Dr. Bedford Brown, Jr., M.D. (1823-1897)

Bedford Brown, Tar Heel HealerLittle known today, one of North Carolina's most distinguished sons was a physician, Bedford Brown, born January 17, 185, in Caswell County, the son of Senator Bedford Brown who represented the state from 1825 to 1841 and Mary L. Glenn. When he was twenty he had already made a decision to be a physician, and in 1845 was sent to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he took two series of lectures in the medical department of the university, and graduated from that institution as well.

After graduation he spent three or four years as a practicing physician establishing a fine reputation in Virginia, but like so many North Carolinians, wanted to live his life in his home state. In 1852 he married Mary E. Simpson of Washington, D.C. and that marriage produced three children, two sons and a daughter. One son, William Bedford Brown who practiced as a physician in New York. In 1855 he returned to Yanceyville where he practiced until the outbreak of the Civil War.

In the spring of 1861 he was appointed chief surgeon for the Confederate States training camp at Weldon, and after a period there was appointed inspector of hospitals and camps in the Confederate Army, a job he held until the end of the war. Bedford Brown after the Civil War returned to Alexandria, Virginia, and had a large and successful practice. He was a distinguished member of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, and a member of the Virginia Board of Medical Examiners. He was elected president of the Virginia Medical Society in 1896.

He was a prolific writer, preparing papers on diseases and his techniques and methods of healing, including works on diphtheria, meningitis, pneumonia and a host of others as well. He died in 1897 after unsuccessful surgery, on September 13, at his home in Alexandria, Virginia.



Krochmal, Connie, "Bedford Brown, Tar Heel Healer." The State: Down Home in North Carolina January 1986: 29. Print.
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