NORWOOD
"20
NORWOOD
his sons. Ford North, studied medicine
but forsook it to te;ich elocution at Yale
and gained some prominence also as a
microscopist.
Dr North's death occurred when he had reached the age of seventy-three, on December 29, 18-13.
W. R. S.
Bolton, H. ('., Memoir of Elisha North, Tnins. Conn. Mod. 8oc., 1SS7, 135-160. Stoiner, W. R., Dr. Elishii North, One of Connecticut's most Eminent Medical Prac- titioners. .Johns Hoiikins Hosp. Bull., xi.x. litOS.
Norwood, Joseph Granville (^1807-1895).
A noted physician and geologist, he was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, December 20, 1807, on his father's farm, about five miles from Lexington. His father, Charles Norwood, was a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia, and the son of John Norwood, an Englishman, who came to Virginia about 1740. From Joseph's birth it was decided by his father and the attending physician (Dr. Ridgley) that he should study medicine. A strongly expressed desire at this time, suggested by association, to become a printer resulted in his being placed with Mr. Jacob Winn, a banker and manu- facturer of bale-rope and bagging with whom he remained a year, who entrusted him for three months with the conduct of his banking business while absent in the East.
It happened that a Mr. Snell visited Lexington, giving illustrated lectures in science, chemistry, electricity, etc., and Joseph conceived a love for experimental science, which could only be satisfied by reading and private study. At last, determining to study medicine, he entered Transylvania Medical School of which Dr. B. W. Dudley was dean and gradu- ated in 1836, with special honors; his thesis "On Spinal Diseases" being pub- lished in pamphlet form by the faculty. He now entered into practice and was called, in 1840, to the chair of surgery by the Madison (Indiana) Medical Institute and published " Outlines on a Course of Lectures on the Institutes of Medicine."
1843 saw him elected to the chair of
materia medica in the University of St.
Louis; he found his work and the investi-
gation of geological problems, to which
]\v had already devoted much time and
thought, and had thereby become known
1() the geologists of tliis and foreign
countries, too great a task for even his
iron constitution and, resigning most of
his private and public work, he accepted
in 1847 the position of chief assistant
geologist, on the Geological Survey of the
Northwest, ordered by congress, under
Dr. D. D. Owen as chief. Two reports on
the country, then only known to fur
traders and Indians, appeared and
received due commendation, leading to
his ai)pointment in 1851 as state geolo-
gist of Illinois. This position he held
till March, 1858, when a poHtical upheaval
put a new party into power, and an end
to his activity as geologist, for they
refused the means to publish any of his
reports excepting his "Abstract of a
Report on Illinois Coals."
Immediately upon his removal from the directorship of the IlHnois Survey, Dr. Norwood was offered the position of assistant geologist of the Missouri Survey which he held two years, when, without having made any application, he was elected to the chair of natural science in the University of Missouri at Columbia, where he henceforth rendered important and highly valued services as teacher and investigator till his death in 1895.
Dr. Norwood was a man of broad and deep scholarship, courteous and dignified, much liked, and, aside from his scientific and professional attainments was well versed in foreign literature, reading German, French and Spanish with ease, and even took up in his eightieth year the study of Dutch to afford him a better insight into its literature than transla- tions could furnish.
A partial list of his publications includes:
1838. "Outlines of a Course of Lec- tures on the Institutes of Medicine."
1839. "Monograph on Club-foot." 1846. "Description of a New Fossil
