Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/112

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

LEMOYNE


94


LEMOYNE


to tell and frequently he had to sit down during half the lecture. The examina- tion tired him greatly and he said jok- ingly " The old machine is breaking up." On Thursday the twenty-eighth he took to his bed and two days after gradually lapsed into unconsciousness and died.

More fitting and enduring than sculp- tured bronze or marble are the monu- ments chosen. On the western slope of the Rockies in Wyoming stands Mount Leidy, so christened by Dr. F. V. Hayden the explorer and geologist. In the Luray caves one of the giant columns was dedi- cated to him while he still lived. A big party went out for the ceremony and Miss Ally Leidy christened the pillar.

It would be impossible to give all his writings; a tolerably full list is in the Surgeon-general's Catalogue, Washing- ton, District of Columbia, and some of the most important are:

" Researches into the Comparative Structure of the Liver." ("Amercian Journal of the Medical Sciences," n. s., 1848.)

" On the Intimate Structure and His- tology of the Articular Cartilages." (Ibid., n. s., 1849.)

"A Synopsis of Entozoa and Some of Their Ecto-Congeners," Philadelphia, 1856.

"An Address on Evolution and Patho- logical Importance of Lower Forms of Life." ("Therap. Gazette," Detroit, 1886.)

"An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy," Philadelphia, 1889.

D. W.

Joseph Leidj'. An address by Dr. Wm.

Hunt, Phila., 1S92.

Universities and their Sons (Perm.), Boston,

1902.

Proc. Am. Phila. Soc. (W. S. W. Ruschen-

berger), Phila., 1892, vol. xxx.

Med. News, Phila., 1891, vol. Iviii.

Med. and Surg. Reporter, Phila., 1891, vol.

Ixiv.

Science, N. Y., 1891, vol. x\'ii.

Portrait in the Surg.-Gen. Lib., Wash., D. C.

LeMcyne, Francis Julius (1798-1879).

Originator of cremation in America he was born in Washington, Pennsylvania,


September 4, 1798, and was the only child of Dr. John Julius and Nancy McCuUy LeMoyne; his father, when the French Revolution began, left France on account of his liberal sentiments, with the mem- bers of the French Colony, and settled at GaUipolis, Ohio, in 1790; a few years later going to Washington, Pennsylvania.

Francis Julius LeMoyne was educated at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College), Washington, Penn- sylvania, and graduated at the age of seventeen. He attended lectures for two winters at the University of Pennsylvania, making the trip to Philadelphia both times on horseback, and, graduating in 182,3, began active practice in 1824, after serving a year as interne at the Penn- sylvania Hospital.

In May, 1823, he married Madelaine Romaine Bureau of GaUipolis, Ohio, whose parents were also members of the French Colony, and had eight children, three sons and five daughters. Dr. Le- Moyne was a strong, broad, earnest man; a great reader and a student to the end of his life. He was fearless of criticism and wholly indifferent to popular sentiment; uncompromising on all questions of right or wrong: he often said, "of two evils choose neither."

About 1835 he became deeply interest- ed in the antislavery movement and in education. He was one of the founders of the female Seminary at Washington in 1836, which is still in existence. Later he endowed a chair in Washington and Jef- ferson College and after the war establish- ed a normal school for the colored people at Memphis, Tennessee. Following this he established the Citizen's Library and Free Reading Rooms at Washington, Pennsylvania.

Dr. LeMoyne's last effort in reform- was in regard to cremation. He be- came convinced years before his death that cremation was the proper and sani- tary method of disposing of the dead and with that in view he offered to build a crematory in the Washington cemetery, Pennsylvania. However, his offer was de- clined, so he erected one in 1876 on his