MOTT, Valentine, American surgeon: b. Glen Cove, L. I., 20 Aug. 1785; d. New York, 26 April 1865. He was graduated (1807) at Columbia College when he went to England to continue his studies in medicine at the post graduate courses of London and Edinburgh. In 1809 he returned to New York and was given the chair of surgery at Columbia College, contin uing to hold the position when Columbia Col lege was merged with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1826'he with the entire body of his colleagues resigned on account of offen sive actions of the trustees and they founded Rutgers College. The latter institution, in 1830, had to close from defects in its charter and he returned to the College of Physicians and Sur geons as professor of operative surgery and surgical and pathological anatomy. Ill health caused him (1835) to resign to visit Europe twice, finally returning in 1841, after having gained high honors for work done in the old country. He was elected president of the medi cal faculty of the University of the City of New York while still practising as surgeon in New York Hospital, till 1850 when he spent a year in Europe. In 1851 he was appointed professor
of operative surgery and surgical anatomy again at the College of Physicians and Surgeons for a year when he resigned and was made emeri tus professor for the rest of his life. On his death his fine library went to New York Acad emy of Medicine. He gave but little time to literary composition, one of his most extensive works being his 'Travels in Europe and the East' (1842). He supervised a translation of Velpeau's 'Operative Surgery,' writing its preface. In 'Transactions' of the New York Academy of Medicine were published numerous addresses and lectures. He also wrote a 'Sketch of the Life of Dr. Wright Post' and a 'Eulogy on his friend Dr. Tohn Wakefield Francis' (1861). 'Mott's Cliniques' (1860) is an abstract of his later clinical lectures.
Consult Gross, S. D., 'Memoir of Valentine Mott' (Philadelphia 1868).