D. B. St. John Roosa

Daniel Bennett St. John Roosa was a surgeon of eminence who had served his country with zeal both in war and peace. His ancestry embraced three colonial sources, French, Dutch, and English; all his great-grandsires had fought with the “Continentals,” and he responded with alacrity at the outbreak of the Civil War for service as an army physician. He had a sound preparation for college in the academy of his native village and one other, was at Yale for a time, withdrew because of ill-health, and completed his thorough education in Europe and the city of New York. For thirty-three years he had been our comrade. The reason is manifest. His companionship was much sought, his professional career was conscientious and successful, his care for his fellow-beings was unremitting. After nearly thirty years of association with the New York University as pupil and teacher, he felt the need of enlargement for medical education, and so agitated the establishment of a graduate school that he is generally reckoned the founder of the institution in whose service he died as President, the Post-Graduate Medical College. In the University of Vermont he likewise taught; the congresses of his profession at home and abroad honored him with high office, and he was an author of distinction, having published independently, or in collaboration, nine widely read books. While his reputation was general, he was especially esteemed by members of his own profession and his sudden death occurred but a few days before the twenty-fifth anniversary of his presidency, which was to have been celebrated by physicians gathered from all parts of the nation. For all legislation relating to medical affairs he exercised diligent care, and to him the people of this commonwealth owe a debt of undying gratitude for his warfare with charlatanry and all its wiles.

William Milligan Sloane
1909 Century Association Yearbook