D. Bryson Delavan

The varied activities outside of his profession in which Dr. David Bryson Delavan took an energetic part kept him alert and occupied until the end of his long life. He had an important share in founding the Grenfell Association and was for a time its President; he was deeply interested in all the undertakings of the Scenic and Historic Society of America, of which he was Honorary President, and in matters concerning Yale and especially the affairs of his own class of 1872 as its Secretary.

Born in New York, he was a descendant of one of the first Huguenots who left France to come to this country in 1686 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He graduated from Yale and then from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, specializing there in laryngology. After serving for many years as laryngologist at the De Milt Dispensary under Dr. [Charles] McBurney he became in 1887 Professor of Laryngology and Rhinology at the New York Polyclinic Medical School and continued his work there until 1918. In 1931, the fiftieth anniversary of his election as a Fellow of the American Laryngological Association, of which he was at one time President, he was presented with the De Roaldes medal as “the Dean of American Laryngologists.”

In his younger days he came often to the Club but recently the loss of most of his contemporaries and his failing health which confined him to his apartment kept him away. With deep and steadfast affection for his friends, clear and definite in his feelings and their expression, he had wide and ready sympathy for new ideas whether in his own profession or in his other interests and his affable yet punctilious courtesy made him always a most agreeable and welcome companion.

Geoffrey Parsons
1942 Century Memorials