Ayers, Edward A. (1855–1917)
Edward A. Ayers, physician, lecturer, writer, was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, Dec. 20, 1855, the son of Marshall P. Ayers, a banker and railroad builder, and Laura Allen. His early education was had in the public schools, and at Whipple Academy; he graduated from Illinois College in 1877. He graduated in medicine from the New York University in 1880, and practised in New York for several years. He was professor of obstetrics in the New York Polyclinic; a founder and first president of the Mothers and Babies Hospital of New York, and was a well-known scientific lecturer. His paper, "The Mosquito as a Sanitary Problem," won the Carpenter Prize of the New York Academy of Medicine. This formed a lecture which he gave in many places, using illustrations made by himself. It is a full, admirable, popular, well-illustrated exposition of the life-history of the mosquito in its relation to disease and the methods of extermination. This paper was published in Fulton's "Expository Writing" as one of "fifteen best examples of the English language." He contributed to magazines and medical journals, and wrote "Physical Diagnosis of Obstetrics."
Ayers was a musician, a trained organist, and skilled as an artist, making illustrations for many of his articles. He was a notable golf-player and won nine cups.
For two years he was a member of the New Jersey State Board of Health and medical inspector of the local schools.
In 1895 Dr. Ayers married Joy, daughter of Van Sinderen Lindsay, of Nashville, Tenn.
In 1908 he went to Branchville, New Jersey, where he practised until he moved to Franklin, in the same State, not long before an attack of pneumonia, which lasted but four days. He died at the Franklin Hospital, Dec. 3, 1917, survived by his widow, a son, Edward L., who served on ambulance duty in France, and a daughter, Ellen.