state institutions for the blind, and it was through his influence and labor as president of its board of visitors from 1871–80 that it was made one of the foremost institutions of its kind in America.
In 1861 he was made president of the Kentucky branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. It was while assisting this work at Shiloh, caring for the sick and wounded, that his wife, who was Susanne Hewitt, a woman of many charms whom he had married in 1833, contracted a sickness from which she never recovered. They had only one son, Hewitt, who died a year before his father.
Dr. Bell was strongly antagonistic to calomel. At first he was a follower of his teacher, Prof. John Esten Cooke (q.v), the originator of the famous Cooke's pills, but having lost some of his patients in a horrible condition of salivation, he turned against mercury with all his ardent nature and afterwards sent out many a class of students sharing his aversion. His writings included:
"On E. S. Gaillard, M. D., editor of the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal, professor of general pathology and pathological anatomy in the Kentucky School of Medicine"; a lecture upon the "Pre-historic Ages of Scandinavia and of the Lacustrine Dwellers of Switzerland, in Connection with the Progress of Mankind under Divine Guidance," Louisville, 1869; "A Pseudo-critic Unmasked," in a review of the writings of E. S. Gaillard, Louisville, 1869, reprinted from Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1869; memorial address upon "The Life and Service of Lunsford Pitts Yandell, M. D." Louisville, Kentucky, 1878.
Bellinger, John (1804–1860)
John Bellinger was born in St. Bartholomew's Parish, South Carolina, in 1804. His father, Dr. John Bellinger, a worthy and esteemed physician, was the descendant of an old English family, which settled at an early date, under the proprietary government, in Charleston. He began the study of medicine in this city, under the elder North. His first two courses of lectures on medicine were followed at the then recently established medical college of the State of South Carolina; but his preparatory training was completed in Philadelphia, where he enjoyed the private tuition of Dr. Physick (q.v.), and attended at the University of Pennsylvania, from whose medical department he received his diploma in 1826.
In 1848, when Dr. S. H. Dickson accepted a call to the University of New York, Dr. Bellinger's high reputation at once singled him out as the fittest successor as professor of surgery. In 1846 he did a deliberate hysteromyomectomy on a colored woman, using "animal ligatures." This patient died of peritonitis on the fifth day.
As a teacher of medicine, he was ready and erudite. As a writer, his style was terse and direct; his expression forcible and idiomatic, and his thought always characterized by independence, originality and vigor.
He died in Charleston, South Carolina, on the thirteenth day of August, 1860, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
Bellisle, Henry (1675–1717)
Henry Bellisle was the first physician at Detroit Post under the French flag. Nothing is known of his ancestry or exact date of birth except that he was born in France and received such general and professional education as would induce the French government to place him in Cadillac's expedition to found Detroit. In the records of St. Anne's Church in Detroit he first appears as godfather at the baptism of a daughter of Margaret Roy, a Huron Indian, April 27, 1704. From that date till April 4, 1711, he is occasionally recorded as godfather at baptisms or witness at marriages and then he disappears from the records. It is quite likely that in 1715 he was transferred to another French military post, for his successor appears first in the church records of that year. While we have no definite information of his equipment for practice he must have ranked above the average of the profession in France.
Dr. Bellisle was married three times, once before coming to Detroit, once in Detroit, and once at Pointe aux Trembles, Quebec. His second wife died in Detroit. Three children were born after leaving Detroit.
Belt, Edward Oliver (1861–1906)
Edward Oliver Belt was born May 19, 1861, at Rock Hall, near Dickerson, Frederick County, Maryland, the son of John Lloyd and Sarah Elenora McGill Belt. His father was a farmer. The Hon. William Burgess, an ancester, had brought a colony to Maryland and founded the town of South River. He attended public schools and Frederick College, Maryland, and studied medicine with
