PALMER
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PALMER
ticut, died when he was nine years old.
His early education was at the schools
and academies of Oswego, Otsego and
Herkimer. In 1839 he took his M. D.
from Fairfield Medical College, Fairfield,
New York. After practising twelve
years at Tecumseh, Michigan, he re-
moved to Chicago where for two years
he was associated with Dr. N. S. Davis.
Meantime he spent two winters in
New York and Philadelphia studying
in hospitals and clinics. During the
cholera epidemic of 1852 he was city
physician in Chicago and had charge of
the cholera hospital, caring for about
fifteen hundred patients yearly. In 1852
he was appointed professor of anatomy,
medical department, Michigan Univer-
sity, but from lack of funds never occu-
pied the chair. In 1854 he was given the
chair of materia medica and therapeu-
tics and diseases of women and children,
in 1869 transferred to the chair of pathol-
ogy and theory and practical medicine,
which he occupied till death. In May,
1861, he was appointed surgeon of the
Second Michigan Infantry and surgeon
in Gen. Richardson's Brigade, at the first
battle of Bull Run, and other operations
of his regiment until he resigned in Sep-
tember. In 1864 he was professor of
pathology and practise of medicine in
Berkshire Medical College at Pittsfield,
Massachusetts. In 1869 he was called to
a similar position at the medical depart-
ment, Bowdoin College, Maine, doing the
work in the vacations at the other insti-
tutions. From 1854-60 he was an editor
of the "Peninsular Medical Journal," and
the consolidated "Peninsular and Inde-
pendent Medical Journal," Detroit, and
president, in 1872, of the Michigan State
Medical Society. In 1875 he succeeded
Dr. Abram Sager as dean of the medical
department, Michigan University, and
except one year held the office till his
death. In 1855 the University of
Nashville, Tennessee, gave him the
honorary A. M., and he had the LL. D.,
University of Michigan, in 1881. Above
everything else he loved to lecture; one
year to the same class he dehvered one
hundred and ninety-six lectures, half of
them new. At any moment he was ready
to fill a vacant hour in any course in the
department, never regarding it a hard-
ship. In 1867 he married Love M. Root,
of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who sur-
vived him and perpetuated his memory
by endowing the Palmer Ward at the
University Hospital, also by erecting a
tower on St. Andrew's Episcopal Church,
of which he was a member. They had
no children Dr. Palmer died at his home
in Ann Arbor, December 23, 1887, from
septicemia.
Alonzo B. Palmer's most ambitious publication and towards which all other writings pointed was his " Treatise on the Science and Practice of Medicine, of the Pathology and Treatment of Internal Diseases," two volumes of about nine hundred pages each, published in 18S2, followed by "A Treatise on Epidemic Cholera and Allied Diseases," of two hundred and twenty-four pages, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1885. The following is an incomplete list of his papers:
" Reduction of Inversion of the Uterus after a Lapse of Years." ("Peninsular an d Independent Medical Journal," vol. i.)
"Children's Diseases." ("Peninsular and Independent Medical Jounal," vol. i.)
"Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Children." (Ibid., vol. iv.)
"Change of Type in Inflammatory Disease." (Ibid, vol. v.)
"Prostatic Hypertrophy and Urinary Obstructions; Its Treatment without Catheterism." ("Transactions, Michi- gan State Medical Society," 1884.)
" Climate and Consumption." (" Michi- gan University Medical Journal," vol. iii.)
"Causes and Treatment of Inflamma- tion of Internal Organs." (" Transactions, Michigan State Medical Society," 1866.)
"The Pathology of Raynaud's Dis- ease." "Transactions Ninth Inter- national Medical Congress," vol. iii.)
"Miliary Fever." ("Physician and Surgeon," vol. ii.)
"Law and Intelligence in Nature."
