Triumphs of the Republic in Practical Science: John and Monitor

The United States has led the way in the ligation of the larger blood-vassels, some of the Americans who have gained distinction by the performance of such feats - each one of which was a triumph of surgery - are Amos Twitchell (1781-1850), first to tie the primitive carotid artery; John Syng Dorsey (1783-1818), first American to tie the external iliac artery; William Gibson (1784-1868), first to tie the common iliac artery; Valentine Mott (1785-1865) tied the arteria innominata; J. Kearney Rodgers (1793-1857) tied the left subclavian artery between the scaleni in 1846; John Murray Carnochan (1817-1887), ligation of the femoral artery in 1851; Hunter McGuire tied the abdominal aorta in 1868. This had been accomplished, in 1817, by Sir Astley Cooper. Not only are such wonders wrought with blood-vessels and frightful haemorrhages prevented, but cases of internal aneurism which were formerly thought hopeless are now cured. The later names of Gross, Jacobi, and Marion Simms, are familiar in every centre of learning.

The American dentist has led the way in the perfection of his art, and he is justly celebrated all over the world. The first native dentist in the United States in supposed to have been John Greenwood, who began to practise in 1788. Thirty-two years after there were one hundred follwers of his calling in the United States; in 1892 there were 18,000. So important has the science of the teeth grown that from 1800 to 1892 there were published two hundred volumes devoted to that subject alone. The first dental school in the United States was chartered by the Maryland Legislature in 1839. Since then colleges and schools of dentistry have sprung up all over the land. If there are as good dentists in other countries as there are in this, it is largely due to the fact that they have been trained in American schools. Men come from all over the civilized world to the United States for higher education in dentistry. American ingenuity has invented numerous mechanical aids to the practice of the art. From 1880 to 1890 over 500 dental instruments were patented. Horace Wells first used "laughing-gas" or an anaesthetic. Dr. Younger, of San Francisco, made the first artificial socket for a tooth.

A hundred additional examples of American progressiveness might be culled from the scientific records of the century, but space forbids. Wherever we search, we shall find our country nobly represented. In the achievements of astronomy, geology, anthropology, chemistry; in the triumphs of explorers in the Polar region, in Africa, and the far East, and in the unknown expanses of our own West, some of the most glorious discoveries are credited to American "Pathfinders."

The science of war gained much from our experiences in the sixties. In the matter of battle-ships the lesson changed the old-world system entirely. There had been iron-clad vessels in Europe for several years before our war; but they had not stood the test of action. The first effective vessel of this kind was the Confederate ram Merrimack, and her famous conflict with the Monitor has been called the most important naval battle in the world. The Merrimack was a wooden frigate that had burned to the water's edge and sunk. The Confederates raised and rebuilt her, enclosing her vitals with iron plates two inches thick. A bulwark was built, and similarly covered, and a cast-iron ram was attached to the bow about two feet under water. The Monitor had been built after a design of John Ericsson, who for twenty years had been endeavoring to secure its adoption. It was an iron-plated hull, 172 feet over all, 41 feet beam, and 11 1-3 feet depth, and with a revolving iron turret containing two guns. The target surface was reduced to a minimum, the hull being less than two feet high and plated with five inches of iron. The turret was nine inches high, and covered with eight inches of iron. It was a floating fortress. The story of the fight needs no telling here. Its moral revolutionized the navies of the world.

Not only have battle-ships changed, but their guns and ammunition have been radically modernized, chiefly by American inventors, of whom Gatling and Maxim are probably the most famous. The heliograph first demonstrated its efficiency and utility for field intercommunication in the Indian wars of the Western frontier, beginning in 1886. There years later Major W. J. Volkman, U. S. A., demonstrated in Arizona and New Mexico the possibility of carrying on communication by heliograph over a range of 200 miles. The network of communication begun by General Miles in 1886, and continued by Lieutenant W. A. Glassford, was perfected in 1889 at ranges of 85, 88, 95, and 125 miles, over a country inconceivably rugged and broken, the stronghold of the Apache and other hostile Indian tribes.

In 1862 General McClellan organized a balloon corps, with Thaddeus S. C. Lowe at its head. The innovation soon became a component part of the Army of the Potomac, as it did good service in disclosing the military operations of the Confederates. Now all the leading military nations of the world have their balloon corps, specially trained and equipped for reconnoitering purposes. At the battle of Santiago, on July 1, 1898, the movements of the enemy were observed from a balloon by Sergeant Thomas Carroll Boone. A telegraph wire connected the basket of the balloon with the ground, and observations were transmitted in that manner to the officers below.