Avery J. Skilton, M. D.

AVERY J. SKILTON, M. D., an old Troy physician, was well known and had a large practice. From 1822 to 1823 he studied medicine with Dr. Christopher C. Kiersted, of Saugerties, N. Y.; also with Dr. William C. DeWitt of the town of Catskill, Greene Co., and also with Dr. Conant Catlin, at Bethlehem. He passed an examination before the Connecticut State Medical Society, and was licensed March 9, 1827. In 1828 he became a member of the Rensselaer Medical Society. Dr. Viele, in his interesting reminiscences of professional life during the last forty years in Troy and vicinity, read at a banquet of the Rensselaer County Medical Society in January, 1879, says "He was a man of unyielding energy and perseverance. He was fond of science, displayed a taste for conchology, and had a very large collection of shells and marine specimens. In his profession he was indefatigable, and his ideas of benevolence to the sick exceeded any conception that I had ever formed of the meaning of the word. He refused no one, and I presume his practice was the most varied and extensive of any of his associated. He performed more work, received more blame and less money than any other physician, and when smitten on the left cheek he would turn the right one."

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