SMITH, SAMUEL
HANBURY, New
York, was born at Willenhall,
Staffordshire, England, Feb. 15th, 1810. In 1831, after at hree
years' course, lie was graduated M.
D. from University coll., London, taking honors in class
of nature and treatment of disease; during the ensuing summer
and fall was a student at Angers, France, under Billard, and
shortly thereafter established himself in Stockholm, where in
1S34, at the request of the renowned Prof. Berzelius, lie
accepted the position of senior phys. to the Cholera hosp.
during the great epidemic which afflicted that city dining that
year. While residing in Stockholm he was a student in the Royal
med. and chirurg. institute, and from that institution received
in 1S40 the degree of chirurgio magislcr. When he determined to
emigrate to the United States in 1847, m
addition to being unanimously elected a fellow of the Swedish
med. soc, of which he had been an active working member for
several years, he was presented with a certificate of his
graduation as master of surgery from the Royal medico-chirurg.
institute of Stockholm, and of his membership in the Royal coll.
of health. This certificate, which was signed by every member of
the faculty of the institute, highly recommended him to the
profession as a man, a scholar and a doctor. Some idea of the
estimation in which he was held by the profession in Stockholm
may be formed from the fact that Prof. Berzelius arose from a
sick-bed to come down to the steamer to bid him farewell; while
Prof. Retzius, as long as he lived, maintained an active
correspondence with him, and published extracts from Dr. Smith's
letters in Hygica, the organ of the med. soc. in Sweden.
After
arriving in the United States he practiced successively at
Cincinnati, Columbus and Hamilton, Ohio,
finally establishing himself in 1859 in New York. During
the past fifteen years he has been mainly occupied with the
treatment of chronic disease with mineral waters. He is a fellow
of the Swedish med. soc.; member of the
Ohio State med. soc.; of the New York co. med. soc.; of
the Medical Journal asso.; of the acad. of med.; of the acad. of
natural sciences; of the public health asso.; of the Am. public
health assoc.; of the Am. med. asso., etc. He edited, rewriting
much and supplying missing chapters, the second (posthumous)
volume of "Drake's Diseases of the Interior Valley of North
America," contributed to the New York Medical Times ten
papers upon " Mineral Waters," and to the Transactions of the
Swcdi-h med soc. an essay (in the Swedish language) upon "
Laryngismus Stridulus in Hygila." In 1849 he served as health
officer of Cincinnati ; was for some years prof, of the theory
and practice of medicine in Starling
mcil. coll., and in 1850-51-52 was superintendent of the
Ohio State lunatic asylum. He
married (1) June 8th, 1840, Emilie Berg, of Stockholm; and (2)
March 30th, 1S70, A. E. Victoria Starr, of New York.
