Benjamin Bassett, born at Derby, Conn., December 6, 1784, was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, practiced at Yorktown from 1826 to 1829, and then settled at Peekskill, where he died March 21, 1858. He was president of the Westches-

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

ter County Medical Society in 1846 and 1847, and in the latter year delivered an address " On the laws of epidemics as exhibited in those that had prevailed in the county the preceding twenty years." In 1831 he wrote a valuable treatise on " Epidemic Dysentery and Intermittent Fever," published in the New York Medical Journal for jNIuy of that year. About the same time he prepared several articles on the effect of sulphate of quinine, but it is not known when they were published. He honored his profession except in placing too low an estimate on the value of his services ; "his charges were so small that he was unable to live in the manner suitable to a inan of his ability, skill and position."

Dr. James Fountain was spoken of in the biographical sketch prepared by Dr. James Hart Curry, at the request of the Westchester County Medical Society, as "one of the most remarkable men of his time, in the region round-about him." Born at Bedford, January 30, 1790, he began the study of medicine under Dr. Sackett, and was one of the first, if not the very first, student from Westchester County to matriculate in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City, where he graduated March 16, 1812. Beginning practice in his native county, in a year he moved to Scaten Island, but, at the solicitation of his father, soon returned to Jefferson Valley. He had become a meml)er of the Westchester County Medical Society a year before his graduation, and when, fifty years afterward, he resigned, he said, in liis characteristic letter : --