eighteenth-century medicine Archives - Journal of the American Revolution

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on September 5, 2024September 6, 2024

Dr. James Craik and George Washington: Compatriots-in-Arms, Old and Intimate Friends

James Craik was born in Scotland, circa 1727, on the 1,400-acre estate of his father William Craik, member of the British parliament. He attended Edinburgh medical school; the first medical school in the English-speaking world. After graduation Dr. Craik served in the British army in the West Indies. Leaving the army, he set up medical […]

by Chaim M. Rosenberg

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on September 7, 2023September 7, 2023

Smallpox Threatens an American Privateer at Sea

Two important books in the twenty-first century have focused on the impact of terrifying smallpox contagions on the American Revolutionary War.[1] Understandably, most of their stories are about smallpox infecting soldiers on land. As the two books relate, smallpox wrought havoc on Benedict Arnold’s small army outside Quebec in 1775 and 1776, and likely killed […]

by Christian McBurney

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on April 18, 2022April 15, 2022

French Military Hospitals in Rhode Island

Louis-Dominique Éthis de Corny (1736–1790),Commissioner of War, came to America aboard the French warship Hermione along with Maj. Gen. Marie Jean Paul Joseph du Motier Marquis de Lafayette in April 1780. Corny’s assignment was to procure everything necessary for the arrival of the expédition particulière, the army of about 5800 troops under Lieutenant General Jean Baptiste […]

by Norman Desmarais

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on October 26, 2021October 20, 2021

George Washington and the First Mandatory Immunization

The debate over mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 has led to many articles referring to how George Washington handled a similar issue, this one involving smallpox, with the Continental Army early in the American Revolution. With the advantage of hindsight, the decision Washington made to fully inoculate (not vaccinate) his army may today seem obvious, but […]

by Richard J. Werther

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on October 22, 2020October 18, 2020

A Moonlighting British Army Surgeon

During the American War of Independence, the British Army officer corps routinely relegated its surgeons and physicians to a secondary status among its ranks. A few regimental surgeons made contributions to medical science, but the vast majority were relatively unknown both in their time and today.[1] American military doctors fared a bit better, but are mostly […]

by Gene Procknow

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on October 21, 2020October 18, 2020

Starting from Scratch: Combating “the Itch”

Although it may not have been fatal, scabies brought more patients to British Army hospitals during the Seven Years’ War than any other condition, according to British Army surgeon Donald Monro. Its cause was known to be “Little Insects Lodged in the Skin, which Many Authors Affirm They Have Seen in the Pustules by the […]

by Joseph Lee Boyle

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on July 1, 2020June 29, 2020

Lessons from an Outbreak: Smallpox in the Hudson Highlands, 1781

On January 20, 1781, near New Windsor in the Hudson Highlands of New York, Dr. Samuel Adams wrote a brief entry in the diary he had kept throughout his service as a surgeon attached to the Continental Army’s artillery: “inoculated my waiter and three children of Mr. Smith for the smallpox.”[1] Adams did not seem […]

by Steven Elliott

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on April 4, 2020April 4, 2020

This Week on Dispatches: Brian Patrick O’Malley on Philadelphia’s Yellow Fever Epidemic

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Brian Patrick O’Malley on the social and medical response to the Yellow Fever epidemic that ravaged Philadelphia in 1793 and how the city and community ultimately prevailed. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free […]

by Editors

Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on March 26, 2020March 25, 2020

The Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793: Nine Observations and Lessons

“I often thought that the situation of a people in a bombarded city, was not much worse, and on some accounts not so bad; we had no respite night nor day.” Writing to a friend in his native Massachusetts, newspaper publisher John Fenno was trying to convey the effect of the 1793 yellow fever outbreak […]

by Brian Patrick O'Malley

Tag: eighteenth-century medicine