Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/325

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POWELL


287


POWER


lesion being painted with pure acid and then the acid neutralized when it has acted sufficiently, by the application of alcohol. The Powell treatment of leg and other ulcers has been extensively followed since then, and with gratif5dng results. He was also greatly interested in the surgery of the skull for the relief of cerebral disease, especially idiocy. Dr. Powell contributed many interesting cases to the medical journals, especially the "Post-Graduate." He resigned from this journal in 1905 of which he had been co-editor since 1887, on account of fail- ing health. He married twice, first a daughter of Robert Irwin, and had one son, Irwin Powell, who died a few months before his father in the vigor of youthful manhood. In 1889 Dr. Powell married Isabelle V. Wilson, who, with twin daughters, Emily and Isabelle, survived him.

Dr. Powell was elected a director of the Post-graduate School in 1890, and served in that capacity until his resignation as a professor, when he gave up his director- ship. The school owes much of its success to his skill and popularity in the days of his active work. He was a child of the school, having begun work with it in its infancy and having been actively connected with it for twenty- three years.

He died at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, on August 24, 1907.

His article on " Carbolic Acid in Sur- gery" is in the "Transactions of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association," 1900, xiii.

Post-graduate, Oct., 1907 (port.)

Powell, Theophilus Orgain (1837-1907).

Theophilus Orgain Powell, a descend- ant of Englishmen who had come to Virginia in 1609, was born on March 21, 1837 in Brunswick County, Virginia, graduating from the Medical College of Georgia in 1859. He devoted his whole attention to the study of nervous and mental disease, especially when promoted to the superintendency of Georgia State Sanatorium, for being possessed of quick perception and fine tact he was able to


get at the root of many obscure forms of alienation. He also served as president of the Georgia Medical Association and of the Medico-psychological Association. His writings were chiefly for journals dealing with his own specialty. On January 12, 1860 he married Frances Augusta Birdsong of Hancock Coimty, and had two children, Julia and Haller. At the time of his death he had been in ill health for some months and finally died from an attack of acute pneumonia at Tate Springs, Tennessee, on August 18, 1907.

J. G. B.

Atlanta Med. and Surg. Jour., 1885-6, n. s., vol. ii.

Power, William (1813-1852).

A native of Baltimore and born in 1813, his education was obtained at Yale College, which gave him his A. B. in 1832 and later that of A. M. He stud- ied medicine under Dr. John Buckler of Baltimore in 1833, and matriculated at the University of Maryland, and in 1835 graduated M. D., then spent three years in Paris, studying under Louis, Chomel, Andral, Rostan, Grisolle, Barth and Roger. Paris was at that time the medi- cal center of the world, and Power was one of that remarkable group of young Americans who gathered there. In 1841 -42 he delivered at the University Hos- pital two courses of lectures on physical exploration of the chest; these were the first lectures of the sort given at the uni- versity and were well attended. His health now gave way and in 1843 he abandoned work and went to Cuba. In the following year he resumed teaching and in 1845 was appointed lecturer on the theory and practice of medicine, and in

1846, on the resignation of Elisha Bart- lett, he succeeded to him. He married in

1847. In January, 1852, in a letter full of pathos, he reluctantly resigned his chair, and on the fifteenth of August following, he died in Baltimore, the vic- tim of consumption, in his thirty-ninth year.

He was the first to teach in his native