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FLETCHER D. MOONEY, M.D.

BY WALTER BLACKBURN DORSETT, M.D.,

ST. LOUIS.

DR. FLETCHER D. MOONEY, an Ordinary Fellow of this Association, was born at Linden, Christiana County, Missouri, November 30, 1856. Starting in life as a poor boy, but with an ambition to forge to the front, he was enabled to overcome obstacles which, to ordinary individuals, would have been insurmountable. His early education was gained in the common schools of the county, preparatory to entering Drury College, at which place he soon mastered its curriculum. He entered the Missouri Medical College in 1878, and graduated in the class of 1880, capturing the first prizes offered by the several chairs.

Being without money, he accepted the position of assistant physician at the St. Louis Insane Asylum, which position he filled with credit for three years and a half. Being recognized by the Faculty of the Missouri Medical College as a young man of rare ability, he was offered the demonstratorship of anatomy and assistant to the chair of Clinical Gynecology in that school; also gynecologist to St. John's Hospital. The latter position he held until about a year ago, when he was elected by the Faculty of the Beaumont Hospital Medical College to the chair of Abdominal Surgery and Clinical Gynecology. He became a member of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in September, 1896.

Dr. Mooney was of a retiring disposition, but singularly friendly to those who knew him well. He was a strict upholder of the code of medical ethics, and hated quackery in all its forms.

He filled the office of Secretary of the St. Louis Medical Society for three terms; was for one year its president, and for two or more years the chairman of the committee on ethics. While holding these positions he waged war on all who, by word or deed, were guilty of unprofessional conduct. His fearless acts in this direc

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tion endeared him to all who have a proper regard for true medical ethics. For his generosity to the poor he was noted, although he studiously avoided notoriety in this direction. Aside from donating his valuable services, he did not hesitate, when the occasion presented itself, to contribute from his own resources such comforts and necessaries of life unattainable by poor people. He often, in health, expressed the desire that, when the swift-winged messenger should call him "from labor to refreshments" he would be found in the habilaments of warfare against disease. This wish of his was granted, for he died in the zenith of his glory. After all, is it not a blessed fate that meets us half-way?

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