[From Neander: Tabacologia. Lugduni Batavorum, 1626.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY Volume VIII Autu mn , 1926 Numbe r 3 JOHN REDMAN* By WILLIAM SHAINLINE MIDDLETON, M.D. MADISON, WISCONSIN OLONIAL life in form the American Philosophical Society Philadelphia was was effected in 1769 with Dr. Franklin established on a lofty as president and with two of its three intellectual plane, vice-presidents physicians: Thomas Cad- which found expres- walader and Thomas Bond. An appreciation sion in several organ- of the part that physicians and medi- izations having as cine were to play in its transactions was their primary pur- foretold by this election. It was furthermore pose the improvement of the members or of to be anticipated that as the several inde- humanity at large. To Benjamin Franklin pendent, but component, interests in the the Junto owed its inception and from this vast field of science should grow, daughter exclusive group of the leathern apron whose organizations would come into being for favor became widely sought, arose the Phila- the development of their specialized fields delphia Library Company (1731) and The of knowledge. American Society for Promoting and Propag- Thus it was that from the parent Philo- ating Useful Knowledge (1766). Both of these sophical Society, a College of Physicians organizations have continued to function to arose in Philadelphia in 1787. Twenty-two the present day. In the case of the latter, an years previously the Philadelphia Medical amalgamation with a younger group to Society had taken its place as the pioneer * Read before the Medical History Seminar, Uni- medical society in the Colonies. In Novem- versity of Wisconsin, January, 1926. ber, 1768, this'group joined forces with the Note . Sincere appreciation is herewith expressed American Society for Promoting Useful to Mr. Charles Perry Fisher of the Library of the Knowledge and in passing out of existence College of Physicians and to Mr. Bunford Samuel of the Ridgway Library for the photographs and left no trace of its proceedings. The New photostatic reproductions included in this sketch. Jersey and Massachusetts societies, inclu- sive in their membership and organization, addressed Rush from London in August of were established in 1766 and 1781, respec- the same year: “Your idea of an American tively. It may then be asserted that the College of Physicians is what has several College of Physicians of Philadelphia has times occurred to me.” Furthermore John enjoyed the longest uninterrupted exist- C. Lettsom, an English patron of medicine ence of any similar medical body in this in this country, encouraged Rush in his plan. country. Her roll call includes names of The interested parties probably met to undying luster in service to medicine and organize in the old Academy at Fourth mankind. Indeed, the brilliant past of the and Arch Streets in September, 1786, but College is written in her Redman, Morgan, it was not until January 2, 1787, that the proceedings of the College began. This date is established by the minutes. In its constitution published in The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, February 1, 1787, a high ideal was set for its existence: The objects of this College, are, to advance the Science of Medicine, and thereby to lessen human misery by investigating the diseases and remedies which are peculiar to our country, by observing the effects of different seasons, climates, and situations upon the Human Body, by recording the changes that are produced by diseases by the progress of Agriculture, Arts, Population and manners, by searching for medicines in our woods, Waters and the bowels Rush, Jones, Shippen, Kuhn, Wistar, Bar- of the Earth, by enlarging our avenues to ton, Chapman, Wood, Pancoast, Gerhard, knowledge; from the discoveries and publica- McClellan, Norris, Stille, Leidy, Mitchell, tions of foreign countries, by appointing stated Gross, Agnew, Pepper and a host of other times for Literary intercourse and communica- tions, and by cultivating order and uniformity names high in medical attainment. in the practice of Physick. Naturally, the College of Physicians did not come into being spontaneously or S. Weir Mitchell has described the first through the efforts of a single interested gathering in his inimitable style: individual. Doubtless, its organization had By the dim light of candles, for which I have been for many years the subject of discus- found the modest bill, clad after the fashion of sion among physicians of the city. The the day, some in Quaker dress and some in knee crystallization of the plan in all probability breeches, silk stockings, and low shoes with depended on the dynamic Benjamin Rush. buckles, most of them carrying, I fancy, the At least from the Rush manuscripts there gold-headed cane and the meditative snuff-box, may be gleaned in several sources refer- some with queues or powdered wigs, a fading ences to his expression of such a plan. On fashion, were John Jones, William Shippen, Jr., June 25, 1783, Dr. Francis Rigby Brodbelt Adam Kuhn, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Parke, of Spanish Town, Jamaica, in a letter to Gerardus Clarkson, Samuel Duffield, James Rush implied the existence of such an Hutchinson, William W. Smith, Andrew Ross, William Clarkson, James Hall, William Currie. institution: “I wish much to belong to your Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, John Redman, John Morgan, George Glent- and to be an honorary or ordinary fellow worth, Abraham Chovet, Benjamin Say, of your College of Physicians.” A fellow Samuel Powel GrifFitts, Benjamin Duflicld, Philadelphian, Samuel Powel GrifFitts, thus John Morris, John Carson, John Foulke and Robert Harris had been added to the roll of the light of day in the city of his later pro- Fellows and Junior Fellows by the birthday fessional achievement, on February 27, of the College, January 2, 1787. 1722. John Redman received his early The first election of officers of the Col- education in the Reverend Mr. Tennent’s lege was held in October, 1786, however, Academy at Neshaminey, Bucks County, and to the presidency was elected John Pennsylvania. Greek and Latin were the Redman, ripe in years and high in the favored studies in this boarding school and esteem of his fellow-practitioners and fel- young Redman gained considerable facility low-citizens. His Inaugural Address was in the classical languages. The subsequent postponed until December, 1786, by reason clerical careers of his schoolmates, Gilbert of his inability to attend the preceding meeting. In accepting the high honor bestowed upon him, Redman expressed his profound gratitude and his sense of inade- quacy. His habitual self-abnegation is typi- fied by his words: [I] look within myself and consider my powers . and also that line of life which I have walked in from choice, having in my constitu- tional frame no great desires of exaltation above the middle state, or high ambition than to conduct therein rather with integrity and use- fullness than eclat. After such a view I say it would be vanity or Arrogance in me, not to suppose that my Election was more owing to the generous benevolence of your own minds, as a mark of respect to my age and longer Standing in the profession, and as a kind of disinterested testimony of your Approbation of my general Conduct in life and regularity in the practice of our art, Than to any peculiar merit of mine. True, John Redman was the Nestor of the Fellows of the College, being sixty-five years of age, whereas the next oldest Tennent, Daniel Lawrence and Rogers, Fellow was John Jones, fifty-eight years undoubtedly influenced his religious devo- old. Redman, in this address, voiced his tions later in life, since these men corre- regret that by death the honor conferred sponded with him regularly. on him had been denied two worthy con- Redman’s medical education began in temporaries, Thomas Cadwalader and the difficult apprenticeship under Dr. John Thomas Bond. He bespoke the assistance Kcarsley, Sr., of Philadelphia, of whom of those “whom I have the honor to call John Bard wrote that he had “a morose my professional children.” The inaugural and churlish temper, which banished all was concluded by invoking divine aid and cheerfulness and social converse from his guidance in the affairs of the College. pupils and rendered him an unpleasant The physician who had arisen to this companion.” S. Weir Mitchell has enumer- position of honor and trust in the first ated among the functions of Kearsley’s presidency of this new organization was a apprentices: “servant, coachman, messen- Philadelphian by birth, having first seen ger-boy, prescription clerk, nurse and assist- ant surgeon.” The Bond brothers, Lloyd student in Edinburgh, copied in turn by Zachary, Thomas Cadwalader, William B. Duffield, one of his later students in Shippen, Sr., Cadwalader Evans, John Philadelphia, are preserved in the College Kearsley, Jr., and John Bard complete the of Physicians. Those from Monro constitute roll of familiar names of distinguished in effect a brief history of anatomy, whereas physicians who survived the rigorous pre- the Alston lectures on materia medica ceptorship of John Kearsley, Sr. are much more comprehensive. The title In that day of sailing vessels the tide of page to the latter is interesting: “A Course commerce followed the trade winds and of Publick Lectures on Materia Medica commercial intercourse between the Atlan- by Charles Alston, Professor of the Mat. Med. and Bottany In the Colledge of Edinburgh Taken from his mouth during the time of Lecturing By John Redman Student of Physick and Surgery in the same CoIIcdge in proprium usum—Anno Domini —1746.” Some confusion exists in the records of the sequence of events succeeding the Edinburgh sojourn. It is at least certain that Redman studied under Albinus, Gau- bius and Musschcnbrock in Leyden.