DR. ALVAH H. DOTY DIES IN 80TH YEAR;
Health Officer of Port for 17 Years Led in Staten Island Fight on Mosquitos
WESTERN UNION OFFICIAL
Retired Medical Director of the Telegraph Concern Centre of Bitter Controversy in 1911.
Pelham Manor, N.Y., May 27 -- Dr. Alvah H. Doty, who was Health Officer of the Port of New York from 1895 to 1912 and from 1913 until his retirement last year medical director of the Western Union Telegraph Company, died here today at his home, 110 Monterrey Avenue, from the effects of a stroke suffered Wednesday night. He would have been 80 years old on July 27.
The near relatives who survive are a widow, his second wife, who was Blanche Rees of Pittsburgh at their marriage in 1901; a son, Alvah H. Jr. of New York, by his first marriage; a brother, County Judge L. R. Doty, and two sisters, Mrs. Frederick Youngs and Mrs. Eugene Schesser, all of Geneseo Funeral services will be held at the house at 3:30 P.M. Tuesday. Burial will take place in Geneseo.

HAD EARLY MILITARY TRAINING
Dr. Doty was born in Albany, and was graduated from high school there. Intending at first to become a soldier he completed the course of the Rochester Military Academy before turning his mind to medicine. In 1878 he received his M.D. fromthe Bellevue Hospital Medical College and the same year began his long career as a guardian of public health.
Appointed an inspector on the staff of the Health Officer of the Port he subsequently was made diagnostician of the New York Board of Health, and then chief of its Bureau of Contagious Diseases. During this early period he also was active in the militia, serving as surgeon with the Ninth Regiment, N.Y.N.G., with the rank of major.
Governor Morton first appointed Dr. Doty Health Officer of the Port of New York on Jan. 2, 1895, and he received his last appointment on Feb. 28, 1907, at a salary of $12,000 a year. The Governor commented that the reappointment was justified by the efficient service Dr. Doty had given the people in the past.
A note of the Governor's secretary, Robert H. Fuller, made public at the time, recounted in part that: "Previous to Dr. Doty's original appointment the quarantine regulations had been managed in such a way that the New York City was often threatened with contagious diseases brought in through the port. Dr. Doty's management of infectious and quarantinable disease has prevented the recurrence of such diseases."

QUARANTINE SYSTEM PRAISED.
Further testimony to the efficiency of Dr. Doty's administration was furnished by a special commission sent to the world's leading ports, which concluded that the system of quarantine under Dr. Doty was the best in the world. Besides his work in guarding Americans from diseases brought by migrants, Dr. Doty added immensely to the healthfulness of the metropolis by ridding Staten Island of mosquitos, an ancient pest in a six-year-campaign.
Yet in 1911 Governor John A. Dix appointed commission, Charles N. Bulger, to investigate the business and affairs of the office of the health officer, and as a result of the adverse findings of Mr. Bulger and the Governor's acceptance of them, Dr. Doty relinquished his position the following February. He declined to resign, but his term of office had expired some months before and the Governor appointed another man in his place. Commissioner Bulger began his inquiry in June and filed a voluminous report the following December finding that the methods of keeping accounts and records of business transactions in the Health Office were "primitive, obsolete, unsystematic and altogether unreliable," and that Dr. Doty had "failed utterly to maintain an efficient quarantine at the port of New York."

SUPPORTED BY MEDICAL ACADEMY
In direct contrast to the opinion of Commissioner Bulger was the resolution adopted on Dec. 13 at the New York Academy of Medicine and sent to Governor Dix. It strongly supported Dr. Doty and urged his retention in office. The resolution was signed by a score of the leading physicians in the United States, men who were familiar as experts with the subject in controversy. Among the signers were Drs. Walter B. James, W. Elman Thompson, Simon Flexner, William H. Park, Hermann M. Biggs, John W. Brannan, Alexander Lambert, William K. Draper, Charles L. Dana, George M. Brewer, Alexander Smith and W. M. Polk.
In January, 1913, Theodore N. Vail announced the appointment of Dr. Doty as medical director of the Employees Benefit Fund Committee of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Western Electric Company. The previous November these companies had made public a pension and sick-benefit plan for their 175,000 employees, supported by a fund of $10,000,000. To this work, which included as perhaps its most important element that of health protection, Dr. Doty devoted the remainder of his career.
In the World War period Dr. Doty was a member of the subcommittee on welfare work of the advisory commission of the Council of National Defense. He was a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, a member of the American and State Medical Societies, the Calumet and Republican Clubs.
Of the measures for preserving one's health Dr. Doty ranked walking at the top, or near it. He regarded walking superior to any other way of stretching the muscles and expanding the lungs in the open air, and expressed his views in a book, Walking for Health," published in 1934.

DEATHS
DOTY -- At Pelham, N.Y., on May 27, 1934, Dr. Alvah Hunt, beloved husband of Blanche Rees Doty. Funeral services at his home, 110 Monterey Ave., Tuesday after at 3:30 o'clock. Interment Geneseo, N.Y.

• Married: 3 Aug 1885 in Manhattan, New York county, New York ¹⁵
• Event: The New York Times Newspaper article 4 Aug 1885 in New York, New York
• Note:

  COL. BRUCE'S DAUGHTER MARRIED
  Dr. Alvah Hunt Doty, a prominent young physician of this city and a member of the New-York Health Board, was married yesterday to Miss Mary Thornton Bruce, a daughter of Col. Sanders D. Bruce, of the Turf, Field and Farm. The Rev. Dr. D. Parker Morgan, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, performed the ceremony. The wedding took place at the residence of the bride's parents, No. 59 West Thirty-seventh-street. The happy couple have started off on their wedding trip.
  

  ¹⁵

1. Alvah Doty b: 21 Nov 1887 in New York, New York

• Married: 12 Jun 1901 in New York, New York ^{10 16}
• Event: "The New York Times" Marriage Notice 13 Jun 1901 in Manhattan, New York county, New York
• Note:

  DOTY--REES
  Dr. Alvah H. Doty, Health Officer of the Port of New York, and Miss Blanche Ida Rees were married at the Burlington apartments, 10 West Thirtieth Street, last evening. The bride was formerly of Pittsburg, but has been living in New York since the death of her father, a few months ago, with her sister, Miss Clementina Rees, at the Burlington.
  The ceremony last evening was performed by the Rev. Campbell Walker, rector of St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, Clifton, S. I. Dr. Herman M. Biggs of the Board of Health was the best man. Dr. Doty, the bridegroom, has been for the past seven years the Health Officer of this port. He is a member of several clubs, among them being the Calumet, the Richmond County Country, the Fencers' Club, and the Society of Medical Jurisprudence. Dr. and Mrs. Doty will spend their honeymoon visiting various places, and expect to be absent for about a week. The duties of Dr. Doty at Quarantine have recently been very arduous, owing to the great number of smallpox cases that he has had to look after on incoming liners, and for this reason he is able to take only a week's vacation at this time.

  ³

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