hundred and fifty, and would have been
larger but for lack of accommodation.
Agnew at this period was an indefatigable
worker. He dissected for a time from
"twelve to eighteen hours a day"
(Adams). He gave as many as one hundred and eighty lectures during the year in his various courses including that on
operative surgery. During a period when it was difficult to get anatomical
material at the time of the cholera epidemic in 1854, Agnew went into the pit designed for the bodies of those dead of
cholera, and injected bodies, which were
then transferred to his dissecting rooms.
One of his customs was to put subjects
into a pond full of eels and these did their
work very thoroughly. Unfortunately
the man who had the reputation of selling
the best eels in town secretly got them
from this pond. The result, when by
accident he learned how his eels were
nourished, brought out rather a bad
reputation for Agnew.
In 1854, he was elected a surgeon to the Philadelphia Hospital, where he established a pathological museum. He organized the Philadelphia School of Operative Surgery in 1863.
During the Civil War he performed many operations on wounded soldiers brought to the Hestonville and Mowry Army Hospital at Chestnut Hill, where Dr. Agnew and Samuel G. Morton alternated as consulting surgeon.
He married November 21, 1841, Margaret Creighton daughter of Samuel Irwin, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Agnew had gone to Philadelphia without great medical or surgical experience, but by his own energy and self-reliance was able to acquire great popularity as a teacher owing to the clearness of his teaching, the soundness of his judgment, the precision of his operations, and the character of his writings. lie was a rigid yet cautious operator, always showing coolness and presence of mind. He was a man of great nobility of character and of personal magnetism, lie had much physical strength and courage. He was the chief operator in attendance on President Garfield after his assassination.
His last illness was in 1892 when he died, in Philadelphia, on the twenty-second of March, 1892.
Among his appointments he became demonstrator of anatomy and assistant professor of clinical surgery in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected surgeon to the Wills' Eye Hospital; in 1864, surgeon to the Pennsylvania, and in 1867, surgeon to the Orthopedic Hospital. In 1870, professor of clinical surgery in the University of Pennsylvania; 1871, of the principles and practice of surgery; 1889, emeritus professor of surgery and honorary professor of clinical surgery. In 1884 he resigned the position of attending surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital and became consulting surgeon, and in 1890 was elected president of the College of Physicians.
A list of his chief writings is given, but he first made his name as an author through his introductory lectures, and his "Classification of the Animal Kingdom," 1861, is considered a better work even than that of Baron Larrey.
"Practical Anatomy;" a new arrangement of the "London Dissector," with numerous modifications and additions, containing a concise description of the muscles, blood-vessels, nerves, viscera, and ligaments of the human body as they appear on dissection; with illustrations. Philadelphia, 1856.
"Vesico-vaginal fistula, its history and treatment." 42 pp., S°. Philadelphia, office of the "Medical and Surgical Reporter," 1867. Reprinted from "Medical and Surgical Reporter," Philadelphia, 1886, xv.
"Lecture introductory to the one hundred and fifth courses of instruction in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania," delivered Monday, October 10, 1870. Philadelphia, 1870.
Address delivered before the Philadelphia County Medical Society, January 5, 1875. (Published by order of the Society.) Philadelphia, 1875.
