Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/819

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797
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MINOR 797 MINOT suiting from an affection of the valves of the heart. ■ Woodward describes him as one of the moit learned physicians in New England— not only in professional attainments, but in foreign languages and theology. He was acquainted with the French, Italian, Spanish and German languages and was often employed by pub- lishers in the country as translator. Walter R. Steiner. Amer. Med. Biog., S. W. Williams, 184S. Centennial History of the Middlesex County Med. Asso., Miner C. Hazen, in Trans. Conn. Med. Soc, 1892. Minor, Thomas Chalmers (1846-1912) Thomas Chalmers Minor, son of Thomas H. and Rebecca Baldridge Minor, was born in Cincinnati, July 6, 1846. At the age of four- teen he entered Herron's Seminary, and gradu- ated there when seventeen years of age and in 1867 graduated at the Medical College of Ohio. After graduation he served as interne in the St. John's and Good Samaritan hospitals and at the end of his interneship went to Europe and attended the hospitals in London, Paris, and Wiirzburg, in the last attending the lectures of Scanzoni. Dr. Minor was familiar with the Spanish, French and Italian languages. In 1868 he was appointed district physician in Cincinnati and served in this position for four years. In 1872 he was elected a member of the Board of Health and was health officer of the city in 1878-9, during the epidemic of Yellow Fever. He was a trustee of the University of Cincin- nati for six years. From 1886 to 1890, and in 1901-2, he was police commissioner. In 1902 he was appointed examining surgeon of the fire and police department, a position he held until his death. For fifteen years he was examining surgeon for the Navy and Marine Service. For many years Dr. Minor was a contributor to the Lancet Clinic of Cin- cinnati and was a prolific and most versatile writer. In 1878 he published a volume on "Yellow Fever in the Ohio Valley in 1878." Among his most notable works were "Ery- sipelas and Child-bed Fever" ; "Scarlatinal Statistics"; "Epidemiology of Ohio"; "Cere- bro-spinal Meningitis" ; "Medicine in Ancient Rome"; "Medicine in the Middle Ages"; "The Medical School of Salerno," and "Prostitution in Antiquity." In lighter vein were : "Athothis," a satire on modern medicine; translations from the French — "Parisian Medical Chit-Chat," "The Evil that has been said of Doctors," "The Good that has been said of Doctors." His novel, "Her Ladyship," has been drama- tized. He copyrighted two opera librettos — ■ "Don Juan" and "Frasquita." Dr. Minor was married to Miss Alice Carneal, of Cincin- nati, November 26, 1878. The widow and an only child, Lawrence C. Minor, survived him. He died February 18, 1912, after a brief illness. Dr. Minor was about S feet 10 inches in height, and well proportioned. He was very active until a severe fall, late in life, injured a leg, after which he used a cane. He was a fluent speaker, with much humor. Several years before death he withdrew from the local medical societies. A. G. Drury. Minot, Charles Sedgwick (1852-1914) Charles Sedgwick Minot, embryologist. biologist, was born in West Roxbury, now a part of Boston, Massachusetts, December 23, 1852, the son of William and Katherine Sedg- wick Minot. On his parental estate and in the surrounding country, he laid the founda- tion for his future scientific work by becom- ing "a good amateur naturalist." His first scientific publication was a brief description of the male of Hespcria metea, a small but- terfly captured in Dorchester, of which species only the female had previously been recorded. This paper, presented to the Boston Society of Natural History on February 24, 1869, was quickly followed by other studies of insects, including descriptions of new species. Later, in 1875, we find him at the College de France studying the microscopic anatomy of the water-beetle, HydrophUiis piceus, under the direction of Ranvier. Subsequently he de- scribed the histology of the locust and cricket, (1880), together with the anatomy of the cotton-worm (1884), for the Entomological Commission at Washington. Finally, as a reminiscence of his early interest in insects, he published in 1901 certain notes on the larvae and pupae of Anopheles, made in 1879. At that time these mosquitoes were of no medical interest, but the curious habits of their larvae had attracted his attention, and he reared many of them to maturity. After Minot had obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1872, and had made his early studies of insects, he undertook physiological investigations with Dr. Henry P. Bowditch (q. v.), then assistant professor of physiology at the Harvard Medical School. They published jointly in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 21, 1874, a paper on the effects of anesthetics on the vaso- motor centers. Influenced no doubt by Pro-