Edmund Randolph Peaslee

Background

Edmund Randolph Peaslee was born on January 22, 1814 in Newton, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. He was the eldest of the four children of James and Abigail (Chase) Peaslee.

Education

Edmund Randolph Peaslee entered Dartmouth at the age of eighteen years and graduated with honors in 1836. In 1839 he entered Yale Medical School, where he received his medical degree in 1840.

Career

After teaching school for a brief period in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Edmund Randolph Peaslee tutored at Dartmouth from 1837 to 1839 and utilized this time for the study of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. Following the custom of the older generation of medical men, he became the private pupil of a practitioner, Dr. Noah Worcester of Hanover, New Hampshire, later transferring to the preceptorship of Dr. Dixi Crosby of the same town, and still later to that of Dr. Jonathan Knight of New Haven, Connecticut. After a year's study abroad, he returned to Dartmouth to become lecturer in anatomy and physiology. In 1842 he was made professor. He retained the chair of anatomy and physiology until 1869 and thereafter served as lecturer on diseases of women, 1868 - 1870, professor of obstetrics and diseases of women, 1870 - 1873, and professor of gynecology from 1873 until his death.

Edmund Randolph Peaslee was evidently in demand as a teacher, for he held concurrent lectureships or professorships in no less than four other medical institutions. From 1843 to 1860 he was connected as lecturer or professor with the departments of surgery and anatomy at the Medical School of Maine, affiliated with Bowdoin College. From 1852 to 1856 he was professor of pathology and physiology and from 1856 to 1860 professor of obstetrics in New York Medical College. In 1872 - 1874 he taught obstetrics and from 1874 to 1878 was professor of gynecology at the Albany Medical College, while during the latter period he was professor of gynecology at Bellevue Hospital Medical College also. To this work he gave much time and it was his pride that he never permitted other activities to interfere with his scholastic duties. It is no slight indication of a scientific mind that Peaslee, at this early period in the science, was regarded an authority on microscopy.

To the academic field of medicine he made two noteworthy contributions: Necroscopic Tables for Postmortem Examinations (1851) and Human Histology in Its Relations to Descriptive Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology (1857). In 1858 he removed to New York City where he devoted himself to a large and lucrative private practice. His interests now turned largely to gynecology. In 1872 he published his most important work, Ovarian Tumors; Their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, Especially by Ovariotomy. This is a comprehensive treatise in which he compiled all the then known facts concerning the anatomy, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of ovarian cysts. It was especially concerned with the operation of ovariotomy which Peaslee had advocated in New York City in 1864.

Edmund Randolph Peaslee made no notable additions to the technique of the operation but compiled carefully and critically practically everything that was known of it, producing a book which was for many years a standard text. It undoubtedly removed many of the objections against ovariotomy which were entertained at that time by the profession, and, although long since displaced by more modern books, retains some historical value, for in it Peaslee established the priority of Ephraim McDowell in the methodical and successful removal by surgery of an ovarian cyst.

In 1860 Edmund Randolph Peaslee was appointed a trustee of Dartmouth College. His clinical duties were confined to his private practice and service (1858 - 1865) as attending physician to the Demilt Dispensary, New York City. During the Civil War he was surgeon to the New England Hospital and the New York State Hospital. The gynecologist T. A. Emmet regarded him as an excellent diagnostician and student but less highly as an operator, a judgment which is probably correct.

Edmund Randolph Peaslee died in New York City on January 21, 1878.

Achievements

• Edmund Randolph Peaslee was a distinguished physician. He was one of the first to advocate and institute the procedure of peritoneal lavage as a prophylaxis against infection.

Interests

• Edmund Randolph Peaslee was something of a linguist, speaking no less than four foreign languages.

Connections

In 1841 Edmund Randolph Peaslee married Martha Kendrick of Lebanon, New Hampshire. They had two children: a son and a daughter.

Father:

James Peaslee

Mother:

Abigail (Chase) Peaslee

Spouse:

Martha Kendrick Peaslee

Daughter:

Frances M. Peaslee

Son:

Infant Peaslee

Son:

Edward Henry Peaslee

Son :

Frederick Peaslee

Son :

Edmund Peaslee