Reuben was born in 1818. He was the son of John Moffat and Hannah Curtis. Reuben Curtis Moffat, M. D. was a widely known and honored physician of the city of Brooklyn.
Graduating from the medical school of the University of the City of New York in the class of 1846, with the degree of M. D. in course, he began practice in the city of New York where he had lived since infancy, but soon removed to Newtown, Long Island, and two years later, in July 1849, settled in Brooklyn where he resided until his death, forty-five years later. Dr. Hans B. Gram, the first practitioner of homeoeopathy in America, was an intimate friend of Dr. Moffat's father; and partly through his influence and partly through that of Dr. Moffat's cousin, Joseph T. Curtis, M. D., who had married his sister Adeline (No. 65 below), Dr. Moffat became an earnest advocate and practitioner of the principles of homoeopathy, and throughout his life was one of its most stalwart champions. In 1883 the Regents of the University of the State of New York conferred upon him the honorary degree of M. D., in recognition of his learning and prominence among the physicians of the State.
Early in life Dr. Moffat enthusiastically embraced the doctrines of the Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) and collected all the writings of that church which had appeared in English up to the early 50's. These he placed at the disposal of the public through the medium of a free circulating library which he maintained until the estab- lishment of a similar but more modern library by the Brooklyn Society of the New Church. He was one of the prominent organizers of that society, conducting its services until an ordained minister was secured, and thereafter teaching a doctrinal class until obliged by failing health, within a year of his death, to relinquish it.
In personal appearance, Dr. Moffat was tall, handsome and of commanding presence; and he was of courtly manner toward all. The impress of superiority was upon him and the qualities which made it were within him. He loved his fellow men, loved to work among them, loved to help them in their need; and love of that kind begets a love which finds ex- pression in genuine sorrow when death severs the tie. Dr. Moffat was widely loved and his death sincerely mourned by a wide circle of patients and friends. [1]
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Categories: Swedenborgians