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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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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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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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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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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Blunt, Katharine (1876-1954), college administrator, educator, and nutritionist
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Blunt, Katharine (28 May 1876–29 July 1954), college administrator, educator, and nutritionist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stanhope English Blunt, an army officer and technical writer, and Fanny Smyth. Little is know about her childhood except that she was first educated at a preparatory school before attending Miss Porter’s School in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1894 she enrolled at Vassar, where she studied chemistry. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in 1898, then returned home to her family and engaged in service to her church and community for four years....
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Caldwell, David (1725-1824), Presbyterian minister, self-trained physician, and schoolmaster
Robert M. Calhoon
Caldwell, David (22 March 1725–25 August 1824), Presbyterian minister, self-trained physician, and schoolmaster, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the son of Andrew Caldwell and Ann Stewart, farmers. At the age of seventeen Caldwell became a carpenter’s apprentice and four years later a journeyman carpenter. At age twenty-five he experienced a religious conversion and a call to the ministry. He studied at the Reverend ...
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Corson, Juliet (13 January 1841?–18 June 1897), founder of the New York Cooking School and pioneer in the scientific cookery movement
Susan Matt
Corson, Juliet (13 January 1841?–18 June 1897), founder of the New York Cooking School and pioneer in the scientific cookery movement, was born in Mount Pleasant, Massachusetts, the daughter of Peter Ross Corson, a prosperous produce merchant, and Mary Ann Henderson. (Although most obituaries and biographical sources give Corson’s birth date as 1842, the Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts, give the date as 1841.) Corson’s family moved to New York City when she was six years old. In New York her uncle, Alfred Upham, helped to raise her and provided her with a classical education. She began to support herself in her late teens after her mother’s death....
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Davis, Charles Henry Stanley (1840-1917), physician, philologist, and Orientalist
James T. Goodrich
Davis, Charles Henry Stanley (02 March 1840–07 November 1917), physician, philologist, and Orientalist, was born in Goshen, Connecticut, the son of Timothy Fisher Davis, a physician, and Moriva Hatch. Davis received his early education in the public school system of Meriden, Connecticut, and later through a private tutor, Dr. William Baker. In 1864 he entered the University of Maryland, where he began studies in medicine. He received an M.D. in 1866 from the University of the City of New York. He then undertook postgraduate work in Boston, Massachusetts, and during this period began the publication (1866) of the ...
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Davis, Edwin Hamilton (1811-1888), physician and archaeologist
Douglas R. Givens
Davis, Edwin Hamilton (22 January 1811–15 May 1888), physician and archaeologist, was born in Hillsboro, Ohio, the son of Henry Davis and Avis Slocum. During his boyhood Davis became interested in numerous circular, square, and octagonal earthworks of the so-called Mound Builders culture in Ross County, Ohio. He continued his investigations of mounds while attending Kenyon College, graduating in 1833. His commencement address, “Antiquities of Ohio,” was heard by ...
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Dickson, Samuel Henry (1798-1872), physician
Sam Alewitz
Dickson, Samuel Henry (20 September 1798–31 March 1872), physician, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Samuel Dickson and Mary Neilson, Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish descent who had emigrated from Belfast, Ireland, before the American Revolution. Dickson received his early education from his father, a schoolteacher, and at private schools in Charleston. At the age of thirteen he entered Yale College as a sophomore and graduated with a B.A. in 1814 a few days before his sixteenth birthday....
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Dickson, Samuel Henry (1798-1872)
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Samuel Henry Dickson. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine (B07155).
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Dods, John Bovee (1795-1872), amateur physician and popular author and lecturer on mesmerism and Spiritualism
Bret E. Carroll
Dods, John Bovee (26 September 1795–21 March 1872), amateur physician and popular author and lecturer on mesmerism and Spiritualism, was born Johannes Dods Bovee in the town of Florida in Montgomery County, New York, the son of Jacob Mathias Bovee, a farmer and merchant, and Jane Dods. After serving in the War of 1812, he took as his surname Dods, probably out of respect for the maternal uncle who cared for him after his father’s untimely death. Little is known about his early education, but his father’s will stipulated that he “be educated in wreading [ ...
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Douglass, William (1681-1752), doctor, historian, and pioneer in colonial philanthropy
Peter R. Virgadamo
Douglass, William ( October 1681–21 October 1752), doctor, historian, and pioneer in colonial philanthropy, was born in Gifford, Scotland, the son of George Douglass, chamberlain to the marquis of Tweeddale, and Katherine Inglis. His father, a man of distinction in local affairs, was able to afford a fine education for his son. William earned his master’s degree in 1705 from Edinburgh University where, influenced by Dr. Archibald Pitcairne, he decided on a medical career. At the University of Leyden he studied under Dr. Herman Boerhaave and then earned his medical degree from the University of Utrecht in 1712. His medical dissertation, ...
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Fishberg, Maurice (1872-1934), physician, anthropologist, and Jewish community worker
Eric L. Goldstein
Fishberg, Maurice (16 August 1872–30 August 1934), physician, anthropologist, and Jewish community worker, was born in Kamenets-Podolski, Russia, the son of Philip Fishberg and Kate Moverman. Raised in a traditional Jewish household, Fishberg was introduced to modern scientific study in a Russian government school before immigrating to the United States in 1890. He attended the Medical College of New York University, where he received his M.D. in 1897. That same year he married Bertha Cantor; they had two children. Fishberg was initially engaged in private practice on New York’s Lower East Side, later securing a post as chief medical examiner for the city’s United Hebrew Charities. There Fishberg treated immigrant patients who relied on the support of the Jewish community and made recommendations to community leaders on how social conditions and medical care for the Jewish poor could be improved. While at the United Hebrew Charities, Fishberg became concerned with the attempts of immigration restrictionists to paint Jewish immigrants as carriers of disease. His early medical scholarship, therefore, mustered scientific data in an attempt to dispel myths concerning “Jewish pathology,” particularly the common accusation that immigrants were responsible for the spread of tuberculosis. Fishberg demonstrated, in fact, that Jews were more immune to tuberculosis than other immigrants, a fact he attributed to their religious customs and previous exposure to urban life in European towns and cities....
