Possessing such skill as a surgeon, and enjoying so many opportunities to improve his art, it is to be regretted that Dr. Randolph has not contributed more extensively to the literature of his profession. Besides the publication already mentioned, he communicated to the "North American Medical and Surgical Journal," for 1829, the history of a case of femoral aneurism in which the femoral artery was tied for the second time in the city of Philadelphia. In the "Medical Examiner" he published an account of the removal of the parotid gland. Scattered through the pages of this journal will be found many of his clinical lectures delivered at the Hospital. His most extensive literary production is "A Memoir on the Life and Character of Dr. Philip Syng Physick," which was read before the Philadelphia Medical Society in 1839, and published by order of that body. From the pages of this able and wellwritten memoir of the Father of American Surgery, many of the exemplary traits of character of Dr. Randolph himself are clearly reflected.

Dr. Randolph was a member of the American Philosophical Society, of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, and of the Philadelphia Medical Society. He was also one of the consulting surgeons to the Philadelphia Dispensary.

He possessed a cheerful and amiable disposition; his manners were frank and prepossessing, and the firmness with which he adhered to his resolutions and opinions was only equalled by the slowness and caution with which they were formed. Throughout his whole career he exhibited a brilliant example of professional honor, conscientiousness, and straightforward dealing. Among those most noted in these particulars he towered up clearly conspicuous. Filled with a profound sense of the duties of a physician, to his patients on the one hand, and to his medical brethren on the other, and imbued with a thorough contempt for all the arts and practices which are so strongly discountenanced by a high sense of professional propriety, his daily walk was characterized by a remarkable degree of candor, courtesy, and kind consideration for the feelings and opinions of others. On some occasions he would express his

views upon the subject of medical ethics with much emphasis; and as a proof that in his daily practice and professional intercourse he strictly adhered to his own high standard, we have not only the evidence of the medical men who had the best opportunities of observing his course, but the very significant fact of his great popularity in the profession itself. No man probably had more warm friends and fewer enemies among physicians than he. To the younger members of the profession he was especially endeared, in consequence of his exceedingly kind, encouraging, and liberal treatment of them. For those of his patients who were in indigent circumstances, he performed many acts of charity and considerate kindness.

In early life Dr. Randolph was an exceedingly handsome man, and at all times he exhibited a remarkably commanding appearance. His face was oval, regular in its features, and expressive of the frankness, independence, and energy of his character. In stature he was somewhat above the middle height, and his whole person displayed the signs of an unusual amount of health and vigor. His sudden decline and death, preceded as they were by none of the usual signs of constitutional decay, painfully surprised both his family and his numerous friends.

About two weeks before his demise, he was seized with what appeared to be an attack of intermittent fever. At first his case presented no alarming symptoms; in the course of a few days, however, a sudden and copious hemorrhage from the bowels supervened, with the effect of reducing his strength to such an extent, that it soon became evident that his end was approaching. With characteristic calmness he prepared for death, fully sustained and cheered in these, his last hours, by the hopes and promises of religion, in which, previous to his illness, his interest had been freshly awakened. Very soon the first hemorrhage was succeeded by several others, and though his robust frame enabled him to resist their weakening effects for some days longer than could have been expected, his strength at last failed him entirely, and he expired on the morning of the 29th of February, 1848.

J. AITKEN MEIGS.

AMARIAH BRIGHAM.

1798-1849.

AMARIAH BRIGHAM was born at New Marlborough, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, December 26th, 1798. His father was a highly respectable farmer, who died after an illness of several years, leaving a widow and six children. His estimable and eminently pious mother, regarding only the welfare of her beloved child, was induced, soon after the death of her husband, to accept the offer of his brother, a physician of considerable. reputation living at Schoharie, New York, to take Amariah into his family, and educate him to his own profession.

Though the youngest of four sons, and only eleven years of age, of a slender and delicate frame, and possessing a constitution by no means vigorous, he left the home of his childhood, with all its endearments, to spend, as was then supposed, the several succeeding years beneath the roof and under the guidance and direction of his paternal uncle. One short year, however, only elapsed before he too followed his deceased brother, and his youthful charge was again left without a guide, without means, or other counsellor than his wise and affectionate mother. He was naturally a thoughtful and self-reliant boy, made so, in part, by the circumstances of his condition, which had served to awaken and develop these qualities of his mind. This we may safely infer also from the fact that, not long after his uncle's death, at an age which could not much have exceeded thirteen years, he made his way to Albany alone, and there, without a friend to assist or advise him, procured for himself a place as clerk in a book-store, where he spent the

three following years. Here he performed the round of duty which usually devolves upon boys occupying a position of this kind, but, it is said, had much leisure time, which he spent not slothfully or in idleness, nor in the society of thoughtless or vicious companions, but in the constant reading of books to which he had access. While his reading was, doubtless, without a definite plan, and probably quite miscellaneous, he herc acquired a fondness for books, and habits of study, which ever after constituted a noticeable feature of his character. Indeed, the numerous observations which he made while abroad, relating to historical and other matters with which he was manifestly quite familiar, may, many of them, be safely referred to this, as the time when he first became conversant with them. Here, too, he also had an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of men, as well as of books, which he would not be likely to neglect; and by having no one to look up to for counsel or assistance, developed still further that confidence in himself which his destitute situation required.

On leaving Albany, he returned again to New Marlborough, where his mother now resided, and there spent the four following years; at first in the studies usually pursued by advanced pupils in our schools, and at length entering the office of Dr. E. C. Peet, of that town, as a student of medicine.

It does not appear that his advantages during any part of this preparatory course at all exceeded those that usually fall to the lot of medical students, or that he obtained a diploma from any medical college. One of his biographers says, "he spent a year in New York attending lectures," which, in the absence of other evidence, may fairly be supposed to signify that he attended during a single session or term, which at that day was regarded by the profession as sufficient to qualify a candidate to enter upon practice. Subsequently, and before commencing the active duties of professional life, he spent about a year with the late Dr. Plumb, of Canaan, Connecticut; and from a brother practitioner now of Hartford, but who then resided in a neighboring State, and often saw him, we learn that, while his habits of study were somewhat peculiar and

original, he was, nevertheless, a diligent and successful student. The period which elapsed between the time of his leaving Albany and entering upon the duties of his profession must have been a little less than five years, all of which was spent in the pursuit of knowledge, either of a professional or general character.

Having acquired a fondness for books, improved, and, to some extent, tested the powers of his mind, during his residence in Albany, he was, indeed, in some respects highly favored in the privileges which he enjoyed in the quiet town in which he spent the several following years. Here was nothing to be found calculated either to distract his mind or to call off his thoughts, even temporarily, from study; while the great fact constantly stood forth fully, and sometimes, doubtless, painfully, before him, that he was to be the sole architect of his own fortune. He commenced practice as a youth somewhat short of his majority, in the town of Enfield, Massachusetts, where he remained but two years. He removed thence to Greenfield, Franklin County, a large and flourishing town, lying on the Connecticut River. Of his history while at Enfield we are left to conjecture; but the fact that, after so short a period of practice, he should have felt himself qualified to submit his claims to notice and support, to so searching an ordeal as that of a refined and cultivated community, and was willing to risk the results of active professional competition, shows, at least, his estimate of himself, and his confidence of success. His determined boldness stands out in still stronger relief when we learn that he purchased, at the outset, the entire property of a practitioner then in ill health, a brother of Judge Washburn, consisting of a dwelling-house and out-buildings, horse, carriage, library, &c., the payment of which not only absorbed the savings of the previous years, but must also have involved him pecuniarily to some extent. Here that industry and system in the management of his affairs, that patience, and accuracy of observation, and soundness of judgment which characterized his after years, were exhibited and largely developed. Here, also, shone forth those genial social qualities which made him every