Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/426

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404
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FOSTER 404 FOSTER iroduced into America in 1870. About this time he gradually abandoned the practice of dermatology' and took up the study of gyne- cology, with which specialty he was identified during the remainder of his life. In 1873 Yale University offered him the chair of ob- stetrics, but he thought New York presented a greater field of usefulness, especially in the line of medical literature in which he had already begun to work as a staff contributor to the Medical Record. In 1880 he accepted the invitation to become editor of the Netv York Medical Journal, a position which he retained until his death, which occurred from cancer of the throat on August 13, 1911. Dr. Foster was a philologist and linguist of unusual ability. The foundation of his classi- cal learning was laid in his school days in Concord and later he taught himself French and German and did it so well that he was called upon to edit one of the revisions of Adler's German and English Dictionary. He was editor of the unequalled "Encyclopedic Medical Dictionary," in four volumes, published 1888-1894, and of "Appleton's Medical Diction- ary," in one volume, pu1)lished in 1904; he was also chairman of the Committee on Nomen- clature of the American Medical Association, and was the editor of medical terms in the "Standard Dictionary." He was editor of the "Reference Handbook of Practical Therapeu- tics," 1899-1900, and wrote the chapter on "Virchow" in "Lord's Beacon Lights of His- tory." For a number of years he was librarian of the New York Hospital. Thomas L. Stkdm.^n. Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc. New York Med. Record. New York Med. Tour., Aug. 19, 1911. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., Aug. 24, 1911. Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences, 3rd Edition, 1914, vol. iv, p. 521. Foster, George Winslow (1845-1904). Although practising and occupying hospi- tal positions in several states of the union, George Winslow Foster did most of his medi- cal work in Maine, and died while in charge of the Eastern Maine Insane Asylum at Bangor. He was born in Burnham, Maine, Septem- ber 2, 1845, the son of Benjamin Oliver and Martha Winslow Foster, but spent the earlier portion of his life in Bangor, graduating from Bowdoin in the class of 1868, obtaining his A. M. and Ph. D. from the same college in 1870, and graduating from the Medical School of Maine in 1874. After some additional study in New York, he practised at Bangor until 1880, and at that time, having previously been more or less interested in nervous diseases, became, in suc- cession, assistant at the Insane Hospital at Taunton, Massachusetts, at the New Hamp- shire Insane Asylum at Concord, and then at the female department of the hospital for the Insane at Washington, District of Colum- bia, At each of these places he was noted lor his extreme tact and his true zeal in llic study of insanity. About the year 1882 he was obliged to go to the West to seitla up the family estate, so continued his work in Le- mare, Iowa, and Salt Lake City, LItah. In the year 1901 the Eastern Maine In- sane Asylum at Bangor being nearly com- pleted, he accepted the position of superin- tendent. Busy and interested in a new and thoroughly equipped hospital, he worked ener- getically until his sudden death in 1904. Dr. Foster was married to Miss Charlotte Eliza- l)eth Adams, of Wethersfield, Connecticut, October 31, 1871, and had three children, one of whom became a doctor. He was also a professor in mental diseases in the medical department of the Columbian LIniversity of Washington, District of Co- lumbia. Among the numerous papers was one on ".sylum Needs" ; another on "The Hydro- therapeutic Treatment of the Insane (Ameri- can Journal of Insanity, 1891), and one on "Mental Diseases." Dr. Foster's charming wife was taken sud- denly ill with double pneumonia, December 23. 1903, and despite every possible care, she died on the twenty-eighth. Returning from her grave. Dr. Foster was himself attacked by the same disease, and died January 4. 1904. James A. Spalding. Trans. Maine Med. Assoc, 1904. Foster, John Pierreponl Codrington ( 1847- 1910). John Pierrepont Codrington Foster, the first to use tuberculin in America and a founder of the Association for the Study and Preven- tion of Tuberculosis, was born March 2. 1847, in New Haven, where he lived nearly his whole life, dying there April 1, 1910. Of an ancestry identified with the best history of the city and colony, he could not be otherwise than intensely loyal to all that pertained to its welfare and good name. His education, preparatory to college was at the Russell Mili- tary Institute. He was graduated from the academic department of Yale in 1869. Soon after he was attacked with pulmonarj' tubercu- losis, necessitating a residence of several years in Florida. Feeling himself reasonably safe for a life in the North, he returned to