John Green Curtis

Born in New York City in 1844, John Green Curtis became an American physiologist and medical educator whose professional life was closely tied to Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Sources agree that he spent most of his career there, and Columbia’s archives preserve a laboratory notebook from his experimental work in the 1870s and 1880s.

Curtis is especially notable for his place in the early history of American physiology. The American Physiological Society lists him among its founders and notes that its organizational meeting took place in his physiological laboratory at Columbia. That detail captures his role well: even where he was not known chiefly for major discoveries, he helped build the setting in which physiology could be taught, discussed, and developed in the United States.

He also wrote on the history of medicine and physiology. A later edition of his book Harvey's Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood identifies him as formerly professor of physiology at Columbia University, reflecting both his long academic career and his interest in the roots of his discipline. He died in 1913.