DAVID HAYES AGNEW (1818-1892), American surgeon, was born
in Lancaster county,
Pennsylvania, on the 24th of November
1818. He graduated from the medical department of the
university of Pennsylvania in 1838, and a few years later set
up in practice at
Philadelphia and became a lecturer at the
Philadelphia School of Anatomy. He was appointed surgeon at
the Philadelphia Hospital in 1854 and was the founder of its
pathological museum. For twenty-six years (1863-1889) he
was connected with the medical faculty of the university of
Pennsylvania, being elected professor of operative surgery
in 1870 and professor of the principles and practice of
surgery in the following year. From 1865 to 1884--except
for a brief interval --he was a surgeon at the Pennsylvania
Hospital. During the
American Civil War he was consulting
surgeon in the Mower Army Hospital, near Philadelphia, and
acquired considerable reputation for his operations in cases
of gun-shot wounds. He attended as operating surgeon when
President Garfield was fatally wounded by the bullet of an assassin in 1881. He was the author of several works, the most important being The Principles and Practice of Surgery (1878-1883). He died at Philadelphia on the 22nd of March 1892.
original text from a 1911 public domain encyclopedia