American Medical Biographies/Murray, Robert Drake
Murray, Robert Drake (1845–1903)
Robert Drake Murray, naval surgeon, son of Joseph Arbour and Nancy Drake Murray, was born in Ohio, April 21, 1845, and died on the twenty-second of November, 1903. Although a native of Ohio, he became a Floridian by adoption in the early 70's. He was senior-surgeon in the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, having entered that department of the government in 1872, his first station being Key West, Florida. He came from a family of Revolutionary fame. Entering the army in the war between the states at the early age of fifteen, he was several times wounded, and in the last encounter, at the battle of Saltville, Virginia, was so seriously injured that he was left on the field for dead, and was captured and imprisoned at Richmond. In 1865 he began the study of medicine in the Tripler United States Army Hospital at Columbus, Ohio, afterwards became a pupil of J. Augustus Seitz, in Bluffton, Ohio, and later studied under John E. Darby, M. D., of Cleveland. Dr. Murray attended the Cleveland Medical College and in 1868 received his degree, and, after one course at the Jefferson Medical College, he took an M. D. there in 1871. In the same year, after serving as resident physician to the Philadelphia Hospital, Dr. Murray was appointed assistant surgeon of the United States Navy, 1871–72, and did active work in the United States Marine Hospital Service, being senior surgeon of the service after 1896. He encountered yellow fever during twenty-five summers in over fifty towns and in eleven states, besides on board ship, serving in epidemics of that disease at Key West, Florida, in 1875; at Fernandina, 1877; and New Orleans, 1878. He was secretary of the Thompson Yellow Fever Commission of that year. He commanded the first armed "cordon sanitaire" in the United States, one hundred miles in length at Brownsville, Texas, 1872. He had command of the district of South Mississippi during the epidemic of 1897, and served as an inspector to decide on the character of cases of fever during much of 1898 and 1899.
Among the public positions held by Dr. Murray were those of postmaster of Bluffton, Ohio; demonstrator of anatomy, Cleveland Medical College, 1868–70, and in the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, 1869–71; member of Florida Medical Association (of which he was president in 1873); Medical Society of the State of Tennessee; Medico-Legal Society of New York; Philadelphia Hospital Medical Society (of which he was president in 1870); and Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.
He wrote a number of works of value, principally devoted to the specialty which constituted his life work. Among these are the "History of Yellow Fever in Key West in 1875"; "Report on the Fernandina Epidemic of Yellow Fever," "Treatment of Yellow Fever," and numerous official reports and tracts. He deserves the credit of writing the first letter in 1873, which led to the organization of the Florida Medical Society in the following year.
In 1875 he married Lillie, daughter of the Rev. C. A. Fulwood, D. D., at Key West, Florida. She died at Ship Island Quarantine in 1887, leaving five children, Gillie, Rebah, Karlie, Robert Fulwood and Joseph Arbour.
Dr. Murray died on the twenty-second of November, 1903, at Laredo, Texas, from injuries received in a runaway accident, eight days previously. He had been ordered from Key West to Laredo, Texas, in the latter part of September to settle disputes of diagnosis arising over an outbreak of "fever" along the Texan border of the Rio Grande River, that had been variously termed "dengue," "jaundice," and "malaria." His reputation as a diagnostician was worldwide, and because of this knowledge he was always chosen and ordered to points where such skill was demanded, especially was he an expert in his knowledge of tropical diseases, such as yellow fever and malaria. Yellow fever was on the wane, the disease had been conquered and he was at the zenith of fame at the close of a well directed and satisfactorily conducted campaign against a most insidious foe. when he received injuries from which he subsequently died. While his own life from the age of fifteen, when he was wounded in the war, to his death at fifty-eight, was one of constant pain and suffering, yet his own discomforts and troubles were never spoken of by him, for selfishness had no place in his nature. Thus was the man seen by others; to me he was all of that and a great deal more besides, but here more cannot be said without tearing aside a veil of hallowed memories from a friendship which a close companionship of over thirty years formed; a friendship commencing at the feet of Esculapias. How many loving recollections does the mention of his name bring up?