GRIFFITTS, Samuel Powell, physician, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 21 July, 1759: died there, 12 May, 1826. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1780, and after studying medicine abroad for three years began practice in Philadelphia in 1784. He founded the Philadelphia dispensary in 1786, was its physician for seven years, and in 1792-'6 held the chair of materia medica in the University of Pennsylvania. In the pestilence of 1793, and the epidemics of 1797-'9, 1802, and 1805, he remained at his post regardless of personal danger, and was of great service. In 1793-'4 he was active in relieving the destitute French emigrants from St. Domingo, and collected $12,000 to aid them. From 1817 till his death Dr. Griffitts was vice-president of the College of physicians, and was also active in establishing, under the auspices of the Philadelphia yearly meeting of Friends, an institution for the relief of mentally deranged persons. He was one of the editors of the " Eclectic Repertory," and on 1 June, 1820, read before a convention for the formation of a pharmacopoeia, held in Washington, an "Essay of a Pharmacopoeia," of which he was the principal author.