Adams, Numa Pompilius Garfield (26 February 1885–29 August 1940), physician and medical educator, was born in Delaplane, Virginia. Little is known about Adams’s family and early life. He attended a country school run by his uncle Robert Adams. Adams received additional instruction and inspiration from his grandmother Amanda, a midwife who shared with him the secrets of herbal medicine. When Adams was thirteen, his family moved to Steelton, Pennsylvania. Soon Adams taught himself how to read music and purchased a used cornet, which he taught himself to play, a skill that later helped him pay for his education....
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Adams, Numa Pompilius Garfield (1885-1940), physician and medical educator
Shari Rudavsky
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Angell, James Rowland (1869-1949), academic psychologist and fourteenth president of Yale University
Dan A. Oren
Angell, James Rowland (08 May 1869–04 March 1949), academic psychologist and fourteenth president of Yale University, was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of James Burrill Angell, president of the University of Vermont and later the president of the University of Michigan, and Sarah Swope Caswell, daughter of ...
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Antony, Milton (1789-1839), physician and educator
Teresa Castelão-Lawless
Antony, Milton (07 August 1789–19 September 1839), physician and educator, was born presumably in Henry County, Virginia, the son of James Antony, Sr., a military officer, and Ann Tate. At sixteen, he became an apprentice under physician Joel Abbott of Monticello, Georgia. At nineteen he enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine but, owing to economic circumstances, had to leave without a diploma. He married Nancy Godwin in 1809. They had eleven children....
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Arnold, Richard Dennis (1808-1876), physician
John H. Ellis
Arnold, Richard Dennis (19 August 1808–10 July 1876), physician, was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Joseph Arnold and Eliza Dennis, occupations unknown. Despite hardships accompanying the deaths of both parents during childhood, Arnold, who had been an only child, received an excellent preliminary education and graduated with distinction from Princeton in 1826. He immediately began a medical apprenticeship under William R. Waring, a distinguished preceptor and member of an illustrious Charleston and Savannah family of physicians. After receiving his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1830, Arnold served for two years as a resident house officer in Philadelphia’s old Blockley Hospital before returning to Savannah where in 1833 he married Margaret Baugh Stirk. Their only child, Eleanor, born the next year, became the lifelong object of her father’s loving solicitude following her mother’s untimely death from pulmonary tuberculosis in 1850....
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Atwater, Wilbur Olin (1844-1907), nutritionist and professor of chemistry
Kenneth J. Carpenter
Atwater, Wilbur Olin (03 May 1844–22 September 1907), nutritionist and professor of chemistry, was born in Johnsburg, New York, the son of William Warren Atwater, a methodist clergyman, and Elizabeth Barnes. The family moved from place to place within New England during his childhood. He attended the University of Vermont for two years but graduated in 1865 from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After three years of teaching school, he moved to Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School as a graduate student in agricultural chemistry under Professor ...
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Baldwin, James Mark (1861-1934), psychologist and philosopher
Robert H. Wozniak
Baldwin, James Mark (12 January 1861–08 November 1934), psychologist and philosopher, was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Cyrus Hull Baldwin, a businessman and sometime federal official, and Lydia Eunice Ford. Baldwin entered Princeton as a sophomore in 1881. There, under President ...
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Bard, Samuel (1742-1821), physician and teacher
Thomas A. Horrocks
Bard, Samuel (01 April 1742–24 May 1821), physician and teacher, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John Bard, a physician, and Suzanne Valleau. Convinced by his good friend Benjamin Franklin that New York City offered a better opportunity for professional advancement, John Bard moved his family there in 1746 and soon became one of its leading physicians....
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Barker, Roger G. (31 March 1903–10 September 1990), child psychologist and pioneer
Harry Heft
Barker, Roger G. (31 March 1903–10 September 1990), child psychologist and pioneer in the naturalistic study of human development in community settings, was born in Macksburg, Iowa, the second of five children of Guy and Cora Barker, whose homesteader families arrived in the Midwest in the mid-nineteenth century. Guy Barker held a series of jobs: he was a farmer; served as the manager of a town’s general store; and then worked as a mid-level executive for a small insurance company in Des Moines, before returning to farming in eastern Alberta, Canada. Shortly after his Roger Barker’s birth, his family moved to the small town of Plover, Iowa, where he spent the first seven years of his life. Children growing up in small towns would later become his professional focus....
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Benjamin, Harry (1885-1986), physician, endocrinologist, and sex researcher
Keay Davidson
Benjamin, Harry (12 January 1885–24 August 1986), physician, endocrinologist, and sex researcher, was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Julius Benjamin, a banker, and Bertha Hoffman. He became interested in human sexuality at the age of twenty, when he read August Forel’s ...
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Benjamin, Harry (1885-1986)
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Harry Benjamin. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine (B02717).
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Bennett, John Cook (1804-1867), physician, religious leader, and entrepreneur
Michael Quinn
Bennett, John Cook (03 August 1804–05 August 1867), physician, religious leader, and entrepreneur, was born in Fair Haven, Bristol County, Massachusetts, the son of John Bennett, a shipowner, and Abigail Cook. At his father’s death in 1817, he moved with his mother to Ohio to stay with relatives. In 1825, after a three-year apprenticeship with a physician and an oral examination by an Ohio medical society, Bennett received his M.D. and a license to practice. That year he married Mary Barker; they had three children. There is no evidence supporting his claim to have attended Ohio University or McGill College in Montreal; he did, however, become a Freemason in 1826....
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Bettelheim, Bruno (1903-1990), therapist, educator, and author
Nina Sutton
Bettelheim, Bruno (28 August 1903–13 March 1990), therapist, educator, and author, was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Anton Bettelheim, a lumber merchant, and Pauline Seidler. Following his father’s death in 1926, he dropped out of the university to take over the family firm. Although successful in business, he re-enrolled ten years later to become, in February 1938, one of the last Jews to obtain a Ph.D. from Vienna University before World War II. While he was a philosophy student, aesthetics was his main subject, but he also studied psychology under ...
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Bevan, Arthur Dean (1861-1943), surgeon and reformer of medical education
William K. Beatty
Bevan, Arthur Dean (09 August 1861–10 June 1943), surgeon and reformer of medical education, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Thomas Bevan, a physician, and Sarah Elizabeth Ramsey. After attending high school in Chicago, Bevan earned his Ph.B. at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1881. He then entered Rush Medical College in Chicago and obtained his M.D. in 1883. He finished first in the competitive examination for the U.S. Marine Hospital Service....
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Bevan, Arthur Dean (1861-1943)
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Arthur Dean Bevan. Courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center.
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Billings, John Shaw (1838-1913), army medical officer, library organizer, and public health activist
James H. Cassedy
Billings, John Shaw (12 April 1838–11 March 1913), army medical officer, library organizer, and public health activist, was born near Allensville, Indiana, the son of James Billings, a farmer and storekeeper, and Abby Shaw. Despite spotty secondary schooling, he ultimately went to Miami College (Ohio), where he earned his B.A. in 1857. He was awarded the M.D. by the Medical College of Ohio in 1860. Billings remained with the latter institution for a year as an anatomical demonstrator, but after the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the U.S. Army as a contract surgeon. In 1862 he was commissioned first lieutenant and assistant surgeon and went on to make army service his career. Also in 1862 he married Katharine Mary Stevens; they had five children....
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Billings, John Shaw (1838-1913)
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John Shaw Billings. Courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum, University of Kansas Medical Center.
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Bryan, William Lowe (1860-1955), philosopher, psychologist, and educator
James H. Capshew
Bryan, William Lowe (11 November 1860–21 November 1955), philosopher, psychologist, and educator, was born William Julian Bryan on a farm near Bloomington, Indiana, the son of John Bryan, a Presbyterian minister, and Eliza Jane Philips. In 1876 he entered the preparatory department of Indiana University in Bloomington, which served as the local high school, and the next year he matriculated as a university student. As an undergraduate he developed his skills in public speaking and helped to revive the ...
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Bühler, Karl (1879-1963), psychologist and theorist of language
Mitchell G. Ash
Bühler, Karl (27 May 1879–24 October 1963), psychologist and theorist of language, was born in Meckesheim, in the state of Baden, Germany. Both his parents, whose names are unknown, were of peasant stock; his father was a railway official. After attending school in Meckesheim and in nearby Tauberbischofsheim, he studied natural sciences and medicine at the University of Freiburg, receiving a medical degree in 1903 for research on the physiology of vision. After further study at the University of Strasbourg, he earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1904. Accounts of the following months differ. Some sources state that Bühler worked briefly as a ship’s physician; others say that he studied under psychologists Carl Stumpf in Berlin and Benno Erdmann in Bonn....
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Burnham, William Henry (1855-1941), professor of psychology
Horace G. Marchant
Burnham, William Henry (03 December 1855–25 June 1941), professor of psychology, was born in Dunbarton, New Hampshire, the son of Samuel Burnham, a farmer and proprietor of the general store, and Hannah Dane. He entered Harvard in 1878, following three years of teaching while he prepared for the university; he graduated with honors in 1882. He taught at Wittenberg College (Springfield, Ohio) and at the Potsdam (N.Y.) Normal School before enrolling in graduate studies in psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1886. At Hopkins he was part of a group of students of ...
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Byford, William Heath (1817-1890), gynecologist and advocate of medical education for women
William K. Beatty
Byford, William Heath (20 March 1817–21 May 1890), gynecologist and advocate of medical education for women, was born in Eaton, Ohio, the son of Henry Byford, a mechanic, and Hannah Swain. Henry Byford moved his family to southwestern Indiana shortly after William’s birth and died there nine years later. Young William did odd jobs to help out, but about 1830 Hannah Byford had to move the family to her father’s farm in Crawford County, Illinois. During the next few years William often asked to be allowed to learn a trade to help support the family and improve his own prospects. He finally became apprenticed to a tailor, who moved away two years later. At this time William decided on medicine for his career, although he never mentioned the reason. His reading and studies in chemistry, physiology, and natural history may have steered him in this direction....
