The biographical encyclopœdia of Ohio of the nineteenth century:

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPzEDIA.
the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated there in the
year I845. He settled in Newark, Ohio, and there began
the practice of his profession. He remained ill Newark
for a period of five years, and then, in I850, removed to
Zaniesville, where he has ever since resided, and where his
practice rapidly grew until it became very large. His reputation, not only as a practitioner, but as a contributor to the
medical journals of the day, has extended to Europe, where
his name and his contributions to medical literature are
known to the profession. For the last ten years he has
been an industrious writer for the American as well as for
the London medical press. The purpose of his published
papers has been to explain the phenomena of life, in health
and disease, on a purely physical basis; ill other words, to
bring physiology, pathology and therapeutics within the
domain of physical or exact science. He claims to have
discovered the function of the lymphatic system; and that
that function is the separation frothi the general deb;ris of the
tissues, as they are wasted in functional duty, of the special
-material in which each organic structure stores up the force
for its own reproduction from new material, and its union
with the ingoing stream of new material at a proper time
and place. And that, seemingly, the only proper place
and time in a living huiiian body is just where it actually
occurs, to wit: just before entering the right auricle, on
its path to the lungs. The lymph, as it is called, he
claims, is the exact analogue of a vegetable seed, animal
eggs, or other germ, and fulfils all the ends actually accomplished by either, or all of them, in the preservation, perpetuation and multiplication of their special forms, or types,
in organic life, animal or vegetable; and exactly fulfils
every requisite condition for the assimilation of new
materials to the types and forms of structure of the l)odies
of living beings during their natural lives, which we all
know is actually occurring in outr own bodies all the time
during life. And it satisfactorily accounts for that personal
identity through life, with changing material, which is the
undisputed possession of each individual; while the physical
death of the parents is at once a necessity and guarantee of
individuality, and hence of immortality and a future state.
Dr. McElroy finlds it impossible to reconcile the entity, or
almost personality identity of so-called disease, as now regarded and insisted upon in and out of the profession, with
how known facts of the unity of materials and forces running through all organic life. So-called disease, or diseased
action in living bodies, cannot be anything else than modifications of processes natural in health. Acute disease, so called, being for the most part in the interest of continued
life, by removing, by combustion, or peroxidation, structure
which has lost its physiological dynamic capacities; and
chronic diseases, so-called, depending for the most part on
modifications of the structural arrangement of the materials
actually composing living tissues, as demonstrated by
changed or lost functions, has also a conservative tendency,
and are not, as generally regarded, enemies to life.' He
he AKES, CAPTAIN FRANK J., Merchant, Iron
~), I Master, Steamboat Proprietor, and Hotel Keepel',
was born, September I2th, I82I, in Gallipolis,
Ohio, his parents being of French descent, and
<Oamong the first settlers of that town. He re ceived a fair education in the schools of his native
place, and when thirteen years old went to Portsmouth,
where he started ill life by becoming a clerk in the store of
Charles A. M. Damariii, one of the most honorable and
upright. citizens in the community. He served him faithfully from boyhood to manhood, some eleven years altogether. In I846 he became associated Aith his former
employer in conducting a wholesale grocery tusiness, and
continued in the same very successfully for about ten years,
and retired with a competency. He was subsequently induced to embark in a rolling mill and other iron interests,
and while so engaged built two of the first stone-coal furnaces in southern Ohio, and manufactured the first stonecoal iron in that section. Being the pioneer in this line of
business he had much to learn; and he found his enterprise
did not, by any means, prove remunerative. He, therefore,
abandoned the undertaking, leaving it to others to prosecute
and reap where he had sown. In 1859 he became actively
interested in steamboating, first as clerk on the "Grey
Eagle," Captain G. Donnally, the pioneer boat in the trade
between Pomeroy and Cincinnati; and subsequently filled
a similar. position on other crafts. In I862 he built the
"Imperial," commanding and running her for between two
and three years. He finally sold her, and built the "r eerless," which he ran for a few years until she Mwas lost near
Cairo. She made trips on'the Gulf, and was the first to
enter Montgomery, continuing on the Alabama river for a
part of the season. He afterwards commanded different
boats in various places until I867, when lie built and comnmanded the "1 Alaska " ill the Cincinnati and New Orleanls
trade, continuing therein until i87I, when he concluded to
leave the river. tie then became interested in the Crawford House, where he remained until the autumn of I873,
when he resumed command of the " Alaska" in the same
trade, until her loss by sinking near Tiptonville on the
Mississippi river. This ended his steamboat career, and,
.n May, I874, he again became proprietor of the CrawNford
House, where he is now engaged in operating it as a firstclass hotel. To Captain Oakes is undoubtedly due the
credit of having been the originator of the Jackson county
222
was the first President of the Musl.:ingum County Medical
Society, before which body he has read many of his papers
1-)i-evious to their pul:)Iication. He is now a Fellow'and the
C.,)i-rc-spoiidiiig Secretary of the Academy of Medicine, and
is also Physician to the Home of the Friendless, etc., etc.
He was married in the year 1846 to Elizabeth Alice Blocl.:s.om, daughter of lion. William Blocksom, of Zanesville.
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