Dr. Washington Matthews

MATTHEWS

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall
Date: 3/3/2010 at 00:01:03

Matthews, Washington (1843-1905)

Washington Matthews having lost his mother in early infancy, his father, a physician, brought him while still a child to the United States and settled in Dubuque, Iowa. Young Matthews studied medicine under his father and later attended lectures at the University of Iowa, where he obtained his M.D. in 1864. In the same year, entering the Army of the United States, he served as acting assistant surgeon until the close of the Civil War. In 1868 he was promoted to the rank of captain, and in 1889 to that of major. During a great part of his military life Matthews was on duty at various army posts in the West. Coming in contact with many Indian tribes, he became deeply interested in Indian ethnology and philology, and wrote numerous articles on anthropological subjects, among which may be mentioned: "The Human Bones of the Hemenway Collection," "Myths of Gestation and Parturition," "On Measuring the Cubic Capacity of the Skull," etc. A volume of "Navaho Legends" was published in 1896. Matthews died at Washington, D. C., April 29, 1905.

~American Medical Biographies: A cyclopedia of American medical biography: comprising the lives of eminent deceased physicians and surgeons from 1610 to 1910; by Howard Atwood Kelly; W.B. Saunders co., 1920; pg 769