690 



SMITH, JOSEPH. MATHER. 



administration of the affairs of the "Wesleyan 

 University was characterized hy great discre- 

 tion and sound judgment. He had published 

 several valuable text-books. He received the 

 honorary degree of LL. D. from Hamilton Col- 

 lege in 1850. 



SMITH, JOSEPH MATHER, M. D., an American 

 physician, professor, and medical writer, born 

 at New Eochelle, Westchester County, N. Y., 

 March 14, 1789 ; died in New York City, April 

 22, 1866. His father, Dr. Matson Smith, was 

 an eminent physician of Westchester County, 

 and his mother was a descendant of the Mathers 

 so famous in the colonial history of Massa- 

 chusetts. The subject of this sketch received 

 a very thorough English education, together 

 with some training in the classics in the acad- 

 emy at New Kochelle, and at the age of fifteen 

 came to New York and entered a store as clerk, 

 improving all his leisure time in study. Mer- 

 cantile life was not, however, to his taste, and 

 after four years' trial he returned home and 

 commenced the study of medicine in his father's 

 office, devoting a portion of his time to the 

 etudy of the classics, modern languages and gen- 

 eral literature, while, as he progressed in pro- 

 fessional knowledge, he gave attention also to 

 the allied sciences of botany, meteorology, and 

 chemistry. He attended the medical lectures 

 in Columbia College during the sessions of 1809 

 and 1810; was licensed to practise physic and 

 surgery in May, 1811, by the Medical Society 

 of Westchester County, reading before the cen- 

 sors, at his examination, a dissertation on respi- 

 ration, and in the same year settled in New 

 York City as a practitioner, in partnership with 

 the late Dr. William Baldwin. In 1815 he 

 graduated M. D. at the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons, New York. The subject of his 

 thesis was "Phlegmasia Dolens." About the 

 same time he united with several of his youth- 

 ful contemporaries, Mott, De Puy, Bliss, and 

 others, in forming the New York Medico-Phys- 

 iological Society, and served on the committee 

 of publication. Under his supervision the first 

 volume of its Transactions was published in 

 1817, to which he contributed a paper on the 

 " Efficacy of Emetics in Spasmodic Diseases, 

 with an Inquiry into the Cause of Sympathetic 

 Vomiting;" this paper, at the time, attracted 

 much attention, and is still referred to as an 

 original and ingenious essay. In the same vol- 

 ume he also published a case of " Poisoning by 

 Opium, successfully treated by Flagellation." 

 In June, 1820, he was appointed visiting physi- 

 cian to the New York State Prison, then sit- 

 uated in Greenwich Street, in association with 

 Professor Hamersley. He retained this appoint- 

 ment till April, 1824. In 1821 he was elected 

 a fellow of the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons, New York. In the year 1824 he pub- 

 lished his " Elements of the Etiology and Phi- 

 losophy of Epidemics," a work so learned and 

 logical, and exhibiting such profound thought 

 and extensive research, that it attracted every- 

 where among the profession the greatest atten- 



tion, and stamped its author at once as a man 

 of consummate ability. The English medical 

 journals, usually chary enough in their com 

 mendation of any thing from an American pen, 

 were loud in their praise of this work, the 

 Medico- CMrurgical Review, for July, 1825, pro- 

 nouncing it " ingenious and philosophical, char- 

 acterized not only by great talent and force of 

 argument, but by candor and good faith," and 

 as " doing great honor to transatlantic medi- 

 cine." Another eminent English writer de- 

 clared that it was " fifty years in advance of the 

 medical literature of the day on its subject." 

 More than forty years have passed since its pub- 

 lication, and it is still the standard authority on 

 the subject of epidemics, and its nomenclature 

 is now universally adopted. The extensive and 

 profound learning displayed by Dr. Smith in 

 this work, not only on professional topics but 

 in general literature, led to his unsolicited ap- 

 pointment by the board of regents to the chair 

 of theory and practice of physic in the Col- 

 lege of Physicians and Surgeons in New York 

 in the summer of 1826 ; and it is alike creditable 

 to both parties, that when Dr. Smith, with a 

 modest estimate of his own abilities, declined, 

 in a letter to the committee of the board of 

 regents, the appointment tendered him, mainly 

 from the fear that the time (from July to No- 

 vember) would not be sufficient for him to pre- 

 pare himself thoroughly for the duties of his 

 professorship, the committee refused to accept 

 his declinature, and insisted upon confirming 

 his appointment. The chair he was called to 

 fill was that which had been occupied by the 

 lamented Dr. David Hosack, one of the greatest 

 names in American "medicine ; but the college 

 did not suffer from the change. For nearly 

 thirty years he continued to perform the duties 

 of this professorship with a zeal, ability, punc- 

 tuality, and fidelity, which made ah 1 his students 

 his personal friends. In 1855 he was, at his 

 own request, transferred to the chair of mate- 

 ria medica, the duties of which he had, for two 

 years previously, performed conjointly with his 

 own, and in this last position he continued till 

 his decease. 



In 1829 Dr. Smith was appointed visiting 

 physician of the New York Hospital, and he 

 continued to perform his duties there, to the 

 great advantage of the patients, as well as of 

 the numerous students who resorted thither for 

 clinical instruction, until his decease. He had, 

 on accepting the professorship in the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons, relinquished general 

 practice, and confined himself to consultation, 

 in which he was deservedly eminent. He was 

 an admirable writer, and took a lively interest 

 in the medical periodical literature of the day, 

 frequently contributing reviews, memoirs, re- 

 ports of cases, etc., and in 1828 become one of 

 the editors of the New York Medical and Phys- \ 

 ical Journal. In 1831, before the appearance 

 of cholera in this country, he delivered a 

 learned and elaborate address on the "Epi- 

 demic Cholera of Asia and Europe," which 



