Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/561

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WHITING


301


WHITMAN


rado Territorial Medical Society for 1873.")

" Remarkable Mode of Union in a Case of Cleft Palate." ("Transactions C'olo- rado State Medical Society," June, 1877.)

"Absence of the Uterus, with a Previ- ous History of Chronic Inversion of This Organ, which was Mistaken for Polypus, and Removed with Ligature; with Remarks." ("American Journal Medi- cal Sciences," January, 1877.)

"Rupture of Po.sterior Tibial Muscle; also a Description of a New Apparatus for Making Extension and Counter Exten- sion at the Ankle-joint, in Diseases of This Joint." ("Denver Medical Times," December, 1885.)

"The Closure of Cleft of the Hard and Soft Palate, at a Single Operation, with a Brief Report of a Recent Case." [" Medi- cal Record," August 7, 188G.)

"The Operative and Mechanical Treat- ment of Some Joint Diseases and Injuries; with Special Reference to Hip, Knee and Elbow-joints; with Illustrative Cases." ("Transactions American Orthopedic Association," vol. i, 1889), etc, etc.

W. W. G.

Whiting, Joseph Bellamy (1822-1905).

Descended from New England ances- tors, he was born in Barkhamsted, Litchfield County, Connecticut, Decem- ber 16, 1822. When seventeen he began teaching school, studying medicine and several years later, graduated from the medical college at Berkshire, Massachu- setts in 1848. He began to practise at Wolcottville, Connecticut and married there in 1850 Frances Hungerford. In 1852 he removed to Brooklyn, New York, where his wife died in 1854. A few years later he removed to Janesville, Wisconsin, where, in 1860, he married the widow of Chief Justice Whiton.

During the Civil War he was surgeon- in-chief of the Military Hospital at Milliken's Bend, opposite Vicksburg, surgeon-in-chief of hospitals in the Mili- tary District of Natchez, Mississippi. His arduous duties, especially onerous during a very severe outbreak of small-


pox, so undermined his health that he was compelled to resign and return to Janesville, where in 1865 he resumed practice.

Dr. Whiting found time for other duties as well as giving faithful devotion to his professional career; in 1889 Pres. Cleveland appointed him a member of the Chippewa Indian Commission to buy lands of that tribe in the White Earth, Red Lake and Leech Lake reservations in northern Minnesota, and in 1895 he was surgeon-general of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The illness and death of his only .son, Dr. Joseph Whiting, Jr., a month pre- ceding his own death was a great l)low, from which he failed to rally, and he died at Janesville, Wisconsin, March 27, 1905, from the infirmities of old age.

S. B. B.

Whitman, Marcus (1802-1847).

To the pioneer medical missionary is due a great part of the knowledge of strange countries and diseases and when Marcus AVliitman with his wife, Narcissa Prentiss went some 4,000 miles into Ore- gon he began a work the fruits of which we reap. Practically, by his quick recog- nizance of the possibilities there and his famous ride in winter to Washington to avert its sale he largely helped to save Oregon to the United States. Daniel Webster, in the Senate, had openly said he would never vote a cent to bring the Pacific Ocean an inch nearer Boston, and even then the British were treating for the State.

Marcus Whitman was born at Rush- ville, Yates County, New York, on September 4, 1802, the third son of Beza and Alice Whitman, the family line going back to John Whitman, who came from Hereford, England, in 1602. Marcus held his medical dii)loma from Fairfield, and after practising in Canada for four years and for a while at Wheeler, New York, he offered himself as medical missionary to the American Board of Foreign Missions and was commissioned to explore Oregon.