Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/244

 geon of the Middle Department. At the conclusion of the war he was called to the chair of Anatomy and Surgery in the new Medical School of Columbia. At the time of his death, in 1792, he was said to be without a peer as an operating surgeon. He was further noted as one of the first doctors to abandon the time-honored nag-and-saddle-bags, and make his rounds in a carriage.

To return for a moment to Dr. Foster, it should be added, in fairness, that although a failure as an administrator, and consistently ignored by Washington, he was an admirable man in a position where someone else could do his thinking for him. For two years—the worst of the war—he continued as a sort of first assistant to the director-general, officially designated as “the eldest surgeon.” He was then rewarded (after some discreet [sic]manœuvring with the politicians at Philadelphia) by the post of deputy director of the Eastern Department, with headquarters at Danbury, Conn.—very nearly a sinecure, except for a large amount of travelling which he took upon himself. But in 1780 the position was abolished, and Foster returned to Boston, with health much impaired, and died a few months later, aged only forty-two.