WlLLW (S.P.) **M%^//t^
BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIR^
OF
THOMAS  SPENCER, M.  D.,

   PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, <fcc.
READ BEFORE THE
1       MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK,
.s"
FEBRUARY 2d, 1858.
BY SYLVESTER D. WILLARD, M. D.















            ALBANY:

     CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN, PRINTER.

             1858. 
 
MEMOIR.
                 " As weary worn-out winds expire,
                 Or night-dews fall gently to the ground,
                 So calm his exit."
   The year just closed has borne away two of the members of
this Society, each of whom has received its highest honors.
   1 regret that the preparation  of  this biographical sketch of
one of them, (under a  resolution  which requires  here  suitable
notice of  such events,)  had not finally  devolved upon some
gentleman, whose  intimate acquaintance  and association would
have enabled him to present a still  more faithful outline of the
life and character, of our deceased fellow-member.
   Thomas Spencer was born  in  the town of Great Barrington,
Berkshire county, Massachusetts,  on the 22d October, 1793.

   His father, Eliphalet Spencer,  was  a native of Connecticut.
His occupation was that of a millwright.   He was a man of
more  than ordinary intellectual strength  and physical energy.
Imbued with the spirit of patriotism, he served during the revo-
lutionary war in the  Connecticut regiment, and fought at the
battle of Saratoga, and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne.

   He had four sons.   The eldest,  Eliphalet  M., was  a minister
in the Presbyterian church,  and died in Jamestown, New-York,
in 1856.
   Ichabod S. was the second.  He was an active, energetic law-
yer, and passed with rapid strides to eminence.   He was adju-
tant under Brigadier  General Collins, and served in  the war o 1
1814.   He died in  Canastota, at the  age of seventy-seven, on the
16th January, 1857. 
4
  The third son was Joshua A.  Spencer, who studied law with
his  brother.  He was a gentleman of literary attainments, and
acquired great distinction in his profession as an eloquent advo-
cate and profound jurist.   In 1845 he was a member of the State
Senate.  He died in Utica at the age of seventy-seven, on the 28th
April, 1857.  These were all self-educated men.

  Thomas was the youngest son.  At the  age of eleven years his
father removed to Lenox,  Madison county, New-York, a  town
containing only three frame houses,—Canastota, within its limits,
being an Indian village of the Oneida tribe.  Here Tom Spencer
and the Indian boys, all of nearly the same color, joined in plays
and sports on terms of undisputed equality.

  At  the age of nine, Tom had acquired  the elements of  arith-
metic under the instruction of his brother Joshua.  In 1806, he
had the advantage of three months' schooling for the purpose of
studying English grammar, and never forgot the mortification of
being outstripped in the study,  by one of  the school girls  some-
what older than himself.
  His father, in the winter, organized a little evening school for
the benefit of his own and his neighbors' children, and his eld-
est  son, Eliphalet, aided him in instructing them.  Pine splint-
ers  supplied  the light by which  these humble but  important
steps  in the  path of knowledge were  taken, and their  smoke
curled aloft through the  bark roof and between  the crevices of
a " log cabin," over clear heads and strong hearts.   Before the
22d of October, which brought Tom to the age of fifteen, he had
taught the common  school in the neighborhood for three months,
requiring each urchin to sit erect on hard  benches, after the
manner of tutoring  in those times, and allowing each one the
greatest liberty, and joining them  in their sports after the  hours
of his obliged gravity had passed.

  At the age of eighteen, he was instructed in the art of surveying
by his brother, Gen.  Ichabod Spencer, who  was just then embark-
ing  in the profession of  law,  and  who  accordingly left  this
part of his  business to his younger brother Tom.  About the
same time he commenced  the study of medicine with Dr. Dix of 
5
Delphi.  By his business  in surveying, and by school teaching,
he was enabled to provide for himself the means of pursuing
his professional studies.   In the winter of 1814 and '15, he at-
tended a course of medical lectures at the college of Physicians
and Surgeons for the Western District, located at Fairfield, in this
State, and  in the ensuing spring he received  a ^license to prac-
tise, from the Medical Society of the county of Herkimer.

  He at once engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery
in the  town of  Lenox, and very shortly his business  extended
into the towns and counties surrounding.   He was elected to the
several offices of the Medical Society of the county of Madison,
and was also chosen its delegate to the State Medical Society.

  In  1820 he attended a second course of lectures at the Medi-
cal College in Fairfield, and having received the degree of  Doc-
tor of Medicine, he resumed his labors in the village of Canas-
tota.   He early attained  a high degree of reputation as  both
physician and surgeon, and performed a great amount of labor with
an ardent zeal and untiring perseverance.

  In  1824, Dr. Spencer was elected to the Assembly of the Le-
gislature of this State, and attended its  three  sessions during
that year,  it being  the last year that the Presidential Electors
were chosen by that body.  He was a leading member of the
House, and took an  active part in its debates.

  In  1832, he was elected President of this Society,  and was re-
elected the succeeding year.   The cholera having prevailed for
the first time on the western continent during that year, and hav-
ing elicited intense interest not only in the profession, but  with
the public also, he made it the subject of his address at the next
annual meeting of this body.

  It is an article of one hundred and twenty-five octavo pages; the
history of the disease, symptoms, appearances on dissection, anal-
ysis of the blood, pathology, its non-contagious character, &c , are
discussed with great ability, exhibiting throughout a familiarity
with  all  its  phases, such as can  be gained only by an experi-
enced and minutely careful observer. 
6
   The work  is comprehensive;  the experience of distinguished
 physicians is exhibited; comparisons  of the disease, as it ap-
 peared in the several sections of the  State, instituted,  and his
 treatment illustrated by monographs of cases.
   It is perhaps its rigid minuteness that gives to it great practi-
 cal importance.  It evinces that the writer had before his mind
 clear and definite views of his subject.
   In  the winter of 1832-3, Dr. Spencer attended a course of
 lectures  at the University of Pennsylvania, going occasionally to
 the lectures of the Jefferson Medical College, then in its infancy.
 His article on cholera was written in  Philadelphia in ten days,
 just preparatory .to its delivery in this  city.   It was respectfully
 reviewed and noticed in the Cincinnati, Philadelphia and other
 medicaljournals of the day.  In a letter written to Dr. Spencer
 by Dr. H. H. Childs, Professor  of the  Theory and Practice  of
 Medicine in the  Berkshire Medical College, so recently  as  Au-
 gust, 1852, he says :  " Your publication on cholera in 1833, gave
 me much light, and  contained more that was true and valuable
 in practice than  any of the numerous articles of that period."
   The subject of his next  annual  address  is Dysentery.  This
 paper is  unpretending in  style, but is  strictly practicable in its
 nature.

   He says in the treatment of this disease, u My own observation
 has not  furnished me with the evidence  of the great utility
 awarded  by medical  writers to the  use  of calomel as a cathartic
 in the  early stage of dysentery, as  it prevails in this climate."
 This opinion  is  more generally sustained  at the  present  day
 than it was twenty years  ago.

   It was  during the session of this Society in 1834, that the Hon.
John C. Spencer, late Secretary  of War, (not a  relative of the
 subject of this sketch) then a trustee of Geneva  College, made
proposal  to Drs.  Spencer and Morgan to found a Medical  College
under  the  University powers  of  Geneva  College.  This  was
accomplished, and the first course of lectures was delivered in
the spring of 1835, to twenty-two  students, Dr. Spencer filling
 the professorial chair of Theory and Practice of Medici u-   Drs. 
7
Edward Cutbush, John G. Morgan, Willard Parker and Charles
B. Coventry, occupying the other professorships.
  This professorship he  continued to  occupy for  fifteen years,
and he bent his whole energy to build up, give character to, and
sustain the Institution.   Through his agency large  endowments
were obtained for  the  literary as also  for  the  medical depart-
ment, and a fine building erected, and ample appliances provided
for the latter.   To him more than to any person is due the credit
of the early, successful, and flourishing condition  of this Insti-
tution.  He removed to Geneva in order that he might be more
convenient to  the college, and where for many years he engaged
in active  professional duties,  and enjoyed a  high  degree of
reputation as a teacher and practitioner.

   Dr. Spencer made a brief journey  to Europe.  He reached
Havre on the  first day of January, 1836, and proceeded at once
to Paris.  Although early old in mental toil and physical labors,
in his feelings, " nature  had kept him still a  child;" and the
elasticity of his youth was renewed upon his introduction to the
old world.   Through the influence of a kind friend, he found a
home with that distinguished Christian philanthropist,  the Rev.
Frederick Monod, from whom,  and from his brother, a physician
of eminence, the Doctor received  many grateful attentions.  He
began at once  the labors of the winter with great  zeal.  Unac-
quainted,  however,  with the language, he  felt  severely the
hindrance thus occasioned to the opportunities which the French
capital affords to the man of science.   With characteristic indus-
try he devoted himself to its acquisition, and was  soon enabled
to read and understand  it, but not to speak it fluently.  He
availed with eagerness the opportunities for visiting the hospi-
tals and museums, and of enlarging the field of his observation
in every direction.   Especially he made  it a  point to hear the
eminent lecturers  of the day.  First among  these was Orfila,
who combined the attractions of a world-wide reputation, with
a fine elocution  and a  noble presence,  and whose  amphitheatre
was daily crowded with an  ardent and  eager audience of young
men from many nations. 
8
   Although he gave himself almost wholly to his studies while
 in Paris, he made some valuable acquaintances, and among these
 the aged Mons. Michaud, author  of "Sylva Americana."  He
 entered but little  into social life, but was once entertained at a
 dinner of his professional brethren.  Leaving Paris in the spring,
 he passed the month of May in London, visiting objects of general
 interest, but never losing sight of things of professional moment.
   In Edinburgh he enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. Mackintosh, and
 of that distinguished  physician and philosopher,  Dr.  Abercom-
 bie, at both of whose homes he  was welcomed.   He undoubt-
 edly derived an additional pleasure from  the society  of Dr.
 Mackintosh on account of his great interest  in  the  subject of
 cholera, and from a correspondence of their  views in relation to
 its theory and treatment.  In Edinburgh he formed several im-
 portant professional acquaintances, and received polite attention
 from Professor Jamieson, of the University.
   He made a delightful summer tour through the Highlands of
 Scotland, and his mind grasped the grand and the beautiful in
 the features  of  the  country, and revived and appreciated the
$ tories and  romance with which it abounds.
   He visited the hospitals of Glasgow and Dublin, and  sailing
 from  Liverpool, reached  New  York  about the  last of July.*

   During the course of 1844 and 1845, at the Geneva College, Dr.
 Spencer delivered  several lectures on  Animal Heat, and they
 were  subsequently published.   The book  received  favorable
 notice by many of  medical students in this country and Europe.
 The London and Edinburgh Medical Review, one of the leading
 medical journals of the age, quoted more than  half the book
 under the head of  reviews.  The St. Louis Journal thus  notices
 the " Vitus Chemistry  or Animal Heat," as published by Dr.
 Spencer. "Guided by the brilliant lights of chemistry, thou-
 sands are now treading the labyrinth (of the chemistry of life)
 which the  Doctor  has passed.   And his  false steps, if  he has
 made any, will be recorded in the history  of their discoveries."
  • I am indebted to Mr. Edmund Dwight of New York city, Dr. Spencer's travelling com-
 panion, for an account of this tour abroad; and to Dr. John Staats, of Ooneva, an attached
 friend of Doctor Spencer, for the perusal of letters, Ac. 
9
  In 1847 Dr. Spencer was appointed Surgeon of the Tenth Re-
giment  of New York  and New Jersey Volunteers, commanded
by the gallant Colonel Temple of Albany, and served for nearly
one year and a half on the northern line  of the army, which
was in command of Generals Taylor and Wool.
  At Matamoras  he  organized a  field hospital, and brought
everything in connexion with it, its appliances and appurtenan-
ces to a great degree  of perfection.  In a matter so under his
own control, he doubtless felt a just pride, and he was  gratified
in hearing the Quarter Master General, who had been in the ser-
vice about forty years, (Henry Whiting,) say  to General Taylor,
Col. Temple and their officers, that he had  never seen a field
hospital with anything like the comforts for the sick, as in that
appertaining to the tenth regiment.
  Soon  after his return from Mexico, Dr. Spencer settled at Sy-
racuse,  but removed  shortly to Milwaukie, in order to be near
the  Rush Medical College^ Chicago, where he  received the ap-
pointment  of Professor  of  Theory and Practice of Medicine.
After delivering  a single course of lectures there, during the
winter of 1849 and '50, he was induced, on account of ill health,
to resign the  position,  and  return  to  Syracuse.  The Board of
Trustees, however, elected him Emeritus Professor.
  At Syracuse he once more entered upon the duties of his pro-
fession,  and soon was occupied with  a  large range of consulta-
tion practice; often going to Geneva, Canastota,and to towns in-
tervening,  and adjoining his former residences.
  At the  meeting of this society in 1853, he read a paper on
" The Atomic Theory of Life and Vital Heat," as published, oc-
cupying about  seventy pages.  The object of this  paper, is to
illustrate " why vegetable life may slumber for three thousand
years, amidst the winding sheets of the Egyptian mummy, or be
buried as seeds since  the flood, a hundred  feet beneath  the
earth's surface, and yet sprout into  seedling, being by the same
law of vital heat which imparts warmth to man "

  The atomic theory is demonstrated under the propositions, 1st:
That the alternate formation and cumbustions of atoms of wood
                        2 
10
build up, hold up, heat  up, and vitalize creation.  And 2d :
That common salt, water, iron and coal, contain the six primary
elements whose chemico-vital interchanges produce the forma-
tion and transformation of wood and water for the  generation
and regulation of all vital heat, vegetable and animal.

  The Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Journal says :  " We
have always been dissatisfied with the. explanations of respira-
tion, and the production of animal heat, promulgated by Liebig,
and felt that something more was necessary to clear away the
obscurity which hangs over these great processes.  Dr. Spencer
has taken up the subject where Liebig left off."

  It is  an elaborate and prolix writing, on an abstruse subject,
the  investigation of which was attended by laborious  experi-
ments, careful analysis, and patient study.  Ambitious hopes
were based upon the success which should attend the promulga-
tion of this new theory, but they were never fully realized, and
many scientific men still regard its value as equivocal:

  Dr. Spencer relinquished his business in Syracuse to accept a
professorship in the Philadelphia College of Medicine, about
1852, and accordingly removed to that city, where he  continued
to reside until the period of his death, which  took place on the
30th of May, 1857, he being in his sixty-fifth year.

  His disease was pneumonia.  His illness continued for twelve
days, fatal  symptoms having  developed themselves on the
eighth day.   The conviction that he  must die was succeeded by
perfect calmness and fortitude.   He gave directions relative  to
his  business and sent messages to  his friends with undisturbed
deliberation, and when his  two attending  physicians assured
him of the hopelessness of his case, with his customary self-reli-
ance he dictated several prescriptions for himself.
  He was a member of the Presbyterian church in Geneva, and
afterwards in Philadelphia.  His attendance  upon the services
of the sanctuary on the Sabbath was faithful, and also upon the
weekly lecture and meetings for prayer, where he occasionally
took part in the exercises.  On his death-bed he had  " no rap- 
11
tures," but " a confirmed faith in  the Christian  religion and an
abiding trust in God."   Such were his own words.
  Dr. Spencer was methodical in  the division of his time, and
the first and last hours of each day were habitually  consecrated
to devotional exercises.  He  was possessed of an affectionate
faith, with childlike meekness and simplicity.

  I am assured that the genuineness of his piety was undoubted,
even by those who differed widely from him in opinions on secu-
lar matters.
  Dr. Spencer was about six feet in height, with a strong frame,
a bronzed complexion, a high forehead, and keen  black eyes.
He had a habitual disregard for  his personal appearance.  The
mantle he wore in Paris  was the same  thread-worn cloak that
had served him by day  and night in his laborious practice in
Canastota, and his clumsy india-rubber shoes, the special horror
of Parisians, were in admirable keeping with  his whole garb,
which told the story of a plain,  hard-working, practical man;
yet in whatever company he  might be, his  fine forehead and
brilliant eye everywhere commanded the deference which  men
seldom fail  to render to declared intellect.

  In his manners he was at times so stern as to appear repul-
sive, and hence  he occasionally produced unfavorable impres-
sions;  yet beneath this stern exterior beat a  heart full of keen
sensibilities  and generous impulses,  and though often reserved
and unsocial, he was easily approached.

  Dr. Spencer was an honorary member of the  Kentucky Medi-
cal Society, and also of the Philadelphia Medical Society.
  The following estimate of Dr. Spencer's character, unbiassed
by any feelings of professional rivalry on the one hand, or any
zeal that might over estimate, on  the other, is from the pen of a
distinguished citizen of Geneva.
  " The prime elements of his character, and which struck all who
knew him, were his eager,  restless, indomitable energy, which
never tired, and his determined will or purpose.  It was always 
12
the same, ever  pressing, unswerving energetic will; and  with
his large experience of men and things,  and his strong  mental
faculties in other respects, they made him a powerful man.   An
end proposed and  his  attention excited and fastened on  it, it
was never forgotten or lost sight of, and was pursued as long as
the hope for its attainment existed, and indeed,after hope would
have been abandoned by others
   " His treatment of disease was decided and energetic; a course
determined upon and it was not readily changed.  His examina-
tion of a patient was rapid, and  his  remedy when selected was
steadily persisted in.
   " He apparently looked upon a  patient, not as a suffering fel-
low being, but as an exhibition of some new form of disease, or
a new instance of a well  known one.   He did not evince  sym-
pathy in his manners.  There  was nothing  of the nurse about
him.   His entrance into the sick room was abrupt, his questions
and examinations rapid, and his departure  sudden."  However
much he might have revolved  a case  and its aspects in his mind,
in the latter part of his  professional life he did not seemingly
bestow much thought upon his cases.  " The  trouble  with Dr.
Spencer," said a lady, " is to get him to think your illness  is a
case.   Once get him to think it is  a  case, and he is infallible."
" In other words, arouse  his attention, present him an obstacle to
to overcome, let him see that there is a difficulty to be met and
conquered, excite his will and his energy, and you have a  man
able to cope with whatever may stand in his way."  This  may
apply  to him after he had passed  the meridian  of his life, and
wras  troubled by many cares.  Doubtless his great reputation
was achieved by bending his mind upon his patients alone.
   He had a marked capacity  for arriving  at a clear  diagnosis,
and in obscure cases he sometimes resorted to novel methods to
aid his  decisions;  these he  occasionally  narrated with  great
humor.  He one day visited a patient who  had been  for  many
months  chiefly confined  to his bed.  His  physicians had pro-
nounced his disease dyspepsia. Said the doctor, " my first pre-
scription was a drive with me  in my  buggy, to which the patient
demurred—said 'he had  not driven for months,and the weather 
13
(which was then cold November) was altogether too severe for
him to venture out of doors.'   He  yielded, however,  and was
driven over a rough road for half or three-quarters of a mile."

  " How  did your patient bear it ?"  asked a friend.  " Very
well, after he got over his fright, and found that it was not going
to kill him."  " But why did you resort to such a remedy '?"  " I
had two reasons for it," said the doctor; " I wished to give the
man a little of what he did not seem to have had for a long time,
and that was pure air; and I thought the rough road would de-
velop inflammation in the stomach if it existed."
   Dr. Spencer was a man of genius and strong intellect;  he had
the faculty of concentrating his thoughts upon a single subject,
and of holding them to a point, abstracted from every other, for
a great length of time.   With  this  mental disposition, he inves-
tigated, and analyzed, and sought for a reason in everything that
claimed his consideration.   He had also that indefatigable indus-
try which is a " bar to force with groaning labor the  stubborn
lock of learning." Through  his whole life he  was a devoted
student, and was  in the  habit  of making copious notes of his
cases and bedside observations.  These were frequently written
in hours that should have been devoted to rest.

   As a physician he was discriminating  and candid; as a teacher  \
he was unostentatious  and patient, his instructions were sim-
ple and  practical; as  a writer he was usually clear and vigor-  j
ous, and he  filled his several professorships with efficiency.     /

   Dr. Spencer possessed great self-reliance, and could move alone
in any enterprise that he desired to execute, as confidently as if
supported by a host of friends.  This trait of his character was
clearly exhibited in his last hours by the coolness with which he
prescribed for himself, after his case  was regarded as beyond
recovery.

   In a notice so  extended, it might be thought  an  omission to
neglect an allusion to  a subject that engrossed a large amount
of his attention  and time for several years.   I refer to the con-
troversy between Dr. Spencer and Geneva College, in relation to 
14
the Medical department to corporate powers.  This controversy
culminated into a prolonged litigation, in which he spent a vast
amount of labor in  the  preparation of papers and pamphlets.
Engrossed in this subject, he doubtless in a great degree neglected
the business of his profession.  It was prosecuted  on his part
with such a determined spirit, that he incurred the imputation of
mental alienation.   Had he conceded some points, he would have
unquestionably saved much of his popularity, and averted the
cause of  misfortunes and sorrows which followed.  He yielded
a point  readily when convinced by reason,  but  unless  so con-
vinced he held it with an unflinching tenacity.

  Dr. Spencer left two sons.   The elder, T. Rush, is a physician,
residing  in Wisconsin.  The younger, Champlin, is an accom-
plished lawyer in Chicago.

  Where perseverance and industry are united, as in the charac-
ter of Dr. Spencer, and the whole energy is bent in a single di-
rection, a man must  achieve much in the period of an ordinary
life.

  See in  yonder  " log cabin "  a father in long winter evenings
instructing his little boy by the smoky light of pine splinters !
Behold the eminent physician presiding over a Society like this,
or elucidating the principles of medical science  to an eager
class!
  The contrast in  these pictures  is  thrilling with a beautiful
and an instructive lesson.  It is a  fit subject  for the pencil of an
artist.
  Let the examples of such men—the fathers of our profession
as they pass away—be ever cherished, to inspire the timid and to
encourage the  faltering.