Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hudson, Erasmus Darwin

HUDSON, Erasmus Darwin, surgeon, b. in Torringford, Conn., 15 Dec., 1805; d. in Riverside, Greenwich, Conn., 31 Dec., 1880. He was educated by a private tutor and at Torringford academy, and was graduated in medicine at Berkshire medical college in 1827. He practised in Bloomfield, and became a member of the Connecticut medical society. In 1828 he lectured on temperance, and from 1837 till 1849 was lecturing agent of the Connecticut anti-slavery society and general agent of the American anti-slavery society. During the civil war he was appointed by the U. S. government to fit apparatus to special cases of gunshot injuries of bone, resections, ununited fractures, and amputations at the knee- and ankle-joints. He invented several prothetic and orthopædic appliances, which received awards at the Exposition universelle of Paris in 1857, and at the Centennial exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876. From 1850 till his death he resided in New York, devoting himself to orthopædic surgery and mechanical apparatus for deformities, artificial limbs, etc. He was a contributor to “The Liberator” and the “Anti-Slavery Standard” (Boston and New York, 1837-'49), was co-editor of “The Charter Oak” (Hartford, 1838-'41), and published numerous reported cases in the “Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion” (Washington, 1870-'2). He wrote an “Essay on Temperance” (1828), and published monographs on “Resections” (New York, 1870); “Syme's Amputation” (New York, 1871); and “Immobile Apparatus for Ununited Fractures” (New York, 1872).—His son, Erasmus Darwin, physician, b. in Northampton, Mass., 10 Nov., 1843; d. 9 May, 1887, was graduated at the College of the city of New York in 1864, and at the College of physicians and surgeons, New York city, in 1867. He was house-surgeon of Bellevue hospital in 1867-'8, and held the office of health inspector of New York city in 1869-'70. In 1870 he was attending physician to the class for diseases of the eye, out-door department of Bellevue hospital, and from 1870 till 1872 was attending physician at the Northwestern dispensary, and from 1870 till his death was attending physician to Trinity chapel parish and Trinity home. He was professor of principles and practice of medicine in the Woman's medical college of New York infirmary from 1872 till 1882, and professor of general medicine and physical diagnosis in the New York Polyclinic from 1882 until his death. He has published “Diagnostic Relations of the Indigestions” (New York, 1876); “Doctors, Hygiene, and Therapeutics” (1877); “Methods of Examining Weak Chests” (1885); “Limitations of the Diagnosis of Malaria” (1885); “Home Treatment of Consumptives” (1886); and “Physical Diagnosis of Thoracic Diseases” (2d ed., 1887).