American Men of Mind

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Dr. Morton was a dentist who, in 1841, introduced a new kind of solder by which false teeth could be fastened to gold plates. Then, in the endeavor to extract teeth without pain, he tried stimulants, opium and magnetism without success, and finally sulphuric ether. On September 30, 1846, he administered ether to a patient and removed a tooth without pain; the next day he repeated the experiment, and the next. Then, filled with the immense possibilities of his discovery, he went to Dr. J. C. Warren, one of the foremost surgeons of Boston, and asked permission to test it decisively on one of the patients at the Boston hospital during a severe operation. The request was granted, and on October 16, 1846, the test was made in the presence of a large body of surgeons and students. The patient slept quietly while the surgeon's knife was plied, and awoke to an astonished comprehension that the dreadful ordeal was over. The impossible, the miraculous, had been accomplished; suffering mankind had received such a blessing as it had never received before, and American surgery had scored its greatest triumph. Swiftly as steam could carry it, the splendid news was heralded to all the world, and its truth was soon established by repeated experiments.

To tell of the work of the men who came after these pioneers in the field of surgery and medicine is a task quite beyond the compass of this little volume. There are at least a score whose achievements are of the first importance, and nowhere in the world has this great science, which has for its aim the alleviation of human suffering, reached a higher development.

Among the physicists of the country, Joseph Henry takes a high place. His boyhood and youth were passed in a struggle for existence. He was placed in a store at the age of ten, and remained there for five years. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a watchmaker, and had some thought of studying for the stage, but during a brief illness, he started to read Dr. Gregory's "Lectures on Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy and Chemistry," and forthwith decided to become a scientist. He began to study in the evenings, managed to take a course of instruction at the academy at Albany, New York, and finally, in 1826, was made professor of mathematics there.

Almost at once began a series of brilliant experiments in electricity which have linked his name with that of Benjamin Franklin as one of the two most original investigators in that branch of science which this country has ever produced. His first work was the improving of existing forms of apparatus, and his first important discovery was that of the electro-magnet. His development of the "intensity" magnet in 1830 made the electric telegraph a possibility. Two years later he was called to the chair of natural philosophy at Princeton University, where he continued his investigations, many of which have been of permanent value to science. In 1846, he was elected first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and removed to Washington, where the last forty years of his life were passed in the development of the great scientific establishment of which he was the head. He steadily refused the most flattering offers of other positions, among them the presidency of Princeton, and like Agassiz, he might have answered, when tempted by larger salaries, "I cannot afford to waste my time in making money." To his efforts is largely due the establishment of the national lighthouse system, as well as that of the national weather bureau.

Besides his services to American science as instructor at Harvard College, Louis Agassiz rendered another when he persuaded Arnold Guyot, his colleague in the college at Neuchâtel, to accompany him to this country. Guyot was at that time forty years old, and was already widely known as a geologist and naturalist, and the delivery of a series of lectures before the Lowell Institute, established his reputation in this country. He was soon invited to the chair of physical geography and geology at Princeton, which he held until his death. He founded the museum at Princeton, which has since become one of the best of its kind in the United States. Perhaps he is best known for the series of geographies he prepared, and which were at one time widely used in schools throughout the United States.

Perhaps no family has been more closely associated with American science than that of the Huguenot Le Conte, who settled at New Rochelle, New York, about the close of the seventeenth century, moving afterwards to New Jersey. There, in 1782, Lewis Le Conte was born. He was graduated at Columbia at the age of seventeen and started to study medicine, but was soon afterwards called to the management of the family estates of Woodsmanston, in Georgia. There he established a botanical garden and a laboratory in which he tested the discoveries of the chemists of the day. His death resulted from poison that was taken into his system while dressing a wound for a member of his family.

His son, John Le Conte, after studying medicine and beginning the practice of his profession at Savannah, Georgia, was called to the chair of natural philosophy and chemistry at Franklin College, and after some years in educational work, was appointed professor of physics and industrial mechanics in the University of California, which position he held until his death, serving also for some years as president of the University. His scientific work extended over a period of more than half a century, being confined almost exclusively to physical science, in which he was one of the first authorities.

Another son of Lewis, Joseph Le Conte, like his brother, studied medicine and started to practice it; but in 1850, attracted by the great work being done by Louis Agassiz, he entered the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, devoting his attention especially to geology. After holding a number of minor positions, he became professor of geology and natural history in the University of California in 1869, and his most important work was done there in the shape of original investigations in geology, which placed him in the front rank of American geologists.

Lewis Le Conte had a brother, John Eathan Le Conte, who was also widely known as a naturalist of unusual attainments. He published many papers upon various branches of botany and zoology, and collected a vast amount of material for a natural history of American insects, only a part of which was published. His son, John Lawrence Le Conte, was a pupil of Agassiz, and conducted extensive explorations of the Lake Superior and upper Mississippi regions, and of the Colorado river. He afterwards made a number of expeditions to Honduras, Panama, Europe, Egypt and Algiers, collecting material for a work on the fauna of the world, which, however, was left uncompleted at his death.

American science recently suffered a heavy loss in the death of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, one of the most brilliant of the pupils of Agassiz, and from 1864 until the time of his death, connected with the geological department of Harvard University, rising to the full professorship in geology, which he held for over twenty years, and to the position of dean of the Lawrence Scientific School. He did much to increase public interest in and knowledge of the development of the science by frequent popular articles in the leading magazines, in addition to more technical books and memoirs intended especially for scientists.