R. Eglesfeld Griffith notes on the lectures of Nathaniel Chapman

Item

Identifier: 10a 271

Scope and Contents

One volume of an incomplete set of notes taken by Griffith when he was a student in Chapman’s lectures. An added title page for the volume reads "Practice of Physick, vol. 1st, 1818." Contains lectures on the practice of medicine (leaves [1]-6), and the first part of diseases of the circulatory system, "of fevers," (leaves 7-[10]) and intermittent fevers (leaves [11] through 42). The remaining leaves, about two-thirds of the volume, are blank.

Dates

1818 - 1820

Creator

Griffith, R. Eglesfeld (Robert Eglesfeld) (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Robert Eglesfeld Griffith, was born in Philadelphia on 13 Feb. 1798, the son of Robert Eglesfeld and Maria Thong Griffith. He graduated with an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1820 and set up practice in Philadelphia, where he eventually served as physician to the Board of Health from 1833-1836.

In addition to practicing medicine, Griffith was well regarded as a medical botanist, editor, and educator. In 1831 he founded and edited the Journal of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, which became the American Journal of Pharmacy in 1835 and is still published today (2000) as the American Journal of Pharmacy and the Sciences supporting Public Health. Also at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, Griffith held the position of professor of materia medica from 1835-1836. In 1836 Griffith left Philadelphia to take up the position of professor of materia medica, therapeutics, hygiene, and medical jurisprudence at the University of Maryland. In 1838 he moved on the position of professor of practice, obstetrics, and medical jurisprudence at the University of Virginia. Ill health forced him to resign this last position and return to Philadelphia in 1839. Griffith turned his academic efforts toward writing texts on medical botany, materia medica, and medical jurisprudence. He also devoted his time to researching conches and became a renowned conchologist.

Griffith was also active in a number of professional and scientific societies, including the Franklin Institute, the American Philosophical Society, and the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he served as vice-president in 1849. He was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1836.

In 1829 Griffith married Mary Eyre of Philadelphia, with whom he had three children. A researcher and author to the end, Griffith did not live to complete his last work on botany in the Bible. He died on 26 June 1850.

Nathaniel Chapman was an 1801 graduate of the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, furthering his medical studies in Edinburgh before settling in Philadelphia in 1804. Chapman is best known as a medical teacher, editor, and professional advocate. He became editor of the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences in 1820. From 1810 on he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as professor of materia medica and professor of the theory and practice of medicine and clinical medicine. In 1817 Chapman founded the Medical Institute of Philadelphia, considered the first medical post-graduate school in the United States. The principle publications of Chapman’s career are based on his lectures, such as his A Compendium of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine (1846). Among his other accomplishments, Chapman was elected the first president of the American Medical Association in 1847. Chapman was also a Fellow of the College of Physicians, elected in 1807.