Background
Walter Kempster, the son of Christopher and Charlotte (Treble) Kempster, was born on May 25, 1841 in London, England. His parents emigrated to the United States about 1849 and settled in Syracuse, New York.
https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Publications-Walter-Kempner-MD/dp/0965479722?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0965479722
Walter Kempster, the son of Christopher and Charlotte (Treble) Kempster, was born on May 25, 1841 in London, England. His parents emigrated to the United States about 1849 and settled in Syracuse, New York.
Kempster received his preliminary education in Syracuse, New York and then entered the Long Island College Hospital at Brooklyn. During his convalescence he completed his medical studies and graduated from the Long Island College Hospital in June 1864.
On the outbreak of the Civil War Kempster enlisted in the 12th New York Infantry and was mustered into the United States service for a three months' term, May 13, 1861, remaining until the expiration of his original enlistment. Mustered out of service in October 1861, he reenlisted in November in the 10th New York Cavalry. He was appointed hospital steward and detailed to hospital duty in Baltimore, Maryland, where he assisted in organizing the Patterson Park Hospital in April 1862. In the following January, at his own request, he was relieved of this duty and rejoined his regiment in the field, and on June 9, 1863, he was promoted to first lieutenant for gallantry on the field at Brandy Station. Owing to injuries received at Mine Run he resigned his commission in December 1863. In 1864 he reentered the service as acting assistant surgeon and served in this capacity until the close of the war.
After leaving the service Kempster made a special study of nervous and mental diseases, and in 1866 he was appointed assistant superintendent of the State Asylum for the Feeble-Minded at Syracuse, New York. In 1867 he was appointed assistant physician at the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, New York, where he remained until 1873. During his service at Utica he acted as assistant editor of the American Journal of Insanity, a position he held for ten years, and in collaboration with the superintendent, John P. Gray, developed a method for photographing and projecting on a screen gross and microscopic preparations of the brain. In 1873 he was appointed superintendent of the Northern Hospital for the Insane, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Here he remained until 1884, when he resigned his position and removed to Milwaukee.
During his service at Oshkosh he continued his study of the minute structure of the brain and also studied the effects of chloral, hyoscyamus, and other drugs. Appointed in 1891 a member of the congressional commission to investigate conditions of emigration, he visited Europe under instructions to report on emigration from Russia. The commission, however, met opposition, and the report was not allowed to be circulated in Russia. The following year Kempster was a member of a congressional commission on epidemics, and on visiting Turkey, Palestine, and Persia, found that no quarantine regulations were enforced.
In 1894 he was health commissioner of Milwaukee and met opposition in his attempt to enforce rules regarding smallpox. Eventually the matter was brought into court and he and his regulations were fully sustained. Kempster was frequently called to serve as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases and was one of the witnesses for the prosecution in the celebrated case of Guiteau, slayer of President Garfield. During much of his time in Milwaukee he was professor of mental diseases at the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons. He published a volume on The International Dissemination of Cholera and Other Infectious Diseases, with Plan for Effectual Quarantine (1893). A shorter paper, "The Early Days of our Cavalry in the Army of the Potomac, " he published in the War Papers (vol. III, 1903) of the Wisconsin Commandery of the Loyal Legion.
Kempster was married to J. L. J. Poessell on June 28, 1913.