Dixie Crosby / [James Alfred Spalding].

  • Spalding, James Alfred, 1846-1938.
Date:
[1926]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dixie Crosby / [James Alfred Spalding]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3 in American surgery, in which, in March of the next year, after a bloody operation and before the days of ether, he removed an enormous osteoma involving the clavicular shoulder joint and scapula, amputating all the parts involved. The operation was so completely successful that when shown to a crowd of admiring surgeons in June following, the patient who had been an emaciated skeleton of 80 pounds was seen to be “a monstrous healthy fellow, weighing over 200 pounds.” This operation was first performed by Ralph Cumings, an English Naval Surgeon, in 1808, and reported by A. Copland Hutchinson in the London Medical Gazette, 1829 to 1830, v, 273. No account of the life of Dr. Dixi Crosby would be complete which failed to mention his extraordinary law-suit which lasted 9 years and ended in his ac¬ quittal. It was extraordinary, because it was the first time in this country that a consulting surgeon was ever sued, and it was the first suit in which so long a period elapsed after the date of the original visit before proceedings were com¬ pleted. The case ran this way. Early in 1845 a man was covered with gravel falling in a pit, and he was taken out with a broken leg. Dr. Crosby was called as con¬ sultant and advised the use of Gibson’s splints. When the splints were ready the next morning he applied them properly, as he considered, and never saw the patient again. He was finally sued because an abscess and gangrene supervened with shortening of the leg. At the first trial in 1853, 8 years later, a verdict against him was found in the amount of $800. He carried the case to the higher court, obtained a new trial in 1854 and was acquitted. This end-result sounds simple enough nowadays but it attracted attention throughout the entire nation, because, as we have said before, it was the first case in which a consulting surgeon had ever been sued for malpractice, and when it was over, Dr. Dixi received congratulations from the entire medical profession in this country, and many kind letters from Europe. We may sum up the career of Dr. Crosby by saying that he was a genial, humane man, a faithful adviser, a cheerful man to have at the bedside, and in his prime he was the leading surgeon in his State. He was proud of his State. He was proud of his temperance doctrines and he did much to prevent the sale of intoxi¬ cating bitters to the boys in Dartmouth College. Well do we remember his oppo¬ sition to that vile concoction known as “ S. T. i860 X,” which was peddled about in the streets of Hanover in bootlegger fashion to the students when they wanted to go on a spree. In 1827 Dr. Dixi Crosby married Miss Mary Jane Moody of Gilmanton. They had two sons, one the very celebrated Alpheus Benning Crosby, and the other who after long training to become a lawyer, studied medicine and was a first rate surgeon, Dr. Albert Crosby of Concord, New Hampshire.