Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/565

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WIGGLES WORTH


505


WIGGLESWORTH


County; March 2, 1776, he was commis- sioned surgeon-major of the First Mary- land (Smallwood's) Battalion; in 1777 he was surgeon-general of the Maryland troops, having general charge of the medical interests of the government in Baltimore, including the hospital which he established. Dr. Wiesenthal erected buildings for a medical school and dissect- ing room on the rear of his lot, and these buildings are still standing. He taught many students of his time, and in 1788 while they were dissecting the body of a murderer a mob gathered and broke up the proceeding. He was a leader among the Lutherans and secured the building of the first church of that denomination in Baltimore (1762).

Keenly desiring a law for the regulation of medical practice in the state he headed a movement for professional organization, which resulted in the formation of a medical society on November 27, 1788, of which he was elected president. His death took place on June 1, 1789, during the absence of his only son Andrew, then a student of medicine in London. He was the first physician in Baltimore to drive a four-wheeled carriage; on this was inscribed his crest and motto — " a horse's head bridled and bitted, with two crossed arrows beneath and the words Premium Virtutis." His rare and singu- lar virtues and his nobility of character earned him the title "The Sydenham of Baltimore." His coat of arms, mortar and pestle, and much of his correspond- ence are still extant.

E. F. C.

A sketch of C. F. Wiesenthal with portrait and extracts from his letters, E. F. Cordell, Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, Nos. 112- 113, July-Aug., 1900. Medical Reports, Idem, No. 177, Dec, 190.5. Cordell V Medical Annals of Maryland, 1903.

Wigglesworth, Edward (1840-1896).

Edward Wigglesworth, dermatologist, was born in Boston, December 30, 1840, and educated in Chauncey Hall and the Boston Latin School, afterwards gradu- ating from Harvard College in 1861, and from the Harvard Medical School in 1865.


He then studied in London, Paris and Vienna for five years, devoting especial attention to dermatoiogj'. On returning to this country there were but few exclu- sive practitioners of this branch of medi- cine, and he became one of the pioneers, devoting his life to it. It was his ambi- tion to collect the best and rarest books, the most perfect models, and other costly means of illustrating this subject. This collection was later given to the Harvard Medical School, l>ut his library was always freely open to those who could make it useful. At his own charge he opened a dispensary for diseases of the skin, at which he continued to minister, regardless of time and expense until special departments for such treatment were made part of the leading medical institutions of Boston. He was for some- time one of the phy.sicians for diseases of the skin in the Boston City Hospital, and later became head of that department. For several years he was one of the in- structors of the Harvard Medical School, and impressed upon the students tht importance of the details necessary for the successful treatment of the repulsive and distressing maladies which they encountered.

He was a member of a number of medical societies, including the American Dermatological Association, also corre- sponding member of the New York Dermatological Society.

His contributions to the literature of dermatology were many and valuable, especially in the earlier part of his pro- fessional life, and though later jmrtially disabled by failing health he was still keenly interested in the work of his colleagues and in the progress of his specialty. Among his earlier publica- tions were papers on "Alopecia," read before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1871; contributions to the "Archives of Dermatology," of which he was a founder, on "Fibromata of the Skin," and on "Sarcoma of the Skin," in 1875; on the "Auto-inoculation of Vegetable Parasites," and on "New Formations," in 1878; and on "Faulty Innervation as