American Medical Biographies/Simons, Benjamin Bonneau
Simons, Benjamin Bonneau (1776–1844)
Benjamin Bonneau Simons was of French extraction, being descended from the Merovingian Kings, and originally named Saint Simon. The first colonist, Benjamin, came to this country in 1685 and became the progenitor of the whole Simons family in the South. Benjamin Bonneau Simons was born in Charleston, December 5, 1776, and graduated at Brown University, Rhode Island, in 1796, and immediately went abroad to study medicine.
He attended the schools of Edinburgh, London and Paris, and was the pupil of John and Charles Bell and did the dissections for their famous anatomical plates.
So greatly were his capabilities held in estimation that he was told, did he remain in Europe he would be able to pave his street with gold.
Returning to America, he began to practise in his native city in 1801, as a surgeon; he drew much of his practice from the northern states. He was considered the leading surgeon of the South, some of the medical profession even coming there to hear him lecture.
He was the first man to trephine bone for abscess and did the first successful operation in South Carolina for stone in the bladder, and was said to be the only man in America who cured goiter. He treated thirteen cases of bone necrosis and first recognized the condition and treatment.
Dr. Simons was a member of the Medical University of Edinburgh; fellow of the Royal Society of London, and one of the early presidents of the Charleston Medical Society.
He was professor of chemistry and the author of a valuable treatise on the bones, as well as several other medical works. He married Maria Vanderhorst, daughter of Gov.-Gen. Arnoldus Vanderhorst and Elizabeth Raven, and had two daughters.
There is a picture of him by Bowman in the board-room of the Roper Hospital; the same artist also painted him in another position, and so good was the likeness that it is said his old negro servant on seeing it exclaimed, "lor! massa's in dere," indicating the room in which the portrait stood. Simons was fond of drawing his friends around him and entertained lavishly at his house on East Bay Street in Charleston, where he died of apoplexy, September 27, 1844.