Jacop S, Mosher, M D, CojnplirrLertts of 
WILLIS G. TUCKER, M. D. A Memorial Sketch of the Life and Character 
of the late Jacob Simmons Mosher, A, M., 
M. D., Ph D., of Albany, N. Y. 
By Willis G. Tucker, M. D. 
There are some men whose deaths occasion such a sense of 
loss that after the lapse even of months or years their places 
still seem to be unfilled. There are some lives which are at 
once so interesting and so useful, that when their light goes 
out the loss seems such as cannot be repaired. Such men are 
rare. They are not of the multitude whose coming occasions 
no remark and whose going causes no regret, but they belong 
to that small minority who by force of character, persevering 
effort or inherent ability make their impress upon the times in 
which they live, within a circle narrower or wider, by taking 
a part so active in all movements tending to promote the 
public good as to make themselves a real necessity in the 
community in which their lot is cast. And if this public- 
spirited zeal is the outcome of a nature really great; of a 
character developed by education, rounded and perfected by 
the habit of self-control,—how great the public loss when such 
men die, and how deep the sense of bereavement, within 
that narrower circle of friends who best have known and there- 
fore best have appreciated those virtues of character and 
qualities of mind which all have admired. Such a loss have 
the friends of Dr. Mosher; such a loss has the community in 
which he lived, experienced in his death, for rarely indeed do 
we find so many traits which make a man lovable to his friends 
and serviceable to the public, blended in a single character, and 
* Reprinted from the Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of New York, 1885. though a year and more has passed since he was summoned 
hence, the recollection of his pure and well-spent life is fresh 
and green in the hearts of his friends and the places which he 
so long and ably filled seem mutely calling yet for his return. 
Jacob Simmons Mosher, was born in Coeymans, Albany 
County, N. Y., March 19th, 1834. His father, Christopher 
Mosher, a prosperous farmer, was of English descent, and his 
mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Boucher, was of 
German parentage but born in this country. He early 
attended the district school in Coeymans, and on the removal 
of his parents to New Brunswick, N. J., was sent to the pre- 
paratory school of Rutgers college in that place, and in 1853 
entered the college in which he remained till toward the close 
of his junior year, when circumstances seemed to render it 
necessary for him to discontinue his course. This he did, how- 
ever, with great regret, for he had taken high rank in his 
classes and was regarded as a most promising scholar. Soon 
after leaving college he came to Albany and for a time was 
principal of Public School No. 1, on South Pearl street. In 
1862 he matriculated at the Albany Medical College, entering 
the office of the late Professor Howard Townsend, to whom he 
was warmly attached. He graduated with the class of 1863, 
December 22d, presenting a thesis upon Diabetes marked by 
much originality and research, and delivering the valedictory 
address at the commencement. In 1863, while still a student 
of medicine, he was appointed Instructor in Chemistry and Ex- 
perimental Philosophy in the Albany Academy, and in 1865, 
was made Professor of Chemistry in that institution, serving 
as such until 1870. In 1864 he was commissioned a volunteer 
surgeon by Governor Seymour, and assigned to duty with the 
Army of the Potomac, then before Petersburgh. Subse- 
quently he was appointed Assistant Medical Director for the 
State of New York, and assigned to duty at Washington, 
where he remained several months, and resigning returned to 
Albany. In July of this year he had been appointed Lecturer 
on Chemistry in the Albany Medical College, and in the De- 
cember following, his first course of lectures having been very 
successful, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry and 
Medical Jurisprudence, serving also as registrar and librarian 
of the college from 1865. In January, 1869, Governor Hoff- 
man, appointed him surgeon with rank of Brigadier-General 3 
on his staff, and during the same year he was appointed Mili- 
tary Superintendent and Surgeon in charge of the hospital 
for disabled soldiers in Albany, serving in this capacity until 
the hospital was closed by the Government, when he trans- 
ferred the troops to Logan, Maine. He was re-commissioned 
Surgeon-General in 1871 and served in this capacity until the 
end of Governor Hoffman’s term of office, January 1st, 1873. 
In 1870 he resigned his professorship in the Albany Medical 
College, having been appointed Deputy Health and Executive 
officer of the Port of New York, and removed to Quarantine, 
Staten Island, where he remained until 1876, when he resigned 
his position, and after a few months spent in European travel, 
returned to Albany and again entered upon the practice of his 
profession. In January of that year he had been appointed 
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and Hygiene in the 
Albany Medical College, and re-elected registrar, and in 1881, 
he was made Professor of Pathology, Practice, Clinical Medi- 
cine and Hygiene, which position he held up to the time of 
his death. 
Aside from the positions which have been named, Dr. 
Mosher held many others scarcely less conspicuous or import- 
ant. In 1878 he served as a member of the Commission of 
Experts, appointed by President Hayes, to study the origin 
and cause of the yellow fever epidemic of that year, and the 
effectual work done by this board, though their report has 
never been published by the Government, resulted in the 
creation of the National Board of Health. For many years he 
served on the medical or surgical staffs of the Albany and St. 
Peters’ Hospitals, and he was one of the founders, trustees and 
professors of the Albany College of Pharmacy, established in 
1881, and the president of its faculty. He was a member of 
the Albany County Medical Society, from 1864, of the Rich- 
mond County Medical Society, from 1873 to 1876, a permanent 
member ol the Medical Society of the State of New York 
from 1870, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, 
a member of the New York Neurological Society, and a per- 
manent member of the American Medical Association. He 
served as president of the Albany County Medical Society in 
1872, and in March, 1883, was elected president of the Asso- 
ciation of the Alumni of the Albany Medical College. The 
annual meeting of this association, held March 5th, 1884, at 4 
which, had he lived, he would have presided, was made a mem- 
orial meeting, and fitting eulogies delivered by* Dr. David 
Murray, secretary of the Board of Regents of the State of 
New York, Regent St. Clair, McKelway and Dr. Samuel B. 
Ward. He received the degree of Master of Arts from Rut- 
gers College in 1862; the same institution in 1878 conferred 
upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and he received 
the honorary degree of Graduate in Pharmacy from the 
Albany College of Pharmacy in 1882. For many years he 
had been a member of the Albany Institute, serving for some 
time as its secretary, and several of his scientific papers have 
appeared in its proceedings. He was a member of the Albany 
City Board of Health, and its chairman at the time of his 
death. From 1865 to 1868 he was a member of the Board of 
Public Instruction of Albany ; in 1869 he was made a mem- 
ber of the Executive Committee of the State Normal School 
at Albany; in 1878 he was elected president of the Young 
Men’s Association, and during the same year he was elected 
a member of the board of trustees of the Albany Female 
Academy. 
He was married December 30th, 1863, to Miss Emma Starr 
Montgomery, of Albany, who died in 1879, leaving, four sons 
and a daughter, all of whom survive. 
In thus recounting somewhat at length the main incidents in 
Dr. Mosher’s life, it may be thought that an estimate of his 
character, and a recital of those mental qualities which made 
him so remarkable a man, and those social traits which so 
endeared him to his friends, has been too long delayed. That 
the task is a difficult one, no one who knew him will probably 
deny, for his character was so many-sided that to recount his 
traits is to enumerate so many qualities, that the rehearsal 
must seem an exaggeration to those who did not know the man ; 
and then again so much of the influence he exerted and admi- 
ration he excited depended upon an indescribable charm of 
manner, impossible to delineate, that at the best, any’•pen- 
drawn picture of him, must be chiefly remarkable for that 
which it fails to portray. He was a man who in a rare degree 
combined depth of knowledge with extraordinary versatility. 
His memory was so retentive, that facts once ascertained were 
ever remembered, and as anything that had interest for thought, 
ful men had interest for him, he was constantly searching for information on all kinds of subjects and in all kinds of places. 
And this searching was not a merely superficial glancing at 
the matter sought, but a real getting at the facts, and when 
these were brought to light, they found a lodgement in his 
mind, and could at any time be recalled for use. He had a 
true scholar’s love for books ; knew what they contained and 
how to get from them in the shortest time just what he wanted 
to glean. New books he would rapidly skim, soon discovering 
in them what was, or might be, of value to him, and mentally 
indexing such portions as particularly concerned him. He 
thus became a kind of walking reference-book of universal in- 
formation to his friends, who felt that they could always get 
from him, or from his books through him, such information as 
frequently they needed, but knew not where to seek. 
Two other qualities which are seldom associated he also 
combined ; great shrewdness, with the ability to read men and 
judge character, and a free handed generosity, with strong 
faith in human nature. He had the cunning adroitness of an 
astute politician, and yet in his dealings with men there was 
none of the petty jealousy and tendency suspiciously to look 
for selfish motives that is so often linked with shrewdness. 
He was an ambitious man, but other motives took precedence 
in his life, and he could with equanimity view the successful 
advances of others. To study character was to him a real 
delight, but it was not for the purpose of unmasking faults or 
exposing foibles, but because he loved to trace the workings 
of the mind and learn from human nature all that it could 
teach. This knowledge of men, and how to deal with and 
lead them without their knowing they were led, made his influ- 
ence great. He suggested views, and so frankly, that his 
hearers naturally accepted them, for there was a modest, half- 
hesitancy and seeming self-forgetfulness in his method, which 
did not arouse antagonism as self-assertion does. And these 
qualities, joined to his great alertness of perception, instant 
ability to get at the gist of things, and rare faculty of thinking 
quickly but speaking slowly, rendered him an expert witness 
with whom it was difficult to cope. His mind was so well 
disciplined ; his passions so entirely under the control of his 
will, that seldom, even in the heat of argument, did he make 
assertions that he could not substantiate, or take a position 
from which he was obliged afterward to recede. 6 
Dr. Mosher was an indefatigable worker. He had given 
much attention to surgery, and performed many operations ; 
he had attended to a large and rapidly increasing medical 
practice, and delivered two courses of lectures upon the 
theory and practice of medicine; he had devoted some of the 
best years of his life to the study of chemistry and toxicology, 
for six years lecturing upon these branches, and making of 
them a profession ; he had studied botany and lectured upon 
it and materia-medica for two years in the College of Phar- 
macy ; he had made a special study, with long practical expe- 
rience, of sanitary science and hygiene in all its relations, and 
had delivered five courses of lectures upon these topics; he 
had given much attention to insanity and general medical 
jurisprudence, upon which he had lectured in conjunction with 
hygiene, and with all this he had found time to write numer- 
ous scientific papers, to contribute frequently to medical 
journals, and to deliver many addresses and popular lectures. 
He had time also to attend to a large business and personal 
correspondence; time for book-collecting and for the many 
hobbies which he indulged. He was a bibliophile, not a 
bibliomaniac, valuing books for what they contained that was 
useful to him, and few volumes could be found in his library 
which did not show by pencilled notes or inserted cuttings how 
carefully they had been read, or at least examined. He was 
an authority upon prints and etchings, of which he had made 
an interesting collection, and in the mechanical production of 
these, as well as of books, he was well versed. And yet, busy 
man as he was, his time was ever at the disposal of his friends, 
his students, or even his casual acquaintances, for he could 
listen with a patience that never tired to applications for assist- 
ance, counsel or information, and it was a source of never- 
ending wonder to his friends that he could give, good naturedly 
as he did, so much of his time to people, often uninteresting 
in themselves and in their missions, who solicited his counsel 
or advice. He took but little recreation, though he was a good 
sportsman, fond of the gun and rod, and had a real sailor’s 
love for the water, but when these tastes were indulged he 
threw off care and was, as always in his hours of social inter- 
course with friends, the most agreeable companion, capital 
story-teller, and brilliant conversationalist, who could adapt 
himself to all kinds of people and feel at home in any society. His was a sympathetic nature, ever ready to minister to the 
needy, cheer the down-hearted, and encourage the struggling 
worker in any field, and his friends seeing that he possessed 
integrity without hypocrisy, true nobility of character without 
affectation or pride, a deep fund of knowledge of men and 
things and affairs, without pretense or pedantry, geniality 
without vulgarity, and a warm-hearted charity which never 
failed, loved him from the bottom of their hearts. Such men 
are rare, —so rare that when they pass away, the vacancy their 
deaths create seem all too vast for others to step in and fill. 
Dr. Mosher died suddenly on the morning of the 13th of 
August, 1883. For a few preceding days he had complained 
of pain in the region of his heart, but so unconcernedly that it 
had given little anxdety to his friends. An attendant, failing to 
arouse him at the usual morning hour by tapping upon his 
door, entered the room to find him dead upon the bed. That 
very day he was to have started on his summer vacation, and 
the previous evening, having made all things ready, had gone 
to his room, laid himself upon the bed and taken up a book to 
read. Death must have come soon after, and as unexpectedly 
as painlessly. The autopsy showed that it resulted from heart 
failure, consequent upon degeneration of the coronary arteries 
and acute endocarditis. The funeral took place from St. 
Paul’s Church, of which he was a communicant, on the six- 
teenth instant. His death was felt to be a great public calamity, 
and the daily journals of Albany and many other places re- 
viewed his life and character at length in eulogistic terms. The 
trustees and officers of the many institutions and organizations 
with which he was connected held special meetings and 
adopted resolutions of regret for his death and respect for his 
memory, and now, though months have passed, his influence 
remains, and his noble qualities, his many virtues, and his 
great abilities are not forgotten.