Dr. Hanks delivered the course of lectures on obstetrics at Dartmouth Medical College in 1878. In 1885 he was chosen as one of the professors of diseases of women in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, and held the position until 1898, when failing health compelled him to resign.
Dr. Hanks was a consulting gynecologist to the Northeastern Dispensary, the Newark Hospital for Women, St. Joseph's Hospital, of Yonkers, and several other out-of-town hospitals. He was a member of the American Gynecological Society and of the British Gynecological Association, the New York Academy of Medicine (of which he was vice-president for three years), the New York State Medical Society, the Medical Society of the County of New York (of which he was president for two years), and the New York Obstetrical Society. He was also an honorary member of the Boston Gynecological Society.
In 1898 the University of Rochester conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D.
Dr. Hanks was twice married; to Miss Martha L. Fisk, whom he wedded in 1864, and who died in 1868, leaving one daughter. The daughter died in New York in 1874. His second wife, in 1872, was Miss Julia Dana Godfrey, of Keene, New Hampshire. Mrs. Hanks survived him with two daughters, Linda Tracy and Emily Grace Hanks.
For one who was so actively engaged in practice, Dr. Hanks contributed many excellent papers to the medical press. His style was forceful, clear and concise, and always carried the conviction that he had thoroughly thought out and fully mastered the subjects upon which he wrote. Among these papers are four read before the society and published in the transactions: "On the Early Diagnosis of Ectopic Pregnancy and the Best Method of Treatment," 1888; "Rules to be Followed in the Effort to Prevent Mural Abscesses, Abdominal Sinuses, and Ventral Hernia, after Laparotomy," 1890; "Secondary Hemorrhage after Ovariotomy: Can We Prevent It?" 1892; "Total Extirpation of the Uterus and Appendages for Diseases of These Organs," 1894.
In the first-mentioned paper he took a firm stand in upholding the use of electricity for the purpose of destroying the life of the fetus in the early months of ectopic gestation.
During the last two years of his life Dr. Hanks showed the effects of constant and exhausting work. In 1900 his condition became more serious, and well-marked symptoms ofacute nephritis made their appearance, which terminated his life on November 18.
Hare, Robert (1781–1858).
Robert Hare, an eminent American pioneer chemist and writer on scientific and moral subjects, was born in Philadelphia, January 17, 1781, the son of Robert Hare and Margaret Willing. After leaving school he went into his father's brewery, studied the composition of malt liquors and invented a barrel which would resist an extra strong pressure of carbonic acid gas, then at the age of twenty he entered the chemistry department of the University of Pennsylvania where, together with Benjamin Silliman, he studied under Woodhouse. Yale in 1806 and Harvard in 1816 bestowed on him the honorary degree of M. D.; in 1818 he was eleceted professor of natural history and chemistry in William and Mary College, holding the position until he was called to the chair of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania the same year, a chair he was to occupy for thirty years.
As early as 1801, at the age of twenty, Dr. Hare invented the hydrostatic or oxyhydrogen blowpipe and received the Rumford medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 1803 he read a paper before the American Philosophical Society, in which he described an apparatus by the means of which he fused for the first time in large quantities, lime, magnesium and platinum. He invented the calorimeter, a voltaic arrangement of large plates that produced heat; the deflagrator, a machine for producing heat on the plan of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe; he devised a plan to denarcotize laudanum. Dr. Hare was a life member of the Smithsonian Institution, and to it he left his chemical and physical apparatus when he resigned his chair in the University. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and an associate member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1824). He wrote and lectured in support of Spiritualism, in which he became a believer in the later years of his life. He contributed largely to scientific periodicals. Under the nom de plume of Eldred Grayson, he wrote moral essays published in the Portfolio.
