Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/708

NAME LEAVENWORTH 686 LE CONTE the study of medicine with Dr. Edward Field, of Waterbury, but later studied with Dr. Bald- win, Dr. Jonathan Knight (q. v.), and Dr. Eli Ives (q. v.) of New Haven. Under the tuition of Dr. Ives he began to specialize in the study of medicine with Dr. Edward Field, courses of lectures in the recently organized medical school of Yale and graduated in the class of 1817— at the age of twenty-one. After graduation he devoted himself exclusively to the study of botany and was placed in charge of a botanical garden, which was cultivated for the benefit of the medical college. In 1819 he made an engagement with Dr. Whitlaw, as an assistant lecturer on botany, and made a tour through most of the Southern States. He familiarized himself with the flora of every state and territory through which he traveled, and as he already knew that of New England and some of the middle states, his knowledge was extensive. After complet- ing his engagement with Dr. Whitlaw, he spent a few months in the study of French and then began the practice of medicine in Cahaw- ba, Alabama. After a few months in this town he was attacked with one of the epidemic fevers of the locality and decided to leave. He went to Augusta, Georgia, and engaged in the drug business for four years and then decided to enter the army, becoming assistant surgeon and serving in the army for eleven 3-ears. Dur- ing this time he availed himself of every op- portunity to make botanical researches. When- ever he obtained leave of absence, instead of returning to his home and friends, he pene- trated to the wilds of Texas and the plains, making diligent search for new specimens of plants in unexplored regions. He was, for a time, almost the only investigator, or rather pioneer in those investigations in the particu- lar localities at which he was stationed and his labor resulted in valuable additions to botan- ical science. His contributions were repeat- edly acknowledged by Drs. John Torrey and Asa Gray in their large work on the Flora of the United States, and in Silliman's Journal of Science. Dr. Leavenworth's reputation as an army surgeon was good. He was competent and faithful and very popular among his men. He had natural qualifications for camp life on the frontier, his genial manner, the ease with which he adapted himself to circumstances and his general intelligence made him a use- ful officer. Dr. Leavenworth resigned his position in the army in 1842 and returned to Waterbury to take up the practice of medicine, but he was never contented after the change, missing the free intercourse and social enjoyments of camp life, and, on the breaking out of the rebellion he applied for the position of sur- geon in one of the Connecticut regiments. In spite of his advanced age and the arduous du- ties of the service, he accepted the position of assistant surgeon in the 12th Regiment Con- necticut Volunteers and began his duties while llie regiment was stationed at Hartford in the autumn of 1861. The following winter he ac- companied the command South, arriving at New Orleans at the time of its capture. In the Fall of 1862 he was taken with pneumonia and died on November 18, 1862. Dr. Leavenworth's most distinguishing fac- ulty was memory. He was a living encyclo- pedia of knowledge, of events, dates and facts — remembering almost everything he ever read, heard or saw. He seldom found it nec- essary to re-read a book or to re-investigate a subject when once mastered. This remark- able faculty made him valuable as a consult- ant and a most interesting companion. He never married but late in life took upon himself the support and care of a family of orphans, the children of his deceased sister. Proceedings Conn. Med. Soc, 2d series, vol. ii, 269-272, P. G. Rockwell. LeConte, John (1818-1891) John LeConte, teacher of natural philoso- phy and a founder of the University of Cali- fornia, was born in Woodmanston, Georgia, December 4, 1818. Of French Huguenot de- scent, his father was Louis LeConte, a dis- tinguished naturalist, and his brother was Jo- seph LeConte (q. v.). John's early edu- cation was irregular and desultory, received at a neighborhood school. He graduated at the LIniversity of Georgia, Athens, in 1838 with high honors. Moving to New York, he re- ceived an M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons there in 1841, and settled in Savannah, Ga., in 1842, where he practised his profession, kept up his scientific studies and contributed valuable papers to medical liter- ature. In 1846 he was called to the chair of physics and chemistry in his alma mater, where he remained nine j'ears. Resigning in 1853 he became professor of chemistry in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, and was unanimously elected to fill the chair of physics in the South Carolina College at Columbia in 1856. During the Civil War he was superintendent of Confederate nitre works, with rank of major. All his property was swept away by the war and he had to find a new field of labor, there-