Charles McCreery

Background

Charles McCreery was born on June 13, 1785 near Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky, to Robert and Mary (McClanahan) McCreery, both of Scotch-Irish descent, who had moved to Kentucky from Maryland.

Education

After such an education as he could obtain in the local schools he studied medicine under Dr. Goodlet of Bardstown and in 1810 he settled in Hartford, Ohio County, for the practice of his profession.

Career

The remainder of his life was spent in this community where he covered an area of several counties, mostly on horseback. He built up a large practice among a clientele that was devoted to him. No distance was too long nor pains too great for him to respond to a call. From the beginning of his career he had a bent for surgery. In 1813, his third year of practice, at the age of twenty-seven, he performed the operation upon which rests his greatest claim to remembrance. It involved the complete extirpation of the clavicle, the first operation of its kind performed in the United States. The patient, a boy of fourteen, had been suffering for a long time from a tubercular infection of the right collar bone. Not only was the condition relieved, but the loss of the clavicle did not seriously impair the function of the corresponding arm. It was not until a similar operation performed by Valentine Mott of New York in 1828 attracted country-wide attention that the brilliant surgical feat of McCreery was made generally known. The technique of Mott was practically the same as that of McCreery and the operation still follows much the same procedure. In the midst of an exacting practice McCreery found time for lectures to his own students, and to those of others. McCreery died at the early age of forty-one of cardiac dropsy at West Point, Ky. He is buried at Hartford.

Achievements

• His chief operation, the one that makes his fame enduring, was the extirpation of the entire collar bone in 1813, the first on record (New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, January, 1850). This operation, done upon a young man, though the bone was said to be scrofulous, was a decided success, the patient making a complete recovery, with perfect use of the arm and living past middle life.

Personality

He was a ready speaker and a good instructor. By diligent reading he developed from a meagerly educated youth to a scholarly man. The love of his patients for him bordered on idolatry, this name being them a synonym of kindliest sympathy and readiest helpfulness. His home life was characterized by unusual sweetness and tenderness and an intense appreciation of child nature. He is described as being a tall, well-formed, handsome man with dark hair and fine dark eyes.

Connections

He married in 1811 Ann Wayman Crowe of Hartford whose parents were from Maryland. They had seven children.

Father:

Robert McCreery

Mother:

Mary (McClanahan) McCreery

Wife:

Anne Wayman Crow McCreery

7 December 1792 - 4 June 1869

Daughter:

Vibella P. “Arabella” McCreery Clay

13 December 1814 - 1 August 1885

Daughter:

Vitula Rachel McCreery Daniel

3 December 1815 - 7 December 1897

Daughter:

Acrata McCreery Hargadine

1822 - 1897

Son:

Charles McCreery, Jr

9 March 1825 - 10 January 1850