William T. Bull

William Tillinghast Bull had reached his sixty-first year of life [sic: sixtieth] and almost his thirtieth of membership here, when his short but gallant fight with disease and death was ended. He was a native of Rhode Island, a graduate of Harvard and of Columbia, studying in Europe for two years after graduation as a physician. During his career as a practitioner he was connected successively with a series of our most important hospitals: Bellevue, New York, St. Luke’s, that for Ruptured and Crippled, and the State Emigrants. He was long the professor of surgery in Columbia. In all these relations his was such success as is vouchsafed only to the elect. He invented new operations, and practiced the old magisterially; he was famous in cancer cases as well as in operating for appendicitis; he had a specialty in hernia which was almost unique. Tender and sympathetic in all relations, he was supremely so with the lowly; as a brilliant contributor to the literature of his profession he rendered full account of his great powers: such was his moderation that though the numbers of his operations were unsurpassed, he never attained to opulence. His social gifts were choice and delightful. They endeared him to the best and he was a member of four clubs other than this.

William Milligan Sloane
1910 Century Association Yearbook