CURRIE 267 CURTIS served as secretary of the California State Board of Health, and was closely identified with the inception of the modern public health laws which are doing so much for the better- ment of conditions there. In 1909 Dr. Currie ably represented the United States at the In- ternational Leprosy Congress held in Bergen, Norway. Currie wrote valuable articles on leprosy and the bubonic plague. He married Helen Hope Hanson, of Webster Groves, Missouri, in 1900. He was appointed quarantine officer at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1917. He died from pneumonia, following influenza, at his home at Brookline, Massachusetts, December 23, 1918. Victor G. Heiser. Currie, William (1754-1828) William Currie, a founder of the Philadel- phia College of Physicians, was a son of an Episcopal clergyman, who was a native of Scotland. William was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 17S4. As it was designed that he should become a clergyman, his edu- cation tended in that direction. Under the instruction of his father and competent teach- ers, he acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, and a superficial knowledge of the Hebrew language. It is stated that at an early age he had imbibed opinions in conflict with those inculcated by the Thirty-nine Articles, and for this reason he was not will- ing to become a public teacher in the church. He preferred the medical profession and was apprenticed to Dr. Kearsley. After the close of his apprenticeship he attended the medical lectures of the College of Philadelphia. No diploma was conferred upon him. He entered the American Army as a surgeon early in the revolutionary conflict. In 1776 he was attached to the military hospital on Long Island, and subsequently at Amboy. At the close of the war he began to practise medicine in the town of Chester, and soon afterward married. His first wife died and he married again in 1793 the widow of Dr. Busch, by which union they had one son and three daughters. The son and one daughter survived their parents. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society July, 1792, and con- tributed to the Transactions, vol. iv, a paper "On the Insalubrity of Flat and Marshy Situations; and Directions for Preventing or Correcting the Effects thereof." On Decem- ber 6, 1820, he addressed a communication to the joint committee of the City Councils on the yellow fever of that year, for which see "Report of the Joint Committee of Councils, relative to the Malignant or Pestilential Disease of the Summer and Autumn of 1820, in the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1821." For many years he was a member of the Board of Health and senior physician of the Magdalen Asylum. Dr. Currie was well acquainted with med- ical literature and highly estimated by con- temporary physicians. He was a successful practitioner and amassed considerable wealth. He was always, however, extremely plain in his dress and manners, and strictly temperate in all things. To the deserving poor he freely gave his professional services and in cases of need, money also. In the warmth of conversation his love for satire would lead him occasionally to place in a ludicrous light the foibles of his profes- sional opponents, but for this he in some measure compensated by always giving them full credit for whatever talents or estimable qualities they might possess. Throughout life he observed a stern integrity, which would never permit him to do injustice knowingly even to the character of an enemy. His health began to fail in 1816, the year of his wife's death, and he became hopelessly childish later, and so continued till his death June 12, 1828. Trans, of the Coll. of Phys. of Phila., Centennial Volume, 1887, pp. 127-129. Curtis, Alva (1797-1881) Alva Curtis was the product of revolutionary stock and first saw the light of day in Co- lumbia, N. H., in 1797. He received a good literary education and began life as a teacher. He took up medicine as a side issue and be- came an ardent advocate of the therapeutic notions expounded by Samuel Thomson. In 1835 he became the editor of the Thomsonian Recorder of Columbus, Ohio, an exotic med- ical periodical, which under his management became a widely known publication. He ob- tained a charter for a Physio-Medical College in 1836 and it sailed off in 1839 with Curtis at the helm. The college was called the "Botanico-Medical College," afterwards the "American Medical Institute," later the "Physio-Medical College of Ohio," still later known as the "Literary and Botanico-Medical College of Ohio," and "Literary and Scientific Institute." Curtis was the head, hand and soul of the school. The Thomsonians or botanical prac- titioners made a good deal of noise in the early part of the last century. Popularly they were known as the "steam doctors" because
