American Medical Biographies/Porter, John Addison
Porter, John Addison (1822–1866)
John Addison Porter, physician and chemist, was born in Catskill, New York, March 15, 1822. He graduated at Yale University in 1842, became professor of rhetoric and ancient and modern languages at Delaware College, and in 1847 went abroad to study agricultural chemistry under Liebig at the University of Giessen. Returning to the United States he was assistant at the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in 1850 accepted the chair of applied chemistry at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; in 1852 he succeeded John P. Norton as professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry at Yale University, serving until 1856 when he became professor of organic chemistry, resigning in 1864 because of ill health. His M. D. was received at Yale University in 1855.
In 1854 Dr. Porter married a daughter of Joseph Earl Sheffield who established and endowed the Sheffield Scientific School. "The movement toward the establishment of agriculture on a scientific basis received its greatest impulse" from the labors of Porter. He wrote: "Principles of Chemistry" (1856); "First Book of Chemistry and Allied Sciences" (1857). In 1868 he published "Selections from the Kalevala," translated by himself. During the Civil War he conducted the Connecticut War Record giving news of Connecticut regiments.
He was a founder of the "Scroll and Key Society," which after his death established in his memory a prize of two hundred and fifty dollars to be given to the student of Yale University writing the best essay on a given subject.
Dr. Porter died at New Haven, August 25, 1866.