Samuel L. Mitchill

Samuel Latham Mitchill (August 20, 1764 – September 7, 1831) was an American physician, naturalist, and politician who lived in Plandome, New York.

Life and politics

Samuel L. Mitchill was born in Hempstead, New York and graduated in 1786 from the University of Edinburgh Medical School with an M.D., an education paid for by a wealthy uncle. Returning to the United States after medical school, Mitchill completed law school.

Mitchill taught chemistry, botany, and natural history at Columbia College from 1792 until 1801 and was a founding editor of The Medical Repository, the first medical journal in the United States. In addition to his Columbia lectures on botany, zoology, and mineralogy, Mitchill collected, identified, and classified many plants and animals, particularly aquatic organisms. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1797. From 1807 to 1826, he taught at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York and then helped organize the short-lived Rutgers Medical College of New Jersey, which he served as vice president until 1830. While at Columbia, Mitchill developed a fallacious theory of disease, which however resulted in his promotion of personal hygiene and improved sanitation.

Samuel

Samuel (/ˈsæm.juː.əl/;Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֵל, Modern Shmu'el, Tiberian Šəmûʼēl; Arabic: صموئيل Ṣamuil; Greek: Σαμουήλ Samouēl; Latin: Samvel; Strong's: Shemuwel), literally meaning "Name of God" in Hebrew, is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur'an, although not by name.

His status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras. According to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: Saul and David.

Biblical account

Family

Samuel's mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Elkanah lived at Rama-thaim in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (1 Chron. 6:3-15) and in that of Heman, his great-grandson (ib. vi. 18-22). According to the genealogical tables, Elkanah was a Levite - a fact otherwise not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges 17:7, for example).

Samuel (Raffi novel)

Samuel (Սամվել Samvel) is an 1886 Armenian language novel by the novelist Raffi. Considered by some critics his most successful work, the plot centres on the killing of the fourth-century Prince Vahan Mamikonian and his wife by their son Samuel.

Translations

References

Samuel of Nehardea

Samuel of Nehardea or Samuel bar Abba (Hebrew: שמואל or שמואל ירחינאה) was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an Amora of the first generation; son of Abba bar Abba and head of the Yeshiva at Nehardea. He was a teacher of halakha, judge, physician, and astronomer. He was born about 165 CE at Nehardea, in Babylonia and died there about 257 CE. As in the case of many other great men, a number of legendary stories are connected with his birth (comp. Halakot Gedolot, Giṭṭin, end; Tos. Ḳid. 73a s.v. Mai Ikka). In Talmudic texts, Samuel is frequently associated with Abba Arika, with whom he debated on many major issues. He was the teacher of Rabbi Judah ben Ezekiel. From the little biographical information gleaned from the Talmud, we know that Samuel was never ordained as a Tanna, that he was very precise with his words (Kidd. 70), and that he had a special affinity for astronomy: one of his best known sayings was that "The paths of heaven are as clear to me as the pathways of Nehardea."