Cleave’s
Biographical Cyclopædia of
Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons
By Egbert Cleave
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
OULIN,
JOHN J., M. D., of Jersey City, N. J., was born in Rupert, Benington
county, Vt., on December 31st, 1821, and is a descendant of the old
English nobility, the family name appearing in the English archives as
Ulin. After receiving a sound education at the Auburn Lyceum, Auburn, N.
Y., for the purpose of studying medicine he entered the office of
Augustus Willard, M. D., an allopathic surgeon enjoying a high
reputation in southern New York, and late President of the New York
Medical Society. Two years later, after attending a partial course of
lectures at Geneva College, he became a student of Alanson Briggs, M.
D., of Auburn, late Professor of Surgery in the Geneva Medical College,
an accomplished teacher and a splendid surgeon. Dr. Briggs was at the
time surgeon to the State prison at Auburn, so that the subject of this
sketch received unusually good advantages both of practice and of
anatomical study. He entered the Medical University of New York for the
course of 1847-’48, and graduated at Cleveland in 1854. He was connected
for some time with the New York Dispensary, in White Street, and
simultaneously with Dr. Detmold’s clinic of orthopœdic surgery.Since then he has been
in active practice in Jersey City.In his student days he
was a most bitter opponent of homœopathy, carrying his opposition to
ridiculous extremes. In his preceptor’s library he found many
homœopathic text-books, and in them he sought statements and
declarations with which to ridicule their authors and their doctrines.
He procured some of the remedies prescribed, and carefully studying the
symptoms, exhibited them in the cases of prisoners and others placed
under his care. The results soon staggered his belief in the accuracy of
his old notions, yet it was not until a homœopathic physician had
successfully brought him through an attack of fever, to which his
allopathic advisers had declared he must succumb, that he became
seriously convinced that the new theory was worth studying for itself.
Study was soon followed by conversion ; but although practicing homœopathy,
he hesitated to announce the change in his opinions to his distant
friends, having been so violent in his opposition to it, and it was not
until he had been two years engaged in following its precepts that his
parents knew he had become a homœopath. When he removed into New Jersey
there were but few homœopathic physicians or patrons in the State, but
since that time no State has gained in both with greater rapidity. In
Jersey City and Hudson county the homœopaths occupy a position equal to
that of the old school in public confidence and esteem. Dr. Youlin has
always borne himself toward the allopaths with independence and
firmness, combined with courtesy and respect, thereby gaining their
esteem, and compelling a respect equal to that they pay members of their
own school. He is at the present time one of the oldest practicing
physicians in Hudson county, and has secured numerous friends, not only
in the medical connection, but politically, and has been on several
occasions elected to positions of trust by his fellow-citizens. He is a
member of the Baptist Church, and has been such for over thirty years.Dr. Youlin was
President of the New Jersey State Homœopathic Medical Society for
eleven years, remaining in that position until after the obtainment of a
charter from the Legislature in 1870. He is now President for the second
year, of the Hudson County Homœopathic Medical Society ; a medical
director of the Jersey City Dispensary ; he was Vice-President of
the American Institute of Homœopathy in 1870-’72 ; and is now
President of the Hudson County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.He has contributed
largely to the local press, and has carried on several protracted
discussions upon medical topics, interestingly and profitably to the
public. His medical writings have not yet seen the light, except a few
addresses read before home societies.Source
: Cleave’s Biographical Cyclopædia of Homœopathic Physicians and
Surgeons By Egbert Cleave