American Medical Biographies/Andrews, Judson Boardman
Andrews, Judson Boardman (1834–1894)
Judson Boardman Andrews, alienist of New York State, was born in North Haven, Connecticut, April 25, 1834. His preparatory education was received at the Hopkins Grammar School of New Haven, from which he entered Yale College and graduated A. B. 1855 and A. M. 1858. After graduation he taught school until he began the study of medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1857. At the close of the lecture course he resumed teaching in Saratoga County, N. Y., and was thus engaged at the opening of the war.
He enlisted in the 77th regiment, New York volunteers, which was recruited in Saratoga County, and was elected captain of a company. The regiment took part in the Peninsula campaign against Richmond, and participated in the siege of Yorktown, and many famous battles. After the retreat to Harrison's Landing in July, 1862, he resigned his commission on account of ill health, and returned to New Haven where he completed his medical studies and graduated from the Yale Medical School in February 1863.
To fit himself for army service he entered the Germantown Hospital, Phialdelphia, as medical cadet, and in July was commissioned assistant surgeon and assigned to the 19th Connecticut Volunteers, on duty in the fortifications about Alexandria, Va. During the active service of his regiment, Dr. Andrews followed its fortunes, doing duty on the field in immediate care of the wounded and in the hospital of the division.
In 1867 he was appointed third assistant physician in the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, under the charge of Dr. John P. Gray. In 1871 he became first assistant, and continued in this position until 1880, when, on the opening of the Buffalo State Hospital, he was appointed superintendent of that institution, a position which he held until his death.
On becoming a resident of Buffalo Dr. Andrews was made lecturer on insanity in the Buffalo Medical College and later was elected professor of psychological medicine.
In 1886 he was elected president of the Erie County Medical Society. On coming to Utica he was made a member of the Oneida County Medical Society, and in 1874 he was elected a permanent member of the New York State Medical Society. He was one of the founders and one of the most prominent members, and president of that organization in 1892. He was president of the section of psychological medicine and nervous diseases of the Ninth International Congress, held in Washington in 1887, and in 1892 was elected the first president of the American Medico-Psychological Association, formerly the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane. During his professional career he was a frequent contributor of papers to medical societies and journals. He was for ten years an associate editor of the American Journal of Insanity and wrote extensively for its columns, his articles on "Phosphoric Acid" and "Chloral" being frequently quoted by medical journals and by writers on materia medica and practice.
Dr. Andrews was an advocate of state care for the insane, and aided materially in establishing the system. In the Buffalo Hospital he inaugurated and carried to a successful issue the training of attendants as nurses for the insane. As one of the pioneers of this important movement the Buffalo school furnished an impetus to, and served to popularize, the systematic training of nurses for the insane in the United States. Dr. Andrews was an able, active, energetic worker in his chosen field of labor, and the success of his career as a practical alienist was fully attested by the history of the Buffalo State Hospital and his enviable record at Utica. He died August 3, 1894, after an illness of more than a year.