James Aitkin Meigs was born in
Philadelphia, July 31, 1829, ot English and Scotch ancestry, on his
father's, and of Scotch and German ancestry upon his mother's, side.
His early education was obtained at public schools and he received
the degree of A. B. in 1848, from the Central High School of
Philadelphia.
In April, 1848, he commenced his
medical studies and in October matriculated at Jefferson College,
from which he was graduated in 1851.
He was for many years assistant
to Dr. Francis Gurney Smith, while Professor of Physiology in the
Pennsylvania College, and engaged in the preparation of students for
graduation. In September, 1854, he was appointed Professor of
Climatology and Physiology in the Franklin Institute, and continued
in this position eight years. In 1855, he was elected one of the
physicians to the Howard Hospital and served as such for thirteen
years. In 1857, he was made Professor of the Institutes of Medicine,
Philadelphia Medical College, and continued as such until April
1850, when he was transferred to same chair in the, now defunct,
Pennsylvania College. In 1859, he was physician and clinical
lecturer at Philadelphia Hospital, Blockley.
In 1866, he was
appointed to lecture in the spring course of lectures at Jefferson
Medical College and, in June 1868, on the resignation of Dr.
Dunglison, he was elected Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and
Medical Jurisprudence, in the same institution.
He was elected in 1868 to the
Medical Staff, and continued in the position until his death, in
1879.
He was President (1871) of
the County Medical Society, and Secretary of the Academy of Natural
Sciences. He was a Fellow of the College of Physicians, of the
American Medical Association ; and also of a number of foreign
scientific societies.
When a student of medicine and
after graduation, he contributed to the Medical Examiner, clinical
reports from Jefferson Medical College and from the clinical service
of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and discussions of the County Medical
Society and papers on mortuary statistics of Philadelphia. In 1855^
in Journal of Franklin Institute, he published an article on the
physiology of stammering and its treatment by mechanical means. In
1856, he prepared the first American edition of Carpenter's work
upon the microscope. In 1857, he edited an edition of Kirke's Manual
of Physiology. He published a paper on " Hints to Craniographers
upon the Importance and Feasibility of Establishing some Uniform
System by which the Collection and Promulgation of
Craniological Statistics, and the Exchange of Duplicate Crania, may
be Promoted " ; also a paper on " Correlation of the Vital and
Physical Forces."
On December 18,1855, he prepared
a descriptive catalogue of the Human Crania, which formed the
"Samuel G. Morton Collection " at the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia. In the journal of the "Academy," 1855, is a paper by
him on the " Relation of Atomic Heat to Crystalline Forms." In 1859,
he presented a paper on the " Description of a Deformed Fragmentary
Skull found in an ancient Quarry Cave at Jerusalem, with an attempt
to determine by its configuration alone, the Ethnical Type to which
it belongs," which was published, as were his "Observations upon the
Form of the Occiput of the Various Races of Men." His paper on
Observation upon the Cranial Forms of the American Aborigines, based
upon Specimens Contained in the Morton Collection of the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, was also published in the
Proceedings of the Academy. He also contributed a valuable paper
upon the same topic to Nott & Gliddon's, " Types of Mankind." He
delivered the address on laying the corner'stone of the new edifice
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, October 30. 1862.
He died November 9, 1879, aged
fifty years.
___________________
MEIGS, JAMES AITKEN,
Philadelphia, was born in Philadelphia, July 3ist, 1829, of English
and Scotch ancestry on his father's side, and Scotch and German
through his mother. Having received his primary education from
private tutors, he entered, in 1843, the Mount Vernon grammar
school, from which, after ptlaining the required proficiency, he
passed to the Central high schojl of Philadelphia, from which he was
graduated in Fell., 1848, beginning in April of that year the study
of medicine in the ónice of Drs. F. G. Smith and J. M. Allen, his
studies under whom he supplemented by attending a course of lectures
on various medical subjects in the school of anatomy, after which,
in October of the same year, he was matriculated in Jefferson med.
coll., from which he Ğms
graduated in March, 1851, receiving at the same time the.
certificate annually conferred by the corps of lecturers of the
Philadelphia asso. for medical instruction on those students who
passed sue- I cessfully the examinations upon the lectures-l
delivered by the association. The subject of I his thesis on the
occasion of his graduation was " The Hygiene and Therapeutics of
Temperament." He began practice in his native city, where he has
since pursued it. For several years he acted as assistant to the
prof, of phy.uol. in the Pa. coll., and engaged in the examination
and preparation of students for graduation. In 1854 he delivered, by
appointment, the semi-annual address before the alumni asso. of the
Central high school, the address being published by a committee of
the association. In September of the same year he was appointed
lecturer on climatology and physiology at the Franklin institute for
the promotion of the mechanic arts, holding the position for eight
years, during which he also lectured frequently on physiological and
ethnological subjects at the different mechanics' institutes in
Philadelphia, and before various literary associations in
neighboring cities. In 1855 he was elected physician to the dep't of
diseases of the chest in the Howard hosp. and infirmary for
incurables, a position which he filled thirteen years. In the
following year he became librarian of the acad. of natural sciences
of Philadelphia, the duties of which office he discharged for
several years until increasing professional duties compelled him to
resign it. In 1857, by invitation of the faculty and board of
corporators of the Philadelphia coll. of med., he accepted the chair
of institutes of medicine in th.U institution, and continued to
occupy it until April, 1859, when he was transferred to the
professorship of institutes In the meJ. dc;>4 of Pa. coll.,
previously held by Prof. F. G. Smith, for whom the chair was
originally created by the trustees of the parent institution at
Gettysburg. While in the latter school he delivered two systematic
courses of lectures on physiology, illustrating them with an
extensive series of vivisectal demonstrations, which attracted much
attention at the time, as no sustained, systematic effort to teach
physiology experimentally had been made before in either of the four
medical schools then existing in Philadelphia. In Nov., 1859, while
still connected with the Pa. coll., he was elected by the board of
guardians consult, phys. and clinical lecturer to the Philadelphia
hosp. at Blockley. On the breaking out of the civil war in 1861, he,
in company with his colleagues, resigned from the Pa. coll., and for
a number of years following devoted himself exclusively to medical
and obstetric practice. In 1866, a spring course of lectures having
been established by the faculty of Jefferson coll., with the object
of ex'ending the facilities of instruction so as practically to
lengthen the regular winter course, he delivered in this special
course, at the request of the faculty, a series of lectures on the
physiology and pathology of the blood and circulation. In June,
1868, on the resignation of the late Prof. Kobley Dnnglison, he was
elected, by the board of trustees of Jefferson med. coll., prof, of
the institutes of medicine and med. jurisprudence, his application
for the chair having been supported by the medical profession of
Philadelphia, and recommended in letters addressed to the board by
Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian institution ; the late Dr. J.
C. Nott, of Mobile; Profs. Wilson, of Toronto ; Owen, of the British
museum; Turner, of the univ. of Edinburgh; Broca, of the acad. of
medicine of Paris ; Von Hüben, of the Carolinska institute of
Stockholm; Primer-Bey, of Cairo; and other distinguished physicians
and scientists of America and Europe. In August of the same year the
board of managers of the Pa. hosp. chose him without the usu.il
canvass one of the physicians to that institution. These two
positions he still fills, lie is a member of the Philadelphia со.
med. soc., of which he was elected recording secretary in 1857 ; and
a year later corresponding secretary, to which latter office he was
twice reëlected, becoming in 1867, moreover, one of the
vice-presidents, and in 1871 the president; the Franklin institute;
the acad. of natural sciences; the coll. of phys. ; the State med.
soc. of Pa., and the Am. met!, asso., in both of which his
membership is permanent ; the State historical soc. of Wis. ; the
biological dep't of the acad. of natural sciences; the Am. asso. for
the a<l1867 elected first vice-president of the Am. met!, asso. In
1873 elected by the medical editors of the U. S. president of the
Am. asso. ot medical editors. In 1874 elected president of the Am.
med. asso. His contributions to medicine are principally contained
in the journal before mentioned, where he was never negative but
definitely aggressive or defensive concerning all things pertaining
to his profession during twenty-five years. In 1876 appointed by the
International med. congress one ol the executive committee of the
State of Tennessee. Upon retiring from the Medical
Journal in 1875, his publisher said of him in his paper that "
Dr. howling had never kept the printer waiting for copy or money,"
and the greatest living medical critic is his journal said of him —
"A man of genius as well as learning, of the true poetic
temperament, he has written some of the most brilliant articles in
our medical annais." In 1837 he married Mrs. Melissa Cheatham
nit Melissa Saunders.
