Birth: ?
Death: ?
Occupation:

Associated Counties

• Baltimore City

Directories

Birth: 1718 ca.
Death: 1785
Occupation: doctor

Associated Counties

• Baltimore City

Directories

Additional Information

• Dates: 1745
  Notes: “Drs. John and Henry Stevenson (brothers) arrived from Ireland. The first engages in commerce (see obit Jno. Stevenson in Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advocate, March 25, 1785, which states that he had been a resident of Baltimore fortyyears).”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 12
• Dates: 1776
  Notes: Served in Maryland State Constitutional Convention, 1776
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 249
• Dates: 1776
  Notes: “Dr. John Stevenson elected delegate to house of Delegates (also 1777, ‘9, 80, ‘3, ‘5).”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 14
• Dates: 1785
  Notes: “Dr. John Stevenson, the founder of the commerce of Baltimore, ob. aet. 67.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 16
• Dates: 1785
  Notes: Deaths: Drs. John Stevenson, the founder of the Commerce of Baltimore, aet. 67; Ephraim Andrews.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 662

Birth: ?
Death: ?
Occupation: apothecary

Associated Counties

• Baltimore City

Directories

Birth: 1797, May 21
Death: 1877, Jul. 3
Occupation: doctor

Associated Counties

• Baltimore City

Directories

Additional Information

• Dates:
  Notes: Medical Board, Consulting Surgeon, Baltimore Charity Eye and Ear Dispensary
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 255
• Dates:
  Notes: See also:
  Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature. British and American authors living and deceased from the earliest accounts to the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. Three volumes. By S. Austin Allibone. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1858-1871. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1965. (Alli)

  American Biographies. By Wheeler Preston. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1974. (AmBi)

  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Six volumes. Edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888-1889. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1968. (ApCAB)

  Biographical Dictionary of Southern Authors. Compiled by Lucian Lamar Knight. Atlanta: Martin & Hoyt Co., 1929. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1978. Originally published as “Library of Southern Literature, Volume 15, Biographical Dictionary of Authors.” (BiDSA)

  Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 1: January, 1946-July, 1949. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1949. (BioIn 1)

  A Dictionary of American Authors. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged. By Oscar Fay Adams. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1969. Biographies are found in the “Dictionary of American Authors” section which begins on page 1 and in the “Supplement” which begins on page 441. (DcAmAu)

  Dictionary of American Biography. Volumes 1-20. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928-1936. (DcAmB)

  Dictionary of American Medical Biography. Lives of eminent physicians of the United States and Canada, from the earliest times. By Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1928. Reprint. Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands: Longwood Press, 1979. (DcAmMeB)

  Dictionary of American Medical Biography. Two volumes. Edited by Martin Kaufman, Stuart Galishoff, and Todd L. Savitt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. (DcAmMeB 84)

  A Dictionary of North American Authors Deceased before 1950. Compiled by W. Stewart Wallace. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1951. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1968. (DcNAA)

  Index to Scientists of the World from Ancient to Modern Times. Biographies and portraits. By Norma Olin Ireland. Boston: F.W. Faxon Co., 1962. (InSci)

  The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Volume 3. New York: James T. White & Co., 1891. Reprint. Volumes 1-50. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1967-1971. Use the Index to locate biographies. (NatCAB 3)

  Who Was Who in America. A component volume of “Who’s Who in American History.” Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Revised Edition. Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1967. (WhAm HS)
  Source:

• Dates: 1797-1877
  Notes: Nathan Ryno Smith wasa the second of the four sons of Dr. Nathan Smith (q.v.), the distinguished New England surgeon and founder of Dartmouth and Yale College Medical Schools. The name “Ryno” was derived from the Poems of Ossian, a favorite author of his mother. He was born on May 21, 1797, in the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, where his father had been practicing for ten years. After having received a preliminary training at Dartmouth, he entered Yale as a freshman in 1813 and graduated A.B. in 1817, at the age of twenty and in 1823 received from Yale College the degree of M.D., in his inaugural thesis defending the view that the effects of remedies and diseases are due to absorption into the blood and not to an impression on the nervous system, as many eminent writers then maintained. He continues his experiments on this subject, and his publications in 1827 are referred to by Dr. Alfred Stille (q.v.) in his work on “Therapeutics,” vol. i, p. 51.

  He began practice at Burlington, Vermont, in 1824, and in the following year he was appointed to the professorship of surgery and anatomy in the University of Vermont.

  While in Philadelphia he met Dr. George McClelan (q.v.), anatomist and surgeon, who was then giving private instruction in that city to large classes. This gentleman and others were then engaged in organizing a new medical school, the Jefferson Medical College. Being impressed by the ability and acquirements of Dr. Smith, they invited him to join them and offered him the chair of anatomy, and he accepted.

  In 1825 he published at New York an “Essay on Digestion” of ninety-three pages and after his settling at Philadelphia, edited in 1825-26, with the cooperation of his faterh, the “American Medical Review.” In June, 1827, he founded a medical periodical entitled the Philadelphia Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, which was continued into the following year and then merged into the American Journal of the Medical Sciences.

  In 1827, Dr. Smith’s connection with Jefferson Medical College was severed by his acceptance of the chair of surgery in the University of Maryland, made vacant by the withdrawal of Granville Sharp Pattison (q.v.). With this event commenced Dr. Smith’s long and eventful career of fifty years at Baltimore, terminating only with his death in 1877.

  In 1829 appeared his work on “Diseases of the Internal Ear,” being a translation from the French of J.A. Saissy, with a supplement of twenty pages by himself, on “Diseases of the External Ear.” In 1830 he issued a journal, entitled The Baltimore Monthly Journal, the first number of which appeared in February. It continued until the end of the year, when it ceased on account of lack of support. In the September and October numbers appeared a noteworthy article, entitled “Description of an Apparatus for the Treatment of Fractures of the Thigh and Leg, by Smith’s Anterior Splint.” One-half of the original matter of the volume of 510 pages consisted of contributions by Smith. The Medical and Surgical Memoir (of Nathan Smith, his father), appeared in 1831 with a memoir by N.R. Smith.

  He was for many years a collaborator and frequent contributor to the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. He also wrote many articles for a journal published at Baltimore by Prof. E. Geddings of the University of Maryland, from 1833 to 1835; for the Maryland and Virginia Medical Journal, 1860-61, of which Dr. W. Chew Van Bibber was a co-editor, and for the Baltimore Medical Journal, founded in 1870 by Drs. Howard and Latimer. In 1832 appeared his great work on the “Surgical Anatomy of the Arteries,” quarto, of which a second edition appared in 1835.

  In 1867 he published a small volume of seventy pages, giving a description of the method of using his “Anterior Suspensory Apparatus in the Treatment of Fractures of the Lower Extremity, with Cuts and Diagrams.” And finally he issued a little duo-decimo in 1869, which he called “Legends of the South, by Somebody Who wishes to be Considered Nobody.” early in his career at Baltimore he conceived the idea of writing a work on “Surgery” with good cuts, and did from time to time compose a large part of it, bit it remained at his death among his unfinished papers.

  In 1867, when seventy years old, he made his first and only visit to Europe. Although he sought in it only relaxation from his labors and amusement, he naturally visited many of the great European hospitals. His reputation had preceded him everywhere and he was received with the greatest deference, Sir James Paget in London being particularly attentive and the French surgeons giving him the title of the “Nestor of American Surgery.”

  He continued his active work at the University for two years longer, when he resigned and was made emeritus professor and president of the Faculty. In 1870 he was elected president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, and the following year was reelected to the same office, special provision being made in his case for this unusual honor. Not long after this, painful disease and infirmities of age began to oppress him. He still attended to office consultations, wrote upon his surgery, found pleasure in reviewing the classics, especially Homer and Virgil, and, above all, found that satisfaction and peace in the Christian religion which philosophy and science had been unable to secure for him. Thus engaged, the painful disease of the bladder from which he suffered slowly advanced and finally mastered his vigorous constitution on the third of July, 1877, a few weeks after he had passed his eightieth year.

  He always lectured without notes and in slow, deliberate fashion. His voice of a medium pitch and distinct, though not strong. He indulged in story and humor, whenever the opportunity permitted, although he was never coarse, profane or obscene. The portrait of him at the university is an admirable likeness, and represents him in his characteristic attitude while lecturing.
  Source: Kelly, Howard A. and Burrage, Walter J., American Medical Biographies Baltimore: Norman, Remington Company: 1076-1077

• Dates: 1827/03/13
  Notes: Dr. Nathan R. Smith, of Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, elected to the Chair of Surgery in the University of Maryland, vice Prof Granville S. Pattison, who had gone to London the year before (March 13).
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 689
• Dates: 1827/03/13
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith elected to Chair of Surgery, vice Pattison, at Medical University.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 33
• Dates: 1827-38, 1840-70, 1873-77
  Notes: Professor, University of Maryland School of Medicine
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (1807-1890), with an Introductory Chapter, Notices of the Schools of Law, Arts and Sciences, and Theology, and the Department of Dentistry, and a General Catalog of Medical Alumni Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 210
• Dates: 1828
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith performs myotomy subcutaneously for torticollis.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 34
• Dates: 1828
  Notes: Prof. N. R. Smith performs myotomy for torticollis.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 690
• Dates: 1828-29, 1841
  Notes: Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (1807-1890), with an Introductory Chapter, Notices of the Schools of Law, Arts and Sciences, and Theology, and the Department of Dentistry, and a General Catalog of Medical Alumni Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 209
• Dates: 1829
  Notes: “Medical and Chirurigcal Faculty of Maryland meet, N.R. Smith, Orator.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 34
• Dates: 1829/06/01
  Notes: Medical and Chirurgical Faculty meets at Baltimore; Prof. N. R. Smith, orator (June 1).
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 691
• Dates: 1830
  Notes: Prof. N. R. Smith publishes account of posterior suspensory splint for treatment of fractures of leg; also of instruments for seizing arteries in ligating.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 691
• Dates: 1830
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith first published his appartus for treating fractures of the leg by a posterior suspensory splint (Balt. M.J. of Med. and Surg., Sept. 1829). He also invents an instrument for seizing arteries in the application of a ligature (ibid. Feb.).”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 34
• Dates: 1830/02/01
  Notes: Prof. N. R. Smith begins publication of The Baltimore Monthly Journal of Medicine (February 1).
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 691
• Dates: 1831
  Notes: Dr. N. R. Smith invents his lithotomy gorget.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 692
• Dates: 1831/03
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith invents his Lithotomy Gorget.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 35
• Dates: 1832
  Notes: Prof. N. R. Smith publishes his work on “The Surgical Anatomy of the Arteries.”
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 692
• Dates: 1834/03
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith performed his twenty-third operation of Lithotomy; all successful; calculus in one case weighed nearly 8 oz.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 35
• Dates: 1838
  Notes: Dr. N. R. Smith removes the parotid gland; resigns his Chair at the University of Maryland and accepts Chair of Practice at Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 695
• Dates: 1838
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith resigns his chair in the Maryland Medical University, and accepts that of Practice in Transylvania University, Ky.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 36
• Dates: 1838/12
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith removes the entire Parotid Gland (American Journal of Medical Science,/I>, Nov. 1838).”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 36
• Dates: 1840-41
  Notes: Lecturer, University of Maryland School of Medicne
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (1807-1890), with an Introductory Chapter, Notices of the Schools of Law, Arts and Sciences, and Theology, and the Department of Dentistry, and a General Catalog of Medical Alumni Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 210
• Dates: 1841
  Notes: Prof. N. R. Smith remumes the Chair of Surgery at the University. — Instruction given there in auscultation and percussion for the first time by Dr. Wm. Power.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 697
• Dates: 1841
  Notes: “Dr. N.R. Smith re-elected to his former chair, Surgery, in Medical University.”
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 37
• Dates: 1843
  Notes: Impeachment and trial of Professor Richard Wilmot Hall by his colleagues at the University of Maryland for incompetency and violation of regulations. He is acquitted by the Regents. A personal encounter follows between him and Prof. N. R. Smith.
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 698
• Dates: 1846/06/01
  Notes: Annual Convention of Medical and Chirurgical Faculty held at Baltimore; Dr. N. R. Smith delivers the annual oration (June 1).
  Source: Cordell, Eugene Fauntleroy, Medical Annals of Maryland 1799-1899 Baltimore: The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty for the State of Maryland: 700
• Dates: 1860
  Notes: Dr. N. R. Smith makes public his Anterior Suspensory Splint for fractures of lower extremity.
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 42
• Dates: 1867
  Notes: Dr. N. R. Smith invents a new metallic snare for ligation of arteries
  Source: Quinan, John Russell, Medical Annals of Baltimore from 1608 to 1880, including Events, Men and Literature to which is added a Subject Index and Record of Public Services Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald: 44