ELSBERG, Louis, physician, born in Iserlohn, Prussia, 2 April 1836; died in New York City, 19 February 1885. He immigrated to Philadelphia with his parents in 1849, was educated in the public schools of that City, and was graduated at Jefferson medical College in 1857. For six months after graduation he was resident physician at Mount Sinai hospital, New York. He then studied in Europe for a year, and on his return introduced medical laryngoscopy into the United States. He settled in New York City, delivered a course of lectures at University medical College in 1861 and in 1862 established the first public clinic for diseases of the throat.

This was his specialty, and he contributed largely to the literature of the subject, both by lectures and published papers. In 1865 a prize gold medal was awarded by the American medical association to his essay on "Laryngoscopical Surgery, illustrated in the Treatment of Morbid Growths within the Larynx." From 1880 till 1884 he published the "Archives of Laryngology," a quarterly, and "A Complete Manual of Throat Diseases." He also wrote many essays on subjects pertaining to music, general literature, and science among which are the" Discovery of a New Kind of Resultant Tones," "Explanation of Musical Hatmony," "The Preservation of Organic Molecules," and on "The Plastidule Hypothesis."