The Biographical Dictionary of America/Agnew, Corenlius Rea

AGNEW, Cornelius Rea, physician, was born in New York city, Aug. 8, 1830. He was graduated at Columbia college in 1849 and received the degree of M.D. from the New York college of physicians and surgeons in 1852, and became house surgeon, and later curator, at the New York hospital. He went to Europe for special study in his profession, and on his return was appointed surgeon to the New York eye and ear infirmary. He was appointed surgeon-general of the state of New York in 1858; served in the civil war as director of the New York state volunteer hospital; and was a member of the United States sanitary commission. He was instrumental, in 1868, in the founding of an ophthalmic clinic in the college of physicians and surgeons, of which he was in 1869 appointed professor and lecturer. In 1868 he founded the Brooklyn, and in 1869 the Manhattan eye and ear hospitals. He served as a public school trustee and was president of the board; was one of the managers of the New York state hospital for the insane at Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; one of the trustees of Columbia college, and was active in organizing its school of mines. The State medical society elected him president in 1872. He prepared many papers relating to the eye and ear, and published in the current medical journals, also, a "Series of American Clinical Lectures," edited by E.C. Sequin, M.D. (1875), besides numerous brief monographs. He died April 18, 1888.