Julius Mount Bleyer
Julius Mount Bleyer (16 March 1859 – 3 April 1915) was a New York doctor who specialized in laryngology who took a keen interest in medical jurisprudence. He studied the methods used for capital punishment and as a member of a commission, was among the first to propose lethal injections in 1888.[1] He pointed out in The Medico-Legal Journal, the problems with other methods of executing death sentences including decapitation and electrocution.[2] Lethal injections were however not used until the early 1980s.
Bleyer was also a pioneer of photofluoroscopy, a method of visualizing x-rays to observe the functioning of internal organs.[3][4][5] He also introduced the idea of an inhaler for delivering medication into the lungs[6] and considered applications in laryngology that made use of sound recording instruments.[7]
Early life and education
Julius Bleyer was born in Pilsen, Austria to Samuel and Sophia, who moved to the United States in 1868. He studied at the University of Prague and obtained a medical degree in New York in 1883 from Bellevue Medical College. He obtained an LL.D. in 1896 and practiced in New York from 1883 until his death.
Bleyer was a specialist consultant for the Metropolitan Opera Company from 1888 and dealt with the health of the throat. He served as a vice-president during an American congress on tuberculosis and was a member of the New York Medico-Legal Society.
References
- Bleyer, J. Mount (1888). "Best Method of Executing Criminals". Medico-Legal Journal. 5: 425–441.
- Bleyer, J. Mount (1898). "Instant death by decapitation an impossibility according to biological analysis". Medico Legal Journal. 16: 515–532.
- Glasser, Otto (1993). Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the Early History of the Roentgen Rays. Normal Publishing. p. 243.
- Bleyer, J. Mount (1896). "On the photo-fluoroscope". The Laryngoscope. 1 (1): 9–20. doi:10.1288/00005537-189607000-00001.
- Ramsey, L.J. (1983). "Early cineradiography and cinefluorography". History of Photography. 7 (4): 311–322. doi:10.1080/03087298.1983.10442029.
- Bleyer, J. Mount (1890). "A new method of larygeal and bronchial medication by means of a spray and tube during the act of deep inspiration. Read in the Section of Laryngology and Otology at the Forty-first Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, Nashville, Tenn., May, 1890". Journal of the American Medical Association. 15 (18): 634–636. doi:10.1001/jama.1890.02410440006001a.
- Bleyer, J. Mount (1895). "The Phonograph: Its Physics, Physiology, and Clinical Import". The Journal of Laryngology, Rhinology, and Otology. 1: 1–17. doi:10.1017/S1755146300152473.
- Kelly, Howard A.; Burrage, Walter L. (eds.). . . Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Company.
- "Deaths: Julius Mount Bleyer, M.D.". Journal of the American Medical Association. 64: 1342. 1915. doi:10.1001/jama.1915.02570420060029. hdl:2027/umn.31951002708585q.
Further reading
- Works related to Shall We Banish the Electric Chair and the Gallows, as France has banished the Guillotine at Wikisource