BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISED 
Established ISIS. 
FRIDAY MORNING, OCT. 31, 1890. 
DR. HJ. BIGELOW DEAD. 
THE GREA T SURGE ON PASSES 
A WAY AT NEWTON. 
The Son of a Boston Physician and Himself 
a Leader in His Profession— He Figured 
in the First Experiment With E*her to 
Relieve Pain- 
Henry Jacob Bigelow, M.D., LL.D., who 
held a loading rank among- the most promi- 
nent surgeons in the United States, died at 
his summer home in Newton yesterday 
afternoon. Dr. Bigelow was the son of 
Jacob Bigelow, M.D., LL.D., and was born 
in Boston, March 11, 1818. Ha received 
his early training at the Boston Latin 
School. Having completed his preparatory 
course here he entered Harvard College, 
from which ho graduated with the class of 
’37. Under his father’s direction he now 
began the study of medicine, attending 
also the regular medical course at Har- 
vard. At the end of three years, his health 
being impaired, he went to Europe, but 
returned in 1841 to receive the degree of 
M.D. 
The newly-fledged physician weat back to 
Europe immediately after receiving his 
diploma, and remained there three years, 
a greater part of the time being spent in 
Paris. Ho visited .other important centres 
of medical instruction on the continent and 
in Great Britain. Having returned to Bos- 
ton, he was, in 1845, appointed a teacher 
of surgery in the Tremout st. medical 
school, succeeding to the vacancy eaused 
by the resignation of Dr. Reynolds. This 
position ho held until the school was 
merged with the medical school of Har- 
vard University. In the spring of 1846 he 
was appointed surgeon to the Massachu- 
setts General Hospital, and he main- 
tained a connection with that institution 
for a long number of years. 
In 1849 the nearly simultaneous resigna- 
tion of Dr. J. C. Warren and Dr. George 
Hayward of the surgieal professorships 
then held by them in Harvard University, 
created a vacancy to which after a union 
of the teaching in the various departments 
of surgery and clinical surgery under a 
single professorship, Dr. Bigelew was ap- 
pointed. For a period of nearly 20 years 
he filled this chair without an assistant. 
A few months after his becoming con- 
nected with the Massachusetts General 
Hospital the first public experiments in 
the administration of ether to produce an- 
aesthesia during surgical operations took 
place in that institution. The important 
part played by Dr. Bigelow in these early 
experiments, and the fact that he made 
the original announcement of the discovery 
of modern anaesthesia in a paper published in .November, 184(3, linked his name per- 
manently with the history of this great 
benefaction to humanity. 
As a writer Prof. Bigelow’s influence 
has been far reaching and effective. 
Apart from addresses, etc., his contribu- 
tions to medical science have all con- 
tained distinctly new and i important mat- 
ter. One of his works, an octavo volume 
(illustrated) on the mechanism of dislo- 
cation by the flexion method, published in 
18(59, is the best treatise extant on these 
injuries. It lias changed the modes of 
practice in respect to them and is well 
Jtnown to the medical profession. He has 
been a copious contributor to the litera- 
ture of his profession, and in addition to 
his eminent scientific attainments, pos- 
sesed a grace ot language,an elegance of 
illustration which render interesting the 
dryest details of the healing art. 
Among the other more important of hia 
papers and addresses, the following may 
be mentioned; “Fragments of Medical 
Science and Art,” an address delivered 
before the Boylston Medical Society of 
Harvard University in 1846; “Insensi- 
bility during surgical operations, pro- 
duced by inhalation,” read before the 
Boston Society of Medical Improvement 
Nor. 9, 1846, an abstract having bean 
previously read before the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences Nov. 3; 
“Discovery of anesthesia ether and 
chloroform; a compendium of their 
history, surgical use, dangers and dis- 
covery;” “Anaesthetic agents; their 
mode of exhibition and physiological 
effects,” written at the request of a com- 
mittee of the American Medical Associa- 
tion and reprinted from the transactions 
of that body in 1848, 
Other article# written by him are “Al- 
leged Death from Ether,” “Centennial 
Article on the History of Anaesthesia,” 
“On the Employment of a New Agent in 
the Treatment of Strictures of the 
Urethra,” “On a New Physical Sign,” 
“Rhigolene; a Petroleum Naptha for 
Producing Anaesthesia by Freezing,” 
“New and Successful Operation for Un- 
united Fracture,” “Fractures and Disloca- 
tions of the Elbow Joint,” “Practical 
Views on the General Propriety of Passive 
Motion,” “An Introductory Lecture” which 
was delivered at the Massachusetts Medical 
College in 1849: “Notes from Clinical 
Lectures on Surgery,” delivered at the 
same place in 1851; “Science and Success,” 
a valedictory address delivered to the 
medical graduates of Harvard University 
in 1859; “Medical Education in America,” 
the annual address delivered before the 
Massachusetts Medical Society in 1870; 
“Dislocation of the Hip,” “Litholapaxy, 
or Lithotrixy, with Evacuation,” “The 
True Neck, its Structure and Pathology,” 
“Turbinated iCorpora Cavernosa,” “New 
methods and treatment of exstrophy of the 
bladder and of erectile tumors,” 
Dr. Bigelew’s attainments in medical 
science have won for him membership in 
leading American and European societies, 
among which are the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences and the Societe 
Anatomique, the Societe d« Biologie, and 
the Societe de Chirurgie of France. Dr. 
Bigelow leaves a sister, and one son,who is 
himself a prominent physician in this city.