Dr. Samuel David Gross, the distinguished American surgeon and author,
was born near Easton, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1805. He was graduated
from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in the class of
1828, and he at once entered upon the active practice of his
profession in Philadelphia. In 1833 Dr. Gross accepted a professorship
in the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati, which position he held
until 1840, when he became professor of surgery in the University of
Louisville. The subsequent sixteen years of Dr. Gross's life were
spent upon Kentucky soil. His _Report on Kentucky Surgery_
(Louisville, 1851) contained the first biography of Dr. Ephraim
McDowell, the Kentucky surgeon, who performed the first operation for
the removal of the ovaries done in the world. That Dr. McDowell had
actually accomplished this wonderful feat at Danville, in 1809, was
Dr. Gross's contention, and that he was able to prove it beyond all
doubt, and place the Danville doctor before the world as the father
of ovariotomy, proves the power of his paper. Dr. Gross was the
founder of the Louisville _Medical Review_, but he had conducted it
but a short time when he accepted the chair of surgery in the
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. This position he occupied
until about two years prior to his death. Dr. Gross enjoyed an
international reputation as a surgeon. Oxford and Cambridge conferred
degrees upon him in recognition of his distinguished contributions to
medical science. As an original demonstrator he was well known. He was
among the first to urge the claims of preventive medicine; and his
demonstrations upon rabbits, with a view to throwing additional light
on manual strangulation, are familiar to students of medicine and
medical history. His works include: _Elements of Pathological Anatomy_
(1839); _Foreign Bodies in the Air-Passages_ (1854); _Report on the
Causes which Retard the Progress of American Medical Literature_
(1856); _System of Surgery_ (1859); _Manual of Military Surgery_
(1861), Japanese translation (Tokio, 1874); and his best known work of
a literary value, _John Hunter and His Pupils_ (1881). In 1875 he
published two lectures, entitled _The History of American Medical
Literature_; and, in the following year, with several other writers,
he issued _A Century of American Medicine_. Dr. Gross was always
greatly interested in the history of medicine and surgery. He died at
Philadelphia, May 6, 1884.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. His _Autobiography_ (Philadelphia, 1887, two vols.),
was edited by his sons, one of whom, A. Haller Gross, was born in
Kentucky; Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New
York, 1887, v. iii).