POST
tinople and Wilfred M., surgeon at the
American Hospital, Caesarea.
On September 29, 1909, at midnight a long attack of pneumonia gained the victory over the worn body of George Post. He left a place which many could fill for he himself had fitted them so to do.
D. W.
New York Observer, Oct. 7, 1909. New York Evening Post, Oct. 8, 1909. The Mis.sionary Review, New York, Dec, 1909, in which there is a good portrait.
Post, Wright (1766-1828).
Wright Post was born at North Hemp- stead, Long Island, on the nineteenth of February, 1766, and educated at home under a private tutor. Dr. David Bailey, at the age of fifteen, beginning his medical studies with the celebrated surgeon. Dr. Richard Bayley. After four years of hard work, he went to London to con- tinue preparation under Dr. John Shel- don, a celebrated teacher of anatomy and surgery, with whom he lived two years, attending lectures and working in the London Hospital.
In 1786 he returned to New York and began to practise, and in 1787 delivered a course of lectures on anatomy in a spare room of the New York Hospital, where Dr. Bayley was teaching classes in sur- gery. This course was interrupted by the "doctor's mob," which, excited by some scandalous reports concerning "body snatching," broke into the building and destroyed a valuable collection of ana- tomical and pathological specimens. In 1792 the professorship of anatomy and surgery in the college medical school, then held by Dr. Bayley, was divided into two parts, and Dr. Post was made professor of surgery. Meanwhile Dr. Post visited Europe and collected ma- terials for a museum. For half a century this remained one of the largest anatom- ical cabinets in America. Dr. Post per- formed several important surgical opera- tions, the most distinguished of these was the tying of the subclavian artery above the clavicle. In 1792 Dr. Bayley exchanged chairs with Dr. Post, who
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remained professor of anatomy till 1813. When the medical school of Columbia became consolidated with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he became pro- fessor of anatomy and physiology in the new faculty.
He received an honorary M. D. from the LTniversity of the State of New York in 1814. His reputation lies almost entirely in his surgical achievements, for he published few papers of importance. He held a surgeoncy to the New York Hospital; was an active officer of the New York County Medical Society; and from 1820-26 was president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The following accovmt of Post by Valentine Mott gives some idea of the character of the man:
" Wright Post was at that time a man of about forty years of age, tall, hand- some, and of fashionable exterior, wore long whiskers and his hair powdered and tied back in a queue. Those who recollect his thin worn figure in later years, wrapjjed in a furred surtout, could scarcely have recognized in him the elegant gentleman of my early days. Dr. Post had at this time attained to the very highest rank in his profession, both as a physician and surgeon, and although equalled in the extent and renown of his surgical practice by his distinguished colleague in the New York Hospital, Dr. R. S. Ivissam, he stood, perhaps, alone in its lucrative practice and in the esti- mation and confidence of the higher walks of society. He was unrivalled as an anatomist, a most beautiful dissector, and one of the most luminous and per- spicuous teachers I have ever listened to, either at home or abroad. His manners were grave and dignified; he seldom smiled, and never trifled with the serious and responsible duties in which he was engaged, and which no man ever more solemnly respected. His delivery was precise, slow and clear, qualities inesti- mable in a teacher, and peculiarly adapting his instructions to the advance- ment of the junior portion of the class. He was one of the first American pupils
