Flint was born at Petersham, Massachusetts, on October 20, 1812, to Joseph Henshaw Flint (1786-1846) and Hannah Willard Reed. He was educated at Amherst and Harvard and graduated at the latter in 1833.
After practicing at Boston, Massachusetts, and Northampton, Massachusetts, he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1836. He was appointed professor of the institutes and practices of medicine in Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois; resigned after one year, in 1846, and established the Buffalo Medical Journal. With Doctors White and Frank Hastings Hamilton he founded the Buffalo Medical College in 1847, where he was professor of the principles and practice of medicine for six years. He was afterward professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the University of Louisville, Ky., from 1852 to 1856. He was then called to the chairofpathology and clinical medicine at Buffalo. From 1858 to 1861 he was professor of clinical medicine in the School of Medicine at New Orleans. In 1859 he moved to New York and in 1861 was appointed visiting physician to Bellevue Hospital; from 1861 to his death, in 1886, he was professor of the principles and practice of medicine in Bellevue Hospital Medical College (consolidated with the medical department of New York University in 1898), and from 1861 to 1868 he was professor of pathology and practical medicine in Long Island College Hospital.
He died on March 13, 1886, in Manhattan, New York City. His funeral was held at Christ Church United Methodist at the corner of Fifth-avenue and Thirty-fifth-street in Manhattan. His body was on display at his home 418 Fifth-avenue.[2]
Leslie, Bruce R (2002). "Austin Flint in New Orleans and the origins of evidence-based medicine". The Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society. 154 (3): 144–8. PMID12139360.
Cohen, S G (1997). "Asthma among the famous. Austin Flint (1812–1886) American physician". Allergy and Asthma Proceedings. 18 (3): 187–90. PMID9194947.
Kambara, H (January 1985). ""Ryumachi shinron", the first translated and published monograph on rheumatic diseases in Japan, and short biographical sketches of the author of the original book, Austin Flint (1812–1886), and of the translator, Toshio Yasugi (1847–1883) (Jpn)". Nihon Ishigaku Zasshi. 31 (1): 39–50. PMID11622129.
"On cardiac murmurs by Austin Flint, the American Journal of the Medical Sciences in 1862 (volume 44)". Am. J. Med. Sci.265 (3): 236–55. March 1973. PMID4573729.