probably the earliest medical society in the country. It was patterned after Dr. Fothergill's London society apparently and, according to Peter Middleton, was in existence twenty years later.
In 1795 Dr. Bard, then being in his eightieth year, gave an address before the state medical society calling attention to the presence of yellow fever in the city, meeting much opposition and some obloquy by so doing. Nevertheless, his advice as to treatment of this dread disease—sweating the patient—proved more successful than other methods. In 1798 he gave up practice and retired to Hyde Park where he died, March 30, 1799, at the age of 83. His charm of conversation, vivacity and cheerfulness never forsook him and thus he passed to the great beyond, admired, respected and beloved.
Bard, Samuel (1742–1821)
Samuel Bard, president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, was born in Philadelphia on the first of April, 1742. His father was John Bard, afterwards a physician of New York, and memorable for being the first person who performed a dissection and taught anatomy by demonstration on this side of the Atlantic. His mother was a Miss Valleau, a niece of Dr. Kearsley of Philadelphia, and likewise a descendant of the Protestant refugees. At the time of Dr. Bard's birth his father was practising in Philadelphia; but at the urgent solicitation of Dr. Franklin, he removed with his family to New York when Samuel was in his fourth year. Samuel received the rudiments of education in New York, at a grammar school; and at the age of fourteen years entered King's College under the private pupilage of Dr. Cutting. While at college he gave some attention to the study of medicine and afterwards regularly devoted himself to the profession under his father. About this time he imbibed his taste for botany from Miss Jane Colden, daughter of the then lieutenant-governor of the province and a correspondent of Linneaeus, Coldenia bearing its name in the Linneaean catalogue in her honor. She instructed Samuel during his occasional visits to the family and he repaid her attentions by drawing and coloring plants and. flowers for her. In the fall of 1760 he sailed for Europe; but being captured by a French privateer he was taken to Bayonne, and confined six months in the castle. Upon his release in the spring of 1761 he immediately proceeded to London. He was now, at the recommendation of Dr. Fothergill, received into St. Thomas' Hospital as the assistant of Dr. Alexander Russell, and continued in that capacity until his departure for Edinburgh. He graduated in 1765, after having defended and published an inaugural essay "de viribus opii;" and left Edinburgh loaded with honor, in consequence of having obtained the prize offered by Dr. Hope for the best herbarium of the indigenous vegetables of Scotland.
In 1765 he returned to his native country, married his cousin, Mary Bard, and began practice in New York in partnership with his father.
Dr. Bard had written to his father from Edinburgh that New York should have a medical college and after three years' residence at home he gained the cooperation of Drs. Clossy, Jones, Middleton, Smith and Tennent, instead of the younger practitioners he had first in mind, and in 1768 the school was established and united to King's College, Bard becoming professor of the theory and practice of physic at the age of twenty-eight. In his address at the first commencement in 1769 he so moved his auditors that a substantial subscription was raised for the benefit of the school, the Governor heading the list. Dr. Bard continued to serve the institution for forty years, the last twenty as trustee and dean of the faculty of physic.
On the commencement of hostilities in 1776, Dr. Bard's political principles being odious to the generality of the community, he thought it prudent to retire to Shrewsbury, New Jersey. He there occupied himself in making salt; but not succeeding to his satisfaction, and being unable to support his family comfortably, he returned to New York on its being taken possession of by the British troops. He immediately regained the lucrative practice he had left, and was so successful in business that at the end of the war he possessed a handsome independence. The high character which Dr. Bard maintained at this period cannot be better shown than by the fact that, notwithstanding political differences (and party-spirit was the ruling principle of the day), he was the family physician of General Washington during his residence in New York.
After several abortive attempts by the re-
