Massachusetts, after being mustered out, he practised in that place until 1868, when he went to New York to attend lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He decided to settle in New York, and in 1872 was appointed one of the attending gynecologists to the Demilt Dispensary.
Dr. Hanks' opportunities at the Demilt Dispensary gave to him the stimulus for work in the field of gynecology, and it was not surprising that he obtained the position of assistant surgeon in the Woman's Hospital in 1875, and that he was promoted to attending surgeon in 1889. The writer well remembers the first laparotomy performed by Dr. Hanks. It was for a medium-sized ovarian tumor in the person of a young Irish girl living on First Avenue, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Streets. He will never forget the doctor's great anxiety and sense of responsibility, when the operation was completed, lest the result might not be favorable, and the joking way in which he said he would lay it all to his assistant if anything unfavorable happened. The patient recovered, and the doctor was a happy man. The incident shows one of Dr. Hanks' traits very forcibly—his intense feeling, sometimes almost amounting to doubt, as to whether he was doing all that he could in every individual case.
