Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1222

PHILIP SYNG PHYSICK (1768-1837) Dissertatio medica, inauguralis, de apoplexia. Apud Balfour et Smellie 1792 [6] 43 pp. 20.9 cm.

Physick, one of the great names in Philadelphia medicine and a fellow practitioner of Rush (see No. 1065 ff.), has frequently been called the father of American surgery. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he studied medicine and anatomy with the Hunters in London and received his medical degree from Edinburgh in 1792. Returning home, he was active in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, became surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1794, and served as professor of surgery (1805-1819) and later anatomy (1819-1831) at the University of Pennsylvania. He introduced absorbent ligatures of kid and buckskin, was successful in treating a fracture of the humerus with a seton, devised a successful operation for an artificial anus and a procedure for enucleation of the lens in treatment of cataracts, described diverticula of the rectum, invented a tonsillotome (see No. 1223), designed a dental forceps and an instrument for hemorrhoidectomy. He was also the first doctor in the United States to use lavage in a case of stomach poisoning. It is not known why Physick decided to leave London for Edinburgh to complete his medical studies and receive his medical degree. Nevertheless, he dedicated this dissertation on apoplexy to John Hunter.

See Related Record(s): 1065 1223

Gift of John Martin, M.D.