JAMESON-L Archives

From:
Subject: Horatio Gates Jameson, M. D. of York County, PA Historical Biography
Date: 9 Apr 2005 00:50:52 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kFl.2ACIB/439

Message Board Post:


Horatio Gates Jameson, M. D.
Historical Biography

Horatio Jameson was born in York in 1778, and married August 3, 1797, Catherine Shevell (Chevell), of Somerset, Penn., (where he then abode), and had issue: Cassandra, Elizabeth, Rush, Catherine, Alexander, Cobean, David Davis, and Horatio Gates. He seems to have sojourned, after his marriage, in Somerset, Wheeling, Adamstown, and Gettysburg, until about 1810, when he removed to Baltimore, where he established himself permanently in practice, founded and became president of the Washington Medical College, and at one time, Health Officer of the city. About 1830 Dr. Jameson with his wife and daughter, Elizabeth Gibson, made a voyage to Europe on one of the packets running from Baltimore to the ports of Germany, and visited several places on the continent, but sojourned longest at Copenhagen, Denmark; to and from the American representative at whose court he was accredited as a special bearer of dispatches by the government at Washington. While on his return from a trip to Tex!
as, (where he had purchased lands), the faculty of the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, composed of Drs. Gross, Drake, Rives and Rogers-all celebrities in their profession-tendered him its presidency; accepting which, he removed with his family from Baltimore in March 1836, and resumed practice there. On one or two of his journeys between Texas or the West and Baltimore, he was severely injured by the upsetting of a stagecoach on the mountains of West Virginia, and was unable to rejoin his family for months. His wife, Catherine (Shevell) Jameson, died in Baltimore, November 1, 1837; and he married in 1852, a lady of Baltimore, Hannah J.D. Ely, nee Fearson, (the widow of Judah Ely, Esq., with a son, Jesse Fearson Ely). Within the last year of his life, he left Baltimore and went to York, to spend his last days among the scenes of his childhood-so fondly remembered and graphically described by him in a Baltimore journal in 1842. But the hope and ambition of his life-to obt!
ain and restore to the family his patrimonial homestead and estate-he
never realized; and he died, unprocessed of its acres and domicile, while on a visit to the city of New York in July 1855-the same year in which the ancient homestead was destroyed by fire. His widow survived him nearly thirty years, and died in the city of Baltimore, August 19, 1884, at the ripe age of eighty years.
Dr. Jameson was celebrated for his surgical skill and knowledge, and also had a wide repute for his successful treatment of cholera-epidemic in Baltimore and Philadelphia, 1793-98 and 1832. He wrote several medical works, which were accepted as authority by the profession, and was an able and earnest advocate of the “non-contagion” theory. Like the great Dr. Rush, he belonged to the school of the immortal Sangrado of Gil Bas fame, whose theory of practice obtained even unto the days of the writer. The earliest recollection of the writer’s youth is that of a fine old English engraving, which hung over the mantel in his grandfather’s office. It represented Galen discovering a skeleton in a forest; and neither it, nor the lines engraved beneath, has ever been effaced from the writer’s memory. The latter are reproduced here, as a suggestive indication that the disciples of Galen, in those days, were devout men, fearing God:

Forbear, vain man, to launch with Reason’s eye
Into the vast depths of dark Immensity;
Nor think thy narrow but presumptuous mind,
The least idea of thy God can find;
Though crowding thoughts distract the laboring brain,
How can Finite INFINITE explain.


Taken from the book, “History of York County, Illustrated 1886” by John Gibson, Historical Editor



[From Medical Annals of Baltimore, by John N. Quinan]

JAMESON, HORATIO G., M. D., BORN IN Pennsylvania, 1778; University of Maryland 1813; Consulting Surgeon Baltimore City Hospital, 1819-35; Consulting Physician Board of Health, Baltimore, 1822-35; Professor of Surgery and Surgical Anatomy, Washington Medical University, 1827-35, and one its incorporators, 1827; Member American Medical Association, 1856; Professor of Surgery Cincinnati Medical College, 1835; member Philosophical Societies of Berlin, Moscow, etc.; editor Maryland Medical Recorder, 1829-32, and ----; died in New York, 1855.
[Gives subjects of Medical works, treatises, et cetera, of which he was the author, published from 1813 to 1856, included in which are two volumes--”American Domestic Medicine, 1817,” and “A Treatise on Cholera, 1854,” and treatise “On Yellow Fever, intended to prove the necessity of V. S. (Blood-letting) in that disease,” and “On the Non-Contagiousness of Yellow Fever,” (read before the Medical Section of the Literary Assembly, held in the city of Hamburg) 1830].
“Dr. H. G. Jameson was no doubt one of the ablest surgeons of his day. He took away, for the first time in the world, nearly the entire Upper Jaw (1830); in May, 1820, he ligated the External Iliac Artery; in 1823, he performed Tracheotomy, the first in Baltimore; in 1824, he excised the Cervix Uteri, (the first in Great Britain or America). He was the first in Baltimore to attempt Ovariotomy.” ---The Surgeons of Baltimore and their Achievements,” (Read before the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, at their meeting in honor of the Sesqui-Centennial of Baltimore, October 13, 1880, by Bernard B. Browne, M. D.). While physician to the Board of Health, Baltimore, he obtained vaccine virus by vaccinating a cow. ---See his report, 1831.”
1820, January, Dr. H. G. Jameson removes the upper maxillae, after trying the carotid. (The first operation of the kind on record).---Gross.
1821, August, Dr. Jameson (H. G.) ligates the external iliac artery for aneurism.
1823, October 20, Dr. Jameson (among the first in Maryland) performs Tracheotomy. He also attempts Ovariotomy, but fails (first attempt in Baltimore). He also (the first in Great Britain or America) excises the Neck of Uterus.
1826, August 25, Dr. Jameson successfully operates for stone.
1827, March 13, Washington College of Washington, Penn., authorizes the establishment of a Medical School in Baltimore. Faculty are H. G. Jameson, Surgery; Samuel K. Jennings, Materia Medica and Therapeutics; William W. Handy, Obstetrics and Diseases of Women; James H. Miller, Practice; Samuel Annan, Anatomy and Physiology; John W. Vethake, Chemistry. They organize and lecture on Holliday Street, opposite the old City Hall.
1831, March 7, Dr. H. G. Jameson secures virus by vaccinating a cow.
1855, Dr. Horatio Gates Jameson ob. At 77 (in New York)


Taken from the book, “History of York County, Illustrated 1886” by John Gibson, Historical Editor



Medical History

The first physician in York, of whom we have any records, was Dr. David Jameson. He came from Scotland, where he was born and received his medical education, and located in York to practice his profession among the first inhabitants of the town. During the French and Indian wars in 1756, he offered his services in defense of the colonies, and was commissioned a captain, and left his profession to share the dangers on the frontier. He was wounded in an engagement with the Indians near Fort Lyttleton, at Sideling Hill, on the road from Carlisle to Pittsburg, and was left for dead on the field. He afterward discharged the duties of brigade major and lieutenant colonel.
During the Revolutionary was he held the position of colonel. Notwithstanding his position in battle was that of a warrior, he also attended to the duties of surgeon, and at the battle of Kitanning, he dressed the wound of Gen. Armstrong, who was shot in the shoulder. He was a man of some wealth in those days and contributed liberally of his means to support of his country. He was the father of Dr. Horatio Gates Jameson, who was born in York in 1778, and succeeded his father in the practice of medicine at York, for a short time, and afterward removed to Baltimore, where he established himself permanently in practice, founded and became president of the Washington Medical College, and at one time health officer of the city. Dr. Jameson was celebrated for his surgical skill and knowledge, and also had a wide reputation for his successful treatment of cholera epidemic in Baltimore and Philadelphia, (1793-98) and 1832. In 1835 he accepted the presidency of the Ohio Medical Coll!
ege, and held the position until 1836, when he resigned and removed to Baltimore. In 1854 he again returned to York, to spend his last days among the scenes of his childhood. He died while on a visit to New York City, to investigate cholera, which was raging in the city at the time, in July 1855.
While Dr. Jameson resided at Baltimore his brother, Dr. Thomas Jameson, practiced medicine in York, and in all important cases, especially those requiring surgical skill, Prof. Jameson was called from Baltimore in consultation. In 1850 he performed the first operation for Ovariotomy attempted in York County on Mrs. Hoke, of Paradise now Jackson Township. The lady died during the operation. Dr. Jameson was a member of the American Medical Association; member of the philosophical societies of Berlin, Moscow, etc., and editor of the Maryland Medical Record, 1829-32. He was also the author of several medical works. Among these were two volumes on “American Domestic Medicine,” 1817. “A Treatise on Cholera,” 1856, and “A Treatise on Yellow Fever, intended to prove the necessity of blood letting in that disease,” and “the non contagiousness of yellow fever.”
Dr. H. G. Jameson, no doubt one of the ablest surgeons of his day. He took away for the first time in the world nearly the entire upper jaw (1830); in May 1820, he ligated the external iliac artery; in 1823, he performed tracheotomy, the first in Baltimore; in 1824 he excised the cervix uteri (the first in Great Britain or America). He was the first in Baltimore to attempt Ovariotomy. In 1831, while physician to the board of health, he obtained vaccine virus by vaccinating a cow. He was the preceptor of Profs. Smith and Gross, and was on the most intimate terms with these great surgeons. As he was born, raised and died while his domicile was in York County, practiced his profession here for some time, and claimed York as his home, we claim especially his history as part of the medical history of York County, and therefore feel justified in giving this extended notice of perhaps the most eminent man York County has yet produced.
Dr. Thomas Jameson, son of Dr. David Jameson and brother to Prof. Jameson, practiced medicine in York until 1838, when he died while on a visit to his brother, Dr. H. G. Jameson, in Baltimore. Dr. Thomas Jameson resided in Paradise, now Jackson Township, at a place known as Spangler’s tavern on the Gettysburg turnpike, about nine miles from York, from 1832 to 1837. He had an extensive practice among the country people, and was elected coroner in 1808, and held that office until 1818. He was also elected sheriff in October 1821, and held office until 1824, and was more extensively known throughout York County in his time than any physician before, or after him.
Dr. Thomas Jameson was excessively fond of sport, and was one of the greatest cockfight in the county.
His second wife was a widow named McClellan with two children, one named Henry M. McClellan, afterward the well known Dr. Henry M. McClellan, who read medicine with step father, Dr. Thomas Jameson, and upon the death of Dr, Thomas Jameson in 1838, he acquired the greater part of his practice, and retained it and the confidence of the people, until he died August 7, 1869, aged sixty years.


Taken from the book, “History of York County, Illustrated 1886” by John Gibson, Historical Editor

This thread:

• Horatio Gates Jameson, M. D. of York County, PA Historical Biography by