Harvey's Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood
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John Green Curtis was an American physiologist who spent most of his career at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Background
John Green Curtis was the son of George and Julia (Bridgham) Curtis.
He was born on October 29, 1844 in New York the year that his father became president of the Continental Bank, and like his brother, Dr. Edward Curtis, and his half-brother, George William Curtis, derived from his parents a love of scholarly pursuits and a faith in high ideals which he carried through life.
Education
As a young man he showed great fondness for the classics and during his college course at Harvard he acquired such mastery of Latin and Greek that these languages became in his hands tools of great usefulness in later life.
He graduated from Harvard College in 1866, taking the M. A. degree in 1869.
While in college he decided to study medicine and in 1870 he received the degree of M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York.
Career
After graduation he entered at once upon the practise of his profession, at the same time serving as assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the medical school and as assistant physician in Bellevue Hospital.
Practise of medicine, however, did not appeal to him, and his scholarly taste and interest in science gradually drew him into teaching in the medical school.
Here, under Prof. Dalton he became deeply interested in physiology and was soon appointed adjunct lecturer, later adjunct professor of physiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
On the retirement of Dr. Dalton he became professor of physiology and head of the department, serving in that capacity from 1883 to 1909, when he retired as professor emeritus.
From 1890 he was secretary of the faculty of the medical school at Columbia, which position brought him closely in contact with the student body, and to him they turned freely for guidance and counsel.
In physiology he had two special interests, one being the development of a truly scientific laboratory for the teaching of experimental physiology, so well equipped that it would furnish likewise every opportunity for physiological research.
This he accomplished in such fashion that the laboratory became one of the centers of American physiology. The other interest was the early history of physiology, the origins of physiological conceptions, as contrasted with modern physiological thought.
For years he studied in the original texts the writings of Aristotle, Plippocrates, Galen, lesser Greek and Latin writers, and especially the writings of Harvey.
Among the manuscripts he left was one published in 1915 by his colleague, Dr. Frederic S. Lee, under the title Haney’s Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood, a most scholarly work revealing many new points of view of great interest to students of the early history of physiology.