Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/524

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VANCE


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VANCE


the sacrifice he incurred from loss of practice must have been considerable. He did some good writing too, translat- ing Bernard and Huette's "Operative Surgery" and Morel's "Histology," and writing on "Diseases of the Rectum." With his assistant. Dr. Keyes, he made an exhaustive treatise on " Diseases of the Genito-urinary Organs:" a valuable paper on "Aneurysms" attracted some attention and an erudite article on "Inflammation," in the "International Encyclopedia of Surgery" also came from him.

In 1842 he married the daughter of Valentine Mott.

Abridged from Autobiography of Dr. S. D.

Gross.

Distinguished living New York Surgeons,

S. W. Francis.

Vance, Reuben Aleshire (1845-1894).

A physician and surgeon of Cleveland, Ohio, he was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, August 18, 1845. His father, Alexander, was of Virginia extraction, his mother, Eliza Shepard, of Puritan, and this combination produced a character unique and striking. The son was educated in the schools of Gallipolis and in the Gallia Academy, and even while a lad was pre- cocious. At the age of nine he was an expert typesetter, and when the Civil War burst upon the land, at the age of sixteen he enlisted as a private in the Fourth Virginia Infantry, a regiment commanded by his brother; saw much active miUtary service, and was distin- guished for a gallantry bordering upon recklessness. At the close of the war he decided to study medicine and matricu- lated in the Bellevue Medical College, and graduated there in 1867; after the usual hospital service he settled down to private practice in New York City. In 1868 he was attending physician to the New York Central Dispensary; then assistant to the chair of the diseases of the mind and nervous system in Bellevue Hospital Medical College; assistant phy- sician to the New York State Hospital for diseases of the nervous system; attending physician to the Bellevue


Hospital Dispensary ; physician-in-chief to the New York Institution for Epilep- tics and Paralytics. In 1870 he was called upon, as an expert witness, to testify in the famous murder case of Daniel McFarland. In 1873 he went to Europe for purposes of travel and study, and on his return, in 1875, married Anna Cooper, daughter of Dr. James Cooper, of New York. In 1879 he removed to Cin- cinnati, where for two years he lectured on pathological anatomy in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. On the reorganization of the medical department of Wooster University in 1881, Dr. Vance was given the chair of clinical and operative surgery, and removed to Cleve- land. He had been interested in St. Alexis Hospital, of Cleveland, almost from its inception, and at the time of his death was president of the hospital staff. He died of cerebral hemorrhage, following an attack of the grippe, March 19, 1894.

He was a member of the Ohio State Medical Society. A frequent contributor to the medical journals of his day, he was a graceful, clear and forcible writer. Of contributions it will be sufficient to notice: "The Ophthalmoscope in the Treatment of Epilepsy." ("New York Medical Journal," vol. xiii, 1871.) "Writer's Cramp or Scrivener's Palsy. " (" Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," vol. Ixxxixl, 1873.) "Trichina Spiralis," an inaugural address before the Ohio Valley Medical Society ("Cincinnati Lancet and Observer," vol. xx, 1877), and " Vesico- vaginal Fistula." ("Cleveland Medical Gazette," 1888.)

He left a Ubrary of some five thousand volumes, ranging from the "Chirurgical Treatise" of Richard Wiseman and the "De Curtorum Chirurgia" of Taliacotius, to the first edition of the most obscure poet of the Elizabethan period, and reflecting in its contents both the abiUty and eccentricity of its collector. An excellent half-tone picture will be found in the "Cleveland Medical Gazette" (vol. ix, 1894). H. E. H.

Cleveland Medical Gazette, vol. ix, 1893-4.