History of Northampton County Virginia United States of America

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Agrippa Nelson Bell, physician, was born in Northhampton county, Va., Aug. 3, 1820. He received an academical education, and pursued his medical course at the Tremont street medical school, Boston, in the medical school at Harvard college, and at the Jefferson medical college in Philadelphia where he received his degree March, 1842 He practised as a physician at Franktown, Va. In 1847 he was commissioned as surgeon in the navy, served in the Gulf squadron during the Mexican war, and was for a time attached to the yellow fever hospital on Salmadina Island, near Vera Cruz. He served on the Spanish Main, in the West Indies, on the west coast of Africa and at the Now York navy yard, and resigned from the navy in 1855. He resumed the practice of medicine at Brooklyn and attained distinction for his services in 1856, when yellow fever prevailed at Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton. He early advocated the use of steam for disinfecting purposes. In 1861 the New York commissioners of quarantine employed Dr. Bell as medical superintendent of the floating hospital for the special care of Fellow fever in the lower bay. From 1870 to 1873 he was, by appointment of Governor Hoffman, supervising commissioner of quarantine. In 1873 he established the Sanitarian, a magazine devoted to the interests of public health. On the national board of health, June, 1879, Dr. Bell was chosen as one of the inspectors of quarantine, and assigned to duty on the Atlantic coast, but in August of the same year he was transferred to New Orleans on the outbreak of yellow fever in that city. From New Orleans Dr. Bell proceeded to Vicksburg, and thence to Memphis, where he organized and instituted the house-to-house inspection service which resulted in the purification of that city. The honorary degree of A.M. was conferred upon him by Trinity college, in 1859. The New York state medical society, American medical association, American public health association, American climatological association, Kings county medical society, Kings county medical association and New York medico-legal society made him a regular member, and he was made honorary member of the Connecticut state medical society, and of the Societe Francaise d'hygi?ne, and corresponding member of the Epidemiological society, London. Dr. Bell's publications include: "Quarantine" (1856); "Knowledge of Living Things" (1860); "Malignant Pustule" (1862); "Disinfection of Vessels" (1863); "How Complete is the Protection of Vaccination?" (1864); "Medical Progress" (1870).

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Northampton County Virginia

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