Dr. Austin Flint, Sr. was born in Petersham, Massachusetts on October 20, 1812 to Joseph Henshaw Flint and Hannah Willard Reed. He attended Amherst College and Harvard Medical School, graduating from the latter in 1833.
He moved to Buffalo, NY around 1836 where he practiced medicine for the next 24 years. In the Autumn of 1843, a mysterious fever spread throughout the small village of North Boston, NY. Twenty-eight of the village’s forty-three residents died due to complications from this illness. Dr. Flint led the investigation into its cause and ultimately concluded that the outbreak was typhoid fever.
In 1846, Dr. Flint, along with 2 colleagues, Drs. James Platt White and Frank Hasting Hamilton, founded the Buffalo Medical School, now the University at Buffalo. He also established the Buffalo Medical Journal in 1846. Dr. Flint was widely known as an excellent diagnostician, teacher, and researcher.
In 1860, Dr. Flint moved downstate to New York City where he helped establish the Bellevue Hospital Medical College (in 1861). He died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 16, 1886, in his home in Manhattan, New York City.
