Memphis Medical Monthly [FORMERLY MISSISSIPPI Valley MedicAL MONTHLY.] SUBSCRIPTION PER ANNUM, ONE dollar. The MONTHLY will be mailed on or about the fifteenth of the month. Sub scribers failing to receive it promptly will please notify us at once. Original communications, etc., should be in the hands of the Editor on or before the first of the month of publication. We cannot promise to furnish back numbers. Clinical experience-practical articles-favorite prescriptions, etc., and medical news of general interest to the profession, solicited. All communications, whether of a business or literary character, should be addressed to the Editor. F. L. SIM, M.D., Editor, DR. J. M. TAYLOR is a native of Georgia, and is in his sixtysixth year of age. His mother died when he was a young infant, and he moved to Mississippi with the balance of the family when about eleven years old. The country was then new, and his opportunities for education were very limited. Being deprived almost entirely of the advantages of schools and libraries, he was forced to rely almost wholly on his own individual efforts to obtain an education. His ambition to have an education above ordinary was insuperable, and realizing that where there is a will, there is a way, he early adopted the following motto as the rule and guide of his action : "Seize instruction where 'er 'tis found, On Christian, or on heathen ground; The flower's divine where 'er it grows." A little book of most useful maxims, from which the above was taken, accidentally fell into his hands when quite young. These maxims, and his intimate association with a most excellent young man by the name of Edward B. Nowlin, from Middle Tennessee, were the chief factors in determining his character for life. Young Nowlin, very bright and a perfect model of rectitude in every respect, was two or three years older than his friend, and equally ambitious for a thorough education. The attachment between them was such as VOL. XII - 6 has seldom been witnessed in this life. For about one year they were both invalids, and were inseparable. Finally, young Nowlin returned to his home in Marshall county, Tenn., where he lingered a few months and died with consumption. His friend, after recuperating a little, commenced the study of medicine under an older brother, Dr. W. A. Taylor, now of Booneville, Miss.; attended lectures in the Medical Department University of Louisville, located in Jacinto, then the county site of Tishomingo county, in the spring of 1849. He at once entered into a large practice, and in eighteen months accumulated enough money to take a course of lectures in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, after which he married, first Miss Mary E. Cox, and after her death, her cousin, Miss Sallie Murray, both of Griffin, Ga. He did a large and laborious practice for sixteen years at Rienzi, Miss. In January, 1870, moved to Corinth, where he now lives. He has always been a hard student, devoted to his profession, an ardent supporter of the code of ethics, and an uncompromising opponent of quackery in all its phases. He has labored constantly to elevate the standard of the profession, to educate the people to a proper appreciation of its true aims and objects, to encourage organization, to secure laws to protect the public health and to regulate the practice of medicine. He was largely instrumental in procuring the law creating the State Board of Health, of which he has been a member ever since its first organization, having been twice elected president of the same. No one has done more than he to secure the present law to regulate the practice of medicine, which has done so much for the State of Mississippi. He has always been a strong friend to students and young practitioners, and has helped them out of many difficulties. His office has been the starting point for many young men, now reputable physicians scattered through Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, whose standing in the profession in their respective localities is a source of much gratification and pride in his declining years. He has always done a general practice, but circumstances early forced him to give special attention to surgery and gynecology, branches greatly neglected by the practitioners in his vicinity until recently, consequently he was often called to considerable distances, and has performed nearly every operation known to operative surgery. During the late war he went out as a surgeon in the Confederate army, was captured at the battle of Ft. Donelson, and held as a prisoner of war at Indianapolis, Ind., Columbus, Ohio, and Johnson's Island, in Lake Erie, until the cartel for exchange of prisoners was agreed on. He then returned to find his home in possession of the Federal soldiers, and his family entirely at the mercy of the enemy; under these circumstances, and his health being greatly impaired, he decided to withdraw from any further service in the army, and remained strictly neutral till the close of the war. For more than a year his home was situated right between the two contending armies, alternately in possession of one or the other. Sometimes scouting parties and camp followers of both sides would pass through on the same day. The citizens thus situated between the upper and nether millstones could claim protection from neither side, and were ground exceedingly fine. But soon after the close of the war, by great energy and economy, Dr. Taylor acquired a competency, and has been enabled to provide reasonably well for all his children. AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.-The Forty-third Annual Session will be held in Detroit, Mich., on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, June 7, 8, 9 and 10, commencing on Tuesday, at 11 A.M. "The delegates shall receive their appointment from permanently organized State Medical Societies, and such County and District Medical Societies as are recognized by representation in their respective State Societies, and from the Medical Department of the Army and Navy, and the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States. "Each State, County and District Medical Society entitled to representation, shall have the privilege of sending to the Association one delegate for every ten of its regular resident members, and one for every additional fraction of more than half that number. Provided, however, that the number of delegates for any particular State, Territory, county, city or town, shall not exceed the ratio of one in ten of the resident physicians who may have signed the Code of Ethics of the Association." Members by Application.-Members by application shall consist of such members of the State, County, and District Medical Societies entitled to representation in this Association as shall make application in writing to the Treasurer, and accompany said application with a certificate of good standing, signed by the President and Secretary of the society of which they are members, and the amount of the annual membership fee, five dollars. They shall have their names upon the roll, and have all the rights and privileges accorded to permanent members, and shall retain their membership upon the same terms. The following resolution was adopted at the Session of 1888: That in future, each delegate or permanent member shall, when he registers, also record the name of the Section, if any, that he will attend, and in which he will cast his vote for Section officers. Secretaries of medical societies, as above designated, are earnestly requested to forward, at once, lists of their delegates. Also, that the Permanent Secretary may be enabled to erase from the roll the names of those who have forfeited their membership, the Secretaries are, by special resolution, requested to send him, annually, a corrected list of the membership of their respective societies. AMENDMENTS TO THE BY-LAWS. Offered by Dr. I. N. Quimby, New Jersey: That Thursday morning's general session be omitted, and the time be devoted to Sectional work. |