New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-04-27
Valentine MAss.

The first surgeon of America is dead VALrN.
TINE MOTT expired last evening at his residence in
Gramercy Park, in the S0th year Of his age. To
his immense fame he leaves no heir on this cont.
nent-scarcely rival even in Europe Beyond
question the most original genius in surgery who
spoke the English tongue, since John Hunter died,
it is doubtful whether even the great Frenchman
who in the last half century has made Paris the
school Of the world in surgical science, possessed
greater powers of mind, a more daring invention
or more decately taught hand, than Valentine
Mott. Pupils in America he has many, but
the greatest of them bowed before the supremacy
|of his masters talent. Not Carnochan nor ST.
mines, nor Pancoast, nor Warren, not the cunning.
est anatomiss of Philadelphia or New ork or Bos-
ton ever thought Of reaching the first place in their
profession till Mott had relinqushod it. But to.
day the field is open to all corners.
Valentine Mott was born at Glen Cove, L. T.,
August 20, 1885. lie was graduated NJ ID. at Co.
'lmbia College in 1906, then studied two years in
London under Abernethy Ashley Cooper and Cline.
lie went thence 10 Edinburgh, where he spent
year. From 1909 to 1913 he was Professor of
Surgery in Columbia College, and thereafter till
1926, held the chair in the College Of Ply
-iclans and Surgeons. With an interval of four
years service in the short-yed Rutgers Medical
College, he returned to the College Of Physicians
and Surgeons, passing thence to the University
Medical College, Of which he founder as
Professor of Surgery and Relative Anatomy. OF tho
latter science, UNNECESSARILY important to surgery,
he is declared the author. But his brilliant reputG
ton, says high authority, d" is mainly due to his
original operations as a surgeon. As early as 1913
Or. Mott placed a ligature around the bracheO.
cephaic trunk, or arteria innominate, only two
inches from the heart, for aneurism of the right
subclayian artery for the first time in the history
of surgery. The patient survived the operation u
DAYS. indicating the feasibility of dangerous an
undertaking He exsected the entire right cayicefor
malignant disease of that bone, where 1t was neees-
sary to apply 40 lgaturesi an operation which Dr.
Mott himself asserts to be the most dangerous and
difficult that can be performed upon the human
body . The patient is still living, and enjoys per-
feet health. DIR. Mott was the first to tie the
primitive lilac artery for aneurism. lie has tied
the common carotid 46 times, cut for stone l65
times and amputated nearly 900 limbs He early
introduced his original operation tor immobity OK
the lower jaw, and succeeded after many eniheht
surgeons had failed III 1921 he performed thehrst
operation for os.eo-sarooma of the lower jaw. He
was the first surgeon who removed the lover jaw
for necrosis"
OF Dr.. Mott the great Sir Ashley Cooper said:
/" He has performed more OF the great operations
than any man living or that ercr did lire" He
translated and published in four volumes syo. Nel'
peau's Operative Surgery, then and now leading
work, and numerous papers and reports Of his have
been printed both in America and Europe. His
single name and fame have more than all others
contributed to give celebrity in Europe TO Amen.
can surgical science and what is an infinitely
higher euloey, he has by his own hands and by
those of his pupils conferred an incacuiable benefit
upon American surgery, and so wrought steadily
for humanity and for the alienation of human ills.
There are few ii any nobler spheres Of action than
that of the surgeons there are few II any surgeons
in the worlds history who have done their bench
cent work better than Valentine Mott.