American Medical Biographies/Black, Rufus Smith
Black, Rufus Smith (1812–1893)
Rufus Smith Black was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1812, and died in California, 1893. He practised in Halifax for nearly half a century, but, his health failing in 1887, he removed to California where he lived the remainder of his days.
He took his regular medical course at Edinburgh University, from which he graduated M. D. in 1836. He also won the degree L. R. C. S. (Edin.). Taking a post-graduate course in Paris, under distinguished professors, he became acquainted with the teaching of Laennec, and subsequently became the first practitioner in Nova Scotia who regularly used the stethoscope as an aid to diagnosis. After leaving Paris he spent about a year in Spain, and thus to a good classical education added an intimate knowledge of French and Spanish.
Returning to Halifax, he soon secured a large practice.
Dr. Black was for many years one of the physicians of the Victoria General Hospital. He was a member of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, five times its president, and president of the Halifax Medical College from 1875 to his retirement in 1887.
His addresses and papers on various subjects before local societies were marked by much literary skill, but they are not known to have been printed. One, "Value of Tartar Emetic in Rigid Cervix," appeared in the Edinburgh Medical Journal for 1865, and for a time he made translations from Spanish medical periodicals, which were published in the Maritime Medical News, Halifax.
He married Miss Ferguson, of Halifax, and had five daughters and one son, John F. Black, who studied medicine in New York and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1882.