The Biographical Dictionary of America/Agnew, David Hayes

AGNEW, David Hayes, surgeon, was born in Lancaster county, Pa., Nov. 24, 1818. He was educated at Jefferson college, and at Delaware college, Newark, Del. He was graduated from the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania on April 6, 1838. He returned to Lancaster, and entered the iron business, but failed, and became a lecturer in the then famous Philadelphia school of anatomy. He was chosen a surgeon of the Philadelphia city hospital in 1854, and there founded the pathological museum. He also established in Philadelphia a school of operative surgery. He afterwards served as demonstrator of anatomy and assistant lecturer on clinical surgery in the University of Pennsylvania. During the war he was consulting surgeon to the staff of forty-seven resident physicians at the great Mower army hospital, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. It was his skill in operative surgery that brought him to the bedside of President Garfield. Dr. Agnew's principal publication, entitled "The Principles and Practices of Surgery," covers an experience of fifty active years, and its value, preserving and presenting as it does the life-work of such a recognized authority, can hardly be overrated. He died March 22, 1892, leaving bequests to various charities amounting in the aggregate to $68,000.