John Rhea Barton professor of surgery in the University of Pennsylvania, 1888–1900.
Besides the reviews and bibliographical notices appearing in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, practically all his publications up to 1876 will be found in the pages of that journal, and in the "Proceedings of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia." After that date several series of clinical lectures may be found in the files of the Philadelphia Medical Times, the Philadelphia Medical News, the New York Medical Record, and more recently in the International Clinics, the International Medical Magazine, and the University Medical Magazine. He published a memoir of James H. Hutchinson, M. D., in the Trans. Coll, of Phys., Phila., in 1890 and "The Late Prof. Wormley," ibid. 1897.
Ashmead, Albert Sydney (1850–1911)
Albert Sydney Ashmead, worker in leprosy, pellagra and Asiatic disease, was born in Philadelphia, April 4, 1850, the second son of Albert Sydney and Elizabeth Graham Ashmead, grandson of Thomas Ashmead, and a direct descendant of Sarah Rush, the paternal aunt of Dr. Benjamin Rush (q.v.).
The Ashmead family coming from Cheltenham, Eng., and settling in Philadelphia in 1681, is said to be of Moorish descent and to have been driven from Grenada with the Moors and Jews under Ferdinand and Isabella.
Ashmead's early education was had at Hastings Academy, West Philadelphia; he studied medicine under R. Skillern and William W. Keen, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1869, taking an auxiliary medical course at the university and later a postgraduate course at the Jefferson Medical College.
He practised medicine in Philadelphia (1871–73). In 1873, he was called to Washington to attend Prince Adjuma, brother of the Emperor of Japan, a student at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. This interested the Japanese Government and he was appointed foreign medical director of the Tokyo Fu Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. He opened the hospital and taught the first class of eighty students of the Tokyo Charity Hospital Medical School. On his staff were sixteen native physicians, among them Sasaki, professor of medicine, Iwasa, and Dr. Tsuboi, Emmerich's assistant in Munich.
The hospital was the largest in Japan, and in 1874, during the smallpox epidemic, 600 vaccinations were performed in a day; $84,000 a year came to it from the Yoshiwara; a lock hospital system controlled its venereal wards.
While in Japan Ashmead was a prolific writer on local diseases, especially syphilis and leprosy; on the immunity of the Japanese from scarlet fever and beri-beri; the benefits accruing to Japan from the absence of cow's milk; cremation; Kakke, etc.
In 1876, Ashmead returned to this country and practised medicine in Doniphan County, Kansas, until 1882, when he removed to New York. During his residence in Kansas, he was United States examining surgeon for pensions. Gov. St. John commissioned him as major and aide-de-camp of the first division of the Kansas State Militia. Ashmead studied insanity under Isaac Ray and was called to give expert testimony in the celebrated will case of the miser, James H. Paine, in 1886. He was one of the founders of the Berlin Leper Conference of 1897, and contributed largely to the literature of leprosy.
Married in 1873 to Florence M. Fleming of Philadelphia, he was married the second time in 1853 to Isabelle M. Wale, of New York. He died after an operation for "disease of the intestines," February 20, 1911, at the Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia.
Askew, Henry Ford (1805–1876)
For many years the extent of his practice was such that he fulfilled its demands only by the aid of a remarkably vigorous constitution. His marked energy, decision and coolness made him an especially successful surgeon. His singular ability in that department was generally acknowledged so that he was more frequently called upon than any of the other physicians in his vicinity. He had large political interests in and out of his state, and was concerned in wide benevolences.
Dr. Askew was born in the vicinity of Wilmington, June 24, 1805, in a house which later became a part of St. Mary's College. His family was one of the oldest Quaker families in the state, his ancestor, Sergeant John Askew, being of those who took part in the surrender of New Amsterdam in 1664.
Dr. Askew's first medical study was in Wilmington with Dr. William Gibbons. He completed his preparation at the University of
