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.
Simpson, William Kelly (1855–1914)
William Kelly Simpson was born in Hudson, New York, on April 10, 1855, being the youngest of the nine children of George N. and Caroline McCann Simpson. His paternal ancestors came to New York State from Virginia. His education was acquired in the school at Hudson, the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut, at Cheshire, and Cornell University, where he obtained the degree of A. B. in 1876. After a year he decided to study medicine and entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, receiving the degree of M. D. in 1880. Upon graduation he joined the staff of the Presbyterian Hospital, where he served as interne on both the medical and surgical divisions until October, 1882. At first he undertook a general practice, but soon became interested in diseases of the nose and throat, this largely through the influence of that great specialist and teacher, Dr. Clinton Wagner (q. v.), of New York.
From the first Dr. Simpson identified himself with various dispensaries and was attending surgeon to the throat department of the Northern Dispensary and the Metropolitan Throat Hospital, and assistant surgeon in the throat department of the Presbyterian Hospital Dispensary, also serving as attending physician to the out-door department of the New York Foundling Hospital. It was here that he became associated with Dr. Joseph O'Dwyer (q. v.) in his work on intubation, and he performed the first intubation in America on an adult for the treatment of laryngeal diphtheria. What is far more important, he also was the first to advocate intubation in chronic stenosis of the larynx. He was appointed instructor in laryngology in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital and attending surgeon to the nose and throat department of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and continued as such until these departments were dropped from the latter institution.
In 1887 he became one of the assistant surgeons in the nose and throat department of the Vanderbilt Clinic, and in 1898 was appointed chief of clinic and instructor in laryngology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. On the retirement of Professor George M. Lefferts in 1904 he succeeded to the professorship of laryngology, a position he held at the time of his death. He was consulting laryngologist to the Presbyterian Hospital, the Seton Hospital, the St. John's Hospital at Yonkers and the Somerset Hospital in Somerville, New Jersey. In 1892 he became a fellow of the American
