Da Costa.] 
78 
[Dec. 19, 
Biographical Sketch of Professor Samuel D. Gross, by J. M. 
Da Costa,''M.D., LL.D. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, December 19, 188J.) 
Samuel Dent Gross was born in the neighborhood of Easton, Pennsyl- 
vania, on July the 8th, 1805. At school he was an industrious boy, and 
he received a good education at the Wilkesbarre Academy and the Law- 
renceville High School He never went to college ; but when at the age 
of nineteen he began to read medicine, it was evident that the young 
votary of science had been accustomed to intellectual labor, and was 
taking up his professional studies with no untrained mind. 
On enrolling himself as a student at the Jefferson Medical College, of 
Philadelphia, he was at the same time an office pupil of Professor George 
McClellan, if one of the most eccentric, also one of the most original and 
successful surgeons of his day ; and it is very likely that young Gross, 
who through life preserved a veneration for his brilliant preceptor, got his 
bias for surgery from this association. And how he worked as a student! 
Tales are still current at the College, transmitted through janitors and 
college servitors, and losing nothing in coloring by the diffusion through 79 
Iflfrl.] 
[Da Costa, 
the successive classes the eminent professor subsequently taught, of how 
immense had been his labors ; how he rose with the early dawn ; was 
never seen without a book under his arm ; and had to be turned out from 
the anatomical rooms by the wearied attendants when the hour for closing 
them arrived. Certain it is he worked with his whole heart; and when 
he graduated in 1828 he was a noted man in his class. 
He began the practice of his profession in a little office in Fourth street, 
in Philadelphia, and it is said that he had among the visitors who dropped 
in on him his future colleague, Joseph Pancoast. More friendly visitors 
than patients, it is to be feared, came to his rooms ; for after about two 
years, his patrimony being nearly spent, he gave up the struggle in a great 
medical centre and returned to Easton. But he carried with him evidence 
of his love of learning and of his indomitable perseverance. He had in the 
short time translated from the French and the German works on General 
Anatomy, on Obstetrics, on Operative Surgery, and he had published his 
treatise on "The Anatomy, Physiology, and Diseases of the Bones and 
Joints." He also took away with him a wife, a lady of English descent 
of many accomplishments, who proved to him a true helpmate in his 
arduous career. 
It was not long before Dr. Gross became a leading practitioner in the 
flourishing little town of Easton, and his scientific knowledge was so well 
appreciated that he was offered the Chair of Chemistry in the well-known 
College there seated, in Lafayette College. He declined it; but finding 
that within him which impelled him to become a teacher, he relinquished 
his growing practice to accept the demonstratorship of anatomy in the 
Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati. His stay at Easton had not been 
barren in additions to his scientific acquirements. He was constantly at 
work in a dissecting-room which he built at the foot of his garden. Here, 
too, he made a series of most careful observations on the rapidity with 
which articles taken into the stomach are excreted by the kidneys ; and 
investigated the temperature of the venous blood, which he found as an 
average to be 96° Fahr. Further, he wrote a considerable part of a 
treatise on descriptive anatomy, in which an English in place of a Latin 
nomenclature was employed. This work was never finished ; the experi- 
ments on the blood were published at Cincinnati in the second volume of 
the Western Medical Gazette. 
As a demonstrator in the Medical College of Ohio, which he joined in 
the autumn of 1833, Dr. Gross was very successful. But he did not long 
remain in this position ; for after the work of two sessions he accepted the 
Chair of Pathological Anatomy in the Medical Department of the Cincin- 
nati College. He threw himself with even more than his usual ardor into 
the subject, and the number of specimens he studied and collected was 
great, and the extent of his reading enormous. It was the pursuit of 
Pathological Anatomy, on which he gave the first systematic course 
delivered in this country, which made him so learned and skilled a surgi- 
cal diagnostician, and he cherished through life a great devotion to the 80 
[Dec. 19, 
Da Costa.] 
branch. Nor "was his association with it limited to the four years he taught 
it from the professor's chair. His "Elements of Pathological Anatomy," 
issued in 1839 in two octavo volumes of more than five hundred pages 
each, did more to attract attention to the subject than anything that had 
ever been done in this country. The book, illustrated profusely with wood- 
cuts and with several colored engravings, reached three editions. It is a 
mine of learning, and its extended references make it valuable to this day. 
Its merits have been fully recognized abroad ; and on no occasion more 
flatteringly than when the great pathologist, Virchow, at a dinner given to 
Dr. Gross at Berlin in 1863, complimented him publicly on being the 
author, and, pointing to the volume which he laid upon the table, grace- 
fully acknowledged the pleasure and instruction with which he had often 
consulted it. As another acknowledgment of its merits, we find that soon 
after the publication of the second edition the Imperial Royal Society of 
Vienna made Dr. Gross an honorary member. 
Dr. Gross remained six years in Cincinnati, popular as a teacher, and 
gradually acquiring a large general practice ; but with a stronger and 
stronger predilection for surgery. It was this chiefly which led him to 
accept the Professorship of Surgery in the University of Louisville ; and 
with the removal to Louisville in 1840 Dr. Gross' national reputation may 
be said to begin. Patients flocked in on him from all sides. He soon be- 
came the leading surgeon of the Southwest, being often called away long 
distances into the interior of Kentucky and adjacent States. He lived in 
a large house in a very hospitable manner, and with a young family 
around him the house was gay and pleasant, and a centre for men and 
women of mark. 
But neither the claims of practice, nor the demands of social life, 
quenched his thirst for work. He published, besides many papers in the 
Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, a most valuable monograph 
on the "Nature and Treatment of Wounds of the Intestines," which con- 
tained many original experiments and observations. He printed full 
biographies of Daniel Drake and of Ephraim McDowell,-the surgeon 
who had the boldness to be the first to perform ovariotomy, and through 
whose boldness, it has been computed, thousands of years have been 
added to human life. He wrote a lengthy report on the ' ' Results of Sur- 
gical Operations in Malignant Disease published a treatise on "Diseases 
of the Urinary Organs," which soon became an acknowledged authority, 
and has passed through several editions; wrote a work on "Foreign 
Bodies in the Air Passages," from which all subsequent authors have 
largely copied their facts, and of which the distinguished laryngologist, 
Morrell Mackenzie, has declared that it is doubtful whether it ever will be 
improved upon. Part of all the enormous labors necessary to complete 
these and other literary undertakings was performed in New York, where 
Dr. Gross passed the winter of 1850-51, occupying the Chair of Surgery 
in the University of New York, which had been rendered vacant by the 
retirement of the then most famous operative surgeon of this country, 
Valentine Mott. 81 
1884.] 
[Da Costa. 
But, however pleasant he found the social life of the great city, he 
deemed it best for his own interests not to tarry there, and he returned to 
Louisville ; his late colleagues received him with open arms, and his suc- 
cessor, Dr. Eve, with generous abnegation, retired to let him renew his 
teachings from his old chair. It seemed that nothing would again take 
Dr. Gross away from Louisville, where he became a very prominent citi- 
zen, in whose reputation all took pride. But in the spring of 1856 came 
the offer which he had not the heart to resist; the call from his Alma 
Mater to fill the Chair of Surgery, vacated by the most popular professor 
of the branch in this country, the idol of the largest classes then assem- 
bling in any medical school in America. To succeed Thomas D. Mutter 
was a trial to any one. But Dr. Gross, conscious of his powers as a 
teacher, in the prime of life and of vigor, ambitious to connect his name 
forever with that of the College where he had been educated and which a 
band of eminent men had made so flourishing, accepted the task without 
misgivings, and the result was unmixed success for himself and great 
benefit to the Institution. Many were the remonstrances against his leav- 
ing the home of his adoption, and he did so, he tells us himself in his in- 
augural address, against the inclinations and wishes of his family. More- 
over, he was very loth to sever his connection with the University of Louis- 
ville "for sixteen years the pride and solace of my professional life.'' And 
it was the simple truth when he stated that in making the change and 
coming to Philadelphia, he, the most noted surgeon of the Southwest, had 
left behind him an empire of Surgery. 
His inaugural address was very favorably received. His impressive 
voice, his splendid intellectual appearance, the earnestness and force of 
his words, the latent power which all his utterances and actions showed, 
carried away his audience ; and when in solemn tones he spake these words 
of his peroration "Whatever of life, and of health, and of strength, remains 
to me, I hereby, in the presence of Almighty God and of this large assem- 
blage, dedicate to the cause of my Alma Mater, to the interests of Medical 
Science, and to the good of my fellow-creatures," it was felt that a man of 
great strength and earnest endeavor had come among us. 
Never were thoughts more faithfully put into action. Dr. Gross was 
indefatigable, and became a celebrated teacher, deeply devoted to the 
school, the reputation of which he enhanced greatly. Indeed, it may be 
said, without injustice to any one, that for years he was the most com- 
manding figure and the most popular teacher in it. Nor is it enough to 
judge him only by those around him or who held similar chairs in other 
institutions. It is not the recollection of many acts of encouraging kind- 
ness from an older to a younger man ; it is not the pride of a colleague 
in the great reputation of one to whom all looked up,-which makes the 
writer of these lines say that in his profession Samuel D. Gross takes rank 
with the very few of the most renowned teachers of his day. To assign 
him his proper position he must be named with the Hyrtls, the Trous- 
seaus, the Pagets. Less finished in eloquence h.e ipay have been, but in 82 
Da Costa.] 
[Dec. 19, 
perspicuity and impressiveness and in influence on his hearers he was not 
one whit behind. Seeing him standing in his lecture room, you saw the 
man at his best. The learning, the method of his discourse, its clearness 
and fullness were not more admirable than the force and directness of the 
words, which, uttered in his deep and agreeable voice, sank into the minds 
of his youthful audience. Years afterwards men whose hair was turning 
gray would cite the strong words of the lesson the great teacher had made 
part of the guiding thought of their daily lives. 
His didactic lectures were probably his best, though his clinical dis- 
courses were also models of perspicuity. He was least happy in his ad- 
dresses, delivered as introductories or valedictories, or on special occa- 
sions. During his long and busy life he wrote many of them, some of 
considerable historical value, such as the Life of Mott, of John Hunter, a 
discourse on Ambrose Pare, an oration in honor' of Ephraim McDowell. 
As these discourses were always written out, he read them from manu- 
script. But he was not a good reader, and no one to hear him would 
suppose that it was the same man who, great professor that he certainly 
was, had, when speaking without notes to his class, their unflagging, de- 
voted attention. Strange to say, too, for one who wrote so well, the ad- 
dresses show faults which appear nowhere else. They do not possess the 
art of leaving things unsaid, hence there are at times repetitions in them, 
marring their general efficiency. They have force-for it was impossible 
for this strong man to do anything that has not force-but they lack literary 
perspective. 
Nothing of the kind, however, appears in his scientific writings. On the 
contrary, they are as concise, as vivid as it is possible to be. Nothing but 
strong thoughts, nothing but clear words. And Dr. Gross acquired this 
excellent style to such perfection that he wrote pages without a single cor- 
rection. A most critical proof-reader once informed the writer, that of all 
the authors he had ever known, Dr. Gross altered least, his proof was 
the cleanest, there was scarcely a correction to be made or suggested. 
His literary pursuits were unremitting during his residence in Philadel- 
phia. Memoirs, reviews, essays on surgical subjects appeared in rapid 
succession ; no sooner was one done than another was under way. In 
conjunction with Dr. T. G. Richardson, he was, fora time, editor of a 
flourishing journal, the North American Medical Chirurgical Review. 
He was also editor of, as well as chief contributor to a volume bearing the 
title of "Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the 
Nineteenth Century." And in 1876, as a contribution to the literature of 
the Centennial year, appeared a lengthy and extraordinary learned his- 
tory of American Surgery from 1776 to 1876. As an instance of the rapid 
manner in which, if necessary, he could work, may be mentioned, that at 
the outbreak of the Civil War, he composed a pocket manual of Military 
Surgery in nine days, which was largely used by the young surgeons in 
the service ot the United States, was soon republished in Richmond and 
equally employed by the surgeons of the Southern armies. A Japanese 83 
1884.] 
[Da Costa. 
translation of this little work appeared in 1874, and is still in use among 
the military surgeons of this enterprising nation. 
But the great work he completed in Philadelphia, one by which his 
name will be long remembered, is his "System of Surgery," a work of 
which the first edition was published in two very large, profusely illus- 
trated octavo volumes in 1859, and which in 1882 reached its sixth edition. 
The labor on it, and on the successive editions which brought it up to its 
present perfection, was enormous. Rising early, working late, writing 
with an assiduity that only a man of his wonderful physique could have 
kept up, he generally gave from five to eight hours a day to the cherished 
project, no matter what the interruptions or whatever else he had to do. 
Often, too, he would think out, while driving about town on his profes- 
sional visits, the subject he was engaged on,-and commit these thoughts 
to paper, on his return home, before he took rest or food. 
The treatise on Surgery has become everywhere a standard authority. 
"His work is cosmopolitan, the surgery of the world being fully repre- 
sented in it," says the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. "Long the 
standard work on the subject for students and practitioners," is the ver- 
dict of the London Lancet of May of this year, on the twenty-three hun- 
dred and eighty-two pages of the last edition. A Dutch translation was 
issued in 1863. 
Dr. Gross always took the keenest interest in every question relating to his 
own profession and in its honor and advancement. He was a very con- 
stant visitor at Medical Societies in various parts of the United States and 
in Great Britain. He was probably known personally to more physicians 
and men of science than any other man in the United States, and wherever 
he went he had many followers and admirers. Most of the prominent 
surgeons of England were his personal friends. His interest in Medical 
Societies never flagged, and late in life he became the founder of two very 
flourishing ones, of the Academy of Surgery of Philadelphia and of the 
American Surgical Association. He served as president of both. In 1868 
we find him as President of the American Medical Association at its meet- 
ing in Washington ; and in 1876 as the President of an International Medi- 
cal Congress in session at Philadelphia. He was a member of most of the 
noted medical societies of this country, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, 
and of this Society. He was also a member of many learned societies 
abroad ; among them, of the Royal Medical Chirurgical Society of Lon- 
don, the Clinical Society of London, the Imperial Medical Society of 
Vienna, the Medical Society of Christiana, the Royal Society of Public 
Medicine of Belgium. 
But his highest foreign honors were conferred upon him by the 
three great English Universities. D.C.L. of Oxford, in 1872, at the 
one thousandth commemoration of the University ; LL.D, of Cambridge 
in 1880, in the same list with Brown-Sequard, . with Donders, with 
Joseph Lister; LL.D, of Edinburgh in absentia, a compliment the more 
marked since it was only shared with Tennyson and a few others of 
great distinction,-the renowned American Surgeon carried honors which 84 
Da Costa.] 
[Dec. 19, 
few of his countrymen have ever borne together. His -welcome at Ox- 
lord on Commemoration Day -was very enthusiastic. His commanding 
appearance made him conspicuous even among the distinguished men 
who surrounded him, and a lady who was present told the writer that 
she felt a glow of patriotic pride in witnessing his warm reception and 
hearing the flattering remarks his splendid bearing elicited. At Cam- 
bridge the Public Orator addressed him as "Patriae nostrae ad portus 
nuper advectus est vir venerabilis quern inter fratres nostros Transatlanticos 
scientiae Chirurgicse quasi alterum Nestorem nominare ausim." Of Ameri- 
can colleges, to their shame be it spoken, only two, Jefferson College in 
1861, and the University of Pennsylvania in 1884, bestowed on him any 
honorary degree in recognition of his great literary and scientific merit. 
In March, 1882, Dr. Gross found that his physical strength was scarcely 
adequate to the arduous labors of his chair, and, while mentally as fit as 
ever, he resigned his cherished Professorship of Surgery. The Trustees 
at once elected him Emeritus Professor, and it was a great gratification to 
him to find that, in dividing the chair into two, they selected his son, 
Dr. Samuel W. Gross, to fill one part of it. 
The remaining years of Dr. Gross's life were passed id. pleasant retire- 
ment, but not idly. He had for years in Philadelphia been busy as a con- 
sulting Surgeon, and in a large office practice, and to a certain amount of 
this he attended to the last, his great reputation bringing him still many a 
patient from a distance. He also wrote diligently on an autobiography, 
published a paper "On the value of early operations in Morbid Growths;'' 
another "On the best means of Training Nurses for the Rural Districts,'' 
a subject in which he was much interested ; and composed two essays, 
one of them, on "Wounds of the Intestines,'' but a few weeks before his 
death. His hospitality, his genial manners were the same as ever ; nay, 
advancing years softened the whole man, and made him more benign and 
more and more beloved. He was delightful in his own home, always 
surrounded by friends, adored by his family. The best of fathers, heliad. 
the constant companionship and care of the most devoted of children. 
In the autumn of 1883 he showed symptoms of a weak heart; his feet 
were swollen, partly from dropsy, partly from rheumatic gout, and he had 
a long attack of bronchial catarrh. But he improved and held his own 
fairly well, notwithstanding signs that his digestive functions were failing, 
until after a severe cold in March, these began to give way entirely, and 
he died of exhaustion, May the 6th, after a long and most trying illness, 
which he all along regarded as his last. The deepest sympathy and affec- 
tion were everywhere expressed for him. Telegrams and letters came 
daily, inquiring after him ; old pupils, busy men, traveled hundreds 
of miles to grasp him once more by the hand. To very many his death 
was a deep personal sorrow. 
An autopsy, made at his own request, showed that the stomach and heart 
were degenerating. He had lived out the life of possible strength ; to have 
lived longer would have been to enter upon a life of suffering. His death 85 
[Da Costa. 
1884.] 
saved him from protr»cted inaction and pain, from what Heine, in his 
own case, has pathetically bewailed as the "mattress grave." By 
special directions in Dr. Gross's will the body was cremated, and the ashes 
have been placed beside the coffin of his wife in Woodlands Cemetery. 
Such is a sketch of the life of this prodigious worker. An original con- 
tributor to the science for which he had a fondness ; a widely known prac- 
tical surgeon ; an admirable, most learned writer; a great teacher exert- 
ing an influence which will long survive him,-Dr. Gross occupied the 
foremost rank in the medical profession. It was evident from his student 
days that he was to be a man of rare distinction : 
" Mens ardua semper 
A puero, tenerisque etiam fulgebat in annis 
Fortunse majoris honos." 
He, certainly, was of the men whose high fortune throws its shadows 
before from the earliest years. The youth showed what the mature man 
was ; the old man was but the youth with the promise fulfilled, and 
with honors gracefully worn that no one ever doubted would be attained. 
A part of his extraordinary fame is due to the circumstances under which 
he worked. He was the first vriter on this continent who, with anything 
like gift of expression,brought together and elaborated the truths of surgi- 
cal science, and partly this, but chiefly the excellence of his labors, ex- 
tended his reputation in all directions beyond his own country. In ac- 
quiring fame for himself, he added to her fame. Conspicuous in many 
ways, Samuel Dent Gross stands forth a marked personality among the 
eminent men of our or of any generation.