American Medical Biographies/Belt, Edward Oliver
Belt, Edward Oliver (1861–1906)
Edward Oliver Belt was born May 19, 1861, at Rock Hall, near Dickerson, Frederick County, Maryland, the son of John Lloyd and Sarah Elenora McGill Belt. His father was a farmer. The Hon. William Burgess, an ancester, had brought a colony to Maryland and founded the town of South River. He attended public schools and Frederick College, Maryland, and studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Alfred M. Belt, of Baltimore, attending three sessions at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, taking his M. D. there in 1886. He practised medicine a few months in Frederick County, then for two years was resident physician, Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Baltimore. Afterwards he studied ophthalmology and otology at the University of Vienna and in hospitals of Paris, Berlin and London, next taking a post-graduate course in histology and pathology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and acting as visiting surgeon. In October, 1889, he removed to Washington and practised his specialty and married, on May 18, 1899, Miss Emily Walker Norvel. But after seven years of wedded life a great catastrophe overtook the family.
Dr. Belt, with his two sons, aged six and seven years, lost their lives in the railroad wreck at Terra Cotta, District of Columbia, December 30, 1906.
Belt was the originator and one of the organizers of the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and was surgeon and executive officer there; also ophthalmologist and otologist, Freedmen's Hospital, District of Columbia, and consulting ophthalmologist to the City and Emergency Hospital at Frederick, Maryland. He was professor of ophthalmology and otology at Howard Medical School, District of Columbia. He was president of the Society of Ophthalmology and Otology, Washington; surgeon, Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, and published in the medical journals many papers upon his specialty.