A MEMOIR 
OF 
SAMUEL D. GROSS, M.D, LL.D., D.C.L, 
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA. 
FROM 
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES. 
July, 1884. From The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, July, 1884. 
A MEMOIR 
OF 
SAMUEL D. GROSS, M.D., LL.D., D.C.L., 
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN’ THE JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE 
OF PHILADELPHIA. 
In the history of American medicine, in the long list of names of men 
who have been especially distinguished by their valuable contributions to 
the science and art of surgery, we find but two who are conspicuously pre- 
eminent, and upon whom, each alone in his generation, has been conferred 
by general assent the honoured title of “ The Nestor of American Sur- 
gery.” Of the two, Philip Syng Physick was gathered unto his fathers 
nearly half a century ago ; and to-day we mourn the loss of Samuel D. 
Gross. 
Dr. Physick, although a surgeon of great learning and brilliant capacity, 
added but little to the literature of our profession, and he left his impress 
upon American surgery chiefly through the fading tradition of his teach- 
ings. But Dr. Gross was, in addition, an industrious and voluminous 
writer, and has left a precise and imperishable record of his profound 
study and vast surgical experience. 
Dr. Gross was born near Easton, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1805. He re- 
ceived a classical education at the Wilkesbarre Academy and at the Law- 
renceville High School, both famous institutions in their day, the former 
having been under the charge of Mr., afterwards Judge, Joel Jones, a 
graduate of Yale College, and the latter having been presided over by the 
Rev. Dr. Isaac Brown, an alumnus of Princeton College. At the age of 
nineteen he began the study of medicine, first under Dr. Joseph K. Swift, of 
Easton, and subsequently with Professor George McClellan, the eminent 
surgeon of Philadelphia. He graduated from the Jefferson Medical College 
in 1828, and immediately began practising his profession in Philadelphia. 
During the first ten months of his novitiate, to fill up the intervals of 
practice, which came but slowly, he translated from the French and Ger- 
man Bayle and Hollard’s General Anatomy, Hildebrand on Typhus 
Fever, Ilatin’s Manual of Obstetrics, and Tavernier’s Operative Surgery, 2 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M. D. 
for which he received eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. Tn 1830, 
or two years after his graduation, he published his “ Treatise on the 
Anatomy, Physiology, and Diseases of the Bones and Joints,” in which 
he called attention to the employment of adhesive plaster as a means of 
extension in fractures of the lower extremity, a method of treatment 
almost universally in vogue at the present day. 
After the lapse of eighteen months, having in the meanwhile married, 
and his patrimony being almost exhausted, Dr. Gross returned to Easton, 
where he soon acquired a good practice; and when he left for Cincinnati, 
in October, 1833, two years and a half afterward, he was regarded as the 
most learned practitioner of the plabe. To increase his knowledge of 
practical anatomy he erected at the foot of his garden a dissecting-room, 
having brought his first cadaver in a buggy from Philadelphia, but he sub- 
sequently obtained material nearer home, not, however, without incurring 
great risk of detection. He dissected and performed the more important 
operations on the cadaver several hours daily, and in this way obtained a 
vast amount of information which proved of the utmost value to him in 
subsequent years. All his leisure hours in the summer were spent upon 
the composition of a work on descriptive anatomy, which was, however, 
never completed. The MS., still in existence, contains the first effort in 
the English language to change the nomenclature of anatomy from Latin 
into English, a plan which, at his suggestion, was afterward adopted by his 
pupil, Dr. T. G. Richardson, now Professor of Surgery in the University 
of Louisiana, in his work on Anatomy, and subsequently by Professor 
Leidy, of the University of Pennsylvania, in his text-book on Anatomy. 
During his residence at Easton, Dr. Gross made a series of observations 
upon the temperature of venous blood—altogether fifty in number—mostly 
of healthy persons, and found, as an average, 96° Fahr., the maximum 
being 104°, and the minimum 92°. Hence, he regarded the average of 
98°, as usually stated, as too high. The results of these investigations 
were published at Cincinnati in 1835, in the second volume of the Western 
Medical Gazette. He also noticed in these observations a singular phenome- 
non, then, if not still, unknown, that if the arm be tied firmly for five or six 
minutes before opening the vein, the temperature of the blood which flows 
during the first thirty or forty seconds will be several degrees lower than 
that which issues subsequently, a fact which is probably due to the sta- 
tionary condition of the blood in the veins. In addition to these experi- 
ments, he conducted others upon excretion to ascertain the rapid transit 
of certain articles, when taken into the stomach, through the blood by the 
kidneys. For this purpose he selected rabbits, to which, after having tied 
both renal arteries, he administered protoxide of iron. The animals were 
killed within fifteen to thirty minutes, and upon applying a solution of cya- 
nide of potassium to the urine in the bladder, ureters, and kidneys, well- 
marked traces of iron were invariably found in that fluid. To those who 
remember the doctrine of solidism, so dominant in the schools of those Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
3 
days, these investigations are not without their significance. Another ex- 
periment which interested him at this time very much was the inoculation 
of a cat with the virus of smallpox, the object being to ascertain whether 
Gendrin was right in asserting that the disease could be communicated in 
this way to an inferior animal. With the exception of slight suppuration, 
no ill effects followed. 
In 1833 he performed a series of experiments upon rabbits with a view 
of throwing light upon manual strangulation, a full account of which was 
published in the ninth volume of the Western Medical and Physical Jour- 
nal, and an abstract of which will be found in the second volume of Beck’s 
“Medical Jurisprudence,” with appropriate comments by that distin- 
guished author. Shortly before these experiments were made, Dr. Gross 
was the chief medical witness in the case of Goetter, which constituted the 
most important event during his professional life at Easton. Goetter had 
killed, by manual strangulation in the eighth month of her pregnancy, a 
woman whom he had seduced. Dr. Gross made the post-mortem examina- 
tion, but neglected to open the skull, and on this account was subjected to 
considerable annoyance during the trial, as the defence partly rested upon 
the ground that the woman had died of apoplexy. It was evident, how- 
ever, from the marks upon her neck, and the condition of the face and 
lungs, that she had died from asphyxia, and he gave his testimony accord- 
ingly. The man was convicted solely upon circumstantial evidence, but 
the day before his execution he confessed that he had choked the woman 
to death with his hand. 
In October, 1833, Dr. Gross, after having been offered the chair of 
Chemistry in Lafayette College, Easton, removed to Cincinnati to accept 
the demonstratorship of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio, and 
here he commenced his career with a hundred and fifty dollars in his 
purse. His first class numbered nearly sixty out of a total class of about 
eighty-six, with a ticket of ten dollars. lie gave regularly three lectures 
a week, chiefly on surgical and visceral anatomy, kept the rooms well 
supplied with subjects, and thus laid the foundation of the study of prac- 
tical anatomy, which up to that time had been merely nominal in the 
Western States. In the spring and autumn he delivered private courses 
to small classes, earning little money, but accumulating valuable knowl- 
edge, and acquiring reputation as a zealous anatomist and a successful 
teacher. 
Dr. Gross remained in the Medical College of Ohio only two sessions; 
when, in 1835, he was unanimously appointed to the chair of Pathological 
Anatomy in the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. During 
the first few years after his appointment he abandoned himself almost 
wholly to a special course of study to aid him in the discharge of his official 
duties. Ilis medical friends did all they could to obtain for him post- 
mortem examinations, of which full notes were always taken, and the 4 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
specimens preserved. In this way he laid the foundation of a museum of 
morbid anatomy, which, when the college was broken up, four years after 
its organization, contained a large number of valuable preparations. 
It was from these dissections, from an elaborate course of reading, and 
from numerous visits to the slaughter-houses of Cincinnati, that Dr. 
Gross derived the knowledge upon which was founded his “ Elements of 
Pathological Anatomy,” issued in 1839, in two octavo volumes of upwards 
of five hundred pages each. The book was illustrated by numerous wood- 
cuts and several coloured engravings, and was the first systematic work 
upon the subject ever published in the United States, or, indeed, in the 
English language. A second edition, greatly enlarged and thoroughly 
revised, was issued in 1845, in one large octavo volume of eight hundred 
and twenty-two pages, profusely illustrated, and full of marginal refer- 
ences, which greatly enhanced its value as a learned work. The third 
and last edition appeared in 1857, and in its preparation, especially the 
microscopical portion, the author was assisted by Dr. Da Costa. The 
work, in its original form, cost Dr. Gross, who had no one to advise or 
guide him, much labour and anxiety, having been written in the intervals 
of a large and increasing practice, during hours often snatched from sleep, 
and under the exhaustion of fatigue, upwards of three years having been 
spent upon its composition. That he had not laboured in vain was 
indicated not only by the reputation, both at home and abroad, which his 
researches in this branch brought him, but by an incident which was pecu- 
liarly gratifying to him. In July, 1868, Virchow had invited a number 
of prominent men to meet Dr. Gross at his residence in Berlin, among 
whom were Von Langenbeck, Von Graefe, Donders, and Gurlt. Toward 
the conclusion of the dinner, the host, availing himself of a lull in the 
conversation, drew forth a large volume from under the table, and, rising, 
took Dr. Gross by the hand, and made him an eloquent address, compli- 
menting him upon his labours as a pathological anatomist, and referring 
to the work, which happened to be the second edition of his “ Elements 
of Pathological Anatomy,” as one from which he had derived much useful 
instruction, and one which he always consulted with much pleasure. It 
need not be said that the author was deeply flattered by this great honour, 
so unexpectedly and so gracefully bestowed upon him by the great German 
pathologist. This estimate of the value of his book was more than com- 
pensation for all the toil and anxiety which it had cost him. 
While engaged in the preparation of his “ Pathological Anatomy” Dr. 
Gross contributed numerous papers to periodical literature, instructed a 
number of private pupils, attended to a large general and consultation 
practice, and never missed a lecture. In 1839, he was unanimously ap- 
pointed Professor of Medicine in the University of Virginia, a compliment 
the more honourable because it was unsolicited on his part, and a short time 
previously he had been offered the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
5 
Louisiana. These offers were promptly declined ; and it was wrell that 
they were, as a far more important position awaited him. During the 
spring of 1840 he accepted the Professorship of Surgery in the Louisville 
Medical Institute, afterwards the University of Louisville, which had been 
rendered vacant by the resignation of Dr. Joshua B. Flint. The most 
distinguished members of the faculty of this school at that time were 
Daniel Drake, Charles Caldwell, John Esten Cooke, and Jedediah Cobb. 
Dr. Gross was the youngest member of the faculty, and, although he had 
never taught surgery, he was thoroughly acquainted with its principles and 
practice, and had no misgivings upon entering upon the discharge of the 
duties of the chair. As a teacher he had never known what failure was, 
and he felt certain that he would succeed in his new field of labour. The 
class, during the first winter of his connection with the school, numbered 
two hundred and four, from which it afterwards increased to four hundred 
and six, the largest it ever had. As there was no rent to be paid, the net 
proceeds of each chair amounted for quite a number of years annually to 
nearly $5000. 
The government of the University of Louisville was invested in a board 
of trustees, who were self-appointing. In 1849, an attempt was made by 
the city of Louisville, through the Supreme Court of Kentucky, to wrest 
the government of the school from the hands of the men who had so ably 
managed its affairs, and to make the board elective by the people. At 
this particular crisis, being in doubt as to how the suit would terminate, 
Dr. Gross accepted the offer of the Chair of Surgery in the University of 
the City of New York, rendered vacant by the retirement of Valentine 
Mott, his colleagues being Granville Sharpe Pattison, John W. Draper, 
Gunning S. Bedford, Martin Payne, and Elisha Bartlett, all men of 
distinction and ability. Dr. Gross was then forty-five years of age, full 
of ambition, and determined to do full justice to his chair. He passed 
the winter of 1850-’ol in New York; but, long before the termination 
of the session, he was solicited by his late colleagues at Louisville to 
resume his chair in its University, the suit in the mean time having been 
decided in favour of the board of trustees. Dr. Gross found that the 
University of New York was then unpopular with the profession of that 
city, that the college edifice was ill-adapted to its objects, that living 
and rents were exorbitantly high, and, in short, that the prospects of the 
institution were not such as, in his opinion, to render it desirable to con- 
tinue his connection with it. These considerations, along with the earnest 
wish of his family to return to their former home, led him to tender his 
resignation, and resume his chair in the University of Louisville, Dr. Paul 
F. Eve having withdrawn in his favour. The winter passed in New 
York was the most charming he had ever spent. With four didactic 
lectures and two clinics a week, and little private practice, he gave 
himself up to amusements, social intercourse, and visits to the hospitals. 6 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
He also attended a course of lectures on the microscope by Mr. Goadby, 
an English gentleman, and spent much of his leisure upon the composition 
of his work on the urinary organs, commenced several years previously, 
and completed a short time before the close of this winter’s lectures. Had 
he remained in New York, he would doubtless have obtained a very large 
practice; but as he had left a more lucrative school, and had the most 
commanding surgical practice in the southwest, he deemed it most 
prudent to retrace his steps. 
Soon after Dr. Gross first went to Louisville, he instituted a series of 
experiments upon dogs, with the view of determining, more accurately than 
hitherto had been done, the nature and treatment of wounds of the intes- 
tines. These investigations, which were commenced in the spring of 
1841, and continued, with various intermissions, for upwards of two years, 
involved the sacrifice of seventy dogs, and the results were originally pub- 
lished in a series of papers in the Western Journal of Medicine and Sur- 
gery, and finally embodied in a separate monograph, forming an octavo 
volume of two hundred and twenty pages, illustrated by wood-cuts and 
coloured engravings, and entitled an “ Experimental and Critical Inquiry 
into the Nature and Treatment of Wounds of the Intestines.” The work 
was an exhaustive one, and comprised an account of his own researches 
as well as a sketch of the literature of the subject. It was most favour- 
ably noticed in a long review in the British arid Foreign Medico-Chirur- 
gical Review, and was quoted approvingly by Mr. Guthrie in his work on 
“Military Surgery.” 
Much labour was spent upon these experiments, and they involved not 
a little sacrifice of feeling on his part, as he was naturally fond of dogs, 
and ana3sthetics had not yet been discovered. In this connection, in 
view of the attacks on the profession now being made in this city by the 
American Antivivisection Society, it will prove interesting to quote the 
language of Dr. Gross, penned ten years ago, on this subject. He says:— 
“ I have sacrificed for experimental purposes nearly one hundred dogs, 
and, if I were not thoroughly satisfied that the objects had been most 
laudable, I should consider myself as a most cruel, heartless man, de- 
serving of the severest condemnation. The results of my experiments 
will, I am sure, eventually receive that attention to which their import- 
ance so justly entitles them. The experiments of Jones on hemorrhage, 
of Smith and Travers on wounds of the intestines, of Magendie and 
Charles Bell on the functions of the nerves, and of hundreds of physi- 
cians upon the action of medicines upon the human frame, have shed an 
immense flood of light upon the healing art, putting to flight the mawkish 
sentimentality of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, 
which have made so much ado about this matter.” 
His work entitled “A Practical Treatise on the Diseases, Injuries, and 
Malformations of the Urinary Bladder, the Prostate Gland, and the 
Urethra” was published by Blanchard & Lea in 1851, the MS. having Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
7 
been deposited with them on his return from New York to Louisville. 
The only then existing monographs on these affections of any importance 
in the English language were those of Sir Benjamin Brodie and Mr. 
William Coulson, two comparatively meagre productions, which, although 
very valuable, especially the former, were unsatisfactory. Hence such a 
work had long been needed, and it was at once accepted as an authority 
upon the subjects of which it treated. He had long been accumulating the 
materials, and not less than three years were finally spent in arranging 
them for publication. A second edition, greatly enlarged and improved, 
was issued in 1855, and formed a closely-printed octavo volume of 925 
pages, illustrated by 184 wood-cuts. In an appendix of 29 pages is the 
first and only attempt as yet made to furnish a complete account of the 
prevalence of stone in the bladder, and of calculous disorders in the United 
States, Canada, Nova Scotia, Eui-ope, and other countries. In 1876 a 
third edition of the work appeared under the editorship of Dr. S. W. 
Gross, who rewrote much of it, introduced considerable new matter, and 
produced a valuable treatise fully up to the existing state of the science. 
Dr. Gross’s “ Practical Treatise on Foreign Bodies in the Air-Pas- 
sages” was issued from the press of Blanchard & Lea, in 1854, in an 
octavo volume of 468 pages, illustrated by 59 engravings on wood. Its 
composition required upwards of two years, and as it was the first attempt, 
in any language, to systematize our knowledge upon the subject, it was, 
strictly speaking, a pioneer work. Dr. Morrell Mackenzie, the highest 
authority upon the subject in Europe, in speaking of it nearly thirty 
years after its publication in his own admirable treatise on “The Diseases 
of the Throat and Nose,” makes the following remarks : “ This invalu- 
able essay gives full reports of two hundred cases, and is so complete that 
it is doubtful whether it will ever be improved upon ; indeed, the excel- 
lent articles of Bourdillat and Kuhn subsequently published, the former 
based on three thousand, the latter on three hundred and seventy-four 
cases, only confirm the conclusions previously arrived at by Gross.” It 
might have been added that Kuhn plagiarized much of his material. 
During his residence at Louisville, Dr. Gross was a liberal contributor 
to the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, edited by Dr. Drake. 
Among his earliest papers was an account of a case of axillary aneurism, 
for which he tied the subclavian artery. It was accompanied by a statis- 
tical notice of all that had been done in regard to the surgery of this vessel 
up to that period. Another very elaborate paper was published in 1852 
on the “Diseases and Operations on the Jaws,” and one of his last con- 
tributions to its pages was a “ Discourse upon the Life and Character of 
Daniel Drake,” embracing nearly one hundred pages. 
In 1851 he prepared a very full and exhaustive “ Report on Kentucky 
Surgery” for the Kentucky State Medical Society, and afterwards 
published in its Transactions. It contained a biography of Ephraim 8 
Memoir oe Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
McDowell, with a full vindication of his claims as the originator of ova- 
riotomy in 1809. In 1853 he sent to the American Medical Association, 
at its meeting in Richmond, Virginia, an exhaustive report on the “ Re- 
sults of Surgical Operations in Malignant Diseases.” It comprised one 
hundred and thirty-seven pages of its volume of Transactions, and em- 
bodied the experience of the principal surgeons of all ages and countries. 
At the meeting of the Association at Detroit, in 1856, he read a “ Report 
on the Causes which Retard the Progress of American Medical Literature,” 
in which he took strong ground against the editing of foreign works by 
American writers, and animadverted in severe terms upon our medical 
journals for their indiscriminate praise of European reprints. During 
the same period he contributed several papers to the American Journal 
of the Medical Sciences. One of these was the report of a case, full of 
interest, of “ Gunshot Wound of the Neck, involving thfe Spinal Cord 
and Subclavian Artery, and Causing Death by Convulsions.” The paper, 
however, which attracted most attention was the report in the October 
number for 1852 of an operation which he performed in 1849 upon a 
child three years old, the subject of a congenital malformation, consist- 
ing in complete absence of the vagina and the presence of well-formed 
testes in the labia. The object was to prevent, effectually, if possible, 
the development with puberty of sexual desire, as the malformation would 
render intercourse quite impossible. Although the operation was severely 
criticized, Dr. Gross never felt cause to regret the course he had adopted. 
In the winter of 1856, Dr. Gross and Dr. T. G. Richardson founded 
the Louisville Medical Review, a bi-monthly journal of medicine and 
surgery, of which only six numbers appeared, since, by a strange coinci- 
dence, soon after the publication of the first, both editors received and 
accepted appointments in Philadelphia, Dr. Gross to the chair of Surgery 
in the Jefferson Medical College, and Dr. Richardson to that of Anatomy in 
the Pennsylvania College. Soon after their removal to Philadelphia, they 
issued the North American Medico-Chirurgical Review, one of the peculiar 
features of which periodical was that each department of the sciences was 
intrusted to a separate contributor, whose duty it was to furnish an abstract 
of the current literature, so that it always fully reflected the latest dis- 
coveries and improvements. The work prospered until the outbreak of the 
war, when all the Southern subscribers dropped off, and the publishers, 
J. B. Lippincott & Co., were compelled to abandon it at the close of its fifth 
year of publication. To the pages of these journals Dr. Gross contributed 
a number of original articles and elaborate reviews, including among 
others a remarkable and curious case of “ Congenital Hypertrophy of the 
Gums,” the “Nature and Treatment of Tuberculosis of the Hip-joint,” 
“August Gottlieb Richter: his Works and his Contemporaries—A Re- 
trospective Sketch,” into which he introduced an account of Desault, Ben- 
jamin Bell, and Antonio Scarpa, and, finally, “A Sketch of the Life and Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
9 
Services of Ambrose Pare.” The journals were also made, during the 
greater part of their existence, the vehicles of the reports of his clinics 
at the University of Louisville, the Jefferson Medical College, and the 
Philadelphia Hospital. 
In 1855, Dr. Gross was solicited by Dr. Rene La Roche, a member of 
the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, to allow his 
name to be placed before that body as a candidate for the chair of Surgery, 
vacated by the resignation of Dr. Gibson. He was assured that the entire 
medical faculty, with one exception, that of Dr. Wood, had pledged them- 
selves to support him, and would use their best endeavours to secure his 
election. Various reasons, however, induced him to decline, and he wrote, 
at the request of Dr. D. Hayes Agnew, a warm testimonial in favour of 
Dr. Henry H. Smith, who was elected. 
Dr. Gross remained at Louisville for sixteen years, from October, 1840, 
to September, 185G. He became closely identified with the people and 
the interests of that city, and he was regarded as the most prominent 
surgeon of the southwest. Hence it is not surprising that, when it was 
announced in May, 1856, that he had accepted the chair of Surgery in the 
Jefferson Medical College, universal regret was expressed by both the 
medical profession and the citizens of Louisville. He received numerous 
letters from medical men in various parts of the valley of the Mississippi, 
remonstrating with him against his removal, but he did not feel that he 
could decline the honourable position in his Alma Mater which had been 
unanimously tendered him by its Board of Trustees and the faculty. 
Moreover, a strong motive which impelled him to remove to Philadelphia 
was the desire to be relieved of a large and annoying family practice, so 
that he might write an elaborate system of surgery, for which his leisure 
in Louisville was not sufficient, but upon the composition of which he had 
been engaged for several years. 
Dr. Gross reached Philadelphia on Saturday, September 26, 1856, and 
delivered his first clinical lecture on the following Wednesday. He 
brought with him about one-lialf of his library, which consisted of nearly 
4000 volumes, having deposited the remainder in boxes in the University 
of Louisville for safe-keeping. As he was about to go before his class on 
the ensuing 24th of December, the following telegram was handed to him : 
“ The University was totally consumed by fire early this morning, including 
all your books and minerals.” This intelligence greatly shocked him, his 
loss being the more keenly felt, as it comprised the most complete collec- 
tion of works on the genito-urinary organs ever brought together in this 
country. Many of the books and pamphlets were from the library of the 
late John C. Crosse, the eminent lithotomist of Norwich, England, and 
could never be replaced. 
In order that his literary pursuits might not be too much interfered 
with, Dr. Gross, upon his arrival in Philadelphia, confined himself strictly 10 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
to office and consultation business, to patients from abroad, and to surgical 
operations. He set to work vigorously upon the completion of liis 
“ System of Surgery,” which he had determined to make the most elabo- 
rate, if not the most complete, treatise in the English language. The 
heads of his lectures served him as a valuable guide, and he generally 
wrote with great facility, as his knowledge of the subject, from long 
study, practice, and contemplation, was extensive, and, in the main, very 
accurate. He spent from five to eight hours a day upon his manuscript, 
and, unless greatly interrupted, he seldom wrote less than from ten to 
fifteen pages of foolscap in the twenty-four hours, and rarely rewrote 
anything, although he not unfrequently interlined. In this way he worked 
steadily until July 8,1859, when he finally wrote the preface. Soon after, 
the work was issued in two portly octavo volumes, numbering, in the 
aggregate, 2360 pages, and profusely illustrated by engravings on wood. 
The sixth edition was published in October, 1882, and it was so thoroughly 
changed and so greatly improved over the preceding editions, as to con- 
stitute essentially a new production. The review of this work which 
gratified him most was given of the fifth edition in the Dublin Journal of 
Medical Science for 1874. It covered nearly fifty pages of that periodical, 
and was at once able, analytical, and critical. The review thus concludes : 
“ His work is cosmopolitan, the surgery of the world being fully represented 
in it. The work, in fact, is so historically unprejudiced, and so eminently 
practical, that it is almost a false compliment to say that we believe it to 
be destined to occupy a foremost place as a work of reference while a sys- 
tem of surgery, like the present system of surgery, is the practice of sur- 
geons.” A Dutch translation, by Dr. Sachse, appeared at Nieuwediep 
in 1863. 
At the outbi’eak of the war, Dr. Gross wrote a brief “ Manual of 
Military Surgery',” a pocket companion for the young surgeons who were 
flocking into the army. It was composed in nine days, and published in 
a fortnight from the time of its inception. Under the care of Lippincott 
& Co., it passed through two editions of 2000 copies each, was republished 
at Richmond, and was extensively used by the Confederate surgeons, and 
in 1874 was translated into Japanese and published at Tokio. 
In 1861, Dr. Gross edited an octavo volume of upwards of 800 pages 
entitled “ Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the 
Nineteenth Century,” his own contributions being sketches of Ephraim 
McDowell, the ovariotomist; Drake, the great Western physician; and 
John Syng Dorsey, the nephew of Physick, and the author of the “ Ele- 
ments of Surgery.” 
In 1868, in the address which he read before the American Medical 
Association at its meeting at Washington, as its President, he called 
attention, among other matters, to a new method of appointing medical 
witnesses as experts in cases involving medico-legal considerations. In Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
11 
18G9, at the meeting at New Orleans, an elaborate paper from his pen on 
the “Training of Nurses” was read, which attracted much attention. At 
its meeting at Detroit, in 1874, he read an address on “Syphilis in its 
Relation to the National Health,” which received the highest commenda- 
tion, Dr. Sims offering a resolution for the appointment of a committee to 
present the subject to the consideration of the legislatures of the different 
States and Territories. The following year he read before the same body, 
at its meeting at Louisville, “A Discourse on Bloodletting considered as 
a Therapeutic Agent;” and at its meeting in Chicago, in 1877, he read a 
paper on the “ Proximate Cause of Pain.” In October, 1875, he delivered 
two elaborate lectures introductory to his course at the College on the 
“History of American Medical Literature from 1776 to the Present 
Time,” which were afterwards issued in a brochure of 85 octavo pages. 
In the American Journal of the Medical Sciences for April, 1876, is an 
article, occupying 53 closely printed pages, from his pen on the “ History 
of American Surgery from 1776 to 1876,” which is one of several papers 
prepared by different writers illustrative of the progress of the different 
branches of medicine in this country during the century, and which, 
together with those papers, was issued in book form under the title of a 
“Century of American Medicine.” 
During his residence in Philadelphia, in addition to the works and 
papers already mentioned, Dr. Gross made many literary contributions to 
various journals and societies, among which may be mentioned “ Practical 
Observations on the Nature and Treatment of Prostatorrhcea,” 1860 ; 
“Brunonianism, Toddism, and other Isms,” 1860; “Necrological Notice 
of Jedediah Cobb, M.D., formerly Professor of Anatomy in the University 
of Louisville,” 1861; “Biographical Sketch of Charles Wilkins Short, 
M.D., formerly Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Botany in the 
University of Louisville,” 1865; “Then and Now,” 1867; “The Live 
Physician,” 1868; “A Memoir of Valentine Mott, M.D.,” 1868; “A 
Memoir of Robley Dunglison, M.D.,” 1869; “Nature’s Voice in Disease 
and Convalescence,” 1870; “A Discourse on Ambrose Pare,” 1873; “An 
Oration in Honour of Ephraim McDowell,” delivered before the Kentucky 
State Medical Society at its meeting at Danville, at the dedication of the 
monument erected to his memory, 1879 ; “ A Memoir of Dr. Isaac Hays,” 
late editor of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1879; “John 
Hunter and his Pupils,” 1881; “Value of Early Operations in Morbid 
Growths,” 1883 ; and “The Best Means of Training Nurses for the Rural 
Districts,” 1883. His last contributions, composed a few weeks before his 
death, were one on “ Wounds of the Intestines,” read before the American 
Surgical Association by Professor Richardson, April 30, 1884; and one 
on “Lacerations of the Female Sexual Organs, consequent upon Partu- 
rition, their Causes and their Prevention,” read before the American 
Medical Association on May 8, 1884, two days after he expired. 12 
Dr. Gross became a writer early in liis professional life. He had 
hardly received his degree before he began to translate French and 
German medical works. During the first summer, he assisted Dr. John 
D. Godman, the anatomist and naturalist, in translating the Duke of 
Saxe-Weimar's “Travels in the United States,” and the next year he 
wrote his work on the “ Bones and Joints.” lie was always a hard student 
and incessant thinker. He accomplished the vast amount of writing which 
he did simply by working in an orderly and systematic manner, with a 
distinct, definite aim, and never allowing anything to interfere with the 
consummation of his labours. As he frequently said, his genius was the 
genius of industry, perseverance, and common sense. He thought out 
many of the details of his writings while making his daily rounds, and it 
was his constant habit, on returning to his office, to commit to paper 
what he had outlined in his busy brain. 
After his graduation, the great ambition of Dr. Gross was to become a 
teacher. His first effort in this direction was as Demonstrator of Anatomy 
in the Medical College of Ohio, in which, as previously stated, he de- 
livered three lectures a week for two years. In the Cincinnati College he 
lectured for four years on pathological anatomy, after which he taught sur- 
gery for forty-two years. During all this time he invariably spoke extem- 
poraneously with the aid of a few brief headings; but be never appeared 
before his class without previous study and meditation, and a thorough com- 
prehension of his subject. Order and system were among his more import- 
ant attributes as a teacher. Those who have heard him will never forget his 
enthusiasm ; the clearness, force, and directness of his language; the marked 
interest he felt in what he was saying and doing; and the evidence of the 
feeling that he had a solemn duty to perform, and that upon what he uttered 
might depend the happiness or misery of thousands of human beings. The 
opening portion of his course on surgery was devoted to the discussion of 
the principles, the topics discussed having been inflammation and its con- 
sequences, syphilis, struma, tumours, and wounds. These topics being 
disposed of, he took up the diseases and injuries of particular regions, 
organs, and tissues, confining himself as much as possible to matters of 
fact, and not indulging in hypotheses, conjecture, or speculation. His 
knowledge of pathological anatomy was of immense benefit to him in 
these exercises, and he freely availed himself of it as a means of illustrat- 
ing every subject that he had occasion to discuss. Indeed, he always 
asserted, that whatever reputation he possessed as a teacher and a writer, 
was in great degree due to his familiarity with morbid anatomy. What 
added greatly to his charm as a lecturer were his admirable diction, his 
commanding presence, and a resonant and well-modulated voice. 
In March, 1882, being in the full possession of his intellectual and 
physical powers, but being actuated by a desire to spend the remainder of 
his days in comparative repose, he resigned the chair of Surgery in the 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M. D. Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
13 
Jefferson Medical College, which he had filled for twenty-six years, and 
he was thereupon unanimously elected emeritus professor. 
Dr. Gross had a great fondness for surgery. After his removal to 
Louisville, his name became widely known as a practical surgeon, and 
there was no one in the Valley of the Mississippi who did so large 
a practice as he, especially after the retirement of Dr. Dudley, who had 
so long wielded the surgical sceptre at Lexington. He possessed all the 
qualities of a good operator, a thorough knowledge of regional anatomy, 
quick perception, rapidity in judgment, perfect self-control, a steady hand, 
and an unflinching eye. lie rarely failed to accomplish what he had set 
out to do, and he never lost a patient upon the table from shock, hemor- 
rhage, or anmsthesia. He performed many major operations, and had an 
extended reputation as a lithotomist, having cut 1G5 patients, with 14 
deaths. Of 72 children, all except 2 survived, while of 93 operations in 
adults and old persons, 12 died. 
During the War of the Rebellion, he took great interest in gunshot 
wounds, visiting many battle-fields and hospitals to observe their peculiar 
features, of which he made valuable notes. In the spring of 1862, 
Surgeon-General Hammond offered him the post of Surgeon-in-Charge of 
the George St. Hospital in this city, but as he had no fitness for the 
position he promptly declined it, preferring to be placed in charge of the 
surgical ward, so as to be the better able to study gunshot injuries. 
In addition to the various experiments already alluded to, he made 
not a few original contributions to surgery. He was the first to suggest 
or perform for ganglia of the hand and foot subcutaneous section fol- 
lowed by firm compression ; high amputation in senile gangrene; the 
suturing of divided nerves and tendons; deep stitches in wounds of the 
wall of the abdomen, to prevent hernia or protrusion of the bowel 
after recovery ; wiring the ends of the bones in dislocations of the sterno- 
clavicular and acromio-clavicular articulations ; a modification of PirogofTs 
amputation at the ankle-joint, unjustly ascribed to Dr. Quimby; a mode 
of operating for inverted toe nails ; an operation for neuralgia of the jaws 
in old persons; laparotomy in rupture of the bladder; and a direct opera- 
tion for hernia by suturing the pillars of the ring. He was also the first 
to describe prostatorrhoea, pododynia, and the use of adhesive plaster as a 
means of making extension in the treatment of fractures of the lower ex- 
tremity. He was the inventor of an enterotome, urethrotome, tracheotomy 
forceps, blood catheter, arterial compressor, tourniquet, an instrument for 
extracting foreign bodies from the ear and nose, and an apparatus for the 
transfusion of blood. In his “ Pathological Anatomy” he has given a 
description of a number of dissections of specimens of false conceptions, or 
uterine moles, as they are termed, the first account in the English lan- 
guage. He was also the first to suggest the use of ergot in the treatment of 
diabetes. The case was that of a woman brought to him by Dr. Shearer, 14 
Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
of Berks County, Pa., who published an account of it in the Medical and 
Surgical Reporter. 
I)r. Gross’s majestic form and dignified presence, his broad brow and in- 
telligent eye, his deep, mellow voice, and benignant smile, his genial man- 
ner and cordial greeting, remain indelibly impressed upon the memory of 
all who knew him. He was a man of deep mind and broad views, and he 
was a model of industry and untiring zeal. He always had some literary 
work in hand, and he was in the habit of rising early in the morning, 
generally at six o’clock, and accomplishing considerable writing before 
breakfast. His style was vigorous and pure, and the amount of work 
he accomplished was simply immense. It is safe to say that no previous 
medical teacher or author on this continent exercised such a widespread 
and commanding influence as did Prof. Gross. His writings have been 
most learned and voluminous, and • his classes among the largest that 
have ever been collected in this country. As a citizen he was public- 
spirited and influential, and he always most jealously guarded the esprit 
de corps of his own profession. In every project to advance its interests 
or to protect or honour any of its deserving members he was foremost. 
On account of' the universally recognized eminence of his authority as a 
surgeon he was frequently called into court as an expert to testify in mal- 
practice suits, and he was ever ready cheerfully to give his time, knowl- 
edge, and influence in maintaining the right, and he never thought any 
trouble too great to aid an unfortunate professional brother. He took a 
deep interest, too, in the struggles and success of young men, born perhaps 
of his own experience, and he was always ready to assist them by his 
counsel and advice. His house was the seat of a wide and generous hos- 
pitality, and distinguished strangers, professional and non-professional, 
were welcome guests at his table. While fond of social life, he never 
appeared so happy as when surrounded by his own family. He was, too, 
an ardent lover of the beauties of nature, with a special fondness for 
flowers, of which a few were always to be found close by his side on his 
study table. 
Dr. Gross attained unusual eminence in the world of medicine. He 
was a member or fellow of numerous medical societies and other organi- 
zations, both American and foreign, including among the former the 
College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia County Medi- 
cal Society, the Pathological Society of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia 
Academy of Surgery, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the American 
Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, the 
Medical Jurisprudence Society of Philadelphia, the Massachusetts Med- 
ical Society, the New York State Medical Society, the Academy of 
Medicine of New York, the Cincinnati Medical Society, the Ohio Histor- 
ical and Philosophical Society, the Medical Society of Louisiana, the 
Kentucky State Medical Society, the American Medical Association, the Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
15 
American Surgical Association, the National Association for the Protec- 
tion of the Insane, and the American Public Health Association. He 
was the founder of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia, of the 
Academy of Surgery of Philadelphia, and of the American Surgical 
Association, and one of the founders of the Kentucky State Medical 
Society, and of the Medical Jurisprudence Society of Philadelphia, of 
which organizations, as well as of the International Medical Congress, held 
at Philadelphia in 187G, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the 
Pennsylvania State Medical Society, the Kentucky State Medical Society, 
the American Medical Association, the Medical College Association, and 
the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery he served as president. Of 
foreign societies, he was an honorary member of the British Medical Asso- 
ciation, the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, the Clinical 
Society of London, the Pathological Society of London, the Medico-Chi- 
rurgical Society of Edinburgh, the Imperial Medical Society of Vienna, 
the Medical Society of Christiania, the Royal Society of Public Medicine 
of Belgium, and the Medical Society of San Luis Potosi. 
On April 3d, 1881, Dr. Gross received a letter from Mr., now Sir, 
William MacCormac, Honorary Secretary-General, inviting him to de- 
liver the address in behalf of the American delegates to the International 
Medical Congress, which met in London in August of that year. To 
his great regret, he was unable to be present, and therefore was forced to 
decline the honour. 
Dr. Gross was made an LL.D. by the Jefferson College, of Canons- 
burgh, in 1861. In 1872, the University of Oxford conferred upon him 
the degree of D.C.L.; the University of Cambridge her degree of LL.D. 
in 1880; and the University of Edinburgh and the University of Pennsyl- 
vania conferred the same degree, in absentia, in April and May, 1884. 
Save an occasional twinge from rheumatic gout during his later years, Dr. 
Gross enjoyed excellent health to within a few months of his last illness. 
During the autumn and early winter of 1883, he was troubled with seve- 
ral attacks of indigestion, swollen feet, and other signs of weak heart, 
which, however, readily yielded to remedies. Early in January he had 
a mild attack of bronchial catarrh, which confined him to the house. 
Bbing thus deprived of out-door exercise, signs of dyspepsia again set in, 
and with the view of gaining strength to attend the meetings of the Amer- 
ican Surgical Association, and of the American Medical Association in 
May, upon which he had set his heart, he went to Atlantic City on the 
31st of March. On the following Sunday he was seized with intense 
nausea, and reached home the next afternoon much exhausted. From 
this time until his decease, May 6th, at twenty minutes to one o’clock, 
it was with great difficulty that he could be induced to take nourishment, 
and death ensued from sheer exhaustion, despite the unremitting atten- 
tion of Professor Da Costa, and of his son, Professor S. W. Gross, aided Memoir of Samuel D. Gross, M.D. 
by the wise counsel of his able and distinguished friend, Professor Austin 
Flint. 
The post-mortem examination disclosed marked gastric catarrh, with 
irregular thickening of the mucous membrane, fatty heart, and a large 
cyst of the right kidney. The brain weighed forty-eight ounces. 
The funeral services were held in the presence of his family and at- 
tendants, on the afternoon of May 7. Ilis remains were then taken to 
the crematory at Washington, Pa., where they were reduced to ashes. On 
the following Sunday they were deposited in the family vault beside the 
coffin of his wife, at Woodlands Cemetery. These last rites were strictly 
in accordance with his expressed wishes; and his friends had known for 
many years his desire to be cremated, which he regarded as the only 
decent and correct manner of disposing of the dead. 
The record of such a well-spent life is a valuable lesson which we do 
well to study and reflect upon. It serves as both precept and example, 
and invites us to emulate that energy, assiduity, and perseverance through 
which, aided by considerable native ability, the subject of this memoir 
acquired widespread distinction as a surgeon, a writer, a teacher, and a man. 
It shows that talent with industry cannot be repressed by adverse sur- 
roundings, but that it grows stronger in overcoming obstacles. Had Dr. 
Gross after graduation supinely waited for his ability to be discovered 
and for preferment to seek him, sheer want would probably have driven 
him to other pursuits, and his name would have been unknown to sur- 
gery. But, as we have seen, from the very moment of his graduation 
he entered upon the restless contest for distinction, and he created 
his own opportunities. When as yet he had had no time to gain expe- 
rience in the practice of his profession, he did useful work, and made his 
name known by translating the books of several Continental authors of 
distinction. Shortly afterward, under all the disadvantages of restricted 
means and adverse surroundings, he undertook original investigations in 
anatomy, physiology, pathology, and surgery, which gradually gave him 
a substantial and constantly-growing reputation, until finally he reaped, 
through the force of his own labours, all the honours which his own 
profession could bestow, and enjoyed a celebrity extending over both 
continents. 
In the death of Dr. Gross we have lost one of the brightest examples 
of the skill and learning, the conscientiousness and assiduity, the patience 
and perseverance, the dignity and morality by which our profession is 
truly ennobled. He has left us as a heritage a world-wide reputation 
which, as we regard it with conscious pride, cannot but stimulate us to a 
higher sense of our duty to our profession and to our fellows. 
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