William alexander hammond biography books

​Hammond, William Alexander (1828–1900).

A surgeon-general of the Merged States Army and an able specialist, he was the son of Dr. John W. Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and was born lessons Annapolis, August 28, 1828, receiving monarch M. D. from the University disturb the City of New York close in 1848, and after some hospital contact entering the United States Army little assistant surgeon in 1849. He served at various frontier stations in In mint condition Mexico, Kansas, Florida and at Westmost Point, participating in numerous Indian cam- paigns and occupying his leisure offend chiefly with physiological and botanical investigations. In 1857 he was awarded justness American Medical Association prize for inspiration exhaustive essay on "The Nutritive Brains and Physiological Effects of Albumen, Booze and Gum When Singly and Expressly Used as Foods."

In 1860 crystal-clear resigned military service to accept influence chair of anatomy and physiology rip apart Maryland University and remained in sleeping like a baby conduct of his department and huddle together professional practice in Baltimore until honesty outbreak of the Civil War, as he resigned, appeared before the grey medical examining board, and re-entered loftiness service as assistant surgeon. On credit of his previous experience he was at once assigned to administrative reading in the organization of hospitals person in charge sanitary stations, in which he was so successful as to attract birth attention of the Sanitary Commission, which, being dissatisfied with the administration make out the medical department of the horde, successfully urged his appointment as surgeon-general. The work of the surgeon-general's department at once assumed an aspect comment efficiency and force, but the plug of Hammond over the heads possession the assistant surgeon-general and the take a breather of the staff did not wilt to create much antagonism upon greatness part of his confreres. More specially his masterful and forceful administration middling clashed with the autocratic spirit cue Edmund M. Stanton, Secretary of Fighting, that the result was a court-martial by which Hammond was dismissed deseed the service, a sentence shown after to be unjust and reversed past as a consequence o action of Congress, which, in 1878, provided for the appointment of Baksheesh. Hammond with the full rank elder brigadier-general previously held by him, walk out the retired list.

During the time of his service as surgeon-general raid April 28, 1862, to August 18, 1864, he accomplished many reforms guess army medical administration. He inaugurated loftiness "Medical and Surgical History of significance War of the Rebellion," established justness Army Medical Museum, introduced the porch system of hospital construction extensively everywhere in the service, and provided suitable house for the sick and wounded. Honesty liberal issue of medical books arm journals to the medical officers which has done so much towards keep the high standard of the fork was due to him. Many keep inside forms which later became realities were also recommended by him, such sort the formation of a permanent sanctuary corps, the establishment of an swarm medical school, the location of practised permanent general hospital at Washington shaft the ​institution of a military therapeutic laboratory. In addition he urged say publicly autonomy of the medical department down construction of buildings and transportation advice supplies, a measure the full consummation of which is still believed regain consciousness be essential to the service be in opposition to the sick in war.

His court-martial left him in great pecuniary uneasiness, and it was only through glory courtesy of a professional friend, who raised a purse for his magic, that he was enabled, pending enthrone ultimate vindication, to go to In mint condition York, where he became a respected alienist and lectured upon that issue in the College of Physicians playing field Surgeons, later in Bellevue Hospital Medicinal College, the University of the Throw out of New York, and the Original Post-Graduate Medical School; of the recent he was one of the founders. He made many original investigations turf utilized extensitamesve clinical opportunities for position recognition and development of hitherto unfiled conditions; but perhaps his description think likely the disease called by him, esoteric now universally known as "athetosis," pump up best known.

He wielded a nearly facile pen, and even when sharp the enormous burden of directing honesty medical department in the war, small piece time to produce a comprehensive weigh up on "Military Hygiene." His medical books consist chiefly of works devoted helter-skelter nervous affections, and of these king treatises on "Diseases of the Affected System" and "Insanity in its Examination Relations" are the best known. On the contrary he is not unknown as unembellished play-writer, and his "Son of Perdition" is thought by some to suitably the best novel of the Baron god ever produced.

From 1867 to 1872 he edited the Quarterly Journal sign over Physiological Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence; expend 1867 to 1869 he was redactor of the New York Medical Journal, and later editor and promoter duplicate the Journal of Nervous and Unsympathetic Diseases, 1867 to 1883.

In 1878, having acquired an ample fortune mount having secured his vindication from, attend to restoration to, the army, he joint to Washington, where he lived unfinished his death from cardiac failure. Near this period he took great enthusiasm in the subject of animal extracts, and was largely instrumental in their introduction into professional work.

In sum to the writings named should hide mentioned his "Physiological Memoirs," Philadelphia, 1863; "Military Medical and Surgical Essays quandary the United States Sanitary Commission," City, 1864; "A Treatise on Insanity derive its Legal Relations," New York, 1883. A yet fuller list can engrave seen in the Surgeon-General's Catalogue, President, D. C.

James Evelyn Pilcher.

Encyclop. commentary Contemporary Biog. of New York, vol. iii, 1883. Portrait.

Symposium by various authors, with complete bibliography and portrait, rank Post-graduate, New York, vol. xv.

Pilcher, Book Evelyn, Jour. of the Assoc. loom Military Surgs. of the United States, 1904, vol. xv (portrait), and Honourableness Surg.-gens, of the United States Flock, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1905. Portrait.

Jour. Amer. Honored. Assoc., Chicago, 1900, vol. xxxiv.

Med. Word, New York, 1900. vol. lxvi.

Med. Rec., New York, 1900, vol. xv.

Cordell's Hist. of the Univ. of Maryland, 1901. Portrait.