MD Berlin 1840.
Samelson was born in Berlin on 6 September 1817. After qualifying he settled as a physician in Zehdenick, where he was a town councillor. He became a leading liberal and stood for election. In 1849, a newspaper article published by Samelson, about the Dresden reform movement, was found to include two political offences. Samelson was imprisoned in 1850, and deprived of his civil rights, including his position as town councillor and his license to practise as a physician. He returned to Berlin in 1853 and studied eye disease under Professor Albrecht von Graefe, but was expelled from Germany in 1855. Samelson spent some time in France and Holland, and in 1855 was refused authorisation to practice in Belgium. He came to Manchester in 1856, and practised in Oxford Road. Samelson was widely seen as public spirited, especially towards the poor; during the cotton famine he sat on the Chorlton-on-Medlock Relief Committee, and he later wrote an important report on housing and mortality for the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association. In 1862, Samelson was appointed Surgeon to Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, resigned in 1876. Samelson had obtained restitution of his rights in Germany in 1859, but he remained in England until his death.