Dixi Crosby

Dixi Crosby (February 8, 1800 – September 26, 1873) was an American surgeon and educator at

Early life and education

Crosby was born February 8, 1800, in Sandwich, New Hampshire, United States. His parents were Dr Asa Crosby and Betsey (Hoit) Crosby.^[1] Just before his birth, there was concern among his parents. Asa wanted a boy and Betsey wanted a girl. It turned out the new baby was a boy and Asa, the elated father, exclaimed "Dixi" in an overjoyed voice (Latin Dixi, "I told you so"). Dixi became the child's name.^[2]

He received the typical education of the time when he grew up in the village where the family lived. It is not known if he was a graduate of any school. He did go into his ventures to make money when youthful but failed due to lack of experience in the business. He then pursued his father's trade as a surgeon.^[3]

Medical career

Crosby was 20 when he took up the study of medicine with his father. He began practicing surgery within a year of when he seriously took up his medical training. One example of successful surgery in his first year of practice was when he performed an amputation of a leg to save a patient. His father and other surgeons had already declared that the patient could not survive such an operation – but Crosby saved his life.^[1]

Crosby studied at

Crosby created a new technique for reducing metacarpophalangeal dislocation. He was the first surgeon to open an abscess at the hip joint.[4]

Crosby was the first surgeon in the United States to be sued for medical malpractice.^[A]

Later life and death

Crosby served in the provost marshal's office by day during the Civil War and attended to his medical practice at night. The honorary doctor's degree of LL.D. was given to him by Dartmouth College in 1867. He ultimately turned over his medical lectures in 1868 to his assistant. Crosby retired in 1870 and was appointed emeritus professor of surgery. He lectured them from time to time whenever he desired.^[4]

Crosby died at Hanover, New Hampshire, on September 26, 1873.^[2]

Personal

Crosby married Mary Jane Moody of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in 1827. They had two sons. The first son, Albert H. Crosby (1828–1886) of Concord, New Hampshire, became a medical doctor even though he initially trained as a lawyer.^[7] The other son, Alpheus Benning Crosby (1832–1877), became a professor of surgery at Dartmouth College.^[8]

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Bell, Charles Henry (1894). The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire: Including Biographical Notices of Deceased Judges of the Highest Court, and Lawyers of the Province and State, and a List of Names of Those Now Living. Houghton, Mifflin.
• Conn, Granville Priest (1906). History of the New Hampshire surgeons in the war of rebellion. New Hampshire: Ira C. Evans, Company printers.
• Davenport, Horace Willard (1993). University of Michigan Surgeons, 1850–1970: Who They Were and what They Did. UM Libraries.
• Kelly, Howard Atwood (1920). A Cyclopedia of American Medical Biography: Comprising the Lives of Eminent Deceased Physicians and Surgeons from 1610 to 1910, Volume 1. W.B. Saunders Company.
• Squires, James Duane (1956). The Granite State of the United States: A History of New Hampshire from 1623 to the Present – Vol. 1. American Historical Association.
  OCLC 3549431. Archived from the original
  on July 9, 2015. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
• White, J.T. (1907). The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, V9. J.T. White.
• Wilson, James Grant (1900). Dr Dixi Crosby. New York: Appletons' cyclopaedia of American biography. Retrieved June 24, 2015.

External links

• Dixi Crosby at Find a Grave