SMITH 1066 SklTH ity for organization, made his administra- tion a conspicuous success. Only one sur- geon is said to have performed more opera- tions during the war. Except when detached for special service, the doctor remained at this important post during the war. Many stories were told of his quick wit and valu- able work. A drunken soldier levelled his loaded gun at the breast of the surgeon. "Shoulder arms!" sharply ordered the threat- ened official : "ground arms !" — the man mechanically obeyed, and the doctor ordered him under arrest. The brevet of lieutenant- colonel was conferred for his services, and the doctor was tempted to accept a perma- nent position in the regular army. Though fascinated with many phases of army work, he decided to resume practice in Springfield. The soldierly figure of Springfield's most prominent physician was familiar to every- one. Erect, slender, with a step full of force and fire: the big piercing eyes, the fine but warm and nervous face behind a warlike mus- tache — that impetuous, eager face, as of one ready for battle, always left a sharp impres- sion. It took on a sadder cast with the death of the doctor's only boy in 1873, a briglit lad, the passion and joy of his father's life. The intensity of that grief tinged all Dr. Smith's after years, driving him to more unremitting activities, enlarging his profes- sional success, but contributing directly to his untimely death. Dr. Smith visited Europe with profit in 1872 and 1874; in 1873 accepted the professorship of the theory and practice of medicine in Yale, and in 1877 was trans- ferred to the more agreeable chair of sur- gery, formerly filled by his grandfather; his lectures were studiously prepared, and he kept abreast of the times, zealously giving his students the latest discoveries and instru- ments. In 1878-1880 he was vice-president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Personally the doctor was sometimes mis- understood. Dead in earnest, born with a volcanic temper, impatient of dullards and vehement against wrongs, he never stopped to smooth the way with honeyed words. Yet no one had broader sympathies, few wider culture, and the sometime brusque impa- tience of the busy man hid a heart as rev- erent, loving and sensitive as ever beat. Lat- terly the doctor preached and practised a bright habit of cheerfulness, and indulged hap- pily his love of genuine people and good society. He died of pneumonia, December 27, 1880. Springfield Republican, Dec. 27, 1880. A .Memorial Discourse by Noah Porter, 1881, 24 pp. Smith, Elihu Hubbard (1771-1798) Elihu Hubbard Smith, a founder of the first American medical journal, was born in Litch- field, Connecticut, September 4, 1771, and died of yellow fever in New York City, Septem- ber 19, 1798. He was prepared in Litchfield, Conn., and entered Yale College at eleven years of age, and graduated A. B. in the class of 1786. He studied subsequently under the personal supervision of Timothy Dwight, at that time at the head of an academy in Greenfield, Mass., and subsequently successor to Ezra Stiles as president of Yale College. Smith returned to Litchfield, and began to study medicine under his father. In 1791 he went to Philadelphia, Penn., for a medical course, and in 1792 to Wethersfield, Conn., to practise medicine. He lived in New York City from 1793 until his death in 1798. In 1796 he was appointed attending physician to the New York Hospital; in the same year, in co-operation with Samuel L. Mitchill (q. v.) and Edward Miller (q. v.), he founded the Medical Repository (1796), to which he con- tributed many articles, among them a history of the plague of Athens; a case of mania treated by mercury; observations on the origin of the pestilential fever in the Island of Gren- ada in 1793 and 1794; letters to Dr. William Buel, of Sheffield, Mass., on the fever which prevailed in New York in 1793, published in Noah Webster's collection of papers on the subject of bilious fevers; on the pestilential diseases in the Athenian, Carthaginian and Roman armies near Syracuse; and letters on yellow fever in New York. Dr. Smith also contributed to general litera- ture ; "American poems selected and original" ; an opera, in three acts, entitled "Edwin and Angelina," or the "Banditti" (179S) ; an epistle to the author of the botanic garden in the year 1798; a poetic address; the his- tory of the native American elk; a drama called "Andre," a tragedy in five acts, pro- duced in New York in 1798 (this was written anonymously, but concensus of opinion ascribed it to Dr. Smith). While thus busy with professional and literary occupations, when only twenty-seven years of age, he suddenly took sick with yel- low fever and died. During this epidemic in New York City, Dr. Smith received into his home his friend, Dr. Scandella, who, taken ill suddenly, could find no lodging. The dis- ease was yellow fever and he died shortly; Dr. Smith also was smitten and died in the
