American Medical Biographies/Bellinger, John
Bellinger, John (1804–1860)
John Bellinger was born in St. Bartholomew's Parish, South Carolina, in 1804. His father, Dr. John Bellinger, a worthy and esteemed physician, was the descendant of an old English family, which settled at an early date, under the proprietary government, in Charleston. He began the study of medicine in this city, under the elder North. His first two courses of lectures on medicine were followed at the then recently established medical college of the State of South Carolina; but his preparatory training was completed in Philadelphia, where he enjoyed the private tuition of Dr. Physick (q.v.), and attended at the University of Pennsylvania, from whose medical department he received his diploma in 1826.
In 1848, when Dr. S. H. Dickson accepted a call to the University of New York, Dr. Bellinger's high reputation at once singled him out as the fittest successor as professor of surgery. In 1846 he did a deliberate hysteromyomectomy on a colored woman, using "animal ligatures." This patient died of peritonitis on the fifth day.
As a teacher of medicine, he was ready and erudite. As a writer, his style was terse and direct; his expression forcible and idiomatic, and his thought always characterized by independence, originality and vigor.
He died in Charleston, South Carolina, on the thirteenth day of August, 1860, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.