Nathaniel Burger Shaler
1805-1882
by Alvin Powleit, an abstract from the Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
Nathaniel Burger Shaler was born July 21, 1805 and went to school in Lancaster, Massachusetts and then to Harvard College. His combative humor led him into trouble with his teachers; he therefore withdrew at the beginning of his last year and went to the medical school where he had as preceptors, Drs. Channing and Jackson, and was much influenced by Dr. Warren.
After graduating, he went to Havana, where his uncle was consul, with the intention of making his career in that place. He appears to have been successful as a practitioner and to have accumulated some money, but his combative motive was still upon him. In two years, he started in search of some other spot "to locate" in. This he found as by chance in Newport, Kentucky, then a little village with no educated physician and with the Asiatic cholera upon it. He practiced as early as 1834 at Taylor Street in Newport.
His success with the disease, due to his resourcefulness and intrepidity, quickly gave him a place among the people. He married in October 1835 Ann Southgate, granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Hinde and the daughter of Richard and Nancy (Hinde) Southgate. In his medical practice he was successful in difficult cases, those which aroused his combativeness, and often very clever in ruses to gain his ends. He helped a stout man on the verge of collapse in Asiatic cholera, by reviling him as a coward until the fellow's rage helped the reaction. Again, when a woman who was sinking needed in like manner to be aroused, he became interested in a supposititious dog-fight which he seemed to see from the window, hurried away to observe it, and shortly returned to find her in a fair way to recovery because of her indignation.
In surgery he was dexterous. At 60 years of age, he removed an iron filing from a workman's eye with the point of a common needle and this without glasses. During a larger part of his life he was employed by the government as surgeon at Newport Barracks. This was a convenient place where soldiers were forwarded from a wide area.
Especially during the Civil War, it was a convenient dumping ground for the obstinate cases sent in from the field hospitals; yet, the proportion of recoveries were larger than in any other hospital of that time. His success was in great measure due to his distrust of remedies and his confidence in the use of tents, nutrition and cheerfulness. He was among the first to put aside the singular custom of blood-letting, not having used the lancet after 1832.
When Surgeon General Hammond issued his order concerning the use of calomel in the Army hospitals, he offered to return all the supplies of that drug which he had received unopened. The Civil War roused him strongly. He went security for the first thousand muskets which came into the hands of the Unionist.
As a member of the Covington and Newport Medical and Surgical Society, he was chosen a delegate to the Medical Convention in Baltimore, Maryland in April 1870.
He died January 17, 1882 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate.
Nathaniel Burger Shaler Obituary
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Children of Nathaniel Burger Shaler and Ann Hinde Southgate
1. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler b-20 Feb 1841 in
Newport; d-10 April 1906 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; br-Mount Auburn Cemetery
in Cambridge; m-Sophia Penn in 1863
2. Richard Southgate Shaler b-14 Feb 1844 in Newport; d-14 Mar 1882 in Newport;
br-Newport Cemetery in Southgate
3. Ann Shaler b-1846 in Newport; d-18 March 1906 in Newport; br-Evergreen
Cemetery; (cemetery has death date as 28 Feb 1908) m-Albert Seaton Berry in 1867
4. Mary Hinde Shaler b-May 1849 in Newport; d-7 Feb 1902 in Boston Mass; br-22
Apr 1902 in Evergreen Cemetery; never married
5, Minnie Shaler b-1852 in Newport
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Children of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and Sophia Penn
1. Gabriella Sophia Shaler b-Aug 1864 in
Covington; m-Willoughby Lane Webb 9 Oct 1899 in Cambridge, Mass.
2. Ann Penn Shaler b-March 1872 in Cambridge Mass.
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Children of Albert Seaton Berry and Ann Shaler
1. Alice Hinde Berry b-1869 in Newport
2. Shaler Berry-9 May 1871 in Dayton; d-1 Mar 1928 in Ft Thomas; br-3 Mar in
Evergreen Cemetery; m (1) Jessie Southgate May 1901
(2) Alex in 1912; graduated Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati in 1900
3.
Anna Elizabeth Berry b-11 Nov 1873 in Newport; d-26 Apr 1944 in Montrose Penn. m-Walton C Hill
4. Albert Seaton Berry Jr. b-11 May 1877 in Newport; d-18 Dec 1947 in Newport
5. Robert L Berry