(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
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Middleton Goldsmith was born on August 5, 1818, at Port Tobacco, Maryland. He was the son of Dr. Alban and Talia Ferro Middleton Smith of Virginia.
His father, an eminent surgeon, and teacher had his name changed to Goldsmith by the act of the New York legislature.
Throughout his boyhood in Virginia, and later in Kentucky, where his father was a professor of surgery in the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, Goldsmith indicated an unusual interest in natural history and medicine, and early became his father’s assistant and prosector.
After attending Hanover College, Indiana, in 1837, he accompanied his father to New York City and studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in which the elder Goldsmith conducted lecture courses.
He graduated in 1840 and soon after sailed as ship’s surgeon on a voyage to China and India, where he studied ophthalmia.
On his return to the United States, Goldsmith entered his father’s office. Together they are said to have introduced in America the practice of lithotrity, a method of crushing bladder stones, for which operation they became widely known.
With Doctors Markoe, Sayre, Le Conte, and others he founded the first alumni association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and contributed largely to its first Transactions. At this time, he assisted Audubon in the dissection and classification of specimens for the Birds of America.
He also held the position of coroner’s physician, in which capacity he made daily autopsies, and when they failed to satisfy his scientific zeal, dissected the bodies of paupers to be buried in Potter’s Field, now Washington Square.
As a result of these practical researches, and the perfection of the microscope, which was then coming into use, he developed an enthusiastic interest in anatomical pathology, and with his friends, Dr. J. C. Peters and Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, he founded, in 1844, the New York Pathological Society, probably the first pathological society in the world.
In the same year, he was called to the chair of surgery in Castleton Medical College, in Vermont, where he remained ten years. He was president of the Vermont State Medical Society in 1851, and in 1854 removed to Rutland.
In 1856, he accepted the chair of surgery in the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, which his father had formerly occupied, and in the following year became dean of the college.
During his residence in Louisville, he was called far afield for consultation and operation, especially for eye conditions and stone in the bladder. When the Civil War broke out Goldsmith became brigade surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland and took part in many engagements, including Shiloh.
He became a medical director in Gen. Buell’s army at Shiloh, and later inspector of hospitals in Grant’s army at Corinth and finally surgeon-general of all military hospitals in Kentucky and the Department of Ohio.
At length, Goldsmith was put in charge of the general army hospital at Jeffersonville, Indiana, which at times housed as many as five thousand wounded.
During his service, he became interested in the nature of gangrene, erysipelas, and pyemia, scourges of the hospitals of his day, and devised a bromine treatment for gangrene which checked its ravages in the hospitals under his charge, and was generally adopted.
He published his observations in a pamphlet of ninety-four pages entitled A Report on Hospital Gangrene, Erysipelas, and Pyaemia as observed in the Departments of Ohio and the Cumberland: With cases appended (1863).
At the close of the war, finding Louisville hostile to his outspoken Unionism, he returned to Vermont, and for the remaining years of his life resided in Rutland. He abandoned the regular practice, but continued as consulting surgeon and a valuable expert witness.
In 1880, he published a treatise on gall-stones. He established the Rutland Free Dispensary, and in 1878, as special commissioner, carried on an able investigation of the state insane asylum.
Goldsmith was a pioneer in antiseptic surgery. He drew up the game laws of Vermont, which served as models for other states, and established experimental farms for raising cattle, sheep, grain, and potatoes. He established the Rutland Free Dispensary, and, as special commissioner, carried on an able investigation of the state insane asylum, which resulted in its improvement and reform. His library, reputed to be the largest medical collection in Vermont, was bequeathed at his death to the New York Academy of Medicine.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
In his Report on Hospital Gangrene, Erysipelas, and Pyaemia as observed in the Departments of Ohio and the Cumberland: With cases appended (1863), written more than three years before Lister had begun his experiments, Goldsmith pointed out that the various treatments in use for these three infections had but one thing in common, their antiseptic powers.
Since chlorine was injurious to the lungs and too caustic for general use, he employed bromine, which, he said, “was respirable without injury or inconvenience. ”
Until his death, he retained an active interest in all new developments within his profession, especially the germ theory of disease, which he had so early apprehended.
Goldsmith was an impressive man, “neat and even showy in his dress”; a fair Latin and Greek scholar; especially fond of Hesiod’s “Theogony” and “Works and Days”; a great lover of the out-of-doors; and an enthusiastic fisherman, hunter, and botanist.
Goldsmith was married in June 1843, to Frances Swift, daughter of Flenry Swift of Poughkeepsie, New York, whom he survived but a few days. He left two daughters.
22 March 1795 - 8 August 1861
4 July 1824 - 1 November 1885
29 November 1821 - 13 November 1887
1844 - 1919
26 June 1850 - 13 September 1925
