Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/323

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DECAMP
301
DELAFIELD

and held it until his death. He also held the same chair in St. Mary's College, Baltimore. In 1830 he was sent to Europe by the Board of Trustees to procure chemical apparatus for the University. While, abroad he lectured with great éclat before the Royal Institution in London, a copy of his address being re- quested. He died April 3, 1831, of pneumonia.

Prof. DeButts was tall and spare; his health never robust, and he had a cast m one eye. Besides his graduating thesis, only two short articles are known : "An Account of an Improvement made on the Differential Thermometer of Mr. Leslie" (1814), Trans- actions of American Philosophical Society, 1818, pp. 301-206, with plate; "Description of Two New Voltaic Batteries," Silliman's Jour- nal, viii, 1824, pp. 271-274. The Baltimore Federal Gazette mentions a highly important discovery in electricity made by him during the session of 1823-24. His friend. Bishop Henshaw, of Rhode Island, wrote : "As a teacher of chemistry, whether we look at the learning and perspicuity of the lectures in which he inculcated the lessons and doctrines of philosophy or at the brilliancy and success of the experiments by which he illustrated them, he was, perhaps, unequalled, certainly unexcelled." Dr. DeButts had a son, John DeButts, who became a physician of Queen Anne County, Maryland, and died in 1894. There are said to be several oil portraits of the father extant. One of these is reproduced in Cordell's "His- tory of the University of Maryland," 1891 and 1907. Eugene F. Cordell. University of Pennsylvania Alumni Register. Maryland Med. Jour., Sept., 1882. DeCamp, William H. (182S-1898). William H. DeCamp was born in Auburn, New York, November 6, 1825, the son of John DeCamp of Mt. Morris, Livingston County, New York, his mother Sarah Miller of Auburn, New York. A general education was obtained at Munda, New York, and in 1843 he began medical studies there with Dr. Lewis G. Ferris and finished at Geneva Medical College whence he received his M. D. in 1846, at once beginning practice at Oak Grove, Allegheny County, New York, but in 1850 removing to Hunt's Hollow, Livingston County, where he gained considerable sur- gical practice. His health failing, in 1854 he removed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and opened a drug store, which in 1857 was de- stroyed by fire, with all his possessions ; sc he resumed practice, which increased tiii the opening of the war when he entered the army and was commissioned surgeon of the first Michigan Regiment of Engineers and Mechan- ics till mustered out at the close of his term of service. After the battle of Perrysville, Dr. DeCamp had charge of the wounded in Gen. Bragg's army. From October 10, 1862, to February 10, 1863, he was medical director at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. On his discharge from the army he resumed practice at Grand Rapids, making a specialty of surgery. In 1868 he was president of Michigan State Med- ical Society. Outside his profession Dr. De- Camp made researches in concology, miner- alogy, botany, ornithology — especially not- able was his collection of Michigan shells. His were the studies which resulted in devel- oping the vast salt industries of Michigan. On examining the water of an artesian well near Grand Rapids he found ninety per cent of salt. Calling a meeting of some public- spirited citizens he laid his observations be- fore them and they took the matter to the Michigan Legislature, which voted a bounty of ten cents per bushel of salt produced in Michigan. On November 4, 1846, he married Emeline C. Griffiths, of Wyoming, New York. He died in Grand Rapids in 1868 from or- ganic heart disease. Leartus Conner. Representative Men in Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1878, vol. V. Delafield, Edward (1794-1875). It is chiefly for his ophthalmic work and his great interest in the blind that Edward Del- afield should be remembered, his energy in promoting the alleviation of disease being shown at a time when thousands went blind through the ignorance of surgeons concern- ing the eye. He was the son of John Delafield of Lon- don who came to this country and married Ann Hallett of New York. Edward, the el- dest of eleven children, was born in New York City, May 7, 1794. He graduated A. B. from Yale College in 1812 and became pupil to a Dr. Samuel Borrowe, following out diligently in New York the prescribed course of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and receiving its M. D. in 1816, with a thesis on "Pulmonary Consumption." Like most young doctors of that period he went over to Europe and studied at foreign clinics, returning to New York City and prac- tising there over forty years. He was not a great writer, but he did good work in adding to and editing a new edition of "Travers' Diseases of the Eye" and