John Morgan / [P.M. Ashburn].

  • P. M. Ashburn
Date:
[1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: John Morgan / [P.M. Ashburn]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ROY MOODIE COLLECTION. Reprint from SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS April, iqjo, pages 778-780 MASTER SURGEONS OF AMERICA JOHN MORGAN COLONEL P. M. ASHBURN, M.C., U.S.A., Washington JOHN MORGAN, who was not a surgeon, was important in the history of American surgery because of his pioneer status as a medical educator and founder of our first medical school and because he was physician in chief and director general of the hospital in the Revolution, a position corresponding to that of the surgeon general of the Army at the present time. He was born in Philadelphia in 1735, the son of well-to-do parents, Evan and Joanna (Biles) Morgan. He was first sent to school to Rev. Dr. Finley’s Notting¬ ham Academy, where he received the classical training for which the place was famous, and then to the College of Philadelphia, where he graduated in the first class to be granted literary honors, that of 1757. During the last years of his college course, he took up the study of medicine under Dr. John Redman. With the medical education derived from this apprenticeship, he became a surgeon, as well as a lieutenant of the line, in the French and Indian War in 1758, being attached to Forbes’ expedition against Fort DuQuesne. In 1765 he spoke of having had four years of military experience but it is impossible to see how this could have been so. In 1760 he left the army and sailed to Europe to continue his studies in medicine. In London he worked under William Hunter for a year and then spent two years in Edinburgh, where he was given the M.D. in 1763. From Edinburgh he went to Paris and there spent a winter in the study of anatomy. Thereafter he made the grand tour, calling upon and being warmly received by Morgagni and Voltaire. His journal covering this tour has been published and it reveals the young man taking his sightseeing and art very seriously and sys¬ tematically. He was made corresponding member of the Academy of Surgery of Paris, a Fellow of the Royal Society, licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, and member of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh. During his residence abroad he planned with William Shippen the founding of a medical school in Philadelphia, and upon his return there in 1765, armed with a strong letter from the proprietor, Thomas Penn, he proposed the establishment of a medical school in connection with the College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania). The idea was approved and he was elected professor of theory and practice of physic, and Shippen was given the professorship of anatomy and surgery. The new school prospered and it has always been one of the leading schools of America. Copyright, 1930, by Surgical Pub. Co. of Chicago
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