BERNEY, JAMES, M. D., was born in Charleston, S. C., on the 15th day of September, 1812, and died in the city of New York on the 9th of July, 1880. He was of AngloAmerican blood. His father, John Berney, was an English gentleman of business capabilities, who soon became one of the most successful and opulent of Charleston's merchants. His mother was Mary Martin, a daughter of one of the best families of Charleston, respected for her gentleness of manner and loveliness of character. The family consisted of nine children, five sons and four daughters. Dr. Berney was the youngest. He was educated in the Roman Catholic school of that city, whose chief presiding officer was Bishop England. That distinguished, eloquent, and learned divine, taking particular interest in the education of this young man, soon made him a ripe scholar. The languages early attracted his special attention, and very soon he became quite proficient, being regarded by the faculty of that institution as one of the best Latin and French scholars in the school. He was proud of this proficiency, and we, his classmates and medical brethren, can all remember how he would occasionally, in conversation, intersperse his English, which was pure and perfect, with the best idioms of the Latin and the French.

After passing successfully through college, he determined to study medicine, but was, for the time, dissuaded from this natural bent of his inclinations by his relatives and friends.

He took a position in the large business house of John Fraser & Co., of Charleston. In this office he became head clerk in the cotton sample room, arranging and assorting that valuable staple. This continued for some months, when he made known to his family his dissatisfaction, and determination to begin the study of the science of medicine. Gaining their assent, he at once entered the office of Dr. Thomas Young Simmons, of Charleston, his warm personal friend and family physician, then editing, with Dr. William G. Michel, the first medical journal ever published in the State of South Carolina.

He attended his first course of lectures in what was then known as the new school of medicine in Charleston, Dr. Simmons filling with great ability the chair of the Practice of Medicine.

At the conclusion of the course, Dr. Simmons insisted that his pupil should graduate in the University of Pennsylvania,—

the college of Dewees, Physick, Rush, Chapman, and Horner. Dr. Berney took a letter of introduction from his preceptor to Dr. William P. Dewees, then Professor of Midwifery in the University, and, through that letter, became an office student of that distinguished gentleman and scholar.

He graduated in the year 1833.

Pertussis, or whooping-cough, was the subject of his thesis, which met with respectful and complimentary consideration. Taking leave of his many friends in Charleston, he set sail for Europe, and continued his studies in Paris. In the College of France he had such teachers as Dupuytren, Roux, Lesfranc, Velpeau, Andral, Chomel, Ricord, Rostau, Dubois, Arfila, Magendie, and Richeraud; and he found matriculated at that institution some of his South Carolina friends, who have since become men of mark in the profession of medicine; namely, Drs. Windeman and Chazal, of Charleston; Crawford and James C. Nott, of Columbia; Norris, the surgeon, of Philadelphia; and Dr. May, late professor in the Medical College of the District of Columbia. Upon his return from Europe he hung out "his shingle," as he humorously called it, upon the outer wall of his old homestead, on the south side of Society Street, between Meeting and King, in Charleston, and advertised to the people of his native place his intention to practice medicine. But the cry of "Westward, Ho!" soon rang upon his ears, and he determined to go to that new country, where he could grow and develop with its people.

In his travels toward Alabama he had Dr. Boon, the late Episcopal Bishop of China, for his companion. Upon their arrival in Hayneville, Lowndes County, Dr. Berney met many Charleston people,-Elmores, Campbells, Haynes, etc.,—who received him with open arms, and persuaded him to settle there, and made him many protestations of the deepest friendship, which, in course of time, were fully realized.

Here he made his reputation as a good practitioner of medicine, and here he married his beloved wife, Miss Jane Saffold, daughter of the Hon. Reuben Saffold, one of Alabama's Supreme Court judges. Mild and gentle in his attention to the sick and dying, his amiable face and cheerful demeanor in the sickroom is, and always will be, remembered by the many who sent for his medical counsel and advice.

After many years of laborious work in Hayneville, he was

induced by his brother-in-law, Colonel Seibels, to come to Montgomery, and here completed the reputation he had so successfully begun. We are certain that we are correct in stating that his practice, at one time, equaled in extent and importance that of any physician who has ever practiced medicine in Montgomery.

Dr. Berney filled many important positions of honor and trust. He was mayor of Hayneville, and, in 1843, a Senator in the Assembly of the State. He was internal revenue officer for the United States, and was sent by this government as a Commissioner to the Exposition in Paris, in 1878. He was a Counselor of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, a member of the American Medical Association, and was appointed to represent that body in the International Medical Association, in 1869. He was an attentive member of the Montgomery Medical and Surgical Society, in which his voice was always heard condemning the wrong and sustaining the right.

Dr. Berney was distinguished for his conversational powers, and, although too modest to make public the eloquence of his speech, he always attracted a crowd of willing listeners to his most charming and instructive teachings. He was, therefore, a most popular member of the "Social Medical Club of Montgomery," of which he was one of the founders. Ah, how he will be missed there by those who clung to every word that emanated from those loving lips, and whose memory is enshrined in the hearts of the remaining nine!

Dr. Berney died in New York, at half-past ten o'clock on the morning of the 9th day of July, 1880, aged 67 years 9 months and 24 days; and on that morning one of the kindest, truest, and most generous hearts that ever beat in human breast was stilled forever.

He was buried in the city cemetery of Montgomery, Ala., at ten o'clock on the morning of July 12, 1880. The funeral services were performed by the Rev. Horace Stringfellow, D. D., of St. John's Episcopal Church, Montgomery.

R. F. MICHEL, M. D., of Alabama.

BIGELOW, JACOB, M. D., of Boston, Mass., was the son of Rev. Jacob Bigelow, of Sudbury, Mass., and was born on the 27th of February, 1787; died at his residence in Boston on Saturday, January 10, 1879.

At thirteen years of age the subject of this sketch was sent from home to fit for college under the tuition of the Rev. Samuel Kendall, of Weston. In 1806 he was graduated at Harvard College. His first year after leaving college was spent in Worcester, where he began his professional study. After leaving Worcester he attended a course of medical lectures then given at Cambridge by Drs. John Warren, Dexter, and Waterhouse, who were professors in Harvard College.

In the year 1808 he, for the first time, became resident in Boston, and entered as a pupil the medical office of Dr. John Gorham, then a lecturer on chemistry and physician of some of the city charities, and while he remained a student in this office his meager salary as an usher in the Boston Latin School met his necessary personal expenses.

In 1809 he went to Philadelphia, and became a pupil in the University of Pennsylvania, attending the medical lectures of Drs. Rush, Wistar, Physick, Barton, Coxe, and others. With Dr. Barton he became a private pupil, and got from him the rudiments of a botanical taste which adhered to him for many years afterward.

In 1810 he returned home, having received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in Philadelphia, and his name appears in the Boston Directory of the same year in the list of physicians.

In 1811, by invitation of Dr. James Jackson, he became connected with him in professional practice, and succeeded from time to time to a part of his professional business, and also to be his successor as President of the Massachusetts Medical Society and President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1812 he gave a successful course of lectures on botany in connection with Professor Peck, of the Botanic Garden of Cambridge, and in two subsequent years repeated a similar course by himself alone.

In 1814 he published a description of the native plants of Boston and its vicinity under the name of Florula Bostoniensis. In 1815 he was appointed lecturer on Materia Medica and Botany in Harvard University. In a year or two the title was

changed to Professor; and he continued afterward to lecture on Materia Medica and on Clinical Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, of which he was a physician until he resigned both offices in 1855.

Dr. Bigelow delivered the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Cambridge, August 29, 1811, which was published. Its theme is Professional Life.

A second edition of the Florula Bostoniensis appeared in 1824, and on the title-page of the third edition he could add to his titles, "Member of the Linnean Societies of London and Paris," to the former of which he was elected in 1819.

In 1816 he received the additional appointment of Rumford Professor in Harvard University. Parts of his course of Rumford Lectures were delivered in Boston to large audiences, and in 1829 they were published in part under the title of Elements of Technology.

In 1817 he married Mary Scollay, daughter of Colonel William Scollay, by whom he had five children. The family name is perpetuated in the "Scollay Square," of Boston.

From 1817 to 1820 he published a valuable work in six volumes upon the Medicinal Plants of America. In 1820 he prepared for the first edition of the Pharmacopoeia of the United States the list and nomenclature of the Materia Medica.

Besides his prominent agency and influence in multiplied and varied forms of service for the general improvement and happiness of the community, Dr. Bigelow has assured his claims to perpetual remembrance and gratitude for three special contributions made by him to the public good in some of its most expansive interests and aims. His published writings make, and will preserve, the records of his zeal and success in these noble works.

First. He was the first (we may say in Christendom) to conceive, propose, and earnestly and patiently to guide on to a most complete triumph, the plan of an extensive forest-garden cemetery, Mount Auburn, in Cambridge, combining the wildness of nature with the finish of culture, with all appropriate arrangements and adornments.

Second. He gave the whole weight of his acquired wisdom, experience, and distinguished reputation and authority to advise and insure a most radical and effective reform in the practice of medicine.