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afterwards he was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the United States Navy in which he served for eighteen years with much distinction. He was promoted to passed assistant surgeon in 1871, and to surgeon in 1876, and resigned his commission June IS, 1SS4. Dr. Kidder was recognized as one of the most accomphshed and efficient surgeons in his corps. He became specially interested in chemical and physical research and he was ordered to join the scientific party sent out by the United States Government to ob- serve the transit of Venus at Ker- guelen island, in 1874. On his return to Washington he studied the material which he had collected at the Smith- sonian Institution. Dr. Kidder was a contributor to the National Medical Dictionary compiled under the editor- ial supervision of Dr. John S. Billings. His principal scientific papers have appeared as follows: Those relating to sanitary and kindred subjects, in the reports of the surgeon-general of the navy from 1879 to 1882; the "Proceedings of the Naval Medi- cal Society for 1884;" the "Reports of the Forty-eighth Congress," and the "Report of the Smithsonian Institu- tion for 1884"; on the natural history of Kerguelen island, in " Bulletins Nos. 2 and 3 of the National Museum," published in 1875 and 1876; on fishery matters, in the "Reports and Bulletins of the Fish Commission" subsequent to 1883; and on chem- istry and physics in the publications of various scientific societies. He died suddenly from pneumonia in his forty-seventh year. C. A. P.
Bull. Philog. Soc, Washington, 1S92, xi. Minutes Med. Soc, D. C, Apr. 17, 1SS9. Nat. Med.-Biog., Phila., 1890. Bull. Philosophical Soc, D. C, 1892. vol. xi.
Kilty, William (1758-1821).
This Maryland army surgeon, who united in himself the two professions of medicine and law, was born in Lon- don, 1758, and received his literary education at St. Omar's College in
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France. He studied medicine with Dr. Edward Johnson, of Annapolis, and in April, 1778, proceeded to Wilming- ton, Delaware, where he retained the appointment of surgeon's mate in the Fourth Maryland Regiment (Laffell and Scars'). He was appointed sur- geon of the regiment. He was cap- tured at the Battle of Camden, and in the Spring of 1781 returned to An- napolis, where he remained until the close of the war, owing to his failure to obtain an exchange. He then studied law. In 1798 he was author- ized by act of Legislature to compile the statutes of the state, and in com- pliance with this he prepared and published, in 1800, the two volumes known as "Kilty's Laws." He settled in Washington the same year, and in 1801 was appointed by president Adams, chief judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. Some time after this he returned to Maryland and was appointed by the governor, chancellor of that state in 1806.
In 1818, by authority of the Legis- lature, he published with Harris and Watkins, a continuation of Kilty's Laws. He died at Annapolis, October 10, 1821.
Kilty seems to have been a man of quiet, unassuming life, and his great- est interest was no doubt in his pro- fessional and judicial work. At the same time he was very patriotic and took a deep interest in the welfare of his state and country.
His most important work was his "Report on the British Statutes in Force in Maryland."
Kilty was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Mr. Allan McSherry, a great-great nephew, has a portrait of him made during the Revolution. E. F. C.
See Proceedings of Maryland Bar Association, "The High Court of Chancery and the Chancellors of Maryland," by Wm. L. Mar- bury, LL.B.; also "Old Maryland," ii, 5, May, 1906.
