American Medical Biographies/Bedford, Gunning S.
Bedford, Gunning S. (1806–1870)
Gunning Bedford, born in Baltimore, Maryland, 1806, was an author and physician and the great nephew of the famous Gunning Bedford, of Delaware, of revolutionary distinction.
Dr. Bedford graduated in 1825 at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmetsburg, Maryland, and after graduating his first idea was to study law. With that resolve he left Baltimore with letters of introduction to Daniel Webster, intending to study with him. However, he met an enthusiastic acquaintance who had just begun the study of medicine. This acquaintance persuaded him before going to visit Mr. Webster to go with him and hear Dr. John D. Godman lecture. They went. Bedford was charmed and carried away with the eloquence of Godman and determined at once to become his pupil.
He graduated at Rutgers Medical College in his twenty-third year. Shortly after (1829) he married and made an extended visit to Europe, where he remained two years, visiting the hospitals, and shortly after his return to America was appointed, in 1833, professor to the Charleston Medical College, South Carolina, and subsequently professor at the Medical College in Albany. Remaining there but a short time, he determined to visit New York City and make that place the field of his future exertions.
He assisted Dr. Martyn Paine (q.v.) in founding the University Medical College, and was aided in this by one of his former preceptors—afterwards his colleague—Valentine Mott (q.v.). The faculty consisted of Pattison, Paine, Draper, Revere, Mott and Bedford.
He was professor of obstetrics and diseases of women from 1841 to 1864, when he was compelled, on account of ill health, to resign. He was the first professor who ever held an obstetric clinic in the United States.
His works, which were among the most popular of the day, were "Diseases of Women and Children" (1855) and the "Principles and Practice of Obstetrics" (1861). The former went through ten editions, the latter through five, and have been translated into French and German and were adopted generally as text-books throughout the United States and Europe. His earliest effort was the translation of Baudelocque's "Treatise on Puerperal Peritonitis" into English (1831), and in 1844 Chaillé's "Treatise on Midwifery."
He died in New York City September 5, 1870, leaving a widow and three sons, two of whom followed the profession of their father.