was also a copious contributor to medical journals, chiefly on insanity.
His most celebrated book was his "Elements of Medical Jurisprudence," a monumental work which appeared in 1823. At once it attracted the attention of the medico-legal world and has not ceased to be an authority both at home and in Europe. An English edition appeared in 1825—two years after the first American edition, and by the time of the author's decease, four English, one German and five American editions had been issued. Since the author's death, another American, and even a Swedish edition, have been brought forth. At the present moment, copies of Beck's "Medical Jurisprudence," when they appear on the bookseller's shelves, which they do but seldom, are snapped up eagerly. Traill, the great Scotch legal physician, called this treatise, "the best work on the general subject which has appeared in the English language." The famous Guy acknowledges his obligations in a special manner to Beck's learned and elaborate "Elements of Medical Jurisprudence;" and at a later day, Prof. Rudolph A. Witthaus declared this scientific classic "facile princeps among English works on legal medicine … as admirable for scholarly elegance of diction as for profound scientific research."
Dr. Beck was a man of massive build, dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed and possessed of an extremely gentle and sympathetic manner.
He was a voluminous reader, not only of scientific publications, but also of history, poetry, fiction, and, in fact, of every sort and variety of literature that was sound, sensible, and interesting. He delighted, when at work, to surround himself with great piles of books, whether he happened to need those particular volumes at the time or not, merely from the joy of having his darlings stacked about him.
He was an earnest and active Christian, nor did his ardent faith forsake him when, after a long and painful illness, he died on the nineteenth of November, 1855, at the age of sixty-four.
Bedford, Gunning S. (1806–1870)
Gunning Bedford, born in Baltimore, Maryland, 1806, was an author and physician and the great nephew of the famous Gunning Bedford, of Delaware, of revolutionary distinction.
Dr. Bedford graduated in 1825 at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmetsburg, Maryland, and after graduating his first idea was to study law. With that resolve he left Baltimore with letters of introduction to Daniel Webster, intending to study with him. However, he met an enthusiastic acquaintance who had just begun the study of medicine. This acquaintance persuaded him before going to visit Mr. Webster to go with him and hear Dr. John D. Godman lecture. They went. Bedford was charmed and carried away with the eloquence of Godman and determined at once to become his pupil.
He graduated at Rutgers Medical College in his twenty-third year. Shortly after (1829) he married and made an extended visit to Europe, where he remained two years, visiting the hospitals, and shortly after his return to America was appointed, in 1833, professor to the Charleston Medical College, South Carolina, and subsequently professor at the Medical College in Albany. Remaining there but a short time, he determined to visit New York City and make that place the field of his future exertions.
He assisted Dr. Martyn Paine (q.v.) in founding the University Medical College, and was aided in this by one of his former preceptors—afterwards his colleague—Valentine Mott (q.v.). The faculty consisted of Pattison, Paine, Draper, Revere, Mott and Bedford.
He was professor of obstetrics and diseases of women from 1841 to 1864, when he was compelled, on account of ill health, to resign. He was the first professor who ever held an obstetric clinic in the United States.
His works, which were among the most popular of the day, were "Diseases of Women and Children" (1855) and the "Principles and Practice of Obstetrics" (1861). The former went through ten editions, the latter through five, and have been translated into French and German and were adopted generally as text-books throughout the United States and Europe. His earliest effort was the translation of Baudelocque's "Treatise on Puerperal Peritonitis" into English (1831), and in 1844 Chaillé's "Treatise on Midwifery."
He died in New York City September 5, 1870, leaving a widow and three sons, two of whom followed the profession of their father.
