Dr. Walter Channing (April 15, 1786 – July 27, 1876) was born in Newport, the younger brother of the Reverend William Ellery Channing. Like his brother he studied at Harvard and made his career in Boston, but as a noted physician and professor of medicine. After graduating from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1809, he became Harvard’s first Professor of Obstetrics and Medical Jurisprudence and, from 1819 to 1847, the dean of its medical school. In 1846 he became one of the first American physicians to employ anesthesia (ether) during childbirth and other operations. In the course of his long career he published numerous essays on medicine and medical history. He died at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

– (Dr.) Patrick T. Conley