Joshua B. Flint Papers

Joshua Barker Flint was born at Cohasset, Massachusetts, on October 13, 1801, and went to Harvard College, graduating A. B. in 1820 and M. D. in 1825. He practised in Boston for twelve years, served in the legislature, and from 1832 to 1835 edited the Medical Magazine, there, in conjunction with A. L. Peirson, Elisha Bartlett and A. A. Gould. At the insistence of Dr. Charles Caldwell he was invited to Louisville in 1837, as teacher of surgery in the Louisville Medical Ins titute, later known as the University of Louisville. At the close of his third term he retired but was reinstated in the same chair after the lapse of a few years. In the winter and s pring of 1847 he administered ether for the first time in Kentucky and perhaps in the west. It was for an amputation of the lower limb, the ether being then called "letheon" and administered by the aid of a complicated a apparatus. From 1852 to 1854 Flint was professor of surgery and dean of the Kentucky School of Medicine. His fine scholarship, literary and professional, made itself evident to all appreciative observers. He was not ostentatious in this regard. His sound judgment as a practitioner of surgery and his rare dexterity and coolness as an operator were readily recognized. In the field of operative surgery he was distinguished beyond all other men of his time for his conservatism. In teaching, his style was quiet, eminently and purely didactic. His lectures derived their ornament from correct rhetoric and classical illustrations. He died at Louisville, March 19, 1864.

Note written by American Medical Biographies, 1920