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>> 77 5 Wartime For failure to pay his debts, Ezekiel Brown of Concord, Massachusetts, was sentenced to jail in March 1773. In an unusual circumstance Brown’s creditors kept him there for years. Most debtors, according to Robert Gross, who describes Brown’s ordeal, remained imprisoned for only a few months, but his creditors suspected that he would abscond. Brown was seemingly caught up in the conflict between the British government and the mainland colonies that would result in the Revolutionary War. Boston was firmly in the hands of the British military, and Brown’s creditors were decidedly Tory in their leanings. They had no intention of setting him free. Brown was an enterprising sort and spent his time in jail reading about medicine, preparing for a new career as a doctor. He had no mentor but because most men were self-educated in the field, there was no reason to assume that his solitary book learning would be a disadvantage in a place with few welleducated physicians. As Brown languished in jail, the first battle at Lexington and Concord took place in April 1775. George Washington was appointed by the Second 78 > 79 men to appointments to important government positions. At the beginning of the Revolution there were only a handful of men with academic training in the colonies who could claim such appointments. Of the estimated 3,500 medical practitioners in 1775, about 400 held degrees mostly from foreign universities, but not all in were in medicine. Some, like Gustavus Brown in southern Maryland, William Hunter in Newport, Rhode Island, and John Kearsley in Philadelphia, established medical dynasties, training generations of apprentices who in turn trained other apprentices, some of whom went on to more advanced training. A handful of others offered private lectures in an attempt to improve the knowledge of anatomy within their profession . Most American “doctors” learned the trade from others who also had learned medicine as apprentices. Whitfield Bell, one of the leading medical historians, noted, “most men never saw an anatomical chart.” Their knowledge of the human body was severely limited, but they were familiar with the standard pharmacopeias and most often had learned how to amputate a limb. Ezekiel Brown missed the five- to six-year apprenticeships of most doctors, but he was well read and managed to deport himself satisfactorily for three years. There were two small medical schools in the colonies before the Revolution : Philadelphia established one in 1765 and New York in 1767, and both closed during the war. The medical school in Philadelphia was established under the most inauspicious circumstances for the Revolution and revealed the kind of petty rivalries that would haunt the medical war effort. The impetus for the school came from John Morgan and William Shippen (both American-born) who, while they were studying in Edinburgh, Scotland, decided that the colonial world needed its own means of training doctors following the Scottish model. They wanted to limit the practice of medicine to men like themselves—educated gentlemen with specialized training. Morgan hurried back to Philadelphia and presented the idea to the college as his own, denying Shippen any credit. Morgan was then appointed the first professor of theory and practice of medicine. When he returned to America, Shippen was furious and never forgave his former friend for the betrayal. Morgan piled insult on more insult when he organized a medical society and again snubbed Shippen. Meanwhile, Shippen was appointed professor of anatomy in the new school, but the two men maintained a less than cordial relationship hidden behind the façade of polite manners. When the time came to organize a medical service during the war, that same animosity threatened the process. In 1775, as the first battles took place, local regimental surgeons were the only source of medical care available. When Congress created its own 80 > 81 pneumonia, rheumatic problems as well as typhus, yellow fever, dysentery, smallpox, tuberculosis, dropsy, and, of course, syphilis. Wine was often used to stimulate the appetite or as a sedative. Mary Gillette notes that one of the few effective remedies for a skin condition such as scabies was that of sulfur, a remedy that was still used in the twentieth century. On the other hand, Dr. Thacher, one of the “better” surgeons, treated a rattlesnake bite with repeated doses of olive oil until a full quart had been ingested, and then Thacher rubbed the affected leg with mercurial ointment. Somehow the patient survived . John Duffy comments that: “The...

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