physician, pioneer in the study of mental disease, author, b. London, England. He migrated with his parents to the U.S. in 1849, settling in Syracuse, N.Y. During the Civil War he served in the 12th New York Infantry (1861), and in the 10th New York Cavalry (1861-1863), rising to the rank of 1st lieutenant. He graduated from Long Island College Hospital (M.D., 1864), and again served in the army (1864-1865). In 1866 he was appointed assistant superintendent of the State Asylum for the Feeble Minded at Syracuse, N.Y., and from 1867 to 1873 was assistant physician at the State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, N.Y. There, in collaboration with Superintendent John P. Gray, he developed a method for making systematic microscopic examinations of the brain tissue of the insane. Kempster was the first physician in the U.S. to photograph such tissue through a microscope. In 1873 he came to Wisconsin as superintendent of the Northern Hospital for the Insane at Oshkosh, serving in this capacity until 1884. At Oshkosh he continued his research on brain tissue and also studied the effects of various drugs on the insane. In 1884 he moved to Milwaukee, where he made his home until his death. In 1891 he was a member of a congressional commission appointed to investigate emigration conditions in Europe, and in 1892 served on a similar commission to investigate the cause of epidemic conditions in the Near East. Kempster was Milwaukee health commissioner (1894-1898) and in this capacity helped overcome popular opposition to the enforcement of smallpox regulations. He was nationally known as an expert on mental disorders, and was frequently called as an expert witness in civil and criminal law proceedings; he was a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield. During much of his time in Milwaukee Kempster was professor of mental diseases at the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was the author of several books on the Civil War, as well as numerous books and articles on mental disease. Dict. Amer. Biog.; Who's Who in Amer., 10 (1918); J. A. Watrous, Memoirs of Milwaukee Co. (2 vols., Madison, 1909); L. F. Frank, Med. Hist. of Milwaukee (Milwaukee [1915]); Milwaukee Journal, Aug. 22, 1918.Learn More
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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]
