Charles Karsner Mills

Background

Charles Karsner Mills was born on December 4, 1845, in Philadelphia. He was the son of James and Lavinia Ann (Fitzgerald) Mills.

Education

Mills graduated from Central High School in 1864, having served in the Union army during the Civil War. In a series of articles entitled "The Military History of the Falls of Schuylkill, " published in the Weekly Forecast, a suburban paper, March 13 -October 16, 1913, Mills gave a complete account of the emergency campaigns of 1862 and 1863 in which he took part. For several years after he finished his high-school course he was engaged in teaching. He then began the study of medicine, graduating from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1869. In 1871, he received the degree of Ph. D.

Career

After a few years of general practice, Mills became interested in nervous and mental diseases, in which he subsequently specialized. Dr. Mills's long career in the medical sciences is marked by his dedication to instruction, as well as by his commitment to numerous hospitals and organizations. His earliest lectures at the Wagner Free Institute of Science on Natural Philosophy and on Physics were widely attended during the period of 1870 to 1872. He lectured on a variety of medical topics at many other places, including St. Mark's Lutheran Church, the Philadelphia Young Men's Christian Association, the Franklin Institute, the Northern Medical Association of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia School of Anatomy and Operative Surgery, Jefferson Medical College, and the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1874, he was made chief of the clinic for nervous diseases in the University Hospital, and in 1877, he was appointed neurologist to the Philadelphia Hospital. In the latter year, he became lecturer on electrotherapeutics in the University of Pennsylvania, and was connected with that institution until his death, being successively lecturer in neuropsychiatry, professor of mental diseases, and professor of neurology in charge of the department. His work in this last position was so meritorious that the "Philadelphia school of neurology" which he created, was known all over the scientific world. During the 1880s, Dr. Mills became increasingly involved in the study of nervous and mental diseases, as evidenced by the shift in 1883 in the subject of his lectures at the University of Pennsylvania from "Electro-Therapeutics" to "Mental Diseases. " During 1883 to 1885 and again in 1905, he served on a hospital advisory board that surveyed almshouses in Philadelphia and assessed the treatment of the city's insane. The findings were appalling and the study's results initiated major reform, culminating in the eventual closing of the Blockley Almshouse (which consisted of not only that facility, but also the city's hospital and orphan and insane asylums) in 1925, and the construction of new treatment facilities, like the Philadelphia General Hospital and the Byberry Hospital for Mental Diseases. From 1883 to 1898, he was professor of nervous and mental diseases in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, of which he was one of the founders. In 1914, he organized a graduate course in the wards of the Philadelphia General Hospital, and later became professor of neurology in the Graduate Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, which position he held until a few years before his death. In 1915, he was made emeritus professor of neurology. He was also professor of nervous diseases in the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1891 - 1902), and was connected with many hospitals in both the city and the state. In 1923, he was elected president of the American Neurological Society.

Dr. Mills's vision began to fail him late in life and it steadily worsened, resulting eventually in total blindness. In spite of his disability, he remained involved in his professional interests up until his death at the age of eighty-five. He died May 28, 1931, in his home on Delancey Street in Philadelphia.

Achievements

• Mills took an active part in the proceedings of the American Neurological Association from its establishment until his death, was elected president in 1887, and again in 1924 on the fiftieth anniversary of its organization. In 1883, he founded the Philadelphia Neurological Society. Mills wrote extensively on many subjects. His neurologic contributions alone number 345, his predominant interest being in cerebral localization and the philosophy of neurology. His bibliography covers such subjects as neurologic surgery, cerebral morphology, vasomotor and trophic diseases, hydrophobia, multiple neuritis, poliomyelitis, myotonia and athetoid spasm, surface thermometry, electrotherapeutics, problems in electrical potential, hypnotism, hysteria, neurasthenia, psychotherapeutics, mental overwork, Swedish movements and systemized therapeutic exercises, occupational neuroses, localization of tumors of the brain by Roentgen exploration, the treatment of aphasia by training, disorders of pantomime, a forerunner of subsequent work on apraxia, the symptomatology of lenticular lesions, intradural root anastomosis, insanity in children and adults, criminal lunacy and the medico-legal aspects of nervous diseases and insanity. In 1898, he published The Nervous System and Its Diseases, undoubtedly the most scholarly contribution on diseases of the brain and cranial nerves which had appeared up to that time in the American literature of the subject. He wrote a great deal on medical biography and history, and even produced some poetry in his younger days. He was a witness in the Guiteau, Thaw, and other important cases, and was highly esteemed in the realm of medical jurisprudence.

Works

More photos

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  • Benjamin Rush and American Psychiatry (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Benjamin Rush and American Psychiatry This...)

  • The Nervous System and Its Diseases. a Practical Treatise on Neurology for the Use of Physicians and Students

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Philadelphia Almshouse And The Philadelphia Hospital: From 1854 To 1908 (1908)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Schuylkill, a Centennial Poem

    (The Schuylkill, a Centennial Poem by Charles Karsner Mill...)

Membership

a member of the American Medico Psychological Association, a member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a member of the History Society, a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia

Connections

On November 6, 1873, Mills married Clara Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Wilson and Harriet (Friel) Peale of Philadelphia.

Father:

James Mills

Mother:

Lavinia Ann (Fitzgerald) Mills

Wife:

Clara Elizabeth Wilson

References

• Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, Vol. 6 (Classic Reprint)
• Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, Vol. 8 (Classic Reprint)
• Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 1921, Vol. 5 (Classic Reprint)