DAVIS 292 DAVIS children were born, the eldest of whom was John Staige Davis, who became professor of medicine in the University of Virginia. Dr. Davis died at his home in the university on the 17th of July, 1885, of pneumonia, sec- ondary to hemiplegia, in the sixty-first year of his age. There is a portrait of Dr. Davis in the pos- session of his son. Dr. John Staige Davis, Jr., at the University of Virginia. John H. Claiborne. Sketch of the late John S. Davis, by John H. Claiborne, A. M., M. D., Alumni Bulletin of the University of Virginia, vol. i, No. 3. Trans. Med. See. of Virginia, 1885. Davis, Nathan Smith (1817-1904). Untiring, irrepressible, uncompromising and incorruptible, Nathan Smith Davis occupied for half a century a shining place in the fore- most rank of the medical profession of the United States. He was father of the American Medical Association and author of a "History of Medical Education and Institutions of the United States" (1851). In Chicago, which be- came his adopted home in 1849, he soon dis- tanced all rivals in the race for fame, popu- larity and material success. He was born in Greene, Chenango County, New York, January 9, 1817. His parents, Dow Davis and Eleanor Smith Davis, were pioneers, and the first sixteen years of his life were spent on a farm. Froin early childhood he was spare of habit, his apparently frail body being dominated by an unusually active and tireless mind. His forehead was high and broad, and his head, which seemed- too large for his body, gave external evidence of his chief character- istic, an intense and dominating intellectuality: His intellectual superiority first manifested itself in his work at the village school, and led his father to give him the advantages of a higher course of study at Cazenovia Seminary in Madison County. He began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Daniel Clark of Smithville Flats, and continued it in the office of Dr. Thomas Jackson of Binghamton until he graduated in 1837 from the College of Physicians of Western New York at Fairfield before he was twenty-one years of age. His thesis on "Animal Temperature" was selected by the faculty to be read at the annual com- mencement exercises. Dr. Davis practised in Vienna, New York, 1837-8, and in Binghamton from 1838 to 1847. In 1838 he married Anna Maria Parker of Vienna, New York, by whom he had three chil- dren, a daughter and two sons. Both of the sons became physicians.. The elder, Dr. Frank Davis, showed promise, but died of miliary abscess of the kidneys after about ten years of practice. The younger son. Dr. N. S. Davis 2d, was associated with his father in practice and teaching and, later, succeeded him in North- western University Medical School. A grand- son. Dr. N. S. Davis 3d, is already well started on a successful career. At Binghamton Davis soon became prominent in medical matters. He was secretary of the Broome County Medical Society from 1841 to 1843, librarian from 1843 to 1847, and mem- ber of the board of censors for several years. From 1843 to 1846 he represented the county society in the New York State Society. He offered resolutions at the state society in 1843 calling for a lengthening and grading of the medical course of instruction. The discussions of these resolutions led to the calling of a national medical convention in New York in 1846, the beginning of the American Medical Association. The acquaintance he formed during the time of his activities in the state medical society and in the organization of the American Medical Society and in the organization of the American Association led him to move to New York City in 1847. Here he took charge of the dissecting room of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, lectured on medical jurisprudence in the spring course and took editorial charge of the Annalist, a semi-monthly medical journal. In 1849 he moved to Chicago to accept the professorship of physiology and general path- ology in Rush Medical College. In 1850 he was elected to the chair of the principles and practice of medicine and of clinical medicine. Mercy Hospital, which was opened to the public through his initiative, was the first public hospital in Chicago. In 1851 the Sisters of Mercy took charge of it, and have controlled it since, in affiliation with the Northwestern University. In 1859 he and a few other Rush College professors founded the inedical department of Lind University. Upon the extinction of that college they founded, in 1863, the Chicago Medical College, of which he was professor of the principles and practice of medicine, and later emeritus professor until his death. He was dean of the faculty until he ceased active work in the college. Here his pioneer ideas about systematic medical instruction were car- ried out, and Chicago Medical College became the first medical college to adopt a three years graded course. In the 70's, mainly through his efforts, the college became the medical de- partment of Northwestern University. Dr. Davis was one of those who organized
