Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/285

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263
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CROSBY 263 CULBERTSON the limb. The first trial, which was to be begun two days before the legal limit in Ver- mont had expired, slipped over until 18S3, eight years, and a verdict against him was found in the amount of $800. He carried the case to the higher court, got a new trial in 1854, and ■was acquitted. This sounds simple, but it attracted attention throughout the nation, and when it was over Dr. Dixi received congratu- lations from every state in the union. We may sum up Dr. Dixi Crosby as a genial man, a faithful adviser, and in his prime the leading surgeon in his state. He was proud of his temperance doctrines and did much to prevent the sale of "intoxicating bitters" to Dartmouth boys. He served twice in the legis- lature, and was surgeon in the provost marshal's office for two years during the Civil War. In 1827 he married Mary Jane Moody of •Gilmanton, and left two sons ; one of whom was Alpheus Benning (q. v.) and another who, after training as a lawyer, studied medicine and became a surgeon, Albert H. Crosby of Concord, New Hampshire. James A. Spalding. Tr. New Hamp. Med. Soc, Concord, 1874. C. P. Frost. The Crosby Family, by Alpheus Crosby. Personal recollections. Crosby, Thomas Russell (1816-1872) Thomas Russell Crosby, ninth son and twelfth child of Dr. Asa Crosby, and the half brother of Drs. Dixi and Josiah Crosby, was 'born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, October 22, 1816. His early education was at Gilmanton Academy and at Dartmouth College. In addi- tion he found leisure for his favorite studies ■of medicine and natural history. Pursuing these, he was able to take the degrees of A. B. and M. D. at the same time, in 1841. After living six months with his brother Dixi, he went to Campton, New Hampshire, but finally settled in Manchester, New Hamp- shire, in 1843, entering at once upon a large practice. In about a year he found himself the victim of lead poisoning in its worst form, and for the next ten years suffered all the indescribable tortures of distorted joints, colic, and broken health generally. Finding he ■could not recover in Manchester, where the water supply was bad, he removed to Hanover in 1852. In 1858 he once more took up active practice, and on the breaking out of the Civil War believed it his duty to consecrate his medical skill to his country. Upon entering the service he was at once put in charge of the Columbian College Hos- pital, in Washington. He assumed the re- sponsibility of the position with the determina- tion that the men who came under his charge should have their rights, and faithfully did he carry this out. He remained in charge of this hospital until after the close of the war and the sick and wounded were able to be transferred to their homes. The next year he was appointed pro- fessor of general and military surgery and hygiene in the National Medical College, a position he filled until 1870. His lead poison had twisted and deformed his right wrist and hand so that he had only the use of the thumb, the index and second finger, while the wrist was firmly anchylosed in a semi-flexed position, yet Dr. Crosby did his own operations in the hospital. At the close of the war he returned to Han- over, and entered once more upon general practice. In February, 1843, he married Louisa P., only daughter of Col. Burton of the United States Army, but had no children. Dr. Crosby came from a family that had been physicians for three generations, and inherited the family love for the profession. He possessed uncommon skill in diagnosis and prognosis, and it might be said that he almost had an intuitive perception of the nature of occult diseases. He died March 1, 1872, and was buried in Dartmouth College Cemetery at Hanover. Ira Joslin Prouty. Tr. New Hampshire Med. Soc, Manchester, 1872. Culbertson, Howard (1828-1890) Howard Culbertson, surgeon, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, February 24, 1828, a son of the Rev. James Culbertson, Presbyterian minister. Thrown at an early age upon his own re- sources by the death of his father, he worked for a time in a machine shop at Cincinnati, Ohio. This work proved too severe for his somewhat frail constitution, and being of a studious disposition, he gave it up and for a short time read medicine with Dr. Lyman Little of Zanesville, in 1848 entering the Jeffer- son Medical College, from which he graduated in 1850. From the time of his graduation until 1862 he practised in his native city, acquiring a more than local reputation, especially in diseases of the eye; but in 1862 he left his rapidly growing practice to enter the army as an assistant surgeon and was assigned to active service at Rolla, Missouri, where he immediately set to work to improve condi- tions, succeeding so well under adverse cir- cumstances that in a year he was assigned to