Barker, Jeremiah (31 March 1752–04 October 1835), physician, was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Barker and Patience Howland, farmers. Barker’s early education under the Reverend Mr. Cutter, a Congregational minister, was followed by his study of medicine under Bela Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, from 1769 to 1771. A graduate of Harvard College who had studied medicine under Ezekiel Hersey and in London hospitals and who had received an M.D. from Kings College, Aberdeen, Lincoln had had an unusually academic medical education for the period, a fact that would have a positive influence on Barker’s own medical training....
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Barker, Jeremiah (1752-1835), physician
Richard J. Kahn
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Bass, Mary Elizabeth (1876-1956)
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Mary E. Bass. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine (B02453).
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Bass, Mary Elizabeth (1876-1956), physician, medical educator, and historian
Elizabeth D. Schafer
Bass, Mary Elizabeth (05 April 1876–26 January 1956), physician, medical educator, and historian, was born in Carley, Mississippi, the daughter of Isaac Esau Bass and Mary Eliza Wilkes. She grew up in Marion County, where her father operated a gristmill and dry goods store. The 1890s economic depression bankrupted Isaac Bass, and the family moved to Lumberton, Mississippi, to invest in pecan orchards. The Basses were pious Baptists and active in civic concerns....
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Bolton, Henry Carrington (1843-1903), chemist and historian
Herbert T. Pratt
Bolton, Henry Carrington (28 January 1843–19 November 1903), chemist and historian, was born in New York City, the only child of Jackson Bolton, a physician, and Anna Hinman North. Bolton graduated from Columbia College in 1862 after showing aptitude in mathematics and chemistry. Over the next four years he studied chemistry with some of the best minds in Europe: Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas at the Sorbonne and Charles-Adolphe Wurtz of the École de Médicine in Paris; Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp, and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff at the University of Heidelberg; Friedrich Wöhler at Göttingen; and August Wilhelm von Hofmann of the University of Berlin. In 1866, the year his father died, he was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen for his work “On the Fluorine Compounds of Uranium.” Throughout his stay in Europe, Bolton traveled the whole of the Continent, particularly in Switzerland, where he became an expert alpine climber....
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Bronowski, Jacob (1908-1974), mathematician and historian and philosopher of science
David Topper
Bronowski, Jacob (18 January 1908–22 August 1974), mathematician and historian and philosopher of science, was born in Łódź (in what is now Poland), the son of Abram Bronowski and Celia Flatto, occupations unknown. During his childhood his family moved first to Germany (1912) and then to England (1920). In 1927 he entered the University of Cambridge to study mathematics, receiving his Ph.D. in 1933. He also helped found and edit a literary magazine, ...
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Burkhardt, Fredrick Henry (13 Sept. 1912–23 Sept. 2007), educational administrator and historian of science
Steven C. Wheatley
Burkhardt, Fredrick Henry (13 Sept. 1912–23 Sept. 2007), educational administrator and historian of science, was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Burkhardt, a butcher and shopkeeper who had deserted from the German Navy, and Marie Neumeier. Burkhardt attended public schools in Queens, suffering anti-German prejudice during World War I. The family relocated to Staten Island after the war, but when his father’s grocery shop became a speakeasy during Prohibition, it was decided that Burkhardt should return to Queens to live with his grandparents. Against the advice of his family, who had secured him an appointment to the New York City Fire Department, Burkhardt began undergraduate study at Columbia University. Upon graduating with a B.A. in ...
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Cajori, Florian (1859-1930), mathematical historian
Joseph D. Zund
Cajori, Florian (28 February 1859–14 August 1930), mathematical historian, was born in St. Aignan (near Thusis), in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, the son of Georg Cajori, a well-known Swiss engineer and contractor who built bridges and highways, and Catherine Camenisch. The young Cajori attended school in Zillis and Chur, Switzerland, before coming to the United States in 1875. During 1876–1878 he attended the State Normal School in Whitewater, Wisconsin, and after graduation he taught in a country school before entering the University of Wisconsin. There Cajori received his B.S. in 1883 and then studied at the Johns Hopkins University (Jan. 1884–June 1985) before obtaining his M.S. in 1886 from the University of Wisconsin....
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Chardón, Carlos E. (28 Sept. 1897–7 March 1965), mycologist, university chancellor, government administrator, and historian of science
Darryl E. Brock
Chardón, Carlos E. (28 Sept. 1897–7 March 1965), mycologist, university chancellor, government administrator, and historian of science, was born Carlos Eugenio Chardón Palacios in Ponce, Puerto Rico, one of two sons to Carlos Félix Chardón, a notary and successful planter, and Isabel Palacios Pelletier. Chard...
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Coolidge, Julian Lowell (1873-1954), mathematician
Joseph W. Dauben
Coolidge, Julian Lowell (28 September 1873–05 March 1954), mathematician, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of John Randolph Coolidge, a lawyer, and Julia Gardner. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1895, Coolidge received the first bachelor’s degree ever awarded in natural science from Balliol College, Oxford University, in 1897. He then returned to the United States, where he taught at the Groton School in Connecticut for two years. Among his Groton students was ...
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Corner, George Washington (1889-1981), anatomist, endocrinologist, and medical historian
David Y. Cooper
Corner, George Washington (12 December 1889–28 September 1981), anatomist, endocrinologist, and medical historian, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of George Washington Corner II, a merchant, and Florence Evans. He attended the Boys Latin School, from which he graduated with honors in six subjects, and entered the Johns Hopkins University in 1906. His original intention was to study languages. Within a year, however, he discovered he was more inclined to biological studies. In 1909 he graduated with an A.B. and entered the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Corner’s years at Johns Hopkins were those of the great founders, ...
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Cushing, Harvey Williams (1869-1939), neurosurgeon, medical historian, and bibliophile
Jeremiah A. Barondess
Cushing, Harvey Williams (08 April 1869–07 October 1939), neurosurgeon, medical historian, and bibliophile, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Western Reserve of Connecticut, the son of Henry Kirke Cushing, a physician, and Betsey Maria Williams. In addition to his father, Cushing’s paternal grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great grandfather were all physicians in general practice. Cushing’s childhood was a happy and full one with strong parental role models. He found opportunities at home to consort, through books, with the world of ideas, and to explore history. His early education was in the public schools of Cleveland and from his mother, who taught him French and introduced him to general literature and poetry. In 1887 Cushing entered Yale University, where he spent four happy years, achieving election to Scroll and Key (a matter of considerable importance to him) and securing the short-stop position on the Yale freshman baseball team and, later, membership on the varsity nine....
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Deutsch, Albert (1905-1961), historian and journalist
Edward M. Brown
Deutsch, Albert (23 October 1905–21 June 1961), historian and journalist, was born in New York City, the son of Barnett Deutsch and Kate Knopke. Raised on the Lower East Side, Deutsch was the fourth of nine children in a poor Jewish family that had recently emigrated from Latvia. At the age of five, following an accident, his right eye had to be enucleated. He was largely self-educated. Before finishing high school, he left home and traveled around the United States, working as a longshoreman, a field hand, and a shipyard worker. While on the road, he continued his education in public libraries around the country....
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Draper, John William (1811-1882), scientist, educator, and historian
Gregory A. Hile
Draper, John William (05 May 1811–04 January 1882), scientist, educator, and historian, was born near Liverpool, England, the son of John Christopher Draper, an itinerant Wesleyan minister, and Sarah Ripley. Draper attended a Methodist grammar school and completed his premedical studies at University College, London, immersing himself in the philosophies of Benthamism and positivism, to which he would return later in life....
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Edelstein, Ludwig (1902-1965), classical scholar and historian of medicine
William M. Calder
Edelstein, Ludwig (23 April 1902–16 August 1965), classical scholar and historian of medicine, was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Isidor Edelstein, a wealthy Jewish businessman, and Mathilde Adler. Taught first by private tutors, Ludwig Edelstein later entered the Joachim Friedrich Humanistic Gymnasium in Berlin, where he received grounding in Greek and Latin. He studied from 1921 to 1924 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in his native city. From the start he concentrated in philosophy and classics and was especially influenced by the classicist ...
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Edwards, Everett Eugene (1900-1952), historian of agriculture
James H. Shideler
Edwards, Everett Eugene (12 February 1900–01 May 1952), historian of agriculture, was born in Waltham Township, Minnesota, the son of Edward E. Edwards and Mary Hunt, farmers. As a boy on a modest Minnesota family farm in the first years of the twentieth century, Edwards acquired an agrarian attachment to and intimate knowledge of American farming. His education was in country schools and Carleton College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1921 after a brief stint in the U.S. Army in 1918. Following a short period of teaching high school in rural Minnesota, Edwards studied at Harvard University, earning a master’s degree in history in 1924. After two years on the history faculty at Northwestern University in 1923–1925, Edwards continued graduate work at Harvard until 1927, studying with ...
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Ewbank, Thomas (1792-1870), commissioner of patents, inventor, and historian of technology
William A. Bate
Ewbank, Thomas (11 March 1792–16 September 1870), commissioner of patents, inventor, and historian of technology, was born in Durham, England. Little is known of Ewbank’s parentage or early life. He was apprenticed to a “Tin and Coppersmith, Plumb and Shot Maker” for seven years, and in 1812 he made his way to London, where he joined several literary associations sympathetic to the English liberal reformers of the period. In 1819 Ewbank emigrated to the United States, and in 1826, his wife, Mary, and the first of their six children followed, joining him in New York. There he began his professional career as an inventor and manufacturer of tin and copper tubing, occupying the late ...
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Flick, Lawrence Francis (1856-1938), physician, historian, and early leader in the campaign against tuberculosis
Barbara Bates
Flick, Lawrence Francis (10 August 1856–07 July 1938), physician, historian, and early leader in the campaign against tuberculosis, was born in Carroll Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, the son of John Flick, a mill owner and farmer, and Elizabeth Schabacher (changed to Sharbaugh). Flick grew up on the family farm, but poor health excused him from the usual chores. A bookish boy and a devout Roman Catholic, he first attended local schools. For most of his teenage years, he studied at St. Vincent’s, a Benedictine college in Beatty (now Latrobe), Pennsylvania, but symptoms suggesting tuberculosis cut short his classwork, and he returned home. After a period of indecision and various jobs, he entered Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and graduated in 1879. He then completed an internship at Philadelphia Hospital and opened an office for the practice of medicine. His persisting illness, however, was finally diagnosed as tuberculosis and, following his physicians’ advice, he traveled to the West for his health. By 1883, improvement allowed him to resume his practice, which soon included increasing numbers of patients with tuberculosis. “When I recovered from tuberculosis as a young man,” he wrote, “I consecrated my life to the welfare of those afflicted with the disease and to the protection of those who had not yet contracted it” ( ...
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Fulton, John Farquhar (1899-1960), neurophysiologist and medical historian
Philip K. Wilson
Fulton, John Farquhar (01 November 1899–29 May 1960), neurophysiologist and medical historian, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, son of John Farquhar Fulton, a physician, and Edith Stanley Wheaton. After spending the 1917–1918 academic year at the University of Minnesota, Fulton entered Harvard University, from which he received a B.S., magna cum laude, in 1921. As a recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, Fulton attended Magdalen College at Oxford University for two years, followed by an additional two years at Oxford as a Christopher Welch Scholar and demonstrator in physiology. He received a B.A. from Oxford with first-class honors in 1923, and an M.A. and D.Phil. in 1925. Returning to the United States, he studied medicine at Harvard, receiving his M.D., again magna cum laude, in 1927. He married Lucia Pickering Wheatland, of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1923; they had no children....
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Garrison, Fielding Hudson (1870-1935), medical librarian, bibliographer, and historian
Nancy Whitten Zinn
Garrison, Fielding Hudson (05 November 1870–18 April 1935), medical librarian, bibliographer, and historian, was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John Rowzee Garrison II, a comptroller for the federal government, and Jennie Davis. Garrison graduated from Washington Central High School in 1886. After a year’s concentration at home on music and college preparation, he matriculated at Johns Hopkins University in 1887. There he focused on classical and modern languages, with some physics and mathematics, graduating in 1890. Garrison’s facility in languages and literature was apparent throughout his career and in his correspondence....
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Goode, George Brown (1851-1896), zoologist, museum administrator, and historian of science
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
Goode, George Brown (13 February 1851–06 September 1896), zoologist, museum administrator, and historian of science, was born in New Albany, Indiana, the son of Francis Collier Goode, a merchant, and Sarah Woodruff Crane. Goode’s mother died just eighteen months after his birth, and he was raised by his father and stepmother, Sally Ann Jackson. In 1857 his father retired to Amenia, about 100 miles north of New York City. Family study and private tutors prepared Goode for entrance into Wesleyan College in Middletown, Connecticut, from which he graduated with an A.B. in 1870. He attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University and apparently spent some time in ...
