Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/436

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414
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FRICK 414 FRIEDENWALD "Renal Affections." In this he aimed at clear- ing up the somewhat confused ideas existing as to the relation between albuminuria and the organic changes in the kidney, and showed that the mere presence of albumin does not of itself indicate organic disease — a truism now, but one which he helped to estabhsh. In 1847, with three others, he organized the Maryland Medical Institute, a preparatory school of medicine, and took charge of the department of practical medicine. From 1849 to 1856 he was attending physician to the Maryland penitentiary. In 1858 Dr. Frick was elected to the chair of materia medica and therapeutics in the Uni- versity of Maryland. His didactic and clinical instructions from this chair gave proof of original thought and wide learning and fully justified the expectation which had been formed of his success as a teacher. But his career in this new field of work was short. In attempting to give relief to a poor patient he contracted malignant diphtheria, of which he died on March 25, 1860, in his thirty-seventh year. In memory of his virtues and worth, his friends within and without the medical pro- fession founded the Frick Memorial Library in the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in his native city of Baltimore. Samuel C. Chew. Lives of Eminent Amer. Phys, and Surgs. S. D. Gross, 1861. The Med. Annals of Maryland. E. F. Cordell, 1903. Maryland Med. Jour., Baltimore, 1879, vol. iv. F'. Donaldson. Maryland and Virginia Med. Jour., Richmond, 1860, vol. xiv. Frick, George (1793-1870). George Frick, the first in America to restrict his professional work to ophthalmology, au- thor of a valuable treatise on diseases of the eye, the first work on this subject written in America, was born in Baltimore in 1793. After obtaining a broad classical education he en- tered the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his M. D. in 1815, and in 1817 was admitted as licentiate of medicine into the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. He then spent several years abroad, returning to Baltimore about 1819 to engage in the prac- tice of opiithalmology. He was appointed sur- geon to the Baltimore General Dispensary in 1823. In 1822 he delivered clinical lectures at the Maryland Hospital. He was a member of the various medical societies; secretary of the Medical and Chi- rugical Faculty in 1823, and joined the Mary- land Medical Society in 1822. He was much interested in general science, and was one of four physicians to organize a society for pro- moting its study in 1819. He devoted himself to the practice of oph- thalmology and to the cultivation of general scientific studies, as well as to music, for a number of years. He was unfortunate in grow- ing very deaf before middle life, and it is prob- able that this interfered greatly with his prac- tice of medicine ; for somewhere about 1840 he entirely relinquished it and left Baltimore to spend most of his time in Europe, paying oc- casional visits to this country. He was a man of very retiring and modest character and of kind disposition, a careful scientific student whose work and writings deserve high praise. His first writing was his thesis for the de- gree in medicine; its subject, "On the Melee Vesicatorius" (1815). In 1820-21 his article on "Observations on Cataract and the Various Modes of Operating for its Cure" appeared in the American Medical Recorder of Philadel- phia. These articles cover over forty pages. In 1821 an article on "Observation of the Va- rious Forms of Conjunctivitis" appeared in ihe same join-nal, and in 1823 his paper on "Observation on Artificial Pupil and the Modes of Operating for its Cure." His most important work, however, was "A Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye ; Including the Doc- trines and Practice of the Most Eminent Mod- ern Surgeons and Particularly Those of Prof. Beer," which was published in Baltimore in 1823. It was inscribed to his teacher, Dr. Phy- sick (q. v.), of Philadelphia. It is well and clearly written, the system upon which it is classified is excellent, and no greater praise could be given it than stating the fact that it was republished three years later in London by an English surgeon, Richard Welbank, a mem- ber of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, and dedicated to the ophthalmologist, William Lawrence. Numerous foot-notes were added, but the text suffered no change. Harry Friedenwald. Early History of Ophthalmalogy, Friedenwald. Johns Hopl<ins Hosp. Bull., 1897. The Development of Ophthalmology in America, 1800 to 1870. Alvin A. Hubbell, 1908. Med. Annals of Maryland. E. F. Cordell, 1903. Friedenwald, Aaron (1836-1902). Aaron Friedenwald was the son of Jonas Friedenwald, who emigrated from Germany to Baltimore in 1832. He was born December 20, 1836, in Baltimore, Maryland, and after receiving an ordinary school education, en- tered a counting room. When he reached the age of twenty-one he took up medicine, becom-