The Biographical Dictionary of America/Andrews, Edmund

ANDREWS, Edmund, surgeon, was born in Putney, Vt., April 22, 1824. After his graduation from the University of Michigan in 1849 he took up the study of medicine, receiving the degrees of M.D. and A.M. in 1852. From 1851 to 1853 he was demonstrator of anatomy in the university, and in 1853-'54 was also assistant lecturer on anatomy. In 1854 and 1855 he was professor of comparative anatomy and demonstrator of human anatomy, resigning to accept a position in the Rust medical college. He went to Chicago in 1856, where he became a prominent surgeon. He aided in founding the Chicago medical college, and was made professor of the principles and practices of surgery and of clinical and military surgery in that institution. At the outbreak of the civil war, he joined the 1st Illinois light artillery as hospital surgeon. After the war he visited the chief European hospitals. He was surgeon-in-chief of Mercy hospital, consulting surgeon of various charitable institutions, and taught the science of surgery in the Northwestern university medical school. He made many valuable improvements in surgical instruments and his original investigations led to the use of free incision, digital exploration, and disinfection of lumbar abscesses, which treatment had been supposed unsafe. He published a work, "Rectal and Aural Surgery," which passed through several editions. He was for many years president of the Chicago academy of science, and president of the Illinois state medical society. In 1881 he received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Michigan.