William Alexander Hammond, M.D.

 
Name: William A. Hammond
Death date: Jan 6, 1900
Place of death: Washington, DC
Birth date: Aug 28, 1828
Place of birth: Annapolis, MD
Type of practice: Allopath
Practice specialities:GS General Surgery
States and years of licenses:DC, 1896
Places and dates of practices:US Army, 1849
Medical school(s): New York University Medical College, New York: Univ. of City of New York Med. Dept., 1848, (G), PA-01 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia
Other education: Harrisburg, PA
Journal of the American Medical Association Citation:

 

 

HAMMOND, William Alexander, physician, born in Annapolis, Maryland, 28 August, 1828. He was graduated at the medical department of the University of the city of New York, and entered the United States army in 1849 as assistant surgeon, with the rank of 1st lieutenant. In October, 1860, he resigned to accept the professorship of anatomy and physiology "in the University of Maryland, but at the beginning of the civil war he again entered the army and was assigned to the organization of general hospitals in Hagerstown, Frederick, and Baltimore. Afterward the United States sanitary commission urged his appointment as surgeon-general of the army, and in April, 1862, he received this commission with the rank of brigadier-general. He instituted radical changes in the management of his office, established the army medical museum by special order, and suggested the plan of the "Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion." Charges of irregularities in the award of liquor contracts were made against him, and he was tried by court-martial, and dismissed from the army in August, 1864. He at once removed to New York, where he settled in the practice of his profession, and made a specialty of diseases of the nervous system. In 1867-'73 he was professor of diseases of the mind and nervous system in Bellevue hospital medical college, and then was elected to a similar chair in the medical department of the University of the city of New York. He remained there until 1882, when he became one of the founders of the New York post-graduate medical school, and has since delivered lectures on his specialty in that institution. Dr. Hammond has also delivered lectures in the medical department of the University of Vermont, and in 1870 became physician at the New York state hospital for diseases of the nervous system. In 1878 a bill was submitted to congress authorizing the president to review the proceedings of the court-martial, and, if justice demanded, to reinstate Dr. Hammond. This measure was passed by the house unanimously, and by the senate with but one dissenting vote. In August, 1879, it was approved by the president, and Dr. Hammond was restored to his place on the rolls of the army as surgeon-general and brigadier-general on the retired list. Besides contributing to current medical literature, he founded and edited the " Maryland and Virginia Medical Journal," was one of the originators of the "New York Medical Journal," and established the "Quarterly Journal of Psychological Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence," becoming its editor.

His medical works in book-form include "Physiological Memoirs" (Philadelphia, 1863); "A Treatise on Hygiene, with Special Reference to the Military Service" (1863); "Lectures on Venereal Diseases" (1864); "On Wakefulness, with an Introductory Chapter on the Physiology of Sleep" (1865); "On Sleep and its Derangements" (1869); "Insanity and its Medico-Legal Relations" (New York, 1866); "Physics and Physiology of Spiritualism" (1870); "Diseases of the Nervous System," which has been translated into French and Italian (1871); "Insanity in its Relation to Crime" (1873); "Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System," edited by T. M. B. Cross (1874);" Spiritualism and Allied Causes and Conditions of Nervous Derangement" (1876; reissued as "Certain Forms of Nervous Derangement," 1880); "Treatise on Insanity in its Medical Relations" (1883); and "On Sexual Impotence in the Male" (1883). He has also edited "Military, Medical, and Surgical Essays," prepared for the United States sanitary commission (Philadelphia, 1864), and translated from the German, Meyer's "Electricity in its Relations to Practical Medicine" (New York, 1869; new ed., 1874). Dr. Hammond is the author of various novels, including "Robert Severne; his Friend and Enemies" (Philadelphia, 1867); "Lal" (New York, 1884); "Dr. Grattan" (1884); "Mr. Oldmixon" (1885); "A Strong-Minded Woman, or Two Years After" (1886); and "On the Susquehanna" (1887).

Wm. A. Hammond is buried at Arlington cemetery in Virginia.

 
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