Isaac
Ebenezer Taylor, M.D. (1812-1889)
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Isaac E. Taylor, a pioneer
obstetrician and gynecologist, was one of the eight children of William
and Mary Taylor of Philadelphia, where he was born, April 25, 1812.
Educated at Rutgers College, he afterwards took his M. D. at the
University of Pennsylvania (1834), settling down to practice in New
York, in 1839, with his wife, Eliza Mary, daughter of Stuart Mollau, a
merchant of that city.
In 1840 he visited Paris and studied under Cazeaux, and also at Dublin,
and on his return to New York, had clinics at the City, Eastern,
Northern and Demilt dispensaries, taking a private class of four
students in "the diseases of females" at each. Thus were gynecological
clinics organized. He will be remembered chiefly for his demonstration
of the non-shortening of the cervix uteri during pregnancy, (American
Medical Times, June, 1862), in which he anticipated Muller, to whom
credit is generally given.
As a literary contributor to the Transactions of the New York State
Medical Association, of which he was a founder and ex- president, he did
valuable work and also helped forward the cause of medicine by being the
founder and lifetime president of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College.
Elected physician to Bellevue in 1851, he became chairman of the medical
board, and in 1860 drew up the charter which was presented to the
legislature, the following year, and passed. In 1839, he, with Dr.
James A. Washington, introduced to the medical profession in the New
York Dispensary, the hypodermic treatment by morphia. He died in New
York, October 30, 1889.
Among his' appointments were president of New York County Medical
Society; vice- president and fellow of New York Academy
of Medicine; president obstetrical section of the Academy of Medicine;
vice-president American Gynecological Society; physician Bellevue
Hospital.
His numerous articles included: "Cases of Diseases Peculiar to Females,
and Nervous Diseases," 1841 ; ''Rheumatism of the Uterus and Ovaries,"
1845; "Labor wiih Anteversion of Uterus in that State," 1856; "Mechanism
of Spontaneous Action of Uterine Inversion," 1872. A list is given in
the "Transactions New York State Medical Association." 1890, vol. vii.
Amer. Jour. Obstet., N. Y., 1890, vol. xxiii. W.T. Lusk.
Gaillard's Med. Jour., N. Y., 1890, vol. 1. J. Shrady.
Med. and Surg. Reporter, Phila., 1866, vol. xv, p. 355.
Bost. Med. and Surg. Jour., 1889, vol. cxxi, p. 474.
