Valentine Mott

Valentine Mott, an American surgeon, born at Glen Cove, Long Island, Aug. 20, 1785, died in New York, April, 26, 1865. He graduated as M.D. at Columbia college in 1806, and studied in London and Edinburgh. In 1809 he was called to the chair of surgery in Columbia college, which he held till the medical department of that institution was merged in the college of physicians and surgeons in 1813. He withdrew from that school in 1826, and with Dr. Hosack, Dr. Francis, Dr. Mitchill, and others, founded the Rutgers medical college, which, owing to a question about its charter, existed but four years. Subsequently he lectured in New York in the college of physicians and surgeons, and in the university medical college, as professor of surgery and regional anatomy, to which last branch he devoted special attention. His professional reputation is mainly due to his original operations as a surgeon. As early as 1818 Dr. Mott placed a ligature around the brachio-cephalic trunk, or arteria innominata, only two inches from the heart, for aneurism of the right subclavian artery, for the first time in the history of surgery. Though all apparent supply of blood vessels was cut off from the right arm, pulsation could be distinctly felt in the radial artery, and the limb presented no evidences of sphacelation.

On the 26th day, however, secondary haemiorrhage having set in, the life of the patient was speedily terminated. He successfully removed the entire right clavicle for malignant disease of that bone, where it was necessary to apply 40 ligatures. He was also the first to tie the primitive iliac artery for aneurism. He tied the common carotid 46 times, cut for stone 165 times, and amputated nearly 1,000 limbs. He early introduced an original operation for immobility of the lower jaw, and succeeded after many eminent surgeons had failed. In 1821 he performed the first operation for osteo-sarcoma of the lower jaw. He was the first surgeon who removed the lower jaw for necrosis. Up to an advanced period of life he continued to lecture and practise. He had been elected a member of the principal European medical societies, and made a knight of the fourth order of the Medjidieh of Turkey. Sir Astley Cooper said in regard to Dr. Mott: "He has performed more of the great operations than any man living, or that ever did live." In 1835 he visited Europe for his health, and travelled extensively through England, the continent, and the East. His principal works are: "Travels in Europe and the East" (New York. 1842); translation of Velpeau's "Operative Surgery" (4 vols.); "Anniversary Discourse before the Graduates the University of New York" (1860); "Mott's Cliniques," reported by Samuel W. Francis (1860); and several separate papers concerning special operations and cases, in medical periodicals and in the "Transactions" of the Now York academy of medicine.