LEE 689 LEE the earliest information of the plans of the British Ministry. When instructions were sent to Gov. Bernard, Lee communicated their na- ture to the patriots of Boston. In 1775 he was in London as agent of Vir- ginia, and presented to the King in August of that year the second petition from Congress. When Jefferson declined the position, Lee was appointed minister to France, and joined his colleagues, Dr. Franklin and Mr. Deane, at Paris in December, 1776. History deals fully with the dissentions which arose between Lee and his colleag'ues resulting in his return to America. So unquestioned was his integrity, he found no difficulty in reinstating himself in the opinion of the public, and in 1784 was appointed one of the commissioners for holding a treaty with the Indians of the Six Nations, a trust which he executed with much honor to himself. In 1790 he was ad- mitted a counsellor of the Supreme Court of the LTnited States by a special order. He died after a short illness December 12, 1792, at Urbanna, Middlesex County, Virginia. His published articles were mostly of a po- litical nature, and consisted of "The Monitor's Letters," written in 1769 in vindication of the colonial rights, "Extracts from a letter to Con- gress, in answer to a Libel by Silas Deane," 1780; and "Observations on Certain Commer- cial Transactions in France," laid before Con- gress in 1780. ^^^^^^ j^ Slaughter. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., N. Y., 1887. Lee, Benjamin (1833-1913) Benjamin Lee, a pioneer orthopedist and a sanitarian, was born at Norwich, Conn., Sept. 26, 1833, his father being the Rt. Rev. Alfred Lee, D. D., Bishop of Delaware, while among his maternal ancestors was Judge Trumbull of Connecticut, the patriot poet of the Revolution. After receiving his primary education at the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia, he entered the collegiate department of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating A. B. in 1852, and A. M. in 1855, and Ph. D. in 1876, after attend- ing courses of the Auxiliary Faculty of Med- icine of that University in 1874-5 and 1878. He attended lectures at Jeflferson Medical Col- lege in 1853-4 and at the New York Medical College in 1854-55-56, obtaining his M. D. from the latter institution in 1856, and receiving a prize for his thesis on "The Mechanics of Medicine." After a service of two years in the hospitals of New York he further prosecuted his studies in Paris and Vienna, and was sec- retary of the American Medical Society in Paris in 1858. Returning to this country he established himself in general practice in New York City, and while in that city was a mem- ber of the Medical Society of both county and state. In 1863 he became associated with Charles F. Taylor (q. v.) in the treat- ment of deformities and spinal affections by mechanical agencies, and in 1865 removed to Philadelphia, continuing the practice of or- thopedics and the treatment of nervous dis- eases, and especially devoting himself to the development of mechanical therapeutics in connection with these classes of affections. During June, July, and August, 1862, and July, 1863, he served as surgeon in the U. S. Army, being attached to the 22nd regiment, New York National Guard. In 1885 Dr. Lee was appointed a member of the newly created State Board of Health, of which he was elected secretary, a position which he continued to fill until that board was superseded by the Department of Health in 1905, when he became assistant to the com- missioner. From 1893 to 1905 he was secre- tary of the State Quarantine Board. He su- pervised the sanitary and medical service in and about Johnstown, Ohio, after the great floods of 1889. In that year he was appointed United States commissioner for the condemnation of land for quarantine purposes at the mouth of Delaware Bay, and in 1891 Governor Beaver appointed him a member of the Quarantine Commission to select a site for a new station on the Delaware River or Bay. In 1898-99 he was health officer of the City and Port of Philadelphia. He was a member of the Philadelphia Coun- ty Medical Society, of which he was corre- sponding secretary in 1875 and vice-president in 1876; of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania, of which he was elected treas- urer in 1873, and of the American Medical Association. His most important production as a medical author was his work, "The Cor- rect Principles of Treatment for Angular Cur- vature of the Spine," 1872. During 1862 he was editor of the American Medical Monthly. He was president of the American Academy of Medicine, the American Public Health As- sociation, and the American Orthopedic As- sociation. He was married, April 5. 1859, to Emma Hale, daughter of Norman White of New York. Dr. Lee died at Point Pleasant, New Jersey, July 11, 1913. Phys. & Surgs of the U. S., W. B. Atkinson, 1878. Penn. Med. Jour., 1912-13, vol. xvi, pp. 887-888. Portrait. Who's Who in Amer., 1912-13, vol. vii.
