Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/100

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BAYLY
78
BAYNHAM

setts Medical Societies and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1807 Harvard conferred upon him the honorary degree of M. D.

He died June 17, 1826. He was the author of "Ulcerated Sore Throat in Dighton, 1785– 6," Communications Massachusetts Medical Society, vol. i, series 1.

Hist. Har. Med. School, T. F. Harrington, 1905.
Amer. Med. Biog., S. W. Williams, 1845.

Bayly, Alexander Hamilton (1814–1892)

Alexander Hamilton Bayly was born in Cambridge, Maryland, on March 3, 1814, the son of the Hon. Josiah Bayly, at one time attorney-general of Maryland, and of Anne Hack Walters of Somerset County, Maryland. He received his early education at the High School, Cambridge, and at fourteen entered St. Mary's College, Baltimore, completing his education at Washington College (now Trinity), Hartford, Connecticut, in 1832. He then began to study medicine under Dr. Vans Murray Sullivane of Cambridge, Maryland, and in 1833 worked under Prof. Samuel Baker of Baltimore, graduating from the University of Maryland in 1835. He became a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty and president of the State Board of Lunacy. During the Civil War, Dr. Bayly was the surgeon-in-charge of the military hospital in Cambridge.

Dr. Bayly was specially efficient as a surgeon, and as early as 1839 did an excision of the tibia, and in 1846 was the first to employ the horse-shoe magnet to remove a piece of metal from the cornea.

For forty years or more, Dr. Bayly was mayor of Cambridge and he did much to beautify the town by planting trees. He was artistic in many directions, being a fine musician and specially fond of botany, the garden in the rear of his old home in Cambridge being one of the most beautiful to be found anywhere. His personal characteristics were lovely, he was charitable and kind, his affection and care for his children was almost womanly. Dr. Bayly's wife was Delia Byus Eccleston by whom he had eleven children, none of whom studied medicine. Dr. Bayly loved his native town, the "Old Sleepy Hollow" as he called it, and it was there that he died on March 14, 1892, from rheumatic gout.

Baynham, William (1749–1814)

William Baynham, anatomist, the son of Dr. John Baynham of Caroline County, Virginia, was born the seventh of December, 1749. After serving a laborious apprenticeship of five years under Dr. Walker, a physician of Caroline County, he was sent to London to complete his medical education.

In 1769 he entered St. Thomas' Hospital as a student and by his diligence soon attracted the attention of the professor of anatomy, Mr. Else. Between the two a mutual attachment arose which lead Baynham to direct his attention specially to the study of anatomy and surgery. In the former he soon became so proficient that in 1772 he was engaged by the professor of anatomy at Cambridge as his prosector, a position he held for several years. During those months in which he was not occupied at Cambridge, he practised at Margate as a partner of Mr. Slater, a surgeon of that place. This he found to be a pleasant and profitable connection, but was induced by Mr. Else to return to London and become his assistant demonstrator. In this work he acquired that intimate knowledge of anatomy for which he was so justly celebrated. During the five years in which he held this position he prepared for the museum many valuable and beautiful specimens.

He had now acquired a reputation as anatomist and surgeon for, though a stranger to the governors, he failed by one vote only of election as successor to Mr. Else, who died suddenly without having made a promised arrangement that Baynham should be advanced to the professorship after his death. On June 7, 1781, he became a member of the Surgeons' Company of London and began to practise in that city. Membership in the Surgeons' Company gave him equal rank with the first English surgeons of the day, men such as Pott, Cooper, Abernethy and John Hunter.

After a residence of sixteen years in England he returned to Virginia and settled in Essex County, where he continued to live until his death. The remainder of his life was spent in the service of his fellow creatures. He soon had an enormous practice which was largely surgical, and it was said that there was scarcely any known operation that he did not perform with success, and he particularly signalized himself by his operations for stone, cataract and extrauterine gestation. His biographer truthfully said of him that he probably had no superior as a surgeon, and certainly none as an anatomist; that Physick (q. v.) and Baynham were the only men he knew of in America who had done anything towards the improvement of their calling. He was an excellent physician as well. He was frequently