Charlton, Thomas Jackson (1833–1886)
Thomas Jackson Charlton was born in Bryan County, Georgia, in 1833, and died in Savannah (where most of his professional life was passed), on December 8, 1886. He was the son of Dr. Thomas Jackson and Sarah Margaret Charlton. His grandmother was Emily, daughter of Thomas Walter, the author of "Flora Caroliniana," the first considerable work on southern botany. Dr. Charlton attended Franklin College, now the University of Georgia, and graduated from the Savannah Medical College, later becoming professor of obstetrics and clinical surgery there. While yet a student the yellow-fever epidemic of 1857 occurred in Savannah and he promptly volunteered his services, as he had previously given them in the Norfolk epidemic. He received a gold medal from the grateful people. Practising for a short time in Savannah, he received an appointment as assistant surgeon in the United States Navy, and was assigned to the sloop-of-war Jamestown. When Georgia seceded he promptly resigned and reported for duty at home. He was commissioned surgeon in the Confederate States Navy; was sent on a secret mission to France, and on his return was assigned to the Confederate cruiser Florida, being captured on that vessel in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil. On the voyage to Chesapeake Bay, small-pox broke out on the United States vessel and Dr. Charlton, with the prompt manliness and humanity which characterized him, at once volunteered his services. These were gratefully accepted, and his devotion was so pronounced and so successful that after a short incarceration in Fort Warren, Massachusetts, the enemy treated him as the British had his great grandfather under similar circumstances and turned their backs while he walked out, with the understanding that he would not return south. Being a man of the highest sense of honor, he observed his parole, and went first to England and then to Halifax, Nova Scotia, returning to Savannah after the cessation of hostilities, to enjoy a large practice to the end of his life. He was attending physician to the Savannah Hospital and when the epidemic of 1876 devastated Savannah, devoted himself with entire sacrifice to his people. Practising before the era of specialists, he nevertheless attained great reputation as a surgeon and in obstetrics and fevers. He was twice married, first to Julia Catherine Crane, daughter of Heman Averil Crane, and after her death to Julia Johnstone. His eldest son, Thomas Jackson, became a doctor in Savannah.
Chatard, Pierre (1767–1848)
Pierre Chatard was born at Cape Francois, San Domingo, July 17, 1767, and educated in France, settling in Baltimore in 1797. He was a prolific writer, his paper, "An Account of a Case of Fistula Lachrymalis, with reflections on the different modes of operating in that disease," being the earliest Baltimore publication having reference to diseases of the eye. (Medical Repository, vol. vii, p. 28.)
He held the Montpellier, France, M. D. and was consulting physician to the Baltimore Hospital and member of the faculty of Washington University. He died in Baltimore on January 5, 1848.
Chauncy, Charles (1592–1672)
A notice of the ancestor of all the Chauncys in the United States is not out of place because, although a clergyman by profession, he was said to be eminent as a physician—there were few in the country in the seventeenth century who could be so denominated—moreover he disseminated among his pupils a knowledge of the medicine of the day, acquired in England, at a time when such instruction was badly needed in our new civilization.
Charles Chauncy was born in Yardley-Bury, Hertfordshire, England, in November, 1592, coming of an old English family. He was a scholar at the Westminster school at the time of the Gunpowder Plot and barely missed being blown up; was graduated B. A. at Cambridge University in 1613, became a fellow of Trinity College, and was professor of Hebrew, and afterwards of Greek there, leaving to become vicar at Ware, Hertfordshire (1627–1633); moving on to the vicarage of Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire (1633–1637). Cambridge conferred the M. A. degree on him in 1617 and S. T. B. in 1624. This was when he was a scholar and before his puritanical opinions had made him obnoxious to his ecclesiastical superiors. In 1629 he was brought before the high commission accused of asserting in a sermon that "idolatry was admitted into the church" and that "an increase of atheism, popery, and Arminianism" existed in that body. Again in 1834 he was charged with opposing the erection of an altar rail as "a snare to men's consciences." For this he was sentenced to suspension and imprisonment until he should publicly acknowledge his offense; in addition he was made to pay the heavy costs of his trial. His courage failing him he made a recantation in open court, a step that he never ceased
