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There are few names in the Annals of American Medical
Biography deserving of more honorable mention than
that of John Stearns. Not that his achievements in his
profession were either bold or brilliant, but that through a
long life he devoted himself with unwearied assiduity to
the care of the sick, and to advancing the interests, and
contributing to the science of a noble profession. His eminent
position among men distinguished in professional life
was not suddenly thrust upon him, but gained as the reward
of unceasing application in the work to which his life
was set apart.
John Stearns was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, on
the 16th day of May, 1770. He was early fitted for college,
and was graduated at Yale with distinguished honor in
1789. His medical studies were prosecuted with Dr. Erastus
Sergeant of Stockbridge until 1792, when he went to
Philadelphia and attended the lectures of Shippen, Wistar,
Rush, and others at the University. The year following,
in 1793, he entered upon practice, near Waterford in the
county of Saratoga, New York, where in 1797 he married
a daughter of Colonel Hezekiah Ketchum. Dr. Stearns pursued the ordinary duties of his profession
with success, and more than this, the energies of a vigorous
mind, and the sympathies of a generous heart were cordially
enlisted to elevate the dignity, and extend the usefulness
of his profession, to incite vigorous measures for a radical
reform among its members, and to relieve it from the
odium of ignorance and empiricism. He believed, and
well, that as the public mind became enlightened, it would
abstain from the dangers of charlatanry. A series of newspaper
articles appeared in Saratoga, relative to the importance
of establishing Medical Societies, and a society was
instituted in the county of Saratoga, about the year 1800,
but it was composed of discordant materials for a scientific
body, and was ultimately dissolved.
In November, 1805, a meeting was held at Ballston inviting
the cooperation of the physicians of the adjoining
counties of Washington and Montgomery, and a printed
circular was issued calling the attention of the profession
to the importance of legislation on the subject. The leading
spirit in this enterprise was John Stearns of Saratoga.
Associated with him were William Patrick and Grant
Powell. The meeting was adjourned to January 16th,
1806, when the friends of the measure met and memorialized
the legislature, for the establishment of a medical society.
The memorial did not at first contemplate that it
should embrace more than the three counties of Saratoga,
Montgomery, and Washington. Fortunately for the cause
of science, Dr. Alexander Sheldon of Montgomery was
elected speaker of the assembly in 1806. The memorial
was referred to a committee of the house, a majority of
which were medical men, who upon examining the subject
became at once in favor of making a general law for the
whole state. A bill was matured and presented to the
house, and strange to record, it met with a powerful opposition,
and feeble hopes were entertained of its success.
The bill had been wisely framed, and at the critical juncture
of its final passage, the honorable William W. Van
Ness became its most eloquent and powerful advocate. In
a speech of remarkable parliamentary eloquence he refuted
the arguments of the opposition to the bill, and portrayed
its benefits with such zeal and energy, that its success
became certain. The law was enacted April 4, 1806.
To this new institution the Medical Society of the State
of New York, whose inception was received from John
Stearns, it would be almost needless to add that he gave
it his future influence. He was elected its Secretary at
the first meeting in 1807, and continued to fill the office
for several years. In 1807, Dr. Stearns communicated to
the profession through Dr. Ackerly, in an article published
in the^leventh volume of the New York Medical Repository,
his observations on the medical properties of ergot in facilitating
parturition. Whatever may have been known of
this substance before, Dr. Stearns was the first to elicit
attention to it, in the United States, and his observations
were doubtless original.
In 1809, he was elected to the senate of the state ofNew
York, and served as senator for four years until 1813. He
removed to Albany in 1810, and for nine years was actively
engaged in practice, enjoying largely the public confidence.
The Regents of the University conferred upon him the honorary
degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1812. In 1817, he
was elected President of the Medical Society of the State
of New York, and was deservedly reelected in 1818, 1819,
and 1820. No other person has for so many years occupied
this distinguished position. On the anniversary of each
election, he delivered the annual address, except on the last,
when he was detained from being present, and it was communicated
through a friend. The subject of each presents
an entirely different range of thought, and evinces a mind
familiar with the learning of his profession.
In 1819 Dr. Stearns removed to New York, where formany years he adorned the profession, and contributed
largely to the medical periodicals of the day. Upon the
organization of the New York Academy of Medicine in
1846, it was appropriate that its first President should be
a man distinguished for honorable position, for liberality
of sentiments, for devoted love to the profession, for consistency,
uprightness, and purity of character. The selection
might properly have been made from such men as
Cook or Francis, or John B. Beck, but the mantle of office
fell upon John Stearns, then venerable in professional life.
In his address before the Academy on its final anniversary
he enjoins upon its members "That no impostor obtain
admission within its sacred walls. Let the inscriptions of
your portals be esto perpetua ; remember it is consecrated
to health, to happiness, and to harmony, which I trust will
always be its prominent characteristics, and may it be the
nursery of thousands and tens of thousands, and rise like
the sun in all its meridian glory to shed its scientific rays
over the whole world." At the close of the address he
says: "Could I be assured of the uninterrupted, enduring
prosperity of the Academy, in disseminating health, happiness
and sustaining principles of life, I should die in
peace with effusions of gratitude and praise to Almighty
God for his permanent blessings upon our labors."
A little more than one year later, on the 18th of March,
1848, Dr. Stearns died a martyr to the profession in which
he had so long lived. His life was the last oifering that
he could lay upon its altars. His death occurring as the
result of a poisoned wound. He was in the 79th year of
his age. His private life was adorned by the virtues of
Christianity. Several years since, in leaving St. George's
church, New York, my eye rested gratefully on a tablet
near the entrance, on which was inscribed the name of John Stearns.
