66 REPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 



NECROLOGY. 



JEROME H. KIDDER. 



Dr. Jerome H. Kidder was born in Baltimore County, Md., on the 

 2Gth of October, 1842, and graduated in 18G2 at Harvard, where he 

 is still remembered as foremost iu the gymnasium as well as on his class- 

 rolls. He immediately then tendered his services for the war, and was 

 placed in charge of the sea island plantations near Beaufort, S. C, 

 where he contracted yellow fever, and was invalided home early iu 

 18G3 ; but upon recovery enlisted in the Tenth Maryland Infantry, in 

 which he served as private and non-commissioned officer until the lol- 

 lowing year, when he was selected to be medical cadet, and in that ca- 

 pacity was employed in the military hospitals near the capital. During 

 this time he was prosecuting the study of medicine, and in 186G re- 

 ceived from the University of Maryland the degree of M. D. In the 

 same year he was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the U, S. Navy, 

 becoming full surgeon in 187G. 



Dr. Kidder's first duty was at Japan, Avhere he quickly acquired the 

 language of the country, and in other ways established the reputation 

 which attached to him throughout his career for his "capacity for takin*?: 

 pains." While on this foreign service he was decorated by the King of 

 Portugal in recognition of services to a distressed vessel of His Majesty's 

 navy. 



Dr. Kidder took part in observing the transit of Yenus at Kerguelen 

 Island, in 1874, as surgeon and naturalist of the expedition, and the ex- 

 cellent results of his scientific labors and researches therewith will be 

 found described in the Bulletins of the U. S. National Museum. After 

 the return of this expedition, Dr. Kidder arranged his specimens and 

 collections iu the Smithsonian Institution, and commenced those kindly 

 and intimate relations with it which continued through his after life, 

 with the regard of all his associates there. 



In 1878 Surgeon Kidder married, at Constantinople, Annie Mary, 

 daughter of the Hon. Horace Maynard, minister of the United States 

 to Turkey, and in 1884, having inherited an adequate fortune, he re- 

 signed his commission and established his home iu Washington, and 

 here organized the bacteriological laboratory in connection with the 

 Navy Museum of Hygiene, and also made a sanitary survey of the site 

 X)roposed for the new Naval Observatory, while later he was appointed 

 chemist of the U. S. Fish Commission, and in that capacity became one 

 of the most trusted advisers of Professor Baird. His laboratory was 

 in the Smithscmian building, and under the direction of the Secretary 

 of the Institution he made, at the request of Congress, an exhaustiv^e 

 study of the ventilation of the Capitol and of the air in the Senate 

 chambers and the hall of the House, and submitted an extended report 

 or the use of the committees engaged upon ^lie sanitary reform of tUe 



