WATSON, John, physician, born in Londonderry, Ireland, 16 April, 1807; died in New York city, 3 June, 1863. He came to this country with his parents in 1810, settled in New York city in 1818, was graduated at the New York college of physicians and surgeons in 1832, and was on the surgical staff of the New York hospital in 1832-'3. In 1833-'5 he was physician of the New York dispensary, and from 1839 till 1862 he was an attending surgeon of the New York hospital, where he introduced many reforms and improvements. In connection with Dr. Henry D. Bulkley, he established an infirmary for cutaneous diseases, which was organized soon afterward as the Broome street school of medicine, where Dr. Watson held the chair of surgical pathology. He was instrumental in organizing the New York medical and surgical society, the American medical association, and the New York academy of medicine, of which latter institution he was president in 1859-'60. With Dr. John A. Swett he established the "New York Medical and Surgical Journal." Dr. Watson was the author of numerous reports, essays, and reviews in professional journals, and published a "Lecture on Practical Education in Medicine and on the Course of Instruction at the New York Hospital" (New York, 1846) ; "Thermal Ventilation and other Sanitary Improvements applicable to Public Buildings and recently adopted at the New York Hospital" (1851); "The Medical Profession in Ancient Times" (1856) ; "The Parish Will Case Critically Examined in Reference to the Mental Competency of Mr. Henry Parish to execute the Codicils appended to his Will; and Notes in Reply to an Article entitled ' The Parish Will'" (1857) ; "The True Physician" (1860) ; "Obscurities of Disease" ; "Clinical Acumen, or the Sources of Misjudgment in the Study of Disease"; and a "History of Medicine" (1862).