PAPER History of in

Robert W. Hopkins, MD; J. Robert Bowen, MD; Warren W. Francis, MD

n 1925, founder John Keefe1 and in 1974, the late Tom Perry2 delivered presidential ad- dresses to the New England Surgical Society (NESS) recounting the essential happenings of surgery in Rhode Island from its founding to the mid-19th century. We will not repeat the details of those excellent essays, but events from that era must be reviewed to permit an understandingI of the course of events since.

EARLY HISTORY The first formal effort at medical edu- cation in the colonies4 apparently oc- Rhode Island was founded in 1636 by curred in Newport, RI, in 1752, when Roger Williams, who was of too indepen- Dr William Hunter of Newport,4 cousin dent a mentality for the Colony of Mas- to William and of London, sachusetts. Quoting from a 19th-century presented the first advertised lectures on encyclopedia, anatomy and surgery.

The general court banished him from the col- BROWN’S FIRST ony...because he had called into question the MEDICAL SCHOOL authority of the magistrates in respect to the right of the civil power to impose faith and wor- In the mid 1700s, some Baptists in Penn- ship....Opinions which would not allow the sylvania thought that their preachers magistrate to intermeddle, even to restrain a should be men of both piety and scholar- church from heresy or apostasy, were not to 3(p639) ship. Recognizing that religious educa- be endured. tion might proceed in Rhode Island with- out interference from the state, they Williams was to be sent back to En- established Rhode Island College in 1764. gland, but he escaped, making his way Baptists became a majority of both gov- south, painfully. Settling on a river bank, erning boards of the college, and presi- he, “having of a sense of God’s merciful dents of the college were Baptist minis- providence unto me in my distress, called 3(p640) ters until 1937. After a gift of $5000 from the place Providence.” Two years Nicholas Brown, class of 1786, the col- later, Dr John Clarke, similarly exiled for lege was renamed Brown in 1804, devel- religious views, arrived on Aquidneck oping a fortunate and lasting relation- Island (later Island of Rhodes, or Rhode ship with the Brown family. Island), becoming the first in the With increasing interest in science colony. In 1663, Williams and Dr Clarke and recognition of the regional need for secured a royal charter for “Rhode Island appropriate medical education, Brown, un- and Providence Plantations” embodying der President Asa Messer, decided to open the religious freedoms they had estab- a medical program.5 Three professors were lished in the colony. Their insistence on appointed in 1811. Dr Solomon Drowne, the separation of church and govern- class of 1773, attended medical school in ment persisted, eventually finding its way Philadelphia and was swept into the revo- into the US Constitution. lutionary war as a surgeon. Highly re- From Lifespan (Drs Hopkins, Bowen, and Francis), Department of Surgery, Academic garded, he was appointed to the Board of Medical Center, The Miriam Hospital (Dr Hopkins), and the Rhode Island Hospital Fellows of the college in 1783. An expert (Drs Bowen and Francis), Providence. on the medicinal effects of plants, he was

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©2001 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/30/2021 tion. In 1822, an eventful year, he moved to Providence to join Dr Wheaton in practice, was appointed profes- sor of anatomy and surgery at Brown, and married Mary Holmes, older sister of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Parsons was a perpetual student, an able teacher, and a prolific writer. Former students later said7 that his presence gave “new life to the institution.”