SMITH, JOSEPH MATHER. 



601 



attract fil irreat AHent'mn in 1-jirop,- nnd Amer- 



Ii was published l>y and at tho request of 

 tin- trustees of tho collego, :ind was u id ly cir- 



I by the United States Government. 

 During the cholera <>|iiilemio of 1849 li<' 



ited with I>rs. .1. H. Hock and Samuel W. 



:'ic medical council of the sanitary 



oiiKiiitt'-i) of New York Oity. Ho and his 



'"ied in the city, and performed 



tho most arduous and incessant labors during 



tho whole prevalence of tho epidemic, and 



their public services received tho approval and 



gratitude of their fellow-citizens. It was after 



:>eneneo of this terrible disease thns ac- 

 quired, that he prepared, though he was never 

 quite ready to publish, an elaborate and ex- 



1 dissertation on cholera. In 1854 ho 

 '. 'cted president of tho New York Acad- 

 emy of Medicine, of which body he had been an 

 member from its organization in 1847, 

 nnd in 1850 its orator. In 1853 and in 1854 he 

 supplied the place of his friend Dr. J. B. Beck, 

 thi-ii hopelessly ill, in tho chair of materia 

 inedion in the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons, giving tho lectures of that course in ad- 

 dition to his own; and after the death of Dr. 

 Beck, in 1855, ho assumed the exclusive duties 

 of that chair, relinquishing tho professorship of 

 the theory and practice of medicine, which was 

 then, for the first time, divided into two, the 

 professorship of pathology and practical medi- 

 cine, and tho professorship of physiology and 

 microscopic anatomy, to which was added soon 

 after a professorship of clinical medicine. His 

 tourse on materia medica, like that on theory 

 and practice, was marked by a thorough and 

 extensive knowledge of the resources of the 

 profession in the way of medicaments, and a 

 profound consciousness that the duty of the 

 physician was to aid nature, not to overpower 

 her action. In 1860 he read, before the Amer- 

 ican Medica* Association, his admiral report on 

 the Medical Topography and Epidemics of the 

 State of New York a volume of 189 pages 

 a work which, had he left no other, would have 

 been a sufficiently enduring monument to his 

 industry, originality, and vast scope of know4- 

 edge. It completely exhausts tho subject, and 

 has met with the highest encomiums from ths 

 most eminent members of the profession. In tho 

 meteorological section of tho work, to which ho 

 gave special labor and attention, Dr. Smith in- 

 troduced several new and appropriate scientific 

 terms, which have since been adopted by me- 

 teorological writers, and illustrated tho climate 

 of the State in an ingenious and original man- 

 ner by maps, plates, and tables. 



He had been for many years an earnest stu- 

 dent of sanitary science, and, in 18.V.), was 

 chosen vice-president of the National Quaran- 

 tine and Sanitary Convention, in whose deliber- 

 ations he took an active part. In 1864 ho was 

 on the organization of tho council of hygiene of 

 the Citizens' Association of New York; chosen 

 its president, and gave to tho office his most ear- 

 nest attention and his highest abilities. In all 



their Investigations, and the preparation of tin ir 

 elaborate, and admirable report on the sanitary 

 condition of New York, ho was consult 

 every step, and much of the value of their 

 labors ia duo to his wise suggestions. His con- 

 nection with this council of hygiene was among 

 the last of the public labors of this eminent 

 scholar, physician, and philanthropist. The hot 

 and oppressive summer of 1865, during wLi< -!i 

 he had no relaxation, but rather the add. d 

 duties of his position as president of the coun- 

 cil of hygiene, had overtaxed his strength. I It- 

 was past seventy-six years of age, and, though 

 his remarkably active and abstemious habits 

 had enabled him to maintain good health dur- 

 ing the forty 3 r ears in which he had been an 

 active public man, the wear and tear of age 

 was beginning to tell upon a constitution not 

 naturally very robust As the lecture season 

 approached, his health was evidently failing, his 

 appetite and strength waned, and for the first 

 time in forty years he missed twelve lectures 

 of his course. He rallied somewhat, and, though 

 in great feebleness, delivered his course of lec- 

 tures, but was unable to attend to practice to 

 any considerable extent. After the close of tho 

 course his health appeared to improve for somo 

 weeks, but about the middle of April he began 

 to fail again, and on the 19th of the month was 

 seized with hemiplegia, and gradually sank till 

 the 22d, when he expired. 



Dr. Smith was not more celebrated for his 

 extensive and profound learning than for his . 

 amiable, gentle, modest, and agreeable man- 

 ners. His temper and language were under 

 the most complete and absolute control. He 

 always sought for the better traits of man's 

 character, and could not be induced to indulge 

 in censoriousness, or fault-finding. In his family 

 he was genial and hnppy, and even at the busi- 

 est periods of his life he would devote a portion 

 of each day to social enjoyment with them. 



Among Dr. Smith's numerous published es- 

 says, addresses, and dissertations, numbering 

 twenty-three or four, there were several not al- 

 ready noticed, which deserve especial mention for 

 their ability. These were, " The Public Duties of 

 Medical Men," an introductory lecture, delivered 

 November 2, 1846 ; " The Influence of Diseases 

 on the Intellectual and Moral Powers ; " also 

 an introductory lecture delivered October 80, 

 1848; "Report on Practical Medicine," sub- 

 mitted to tho American Medical Association, 

 1848; "Report on Public Hygiene," submitted 

 to the American Medical Association, May, 

 IS.-.M; "Illustrations of Mental Phenomena in 

 Military Life," an anniversary discourse, de- 

 livered before the New York Academy of Med- 

 icine, November 18, 1850; "Puerperal Fever; 

 its Causes and Modes of Propagation," prepared 

 by request of the New York Academy of Medi- 

 cine, 1857; ''Therapeutics of Albuminuria," 

 prepared at the request of the New York Acad- 

 emy of Medicine, 1862. He had also prepared 

 for the press several monographs on typhus and 

 typhoid, and yellow fevers, etc. 



