CHAPTER LXI 

 JOHN P. C. FOSTER, M.D. 



VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION FROM 1 907 TO 



1908 



DR. JOHN PIERPONT CODDINGTON FOSTER, who 

 was one of our early vice-presidents, is no longer with us, 

 but to convey an idea of the life of this fine and interesting 

 man, scholar, and physician, we cannot do better than to quote 

 from the admirable tribute paid to Dr. Foster by his pupil and 

 friend, Dr. David R. Lyman, which appeared in the Transactions 

 of the American Climatological and Clinical Association of 1910. 



"Dr. Foster was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 2, 1847. He 

 prepared for college at Russell's Collegiate Institute in New Haven. He 

 graduated from Yale Medical School in 1875, and settled in New Haven, 

 where his family had borne a prominent part in the town's history since its 

 foundation. In 1878 he was appointed instructor in anatomy in the Yale 

 Art School, which position he held up to his death. He was for many years 

 port surgeon of the United States Marine Hospital Service and consulting 

 physician to the Yale Infirmary. Deeply enthusiastic, untiring, and unselfish 

 in his devotion to his profession, he has left behind him a lasting impression 

 of his life work such as is equaled by few men. 



"He was best known to the general public through his work in tuberculosis, 

 in recognition of which Yale conferred upon him the honorary degree of M.A. 

 in June, 1909. He knew from personal experience what it meant to fight 

 through life handicapped by the disease. He combined a deep insight into 

 the mental unrest of those first facing the fight against it with an ever-ready 

 sympathy for them and a thorough knowledge of their needs. He spared him- 

 self nothing if he could lighten the burden of a tuberculous patient. This 

 unselfishness, which characterized his private practice, he carried into his 

 public work, and to his untiring devotion Connecticut is indebted to-day for 

 four of its existing sanatoria. 



"To Dr. Foster belongs the distinction of having been the first physician 

 in America to apply Koch's tuberculin for therapeutic purposes. 



"He was on the original board of directors of The National Association for 

 the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and was vice-president of the 

 Association in 1908. He was one of the incorporators of the New Haven 

 County Anti-Tuberculosis Association, and as chairman of its executive com- 

 mittee was more, than any one man personally responsible for the character 



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