Stephen Smith (surgeon)

Stephen Smith (1823 to 1922) was a New York City surgeon who spent seventy years teaching and writing about surgery while also serving as a civic reformer. Raised on a farm in Spafford, New York, he trained at Geneva College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, then became an attending surgeon at Bellevue Hospital, a post he held for thirty-seven years. His 1862 Hand-book of Surgical Operations became a field manual for the Union Army, and at a Civil War hospital he developed a lower-limb amputation procedure that remained a standard in the United States and England for about fifty years. He helped found Bellevue Medical College, supported women physicians and nurses, and advised on hospital design. His larger legacy is in public health: he led a sanitary survey of Manhattan and held appointments from mayors, governors and presidents for almost five decades. The New York Academy of Medicine named a lifetime achievement medal in public health after him.