Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1093

NAME SMITH 1071 SMITH tion of the Ninth Internationa! Congress, a fellow of the New York Academy of Medi- cine, of the New York Pathological Society, of the County Medical Association, and of the American Medical Association. So much for the public side of Dr. Smith's distinguished career. When we pass to the home side, to the side of which the great public and his medical colleagues knew but little, it is approached with diffidence, for such was the innate modesty of the man, such was his abhorrence of self-praise, that we hesitate, even now when he has passed to his reward, to mention that which he was the first to conceal. In this case, however, there is indeed nothing but good to be said of the dead, and a pity it would be if at last the community and his colleagues should not gain an insight into the character of the man which secured for him the title "of "the good old doctor," and which caused a life-long friend to liken him unto the Beloved Physician. To properly appreciate the character of this man, the pres- ent generation must remember that he began practice in the days when the poor were always with him, when hospital and dispensary did rot stand with wide open door ready to min- ister to all in want and in sickness. Further- more, medicine had not become so much of a trade in the early days of his career, and the exigencies and the competitions were not so keen as they are now. Therefore, Dr. Smith began early to go around and to do good, irrespective of monetary consideration and of the last acts in Dr. Smith's professional career we have learned that he spent hours at the bedside of a sick infant in a tenement house, giving money to the parents to assist them in their extremity while his wealthy clients were awaiting his arrival. No wonder that amongst the poor of New York he was looked upon as the good doctor, and all this irrespective of talk on his part or of knowledge by his right hand of that which his left was con- stantly doing. With the passing away of Dr. Smith the community lost well nigh the last of the old time physicians. V'.'hilst a specialist, he was still a general practitioner, realizing that only thus could he do his best in his specialty. His clinical lectures were of the most attractive type, usually unprepared, and yet clear, concise, searching, influential on the minds of his hearers as regards the interdependence of the organs one on the other. His influence on his pupils was therefore a deep and lasting one, and men scattered wide over this country remember still the knowledge acquired from him. Egbert H. Grandin. In Memoriam, E. H. Grandin, M. D., 1897, Por- trait & Bibliography. Bibliog. also in Trans. New York State Med. Assoc, 1897, vol. xiv, 535-538, John Shrady. Archiv, of Pediatrics, 1897, vol. xiv, 531-534. Portrait. Smith, John Lawrence (1818-1883) J. Lawrence Smith was born near Charles- ton, South Carolina, December 17, 1818, and died in Louisville, Kentucky, October 12, 1883. At an early age he manifested great taste for mathematics ; when four years old he could do sums in addition and multiplication with great rapidity. This was some time before he could read. At eight years he was doing algebra, and at thirteen was studying calculus. As a boy he went to the best private schools of Charleston ; afterwards to the University of Virginia, where later he devoted himself to the higher branches of physics, mixed mathematics and chemistry, studying the latter rather as a recreation. He selected civil engi- neering as a profession and was employed as assistant engineer on the road projected at that time between Cincinnati and Charleston, but this not proving congenial to his scientific tastes, he determined to study medicine and after three years' study, graduated M. D. at the Charleston Medical College. Three years in Europe followed. He studied physiology under Flourens and Longet; chemistry under Orfila, Dumas and Liebig; physics under Pouillet, Desprez, and Becquerel; mineralogy and geology under Elie de Beaumont and Dufrenoy, and prosecuted original researches on certain fatty bodies. His paper on "Sper- maceti," in 1843, at once stamped him as an experimental inquirer. On his return to Charleston in 1844, he began to practise and delivered a course of lectures on toxicology before the students of the Charleston Medical College, at which time he established the Charleston Medical and Surgical Journal, which proved a success. But the state needing his services as assayer of bullion coming into commerce from the gold fields of Georgia, North and South Caro- lina, he relinquished his practice and also gave a great deal of attention to agricultural chem- istry. The great beds of marl on which the city of Charleston stands early attracted his attention. He first pointed out the large amount of phosphate of lime in these marls, and was one of the first to ascertain the scien- tific character of their immense agricultural wealth. Dr. Smith also made a valuable and