KNIGHT, JONATHAN. 



KOLLOCK, SHEPARD K. 469 



ter of 1813-'14, and ho continued in that chair 

 until 1838, when, on the death of Dr. Thomas 

 Hubbard, he was elected to the Professorship 

 of Surgery, which he adorned for more than 

 twenty-five years, resigning in May, 1864, but 

 was immediately appointed Professor Emeritus. 

 His connection with the Yale Medical School 

 was thus of more than fifty years' duration. 

 " For about twenty years of this period he also 

 gave a course of lectures on anatomy, physi- 

 ology, and hygiene, to the senior class of un- 

 dergraduates. As a lecturer upon anatomy he 

 was remarkably clear and concise, fluent, and 

 elegant. As a lecturer upon surgery, it was 

 generally acknowledged that he had no superior 

 in this country. His definitions and diagnosis 

 were so pellucid, his language expressed with 

 such clearness his line of thought, and in every 

 case he had chosen with such unerring accuracy 

 the word which embodied exactly the idea he 

 wished to convey, without redundancy and 

 without obscurity, that his lectures might safe- 

 ly have been taken as models of elegant com- 

 position. Yet these lectures were delivered 

 without notes, or at most with but a mere 

 brief, indicating the topics to be discussed. 



As a surgeon he was distinguished rather for 

 the possession of a sound and discriminating 

 judgment, than as a brilliant operator, though, 

 when he deemed an operation necessary, it was 

 always skilfully and carefully performed. He 

 always preferred, however, to avoid an opera- 

 tion as long as it was possible to do so, setting 

 a higher value upon conservative than upon 

 maiming surgery. Dr. Knight was a man of 

 high intellectual culture, of fine sensibilities and 

 sympathies, but not demonstrative in his feelings 

 or ardent in his attachments, except to the few 

 congenial spirits to whom he unveiled the inner 

 sanctuary of his heart. "While always kind and 

 courteous in his manner, he was taciturn and 

 reserved in conversation, except among his most 

 intimate friends. He was constitutionally con- 

 servative in his temperament, and modest and 

 retiring in his manners, yet he had a just appre- 

 ciation of his own powers ; and such was his 

 ease and self-possession, his tact and readiness 

 for any emergency, that he was never thrown 

 into a false or embarrassing position. His ac- 

 knowledged standing at the head of the sur- 

 geons of his State, often brought him into the 

 witness-box of courts of justice as an expert 

 a position among the most trying of all in which 

 a medical man is liable to be placed, and in 

 which even those justly eminent have frequent- 

 ly failed to do credit to themselves or to their 

 profession. But by no artifice of cross-examina- 

 tion could Professor Knight be thrown from 

 his mental equipoise, or inveigled into stating 

 an opinion as a fact, or accepting crude hypoth- 

 esis as the well-grounded result of experi- 

 ment; nor could any perversity distort the 

 truth of his clear and guarded statements, while 

 the most audacious and unscrupulous of bar- 

 risters respected his gentle dignity. The Con- 

 vention* which met in New York in May, 1846, 





to form the American Medical Association, did 

 itself honor in calling Dr. Knight to preside 

 over its deliberations, a post for which he was 

 admirably qualified both by his skill as a pre- 

 siding officer and the extent and profundity of 

 his medical attainments. The Association it- 

 self in its seventh year, 1853-'54, made him its 

 president. He was for many years, and until 

 his death, President of the Board of Directors 

 of the General Hospital Society of Connecticut, 

 and during the whole period was either an at- 

 tending or a consulting surgeon of the hospital, 

 freely giving his time and services to that ex- 

 cellent charity; and in 1862 was influential in 

 establishing at New Haven the United States 

 Military Hospital, which very appropriately 

 bears his name. When the first instalment of 

 sick and wounded soldiers reached the hospital, 

 then in an unfinished state, he labored inces- 

 santly and far beyond his strength in dressing 

 their wounds and promoting their comfort. He 

 was a staunch, unflinching patriot, a friend of 

 liberty, and firm supporter of the Government. 



His great worth was fully appreciated by his 

 fellow-citizens, and there was no office in their 

 gift which he could not have received if he 

 would have accepted it, but his modesty led 

 him almost invariably to decline such honors. 

 He had been for some years a sufferer from dis- 

 ease of the kidneys, but had kept his pain, 

 which was at times intense, to himself, and it 

 was not unti} the summer of 1864 that he 

 yielded his active habits and lay down upon 

 what was to be to him the bed of death. His 

 last illness was protracted, and at times intense- 

 ly painful, but he maintained the unflinching 

 fortitude which had been his characteristic 

 through life, and with more than resignation, 

 with the triumphant mien of the Christian 

 hero, he met the last enemy. 



KOLLOCK, Rev. SHEPAED Kosciusco, D. D., 

 an American Presbyterian clergyman, born hi 

 Elizabeth, N. J., June 29, 1795, died at Phila- 

 delphia, April *T, 1865. Both in the paternal 

 and maternal line he was descended from the 

 Huguenots of France, and his ancestors were 

 driven by persecution into Germany. In 1811, 

 when but little over sixteen years of age, he 

 graduated from Princeton College with high 

 honors, and soon after, becoming deeply inter- 

 ested in the subject of religion, entered upon 

 the study of theology under the direction of 

 Rev. Dr. McDowell, and subsequently that of 

 his brother, Dr. Henry Kollock, of Savannah. 

 In June, 1814, when scarcely nineteen years of 

 age, he was licensed to preach the Gospel, and 

 from the first his labors were exceedingly 

 blessed. After preaching awhile in Georgia, 

 he visited North Carolina, and soon after was 

 called to become the pastor of the Presbyterian 

 Church in Oxford, where he was ordained in 

 May, 1818. Having served this church and 

 other parts of the country with zeal and accept- 

 ance, he was chosen Professor of Rhetoric and 

 Logic in the University of North Carolina, 

 In 1825 he was called to the Presbyterian 



