of his connection with Anatomy, embracing twelve sessions, a large share of the work devolved upon his adjunct, Professor Horner.
Although having withdrawn himself from his public occupation as a teacher, and in a great measure as a practitioner, Dr. Physick took part in important cases whenever his health permitted, until a short time before his death. In the autumn of 1831, he performed the operation of lithotomy successfully upon Chief Justice Marshall, then in the seventy-fifth year of his age; an operation remarkable in view of the professional position of both the individuals concerned in it, as well as of the advanced age of the patient. The oldest and the first of the legal profession in the United States had sought relief from the most painful of maladies at the hands of the oldest and first of American surgeons, whose effort to relieve him was blessed by Providence.[1] This was not, however, the last operation of Dr. Physick, as he performed one on the eye four months before his decease. He died on the 15th of November, 1837, at the age of sixty-nine years.
Dr. Physick himself published little. Some papers, hardly more than half a dozen, referring to cases, or the description of instruments and surgical appliances, are to be met with in contemporaneous journals. For the account of the improvements in Surgery made by him, the world is indebted to others. To the Treatise on Surgery by Dr. Dorsey, and to the Memoirs, more particularly those of Drs. Randolph and Bell, must reference be made for an enumeration of the contributions to the especial department of this eminent Professor.[2]
- ↑ For the interesting details of this operation, see Life of Dr. Physick by Dr. Randolph.
- ↑ In the North American Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. ii. p. 269, is an account of Dr. Physick’s operation for artificial anus, by Benjamin H. Coates, M. D. In the same volume, p. 192, is a vindication of Dr. Physick’s claim to originality in its performance.
