The Society of Antiquaries of Copenhagen is about to publish an Archæological Atlas of the North, accompanied by explanatory matter in French and Danish. It will be a valuable addition to the memoirs, papers, and documents, already published by the Society. This scientific association is one of the most important in Northern Europe, and its members include many of the most distinguished savans of Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It possesses an excellent library, which contains, amongst other things of great value, about 2000 Icelandic manuscripts, very ancient, and written in the old Scandinavian tongue.
Recent Deaths.
Augustus Sidney Doane was born, of a highly respectable family, in Boston, on the second day of April, 1808. He was educated at Harvard College, from which he received the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Medicine, in 1828, a few months before attaining his majority. He soon after went to Europe, where he passed two years in travel, and in attendance upon medical and surgical lectures, in Paris; and returning, in 1830, was married to Miss Gordon, the daughter of an eminent merchant of Boston, and settled in the city of New-York, where he continued to reside until his death, at Staten Island, on the morning of the 27th of January. Although at all times an earnest student and successful practitioner in his profession, Dr. Doane, for several years after his settlement in New-York, devoted considerable attention to political, historical and general, literature, and from the first, he was an industrious writer on medicine and surgery. When the cholera first broke out in this country, in 1832, he was the earliest to address the profession in a scientific and practical discussion of its character, and the ability, untiring industry, bravery and benevolence which he exhibited during that melancholy season, established his popularity with the people, and secured for him a degree of respect from his class which they have seldom bestowed on one so young. Among his earliest contributions to medical literature, was his edition of Dr. Good's Study of Medicine, in which he embodied, not only very important discussions and notes of fact by himself, but the best views of the medical writers of the United States on the various subjects treated in that celebrated performance. He inscribed his edition of the Study of Medicine to the common friend of the author and himself, the learned and excellent Dr. John W. Francis. He also translated Maygrier's great work on Midwifery, and several standard authorities on Anatomy and Surgery; among which are Dupuytren's Surgery, Lugol's Researches on Scrofulous Diseases, Bayle's Descriptive Anatomy, Blandin's Topographical Anatomy, Meckel's Anatomy, Scoutetten on Cholera, Ricord on Syphilis, and Chaussier on the Arteries. His editorial contributions to Surgery Illustrated, and many occasional papers in the medical journals also increased his fame and usefulness. It was, perhaps, his chief distinction as an author, that, being familiar with the languages of France, Germany and Italy, and personally acquainted with the living lights of medical science in those countries, and with the practice which obtained in the chief foreign hospitals, he was among the first, as he was the most diligent and successful, in translating the chief works of the European physicians into our language, and adapting them to our habits and necessities. In 1839, he was appointed Professor of Physiology in the University of New-York, but he soon resigned, with his colleagues. In 1840, he received from Governor Seward, the place of Health Officer and Physician in Chief to the Marine Hospital, and, with Dr. Turner, Health Commissioner, and Dr. McNevin, Resident Physician, constituted the Board of Commissioners of Health, which then exercised all the functions of the present Commissioners of Emigration. Fearless and energetic in the discharge of his official duties, (which he always attended to in person, and not, as the custom of some is, by deputies), he protected the city from unnecessary fear, as well as from disease, and presented bills of mortality scarcely paralleled in the hospitals of the country—averaging but seven per cent. The Commissioners in general superintendence of the Quarantine, in reports to the Legislature, awarded to him the highest praise for his administration, and when, in consequence of a change in the political character of the government, he was superseded, in 1843, both the Irish and German Emigrant Societies tendered him expressions of gratitude for his unwearying zeal and humanity in behalf of the class most dependent upon his services. In 1848, he was appointed one of the consulting physicians of the Bellevue Hospital, but declined the office, in consequence of holding the agreeable and profitable post of physician to the Astor House. During the prevalence of the cholera in New-York in 1849, he was one of the ward cholera physicians, and devoted himself with his customary earnestness, to practise among the poor of his district. In 1850, he was again appointed Health Officer by Governor Fish, and he discharged his duties until he followed Drs. Treat, Ledyard, Baily, De Witt, and others, in the sacrifice of his life to them. He was seized with the ship-fever on the 14th of January, while inspecting the packet Great Western, which arrived from Liverpool early on the morning of that day, with nearly seven hundred immigrants, of whom a large proportion were sick. He spent several hours in examination and the supervision of removals to the hospital, during which several deaths occurred, and was soon after, with Mr. Lewis B. Butler, the humane and efficient steward, who had been honorably associated with him in both terms of his administration as Health Officer, attacked with the fever in its most malignant form. Dr. Doane died on the 27th of January, and Mr. Butler on the 6th of February. These deaths were public as well as private calamities. Dr. Doane must be ranked among the most generous, wise, and active citizens—the most warm-hearted and respectable men—as well as among the most eminent physicians, of our time, in New-York. On the 15th of February, an eloquent discourse upon his life and character was delivered by his friend, the Rev. E. H. Chapin, in his church in Murray-street, of which Dr. Doane was a member.
Since the above notice of Dr. Doane was written, we have received from one of the most eminent physicians of the United States the following estimate of his character and abilities:
"The character of Dr. Doane commends itself to our consideration for many striking traits. His whole life, from his boyhood, was marked by a devotion to the acquisition of knowledge. His attainments enabled him to enter Harvard University at an early age, and he was recognized in that admirable school as a young man of splendid abilities and thorough scholarship. His medical theses there were exhibitions of knowledge such as is but rarely possessed by the students, whose aim is chiefly for the doctorate. He received the highest medical honors of his Alma Mater, with the warmest approbation of the professors. By that rigid economy of time which through life distinguished him in all his pursuits, he found leisure, amidst multiplied cares and responsibilities, to become an excellent satirist and Grecian, and to this he added a knowledge of the French, German, and Italian languages. From his literary labors we might infer that his chief excellence was in the promptitude and ability which he evinced in the preparation of so many works of writers abroad, in translations for the American public. But this view of the case would hardly do justice to the stature of his mind, and his talents for original observation. Struggling with many difficulties and urged by the necessities of a family, it became his imperative duty to give his best efforts to those occasions which might prove most available for his wants; and hence we find him more busily employed in the promulgation of the doctrines and opinions of others, than in recording the results of his immediate practical wisdom. His most labored effort is unquestionably his translation from the German of the large work by Professor Meckel, on Human Anatomy. In his admirable edition of Good's Study of Medicine, we notice more of the immediate observer, and the man of extensive medical and physiological reading. This great treatise by the learned Good found in Dr. Doane a worthy editor. His edition is enlarged by numerous notes by the cis-atlantic scholar, and as they embrace the theoretical and practical views of the physicians and writers of the United States, it has always held a conspicuous place among books referred to for the doctrines, in theory and in practice, of a large number of the best original observers our country has occasion to boast of. This contribution to the science of healing has met with an extensive sale with the profession, and like other efforts of Dr. Doane in the departments of physical science, been productive of great benefit to the noble calling of which he was so conspicuous a member."
R. A. Davenport, an English writer, whose histories of America and India, and some of whose poems, were formerly well known, died in Camberwell, on the 21st of January, at the age of seventy-five. The attention of a police officer was attracted by moans issuing from Brunswick-cottage, Park-street, the residence of the deceased. He broke into the front parlor, and found Mr. Davenport lying in the passage, nearly dead, with a bottle that had contained laudanum in his hand. A surgeon was sent for, but a few minutes after his arrival, he expired. Several bottles containing laudanum were found in his bedroom, of which he was in the habit of taking large quantities while writing. The house presented an extraordinary appearance; the rooms were literally crammed with books, manuscripts, pictures, ancient coins, and antiques of various descriptions. Mr. Davenport has resided in it more than eleven years, during which time it had never been cleansed, and the books, beds, and furniture were rapidly decaying, every thing being covered with dust. The windows were all broken, the whole place presenting a most dilapidated appearance. Verdict was "That the deceased died from inadvertently taking an overdose of opium."