8 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Wirt Howe, Samuel P. Langley, William Lindsay, D. 0. Mills, 

 Carroll D. Wright. And now to this roll of our distinguished dead 

 from the Board of Trustees must be added the name of John Shaw 

 Billings, who died in New York City, March 11, 1913, aged seventy- 

 four years and eleven months. 



Doctor Billings, as he was familiarly known to us, was one of the 

 original incorporators of the Institution and one of the most active 

 and effective participants in its organization and growth. He 

 served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees from the date of 

 the first incorporation in January, 1902, until the death of the first 

 Chairman, Abram S. Hewitt; as Chairman of the Board since Decem- 

 ber, 1903; and as a member of the Executive Committee continu- 

 ously from the date of its organization in January, 1902, to February, 

 1913. At the end of the last meeting of the Executive Committee 

 he attended, February 20, 1913, he told Doctor Mitchell and me of 

 a sense of weariness and of his anticipation of need of surgical treat- 

 ment in the near future. Of this need he spoke with accustomed 

 fortitude, but with apprehension that he might not withstand the 

 resulting shock. His prognosis proved characteristically accurate, 

 for he succumbed to a complication of pneumonia rather than to the 

 malady for which he sought surgical aid. 



The limits of space here available render it impracticable to give 

 anything like an adequate account of the indefatigable and fruitful 

 labors of Doctor Billings in the organization and in the development 

 of the Institution, while allusion only may be made to his heroic 

 services as a surgeon in the United States Army during the Civil 

 War, to his extraordinary contributions to the collection and cata- 

 loguing of the world's medical hterature, and to his equally extra- 

 ordinary contributions to hospital and to library administration in 

 America.* A just appreciation of his life and work must be left to 

 biographers and to historians. We may write of him here only as a 

 colleague in recent years and as a friendly associate in the promotion 

 of American science during the past thirty years. He was a m.an of 

 rare devotion to any duties or responsibilities he assumed, and with- 

 out obtrusive evidence of the fact he manifested equal devotion in 

 his more intimate friendships. For one preoccupied with the affairs 

 of other organizations he gave a surprisingly large amount of 

 time and attention to the affairs of the Institution. Of the sixteen 



*Some account of his life and work may be found in memorial notices published in 

 the Index Medicus for March, 1913; in a pamphlet giving an account of a memorial 

 meeting held at The New York Public Library April 25, 1913; and in a memoir by 

 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in Science, N. S., vol. XXXVIII, No. 989, Dec. 12, 1913. 



