Fessenden N. Otis (1825-1900) was born in Ballston, New York, and died in New York, New York. He is known as a pioneer in the medical field of urology and as an inventor of a number of medical instruments. Otis studied art in New York and was a teacher of drawing and perspective before entering the New York Medical College, from which he graduated in 1852. He worked as a ship's surgeon for the United States Mail Steamship Company and for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company from 1853 to 1861. Otis became a New York City police surgeon in 1862 and later became a clinical professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. From 1870 to 1872, he served as President of the Medical Board of the Police Department, and presided as President of the Medical Board of the Strangers' Hospital from 1871 to 1873. At the Strangers' Hospital, he was also in charge of the Genitourinary Department and Diseases of the Skin. In 1872, he became President of the American Dermatological Society. Otis was a collector of Japanese bronze sculpture and late nineteenth-century American landscape paintings.

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