Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/954

POTTER assistant surgeon of the 49th regiment of New York Volunteers and saw service under McClellan and Burnside. He was captured by the confederates in 1862 and was confined in Libby prison, was exchanged and served as surgeon with the 57th regiment of New York volunteers at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and then had charge of the first division hospital of the second army corps, continuing in that position until mustered out at the close of the war. Then he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for meritorious service.

After the war Dr. Potter was coroner of the District of Columbia, and was examining surgeon for the pension department, and after that practised at Mount Morris and Batavia, New York, being physician to the New York State Institution for the Blind.

In 1881 he returned to Buffalo and began to make a specialty of gynecology and obstetrics, helping to organize the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, becoming first secretary and editor of the transactions and filling the dual position for twenty-two years. The fame and wide influence of the association were to him matters of loving pride and he gave his duties careful, exacting and systematic attention. In 1891 he was president of the Medical Society of the State of New York and did much to revise its code of ethics, and when the medical practice act of the state went into effect, September first of that year, the society nominated him as a member of the board of medical examiners and he was elected. On the death of Dr. Wey, in 1897, Dr. Potter was elected president of the board and ten years later, on the passage of the new medical practice act, he was elected president and retained the office until his death. He was an ideal presiding officer, thoroughly schooled in parliamentary procedure, and gave great satisfaction to his confreres and to lawyers and witnesses who appeared before the board, by his judicial attitude.

In 1888 Dr. Potter became editor of the Buffalo Medical Journal and shortly after its owner. As editor he developed a good English style and kept in touch with the advances of medical knowledge, in later years withdrawing from practice and devoting himself exclusively to his editorial duties and to work of his official positions.

He had a remarkably retentive memory, coupled with fluency of speech, so that he was a welcome guest at postprandial functions. His associates on the board of examiners were most loyal to him and selected him each year as their representative to the council on medical education of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Potter married Emily A. Bostwick, of Lancaster, New York, in 1859, and they had three children. He died at Buffalo, March 14, 1911, aged 72 years.



Potts, Jonathan (1745–1781)

Jonathan Potts, member of the first medical class graduated in America, surgeon and a medical director in the Revolutionary War, was born April 11, 1745, at "Popodickon," the ancestral home of the Potts family named in honor of Popodick, an Indian chief, who was buried near the house, Colebrookdale, Berks County, Pennsylvania. Jonathan was the son of John Potts, who founded Pottsgrove, now Pottstown, Pennsylvania, whose father, Thomas Potts, came to Pennsylvania the latter part of the 17th century, and was a pioneer in the development of iron interests in that state; his mother was Ruth Savage.

Jonathan received his education at Ephrata and in Philadelphia and determined to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, so with Benjamin Rush, his friend and relative, sailed from Philadelphia August 31, 1766, and after a perilous voyage of fifty days, reached Liverpool in safety. His first duty was to communicate with Benjamin Franklin, who gave the young men recommendations to professors of the University of Edinburgh. He was engaged to marry Grace, daughter of Francis Richardson, and when he learned that his "dearest Grace" was ill and longed to see him, he relinquished his studies and returned to America, reaching Philadelphia in April, and was married in May, 1767. Wishing to continue his medical studies, he entered the Medical School of the College of Philadelphia, the faculty of which was made up of John Morgan, theory and practice of medicine; William Shippen, Jr., anatomy, surgery and midwifery; Adam Kuhn, materia medica and botany; Benjamin Rush, chemistry; Thomas Bond, clinical medicine. Potts was one of the ten graduates at its first medical commencement, June 21, 1768, to receive the degree of bachelor of medicine. The minutes of the Board of Trustees have the following entry: "An elegant valedictory oration was spoken by Mr. Potts on the advantage derived in the study of physic from a previous liberal education in the other sciences." The subject was selected by Franklin. At a