Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/307

 COLDEN

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COLEMAN*

"Account of Diseases prevalent in Amer- ica," and his essay on the "Cause and Remedy of the Yellow Fever, " so fatal in New York in 1743.

He must have worked hard even in those comparatively leisured days, for he translated the letters of Cicero, wrote a purely scientific "Treatise on Gravi- tation," 1745 (afterwards enlarged into "The Principles of Action in Matter") and devoted all the remaining time to be spared from official duties to his well- beloved study of botany, maintaining withal "with great punctuality" a correspondence with learned friends such as Linnaeus, Gronovius, Fother- gill, Collinson, Franklin, Bard and Gar- den, delighting to write to Franklin about electricity and suggesting, accord- ing to Franklin, the idea and plan of the American Philosophical Society.

The Linnaean System was introduced by him into America only a few months after its publication in Europe. To the author himself he sent a description of some three or four hundred American plants and Linnaeus gracefully acknowl- edged the gift by publishing the record in his "Acta Upsaliensa" and naming a genus of boraginaceous herbs of the tribe Ehreticce after him (Coldenia), though a prettier version is that Miss Jane Colden sent him a specimen and he named it after her, a compliment he was fond of paying ladies and Lady Ann Monson had the same perpetuation in the Monsonia. This same Miss Jane taught Dr. Samuel Bard to love botany when he stayed with her as a boy, an obligation he gratefully refers to.

Colden made up his mind in 1775 that the stamped paper made necessary by Grenville's stamp act should be used, but the official distributor of stamps re- fused to receive it, so Colden went off to Fort George with a garrison of marines. When the New York populace protested he ordered the marines to fire. They would not and the people seized Colden's carriages and burned them along with Colden and the devil in effigy. The following year brought the Declaration

of Independence, but Colden had already retired to a large grant of land called Coldenham, near Newburgh, where he wholly bent himself to science, especially botany and mathematics. His home was a rendezvous for all learned men; his greatest pleasure was to receive them, and there, on September 28, 1776, he died, leaving a son who distinguished him- self as a mathematician and philosopher. D. W.

Am. Med. and Philos. Register, vol. i. Diet, of Nat. Biog. H. Morse Stephens. Memorials of Bartram and Marshall, Dar- lington.

Correspondence of Linnaeus. Sir J. Edw. Smith.

Coleman, Asa (1788-1870).

He was born July 20, 1788, and studied medicine under his father, an ex-surgeon of the Continental Army living in Glas- tonbury, Connecticut, and was almost literally born into medicine, being the fifth doctor in his family, two sons sub- sequently following in his footsteps.

Dr. Coleman settled in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, in May, 1811, and in the fall of that year was licensed to practice by the Censors of the First Medical District of Ohio; this license bears the signature of Daniel Drake.

In September, 1811, he was commis- sioned surgeon in the state militia, and was rapidly promoted to surgeon-major (1816) and to a lieutenant-colonelcy (1818).

He represented his district in the State Legislature in 1816 and 1817, thus serv- ing as a member of the first session held in the new Capital (Columbus).

His name is appended to the call for the first organization of the physicians of this district of which there is a record.

He died in Troy, Ohio, February 25, 1870. VV. J. C.

Coleman, Robert Thomas (1830-1884).

An army surgeon and obstetrician, he was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on September 3, 1830 and studied med- icine at the University of Virginia, taking the degree of M. D. and then going to the