Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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A Svltvtrli nf Br. Zlnliu Hrtvr flllrttaitm' nf Hirgiuizt rzxa cs:- MONG the gallant Frenchmen who followed the fortunes of Lafayette were two brothers, lVlettauer, surgeons. N After the battle of Yorktown the French Army was quartered E scsi Aj' at different points in Virginia. A regiment was sent to Prince Edward County, and attached to this were the surgeons, Mettauer. When the soldiers set out for home, Francis joseph Mettauer, by the persuasion of General Lawson, the Randolphs, and the l-lenrys, re- mained in Prince Edward County, and, later, married there. A son, john Peter Nlettauer, was born to him and Eliza Caulding in l787. But little is known of his childhood and youth, beyond the fact that, raised in an atmosphere of surgery, he imbibed a love for this profession, and early determined to adopt it as his life's work. ln the silence of history we are surely justified by the vent in assuming that the child inherited from an adventurous and accomplished sire much of his cast of mind, and that an hereditary disposition toward surgery was, in those early days when the modern practice was certainly no more than embryonic, vastly aided by that same tendency toward aggressive self-reliance, which brought the elder Mettauer to our shores as a surgical soldier of fortune. Young Mettauer was sent to the neighboring College of Hampden-Sidney for his literary studies, and graduated from this Institution with the degree of A. B. in ISO6. He immediately entered on the study of medicine, and received the degree of M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in I809. Mettauer's medical education was carried on under the most favorable conditions obtainable in America at that time. The medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, founded in l79l, was the continuation of the first medical school in this country, which had evolved, in I765, from the lectures on anatomy and midwifery by William Shippen, Jr., an ardent admirer and former student of .lohn Hunter. Mettauer entered his medical course in the same winter that brought the death of Shippen, and he always took a mournful pride in having heard the last lecture of that great pioneer teacher. The influence of the character and methods of Hunter were continued in the University by Physick, another exponent and close follower of that great anatomist and 17

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Elie Night Muni Through the moonlight on the meadows, and the midnight's velvet shadows In the coverts of the old oak wood, Hear the hounds in chorus mellow, each his booming music bellow, Bingo, Minx, and Punchinello, On the silence of the night's calm Hood. On, on, ye good fellows, harlf forward, all of you Lift your wild joys to the moon, Till the air tingle and throlv to the call of you, Ana' the hills pulse to your tune. Wide the lonely snow-fields glisten, could one look as well as listen, But the river shows a wan dead face, Altered now beyond all knowing from its silv'ry summer glowing, Tinkling shards of sound echoing To the music of the long-drawn chase. Harlg away, on again, mouth it now merrily, Every clog baying his fill, Clad hunters hallooing, horns blowing cheerily,- On we go, on with a will. This is living! thus to breathe me on the hills: to feel beneath me Slim and silken Ruperfs proud heart beat, To be free of every tether, grief and care and wind and weather, And with horse and dogs together, But to ride, and ride alone, seems sweet. Vials may thrill, and the merry hearts whirl away Over the dance-shalfen floors, We to a measure far sturdier, hurl away With the hunt out on the moors. But the hounds are checking yonder, and about the dingle wander- Is it over? Was the wild ride vain? Nay! that tumult mad of swinging gallop fierce and chorus ringing, Brain and heart and life were bringing More than golden ease or dumb toil gain. Blow the recall, then, and let us home leisurely, Under a low waning moon- One chase can not of our metal right measure l9e,- There'll come another night soon! By WILLIAM I-I1-:Rv 16 EY Wooos

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surgeon. This influence fdoubtless of weight in lVlettauer's entire careerj may most readily be traced through all his subsequent writings in the clear, concise descriptions of anatomical and pathological relations and his tendency to the objective methods of study, which were so rare at that time, when only a few pillars had been placed for the foundation of the accurate scientific medicine of today. For nine years Physiclc had been lecturing vt the University on surgery, and for four years had been professor of surgery. Mettauer was under him at the choicest period of his career when he had won for himself the reputation of the leading surgeon in America, and had not as yet allowed the worries and depression consequent upon an exhausting practice and failing health to dim the ardor and brilliancy of his surgical achievements. From Physiclfs teaching Mettauei' caught the enthusiasm for the lateral method of lithotomy, in which he afterward became so wonderfully dextrous and laid the basis of his great skill in other branches of genitourinary and orthopedic surgery. Perhaps the inspiration may be traced also in some of his great plastic devices. The influence of Rush also had necessarily its permanent effect on a mind so receptive and able as lVlettauer's, and he carried from his course that inspiring love and devotion to science and search for truth which lighted dark days of arduous practice in Virginia, and upheld him in the determination which he afterward voiced. mlwhough doomed to labor in the country as a practitioner, I resolved to continue my studious habits and, if possible, not to fall behind the daily improvements of the profession. His methods of general treatment in certain inflammatory conditions follow closely those so prominently exploited by Rush, along with whom Mettauer pinned undying faith to all antiphlogistic measures, but particularly calomel and bleeding. In the treatment of the continued fevers, however, Mettauer fapparently on the strength of his information based on personal experience, departed from the drastic measures of Rush, whose enthusiastic description of calomel as the Sampson ol med- icine had been sarcastically approved by his opponents on the ground that it had killed its thousands. Mettauer advises, in an essay of IS36 on Continued Feversf' when the temperature is painfully elevated the surface should be sponged with cool or cold fluids, and, if desired, the patient may take pounded ice, or iced or cold water, into the stomach, and purgatives were to be used only at the beginning of an attack, or in special cases of continued constipation, a course of treatment in close accord with our modern ideas, and a considerable advance over the early methods of the last century. Further, Mettauer read with avidity and intensity the volumes in the library of the Pennsylvania Hospital, the oldest medical library in America: and we find his writings containing many references to the great Louis, who had taken the principal part in forming this collection. Besides this, Mettauer was having extended practice in the Philadelphia Dispensary during his stay in that city, and had additional opportunities for practice through the lfindness of several of the attending physicians, who apparently had taken a great fancy 18