Salomon, Lucien F., M.D.

Submitted by Mike Miller

Salomon, Lucien F., M. D., of New Orleans, was born Aug. 21, 1850, at New Orleans; son of William Salomon, a native of New Orleans (Dec. 25, 1822; died Dec. 3, 1881), and of Francoise Elodie De Gruy Salomon, born at New Orleans, May, 1830; died July 4, 1886. Dr. Salomon's grandfather, a native of England, came to New Orleans in his early manhood, and conducted a clothing store on Levee, now North Peters, street. He married Sarah Marx, of New Orleans, who had emigrated to that city with her parents, from Holland. William Salomon, father of Dr. Salomon, followed for a time the profession of engraver. When the Civil war broke out, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and after the Federal troops had taken New Orleans, Mr. Salomon was ordered by Gen. Ben. Butler to leave the city. With his wife and 7 children, the Confederate sympathizer embarked on a schooner bound for Pascagoula, Miss., and thence went by wagon to Mobile, Ala., and from Mobile, by flat car, to Meridian and next to Jackson, Miss. The family moved to Tangipahoa, La., where a brother-in-law of Mr. Salomon, a planter, resided, and at Tangipahoa Mr. Salomon enlisted in the Southern army and was in active service until the end of the war, when he returned to New Orleans and was a cotton weigher up to the time of his death, in 1881. Dr. Salomon is one of 12 children, 7 boys and 5 girls. He was educated in the public schools of New Orleans; graduated from the high school; took up the study of medicine in the medical department of the University of Louisiana, now Tulane; served as interne at the charity hospital for 18 months. He graduated in medicine in 1872, and at once began practicing in New Orleans. Dr. Salomon was visiting surgeon and physician at different times at the charity hospital, and adjunct professor of surgery in the charity hospital school of medicine (1874-1877). Served as secretary of the state board of health (1886-1894).

In 1885, at the request of the government of Jamaica, Dr. Salomon was sent to investigate the sanitary conditions of that island; and in 1898 performed a similar duty for the Island of Porto Rico. He was present at the evacuation of San Juan during the Spanish-American war. During yellow fever epidemics, he went to several localities to attend to the sick. In 1874, the doctor was commissioned acting assistant surgeon in the United States army and was detailed to Fort Barrancas where yellow fever was prevailing among the soldiers. During Pres. Roosevelt's administration, Dr. Salomon was appointed, in 1906, United States Pension Examiner, a position he still holds. Previous to the organization of the Orleans parish Medical society, he was a member, and president for 2 terms, of the New Orleans Medical & Surgical association. An act that won for Dr. Salomon the grateful thanks of the people of New Orleans and the congratulations of Charles A. Dana, proprietor of the New York Sun, and the hearty approval of the Illinois Central R. R. Co., through its representative, Mr. Clark, was when, in 1879, being a delegate from Louisiana to the meeting of the Sanitary Council, of the Mississippi Valley he stood up nobly for New Orleans. Owing to lack of confidence in sources of information as to the sanitary status of New Orleans, the meeting was ready to adopt a resolution providing for quarantine against New Orleans from May 1 to Nov. 1. Dr. Salomon spoke for 2 days against that resolution, and finally succeeded in defeating it. Throughout the South, Dr. Salomon is highly considered as an expert in typhoid fever, of which he has made a special study, as well as of other fevers, in the treatment of which he is very successful. He is a member of the Orleans parish Medical association, the Louisiana State Medical society, American Public Health association, the Conference of State Boards of Health. In 1885, Dr. Salomon married Charlotte Cooley Stone, widow of Dr. Warren Stone, Jr., of New Orleans, and daughter of Judge Ebenezer Cooley, of Pointe Coupée, La. Dr. Salomon is affiliated with no political party, as he prefers to be independent of any faction.

Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 389-390. Edited by Alcée Fortier, Lit.D. Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.