American Medical Biographies/Hunt, Ezra Mundy
Hunt, Ezra Mundy (1830–1894).
Ezra Mundy Hunt, general practitioner, hygienist, sanitarian and medical author, was born January 4, 1830, in Metuchen, New Jersey, son of Holloway Whitfield Hunt, a minister, and Henrietta Mundy. His ancestry was English-Welsh. He received an A. B. and an A. M. (1849), and in 1882 the honorary degree of D. Sc. from Princeton University; LL. D. was received from Lafayette College in 1890. His medical education was obtained at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, which he entered in 1849, graduating in 1852; his preceptors were Abraham Coles and Dayton Decker.
He began practice at Metuchen in 1852 and in 1854 became lecturer on materia medica in Vermont Medical College, the next year declining the chair of chemistry on account of his practice. In 1864 he was president of the New Jersey Medical Society and secretary of the State Board of Health from 1877, issuing its annual reports; he was president of the American Public Health Association in 1883. He organized the department of hygiene in the State Normal School, and was the first instructor. He wrote many papers on sanitary and medical subjects, among them: "A Physician's Counsels of His Professional Brethren" (1859); "Alcohol as Food and Medicine" (1877). Among his religious writings were "Grace Culture" (1865) and "Bible Notes for Daily Readers" (1870).
In 1853 Dr. Hunt married Emma L., daughter of Ezra Ayres of Rahway, New Jersey; she died in 1867, and in 1870 he married Emma, daughter of Josiah Reeve, of Alloway, New Jersey. He had four children, two of whom became physicians, Ellsworth Eliot Hunt, who died in 1886, and Alonzo Clark Hunt.
Dr. Hunt died at Metuchen, July 1, 1894.