John van Rensselaer Hoff was born on April 11, 1848 in Mount Morris, New York, United States. He was the son of Doctor Alexander Henry Hoff and Ann Eliza, the daughter of General John Sanders Van Rensselaer of New York. Alexander Henry Hoff served in the volunteer army throughout the Civil War, and at its close joined the medical corps of the Regular Army.
Hoff received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1871 and the Master of Arts degree in 1874 from Union University, and his Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1874.
In 1874 Hoff was appointed an acting assistant surgeon and served in the field against the Sioux until he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the Regular Army and sent to Omaha Barracks. Several subsequent years of service at various posts were notable for the uniformity with which his work received commendation. More interested in the military than in the medical aspect of his duties, he took a leave of absence in 1886 and spent a year in studying the sanitary organizations of various European armies.
In 1887 he organized the first detachment of hospital corps and company bearers at Fort Reno and drew up drill regulations. In 1889, at Fort Riley, he recommended the organization of field hospitals and later planned and organized the first company of instruction of the hospital corps, From November 1890 to January 1891 he was on duty with the 7th Cavalry during the Sioux campaign, and at the battle of Wounded Knee he commanded the first detachment of the hospital corps to undergo the trial of battle. He and his detachment behaved with gallantry and received high commendation, and in 1925 he was awarded posthumously the Distinguished Service Cross.
The outbreak of the Spanish-American War found the country unprepared. All war plans had to be improvised and Hoff assisted in formulating a field organization for the Medical Department. In May 1898 he was appointed Surgeon of Camp George A. Thomas, at Chickamauga Park. There he organized Sternberg General Hospital to care for a part of the great number of typhoid cases. In September 1898 he was sent to Porto Rico as chief surgeon, where he inaugurated a campaign of vaccination, which virtually freed the island from smallpox. From 1903 to 1905 he was surgeon at Fort Leavenworth and taught "Care of Troops" in the General Service and Staff College. In 1905 he was a military observer in the Russo-Japanese War. From 1907 to 1912, when he was retired because of age, he was in turn chief surgeon of the Department of Luzon, of the Philippines Division, of the Department of the Lakes, and of the Department of the East.
In 1916 he was assigned to active duty in the surgeon general's office and accepted the editorship of the Military Surgeon. In this periodical, July 1918, he published an editorial criticizing the General Staff for failure to utilize properly the military experience of medical officers, and he was summarily relieved from active duty and his editorship, by command of the Chief of Staff. In December 1919, however, he was exonerated of all wrongdoing, by a letter from the Secretary of War. His death, shortly after, followed an operation for disease of the gall bladder. He published numerous articles on matters relating principally to medico-military administration, and he is regarded as a pioneer in bringing medical officers into military grace and favor.
Hoff is remembered as a prominent military physician. He planned the medical details of the first American purpose-built hospital ship and was the first army surgeon in Alaska. He was assigned to active duty in the surgeon general's office and accepted the editorship of the Military Surgeon. He published numerous articles on matters relating principally to medico-military administration, and he is regarded as a pioneer in bringing medical officers into military grace and favor. In 1925 he was awarded posthumously the Distinguished Service Cross.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(Philadelphia 1880. In The American Journal of the Medical...)
Through years when army doctors were expected to have neither knowledge of nor interest in military matters, Hoff insisted on a recognition of his own and his department's military status, demanding the military title, the salute, and precedence for himself and his corps on the basis of military rank and usage. By so doing he brought upon himself some ridicule, but his dignity, efficiency, and high character enabled him to rise above it, and he lived to see it die out and his object attained.
On June 22, 1875 Hoff married Lavinia Day, the daughter of General Hannibal Day.
