Biographical memoir of John Shaw Billings, 1838-1913 / by S. Weir Mitchell; with The scientific work of John Shaw Billings by Fielding H. Garrison. Presented to the Academy at the annual meeting, 1916.

  • Silas Weir Mitchell
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Biographical memoir of John Shaw Billings, 1838-1913 / by S. Weir Mitchell; with The scientific work of John Shaw Billings by Fielding H. Garrison. Presented to the Academy at the annual meeting, 1916. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/50 page 375
    MEMOIR OF JOHN SHAW BILLINGS BY S. WEIR MITCHELL. It has been the custom of the National Academy of Sciences to commemorate in memoirs those whom death has removed from its ranks. Since the lives of men of science are little known except to those engaged in their own lines of research, some record is the more to be desired of one who illustrated the fact that scientific capacity may exist with varied ability for the conduct of large affairs. This combination of talents has been often found in the ranks of the Academy, although, in the belief of the public, the man of science is presumed to be inca¬ pable of the successful management of commercial business. The many tasks to which his life of work summoned the subject of this memoir have become, since his death, for the first time so widely known that it is unnecessary for me to do more than to put on paper a brief summary of his career and the reasons for his election to this distinguished body of men of science, where from 1887 to 1899 he rendered efficient service as our treasurer and served^ on eight important com¬ mittees or as a member of our council. The life of our fellow member in fact neieds less restatement from us because since he died at least a half dozen men of importance have recorded their opinions of this attractive and much-loved man and of what he effected during his ever busy existence. Moreover, a full and competent biography has been undertaken and will, I am sure, do ample justice to one who owed nothing to news¬ paper notoriety. Through his modest life of the labor he loved he accepted grave burdens and whatever duties, official or other, fell to him, apparently indifferent to praise or popu¬ lar reputation, while he dealt victoriously with tasks so various in their nature that any one of them would have sufficed to tax the technical competence of the most able man. John Shaw Billings was born in Switzerland County, Indiana, April 12, 1838. From the time he went to college until after the end of his medical studies he was almost entirely
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