Arthur Vincent Meigs

Background

Arthur Vincent Meigs was born on November 1, 1850 in Philadelphia. He was a grandson of Charles Delucena Meigs and a son of John Forsyth Meigs and Ann Wilcocks (Ingersoll), his father being thirty-two years old. William Montgomery Meigs was a younger brother. When Arthur was six years of age he had the misfortune to lose his mother, but he received the affectionate care of his father's mother, and spent much of his time in childhood at his grandfather's beautiful country place at Hamanassett.

Education

As a boy Meigs attended the Classical Institute of J. W. Faires, from which he entered the Academic Department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1866. His father was so anxious to have him begin his medical studies, however, that he took him from college at the end of his second year and entered him in the Medical Department, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1871. Since he was not yet twenty-one years of age, he did not receive his diploma until some months later.

Career

After spending parts of the year 1871-72 abroad, chiefly in Vienna, Meigs returned to become a resident physician in the Pennsylvania Hospital. Here he remained until 1874, when he began the practice of medicine which he continued to the time of his death. His success was assured on account of his excellent preparation, distinguished ancestry, and social position. Arthur Vincent Meigs was made a visiting physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, to succeed his father, in 1881. He also became a visiting physician to the Children's Hospital and to the Sheltering Arms (a home for foundlings). He was an active fellow of the College of Physicians and its president from 1904 to 1907. He was also much interested in the Philadelphia Pathological Society, of which he was president in 1891-92. He was for a time a consulting physician to the Eastern Penitentiary and to the Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Blind, and in 1899 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was also for a time a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and of the Wistar Institute. His death occurred at his home in Philadelphia, in his sixty-second year.

Achievements

• Meigs's the most important contribution to medical science was succeeding in "modifying" the cow's milk so as to make it practically as wholesome for babies as their mothers'. It is the one for which he should be remembered. In his own eyes, however, it was probably of less value than his belief that he had demonstrated that the capillary blood-vessels of the heart actually penetrate into the muscle cells.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Study of the Human Blood-Vessels in Health and Disease

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Milk Analysis and Infant Feeding: A Practical Treatise On the Examination of Human and Cows' Milk, Cream, Condensed Milk, Etc. : And Directions As to the Diet of Young Infants

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Feeding in Early Infancy (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Feeding in Early Infancy It is extraordinar...)

Views

Meigs conceived it strange that infants should thrive upon their mothers' milk, but often pine and die when fed upon cow's milk, and believed that it was the result of chemical difference in the composition of the foods. This idea was scouted by his contemporaries, to whom milk was milk. Nevertheless, he spent much time analyzing kinds of milk both human and bovine.

Membership

an honorary member of the Association of American Physicians, a member of the American Philosophical Society

Personality

Meigs represented the most conservative type of medical practitioner, by whom ideas not their own are always regarded with caution, yet who cling tenaciously to any they themselves have originated. Meigs was not lacking in originality.

Meigs was a thorough gentleman, good to look at, pleasant to talk to, well-groomed, cultured and refined to the highest degree. He was very sensitive and so extremely sympathetic with pain that he could scarcely endure seeing it in others. He was so highly conscientious that he was continually telling his patients that they could help themselves more than he could help them. He was fond of the open air, and especially of horses and boats.

Connections

In 1878 Meigs married Mary Roberts Browning. Their family consisted of three sons, one of whom became the fourth physician in the direct line of family descent.

Father:

John Forsyth Meigs

3 October 1818 - 16 December 1882

Mother:

Ann Ingersoll Meigs

8 January 1822 - 20 December 1856

Brother:

William Montgomery Meigs

12 August 1852 - 30 December 1929

Brother:

Harry Ingersoll Meigs

8 February 1847 - 4 December 1918

Brother:

Alexander W. Meigs

August 1854 - 29 March 1918

Brother:

John Forsyth Meigs

3 October 1848 - 16 April 1924

Sister:

Ann Ingersoll Meigs

10 August 1854 - 12 February 1935

Sister:

Mary Hope Meigs

1857 - 3 December 1860

Wife:

Mary Roberts Browning Meigs

10 November 1851 - 26 March 1933

Son:

Edward Browning Meigs

Died in 1940.

Son:

Arthur Ingersoll Meigs

29 June 1882 - 9 June 1956

References

• Record of the Descendants of Vincent Meigs, Who Came From Dorsetshire, England, to America About 1635 (Classic Reprint)
• The History of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751-1895