apers in
the medical journals also increased his fame and usefulness. It was,
perhaps, his chief distinction as an author, that, being familiar with
the languages of France, Germany and Italy, and personally acquainted
with the living lights of medical science in those countries, and with
the practice which obtained in the chief foreign hospitals, he was among
the first, as he was the most diligent and successful, in translating
the chief works of the European physicians into our language, and
adapting them to our habits and necessities. In 1839, he was appointed
Professor of Physiology in the University of New-York, but he soon
resigned, with his colleagues. In 1840, he received from Governor
Seward, the place of Health Officer and Physician in Chief to the Marine
Hospital, and, with Dr. TURNER, Health Commissioner, and Dr. MCNEVIN,
Resident Physician, constituted the Board of Commissioners of Health,
which then exercised all the functions of the present Commissioners of
Emigration. Fearless and energetic in the discharge of his official
duties, (which he always attended to in person, and not, as the custom
of some is, by deputies), he protected the city from unnecessary fear,
as well as from disease, and presented bills of mortality scarcely
paralleled in the hospitals of the country--averaging but seven per
cent. The Commissioners in general superintendence of the Quarantine, in
reports to the Legislature, awarded to him the highest praise for his
administration, and when, in consequence of a change in the political
character of the government, he was superseded, in 1843, both the Irish
and German Emigrant Societies tendered him expressions of gratitude for
his unwearying zeal and humanity in behalf of the class most dependent
upon his services. In 1848, he was appointed one of the consulting
physicians of the Bellevue Hospital, but declined the office, in
consequence of holding the agreeable and profitable post of physician to
the Astor House. During the prevalence of the cholera in New-York in
1849, he was one of the ward cholera physicians, and devoted himself
with his customary earnestness, to practise among the poor of his
district. In 1850, he was again appointed Health Officer by Governor
Fish, and he discharged his duties until he followed Drs. Treat,
Ledyard, Baily, De Witt, and others, in the sacrifice of his life to
them. He was seized with the ship-fever on the 14th of January, while
inspecting the packet