History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 179

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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Dr. George Logan, born at Stenton, near Philadel- phia, Sept. 9, 1758, was another graduate of the medical school of Edinburgh. In 1798 he was in- duced to embark for Europe to conduct negotiations for the prevention of war between France and the United States. At this period Mr. Gerry, the Amer- ican minister, had departed from l'aris, an embargo had been laid on our shipping, and many American seamen had been imprisoned. Dr. Logan persuaded the French government to raise the embargo, and prepared the way for the negotiations that terminated in peace. He emerged from the political quarrel that was coincident with the Franco-American dis- pute with so much credit that he was elected Senator from Pennsylvania in the Seventh and Eighth Con- gresses (from 1801 to 1807). He went to England in 1810 on the same peaceful mission which led him to France, but without the same success, He died at Stenton April 9, 1821. He was an active member of the Board of Agriculture and of the Philosophical Society.

Dr. John Armentaire Monges was a Frenchman, who came to Philadelphia in 1793, after having been attached to the French naval force during the war. It was said of him that, in his last illness, even in the days of summer, he could not perspire. He attained the highest standing in his profession. The date of his death was May 20, 1827.

Dr. Samuel George Morton, born in Philadelphia in 1799, and died May 15, 1851, was the author of numerous medical and other works, and began in 1830 his celebrated collection of skulls, one of the chief labors of his life. He adopted what was known in his day as the theory of a diverse origin of the human

race, and had an historic controversy with the Rev. John Bachman, of Charleston, S. C.

His father dying when he was quite young, he was placed at a Quaker school. From this he was removed to a counting-house, but manifesting a distaste for business, and selecting the study of medicine for a profession, he passed through the usual course of preliminary study under the guidance of Dr. Joseph Parrish; he received a diploma. Shortly afterward he visited Europe, and passed two winters in attend- ance on the medical lectures of the Edinburgh school, and one in similar manner at Paris. He returned in 1824 and began practice. Geology was his favorite pursuit. In 1827 he published an " Analysis of Tab- ular Spar from Bucks County ;" in 1834, " A Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States;" in the same year a medical work, "Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption : its Ana- tomical Characters, Causes, Symptoms, and Treat- ment;" and in 1849, " An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy, Special, General, and Micro- scopic." During this period he was actively en- gaged in the duties of his profession, having, in addition to a large private practice, filled the pro- fessorship of Anatomy in the Pennsylvania College from 1839 to 1843, and served for several years as one of the physicians and clinical teachers of the Alms- house Hospital. In 1839 he published the "Crania Americana," with finely executed lithographie illus- trations.

Dr. John C. Otto was a son of Dr. Bodo Otto, and was born in New Jersey in 1775. He was for many years attending physician and clinical lecturer in the Pennsylvania Hospital. He died June 30, 1845.

Dr. Hugh L. Hodge, born in Philadelphia June 27, 1796, was the son of a surgeon in the Continental army. He was an alumnus of Princeton College, and received medical tuition under Dr. Caspar Wis- tar. In his youth he made a trip to the East Indies as surgeon of a trading-ship, and after returning to this city was physician to the Southern Dispensary and the Philadelphia Dispensary, lecturer on the Principles of Surgery at the Medical Institute, and physician to the Philadelphia Almshouse. He was one of the editors of the North American Medical and Surgical Journal, and wrote for other professional publications. From 1835 he took up almost entirely the practice of obstetrics, assuming the lectureship of that branch of practice in the Medical Institute and physician to the lying-in department of the Penn- sylvania Hospital. In 1863 he resigned the former chair, and was made emeritus professor by the trustees of the Pennsylvania University, to which he pre- sented his museum, the collection of his professional career. In 1872 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Princeton College. In 1864 was pub- lished his chief literary work, the book on obstetrics. He married, Nov. 12, 1828, Margaret E. Aspinwall, daughter of John Aspinwall, of New York.

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MEDICAL PROFESSION.

Dr. George Mcclellan was born at Woodstock, Windham Co., Conn., Dec. 23, 1796 ; he was of Scotch descent, and in 1817 came to Philadelphia to attend the medical lectures in the Pennsylvania University and to study with Dr. John Syng Dorsey. Dr. S. G. Morton said of him that "his restless activity and sleepless vigilance in the pursuit of knowledge were remarked and admired by all, exciting the surprise of his fellow-students and drawing from older heads the presage of future distinction." In 1818, the year fol- lowing his graduation, he was elected resident physi- cian of the Philadelphia Almshouse. His public career as a lecturer began in 1825, in which year he became one of the founders of the Jefferson Medical College. His lectureship was that of surgery, and he continued his instructions until 1838, when all the professorships of the college were vacated, and a new organization took place, from which Dr. McClellan was excluded. He immediately conceived the idea of forming a third medical school, and, with five asso- ciates, organized the medical department of the Penn- sylvania College, in connection with that at Gettysburg. He became one of the faculty, and remained so until his death. He read little and wrote little, and the urgent solicitations of his friends were needed to induce him to begin the preparation of his work on the principles of surgery, the first sheet of which was presented to him as he was lying on the bed from which he never again arose. The book, however, was ably edited by his son. On the morning of May 8, 1847, he assisted in the performance of two operations, and he died the next day. He married, in 1820, Elizabeth, daughter of John H. Brinton, and one of their five children became Gen. George B. McClellan.

Dr. Samuel Mcclellan was born Sept. 21, 1800, at Woodstock, Conn. He graduated at the medical de- partment of Yale College, and, coming to this city, entered the office of his brother, George Mcclellan. He next removed to Bristol, Pa., where he practiced a few years, but finally settled in this city. About this time he assisted his brother in surgical operations, particu- larly in ophthalmic surgery. He was identified with him in the foundation and establishment of the Jeffer- son Medical College, and was appointed demonstra- tor, and then professor of Anatomy, and afterward professor of Obstetrics, in that institution. Subse- quently he was elected professor of Obstetrics in the Pennsylvania Medical College; but, wearied at length with professorships, he resigned, and devoted himself exclusively to private practice, for which he was admirably fitted by a sound judgment, native cheerfulness of manner, great experience, graceful urbanity, and his Christian character. He died Jan. 4, 1853.

The system of examination of students in the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania had always been most trying. In the earlier periods it was in the presence of the trustees, and the public were admitted. Students were required to write theses upon some subjects connected

with their course, and to deldo it in public against attacks of whatever kind might be made upon them. The examination was called "defending his thesis." The difficulties growing out of this habit, espeejally with young men who were easily embarrassed at such trying occasions, led to the adoption of the "green- box" system, in which applicants were examined only in the presence of the dean of the faculty, while the questions were propounded by the various pro- fessors behind a screen, not seeing and not seen by the students. This plan was found after trial to be inadequate, and finally one was established making applicants dependent upon the aggregate votes throughout all the branches they had studied.

Contemporary with midwifery, natural philosophy was assigned a separate chair ; but, as the former had been, so this was declared not essential to obtaining the degree, and the professor was enjoined from teaching in his lecture-room anything that was em- braced regularly in any of the other departments. Dr. Robert Hare was elected to this new chair, but resigned it in 1812, when Dr. Robert M. Patterson was appointed.

Dr. Robert M. Patterson was born in this city, graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1804, and received his degree of M.D. in 1808. He was a son of Robert Patterson, director of the United States mint. Dr. Patterson, educated as a chemist under Sir Humphry Davy, returned home in 1812, and, as we have stated, was soon after elected professor of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and Mathematics in the University. He was a professor in the University of Virginia in 1828-35, and director of the l'nited States mint from 1835 to 1853. He was elected a member of the Philosophical Society in 1809, and contributed largely to its proceedings. Ile delivered, May 25, 1843, while its vice-president, a discourse on the early history of the American Philosophical So- ciety, and from 1849 to 1853 he was its president. ID 1843 he delivered an address before the Franklin Institute. He died Sept. 5, 1854, aged sixty-eight. He married a daughter of Thomas Leiper.

Professor Henry S. Patterson, who was a member of another family of that name, was born in this city Aug. 15, 1815. His father, John Patterson, a much respected citizen and merchant, was a native of the north of Ireland. Dr. Patterson graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1839 was ap- pointed one of the resident physicians of the alms- house, where he remained two years. At the expira- tion of that time he resigned, and resumed general practice. Soon after he was appointed physician to the dispensary. In November, 1843, upon the re- organization of the faculty of the medical depart- ment of the Pennsylvania College, he accepted the chair of Materia Medica in that institution, and during the first year he also performed the duties of the chair of Chemistry. In 1846 he was appointed chief physician at the Blockley Almshouse, the duties

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

of which he continued to discharge for two years, at the same time continuing his medical lectures, and contributing largely to the medical and general liter- ature of the day. In 1852 he sought relief from his pressing duties by a trip to Europe, but he soon re- turned, and died in April, 1854. Dr. Patterson was a very learned man, and spoke the German, French, Latin, Italian, and Hebrew languages. As a phy- sician he stood very high.

We have seen that at the death of Dr. Rush, in 1813, and the appointment of Dr. Barton to the chair of Practice left vacant by him, Dr. Nathaniel Chap- man was taken from Surgical Obstetrics and given the chair of Materia Medica, from which Dr. Barton was at the same time changed to Practice.

The career of Dr. Chap- man is one of the most distinguished in the his- tory of medicine. He was a native of the State of Virginia, of one of the best families. The landed estate gotten by his ances- tors yet remains in 'the possession of the family, on the Pamunkey River. Dr. Chapman was born in the county of Fairfax. His academic education was obtained in the town of Alexandria. At seven- teen years of age he began the study of medicine, first under Dr. John Weems, of Georgetown, and subse- quently under Dr. Dick, of Alexandria. From there he went to the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, where, after taking his de- gree, he settled and began the practice of his profes- sion. Of winning man- ners, eloquent of tongue, courageous in spirit, he soon won his way to practice. Almost simultaneously with his coming to Philadelphia was that of a young man from still farther south, Dr. Charles Caldwell, of North Carolina. It was thought to have been the de- feat of Caldwell by Dr. Chapman for a professorship in the University that drove him away, to seek in the West the exalted fame that he there acquired. In addition to his studies at the University, Chapman became a private pupil of Dr. Rush, then in the zenith of his fame. The veteran physician became warmly attached to his pupil, and was free to predict for him a brilliant career. Upon the subject of hy- drophobia Dr. Rush had put forth certain opinions that had been most severely commented upon. When his favorite pupil, Chapman, was graduated in 1800,

A Chapman, in. D.

he chose for his thesis this subject, and defended with marked ability the views of his preceptor regarding its pathology. The thesis was thought to have been inspired by Rush, though there was no doubt that the youth was entitled to all the praise the paper re- ceived. Further, like his preceptor, Chapman, during his course at the University, took an interest in mat- ters outside of his profession, and contributed occa- sionally to the Portfolio, which, under the manage- ment of Dennie, exerted a controlling influence upon American literature. His contributions were mainly upon foreign, especially French, politics.

Like many of his predecessors in Philadelphia, he went abroad in order to accomplish himself yet more. He first repaired to London, where he studied for a year under the charge of the eminent Mr. Aber- nethy. In 1801 he re- paired to Edinburgh, the Alma Mater of the larger number of the eminent physicians in those days in all parts of America.1

It was not until 1804 that he returned to Phila- delphia, where, as we have seen, his success was rapid and brilliant. A man who, like Chapman, loves with all his heart the profession that he has chosen, who has availed himself faith- fully of all the facilities for studying it thoroughly, and who therefore has constant confidence in his abilities to practice it, if he have, besides, the dis- tinguished manners that all tradition says belonged to him, cannot but rise rapidly to fame. As a practitioner of his art he has left behind a reputation probably superior to that of every other physician of his generation. He early

1 Regarding this matter, Dr. Samuel Jackson, in his enlogy at the death of Dr. Chapman, thus speaks: "The celebrity aquired by the University of Edinburgh from its Munros, Cullen, Brown, and Gregory had not been eclipsed by the Paris or German schools, or rivaled by those of London or Dublin. The medical school of the Scotch metropo- lis was the cynosure of American physicians during the colonial period, and continued to be so until the last twenty-five years. Most of the eminent men of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston of the latter part of the last century were its alumni. I doubt whetber at that time mere was known of the European continental schools than the mere exist- ence of two or three of repute. All of the medical doctrines, ideas, principles, and practice of this country were derived from the Edin- burgh school or from English writers. Our knowledge of the works, contributions to science, doctrines, theories, and practice of the French, German, and Italian medical schools and profession, with some very limited individual exceptions, does not date beyond twenty-five or thirty years."

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MEDICAL PROFESSION.

evinced a notion to become a public teacher, as men are apt to do who are unusually positive in their ideas, and know themselves to be uncommonly well adapted to advance and maintain them. It was the career that he had run in the lectures upon obstetrics with Dr. James that gave him the eclat which went far to overcome the reluctance of the trustees of the Uni- versity to elevate that science to an independent pro- fessorship, and assign Dr. James to Obstetrics and Chapman to Materia Medica.

Although the medical profession had yet done but little in the matter of producing original professional literature, yet they had made some beginnings. Chapman wrote his " Elements of Therapeutics and during the short time that he held that chair. The medical world everywhere pronounced this the best work upon the subject that thus far had appeared in any country.

It is extremely difficult for a man of ardent temper, who has long maintained a theory of the truth of which he has never a donbt, to publicly withdraw his teachings, even when he has at last been led to sus- pect that his advocacy has been carried too far. The "solid" theory he had believed in with his whole mind, and taught it with an eloquence rarely heard in the lecture-room of a professor of medicine. Yet as the "humoral" theory, under the reasoning and experiments of several distinguished scientists, was pnt forth with new and very strong arguments in its favor, he studied it again with the utmost diligence. It was never precisely known to what extent his opinions, theretofore so confident, were modified; but he afterward discouraged the further sale of his own work, although it had already passed through many editions.

of hereafter, was organized, in 1847, although he was then near the end of a long life, he was unanimously elected its first president. He was also for a time president of the American Philosophical Society, and was so acting at the time of his death, in 1853. The Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sci- ences was begun by him in 1820, and edited by him during many years. This was afterward changed to the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, now well known throughont the scientific world.

The works of Dr. Chapman have already been enn- merated in the chapter on Literature.

Contemporary with the advent of Dr. Chapman to Philadelphia was that of another Virginian, Dr. Jo- Materia Medica," the basis of which was his lectures . seph Hartshorne. Ilis father was a native of New Jersey, and his mother of Philadelphia. The Harts- hornes had long been dwellers in New Jersey, having emigrated from the connty of Leicestershire, England, on account of the hardships imposed upon the Friends, of whom they were members. Richard Hartshorne came over in 1669, and was associated with William Penn and the Duke of York in the proprietaryship of : East Jersey, and became a man of great wealth and influence. A portion of the estate on the Highlands of Neversink is said to be yet in possession of some of his descendants. William Hartshorne, the father ' of the physician, was a man of great prominence, an intimate friend of Washington, and president of the Potomac Navigation Company, the first great work of internal improvement in the country. Joseph be- came incurably lame of foot from an attack of small- pox when he was a child. Like Chapman, he received his education at the Alexandria Academy, after which he spent some time in the business of his father, who was a leading merchant. Determining to become a physician, he began the study of medicine under the superintendence of Dr. James Craik, of Washington. In 1801 a vacancy occurred in the post of resident apprentice and apothecary in the Pennsylvania ITos- pital. The young student was anxious to obtain this office, and through influential friends and relatives who resided in Philadelphia, some of whom were among the managers, he succeeded. Such a position was of incalculable advantage to him in his general professional studies, which henceforth he prosecuted in the University. He held this office for five years, not only to the satisfaction of the managers, but to their gratitude, as publicly expressed by them, expe- cially for the services he had bestowed upon the li- brary and museum.

It was upon his elevation to the chair of Theory and Practice that his great powers began to develop in a specially eminent degree. This was in 1816. Here he continued in the neighborhood of thirty-five years, during which his reputation, take it all in all, was equal to that of any physician then living. He was said to have possessed remarkable oratorical powers, and these were often exerted to the delight of his hearers. Instead of being a mere physician, his tastes and his talents had been cultivated in other branches of erudition, evidences of which were often seen in the discursions he was wont to make for illus- trations of themes in themselves dry and uninter- esting. His reputation came soon enough and was great enough for him to enjoy during a long period During most of this time Dr. Caspar Wistar was professor of Anatomy. Young Hartshorne early showed a strong liking for this branch of science. This was enough with such a man as Wistar to attract special interest. Soon a warm friendship sprang up between the two, to endure during their joint lives. Another great advantage in the position he held was the facility which he enjoyed from long-continued the consciousness of its value among all classes, with- out producing the vanity that renders reluctant the bestowal of abundant adulation. The highest offices and honors were given to him while he was in the full possession of ability to discharge, appreciate, and enjoy them. He was president during many years of the Philadelphia Medical Society, and when the American Medical Association, which we shall speak habit in practice, both in surgical and general medical

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

cases. The many patient years spent hy him before applying for his degree were evidences of a true man, who, estimating his profession at its just importance, determined to prepare himself thoroughly before un- dertaking its various responsibilities. So, after seven years of study, he took his degree. Such was the confidence in his abilities by the managers of the hos- pital that for a year before his graduation he had the entire charge of the ont-patients who were accustomed to receive the benefits of this noble charity. Among other services he rendered at the hospital which made bim particularly distinguished was the introduction of a new apparatus for splinting a fractured thigh.

of the surgeons of the Pennsylvania Hospital might have been obtained but for bis withdrawal from com- petition in favor of Dr. John Syng Dorsey. The po- sition, however, was unanimously offered to him in 1815. The death of Dr. Wistar in 1818, with whom he had been long known to be familiar, devolved upon him a large increase of practice, and came very near securing him the professorship of Surgery that had just been vacated by Dr. Physick, who, on Wistar's decease, was transferred to the chair of Anatomy. Dr. Evans, the biographer of Dr. Hartshorne, attributes his defeat by Dr. Gibson to the strong desire of the trustees " to transplant from a neighboring and rival school one who promised to contribute much to its rising reputation." This, he added, " was at the time gen- erally understood to have been the principal cause of Dr. Hartshorne's defeat." As a practitioner Dr. Hartshorne ranked among the first and most success- ful of his time. His practice was equal to that of the greatest, and so were his successes during the ! yellow fever of 1820, and the next ten years in which a series of epidemics visited the city. His lameness, though this operated no serious hindrance to his practice, and his naturally reticent disposition, kept him somewhat more from society than was the wont of men of his rank ; but he was universally re- spected and esteemed, and held his place with the rest in the Philadelphia Medical Society, the Amer- ican Philosophical Society, and the College of Phy- sicians. He died in 1850 at Brandywine Springs, Del., whither he had gone in order to obtain some rest from an arduous practice, which, in spite of his long-failing health, he had not relinquished.

Contemporary with Dr. Hartshorne was Dr. Samuel Emlen. He was born in Chester County, March 6, 1789, and was studying in Paris in the eventful year

of 1814. He walked the hospitals, and, after the sur- render of Paris, he went to London, thence to Holland, and back to the United States as a bearer of dispatches for the government. He was a manager and the sec- retary of the Philadelphia Dispensary. He married Beulah Valentine, who was, like himself, a member of the Society of Friends. He died April 17, 1828.

In the year 1816, moved by the new impulse given everywhere to the natural sciences, the trustees of the University established a faculty for such study,-of Botany, Dr. William P. C. Barton ; of Natural History, Dr. Charles Caldwell ; of Mineralogy and Chemistry, Dr. Thomas Cooper; and of Comparative Anatomy, Dr. Thomas T. Hewson.

Shortly before the expiration of his term of service at the hospital he took position as surgeon and su- Dr. Thomas Tickell Hewson, who was born in London, April 9, 1773, spent five months with Dr. Franklin, at Passy, France, in 1784-85, and on the removal of the family to Philadelphia, the next year, became a student in the University of Pennsylvania. After pursuing his medical studies with Dr. John Foulke he went abroad, and was in Edinburgh and London until 1800. He then came back to Philadel- percargo of an East India ship about to sail for Batavia. The permission he requested was granted, and he received from the managers a copy of a reso- lution in the highest degree complimentary to the fidelity and efficiency of his services. This voyage was repeated, and after a brief period, in which he united the drug business with his professional work, he de- voted himself wholly to the latter. A position as one | phia, and in 1806 was appointed physician to the Walnut Street prison, where he was most courageous in contending against the typhus fever epidemic in the winter of 1817-18. For his heroisni he was pre- sented by the inspectors with a silver vase. He was a surgeon of the Philadelphia Almshouse and the Pennsylvania Hospital, and a physician of the Orphan Asylum, where he served for twenty years from Jan- uary, 1817. He largely contributed to the formation and revision of the National Pharmacopoeia, and was president of the Cholera Medical Board in 1832. He filled successively the offices of secretary and censor of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, with the excep- tion of one year, from July, 1802, to April, 1835, when he was chosen vice-president, and in July following he was elected president, which office he continued to hold until his death. He died Feb. 17, 1848.

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 179

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992