Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/714

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LE FEVRE
692
LEIDY

ber 29, 1858, and attended Rutgers College, graduating in 1880 and taking his M. D. from the New York University Medical College in 1883. When nearing the completion of his interneship at Bellevue Hospital in 1885 he had active lung tuberculosis with pulmonary hemorrhage, but made a complete recovery. Dr. LeFevre, who had grown to the physical proportions of six feet four inches in height and a weight of two hundred pounds, next spent two years in study abroad, returning in 1888 to become clinical lecturer in the practice of medicine in the medical department of New York University. From this position he advanced to adjunct professor of medicine, and in 1898, on the consolidation of Bellevue Hospital Medical College and New York University Medical College took the chair of professor of clinical medicine and associate professor of therapeutics and materia medica. In 1903 he became dean of the faculty and this position and that of professor of therapeutics and materia medica and clinical medicine he held at his death. Rutgers conferred on him the degree of A. M. in 1884, the honorary degree of M. D. in 1903, and the New York University the degree of LL. D. in 1911. In 1902 he published a text-book on "Physical Diagnosis," a highly appreciated work, and he contributed editorials to the New York Medical Journal and articles to medical periodicals.

Dr. Le Fevre was visiting physician to New York City Hospital from 1895 to 1898, and after the latter date to Bellevue Hospital; also consulting physician to Beth-Israel Hospital. He belonged to a large number of medical societies and had been president of the Association of American Medical Colleges and corresponding secretary of the Academy of Medicine.

He was a man of dominating personality and had great ability as an administrator; his capacity for hard work was a marvel to his associates and a stimulus to his pupils. Chancellor Brown of New York University said of him: "As I have heard him from year to year addressing the entering class at the medical college, I have been profoundly thankful that our medical students were to be under his leadership. It was a massive and vigorous leadership, and pitched on a high plane. In both his professional and academic relationships he was singularly high-minded and unselfish."

Dr. Le Fevre married Mrs. Helen D. Hasbrouck Trotter in 1889. They had no children.

Trans. Amer. Climat. Asso., 1914, vol. xxx, pp. 21–23. Portrait.
New York State Jour. Med., 1914. April, vol. xiv, 228. In Memoriam.
New York Med. Jour., 1914, vol. xcix, 692.

Lefevre, John M. (1857–1907)

John M. Lefevre was a well-known and very popular practitioner in the early days of Vancouver, British Columbia, and a member of the Board of Directors of the General Hospital, in which he exhibited a lively interest, also taking a prominent part in the establishment of the new hospital, which was completed shortly after his death in 1907. He held the M. D. and C. M. from McGill University (1879) and the M. R. C. S., England, 1896.

He was surgeon to the Canadian Pacific Railway during construction, and to the Company in Vancouver.

Dr. Lefevre was a good diagnostician and took a keen interest in his professional work. He spent a year among the hospitals of Europe, and before returning presented himself for examination and passed the membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

After a short illness he died, in 1907, aged fifty years.

Leidy, Joseph (1823–1891)

Joseph Leidy was an eminent physician of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who in his earliest childhood displayed a marked fondness for the study of natural history, the foundation for the many fields of endeavor in which he excelled. He was a recognized authority in vertebrate and invertebrate anatomy, paleontology, anthropology, geology, mineralogy, botany and zoology.

Joseph Leidy was born in Philadelphia, September 9, 1823. His father, Philip Leidy, was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and served as an officer in the Mexican War. He later engaged in making and selling hats in Philadelphia, and did a good business, and had many customers from the adjoining counties as well as in the city. On October 6, 1818, he married Catherine, a daughter of Peter and Rachel Mellick. She was bom in Bloom township, Columbia County, Pa., Jan. 27, 1790, and died in Philadelphia, May 28, 1825. Joseph Leidy was the third of four children that sprang from this union. On May 25, 1826, Philip Leidy married Christiana Mellick, a sister of his first wife, and it was her wholesome influence that guided Joseph during his boyhood days and later directed his thoughts to the study of medicine. Joseph's grandfather, John Jacob Leidy, was an officer in the Revolutionary War from Philadelphia County and was present at Yorktown and Valley Forge. He married Catherine Le Febre, the sister of Francis Joseph Le Febre, Duke of Dantzig, and one of Napoleon's marshals.