science · 10 June 1735 · 289 years ago
birth
Born 10 Jun 1735; died 15 Oct 1789 at age 54.
American pioneer of U.S. medical education, surgeon general of the Continental armies during the U.S. War of Independence, and founder of the United States' first medical school - the College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania) in 1765. He joined the faculty and wrote his influential Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America (1765). In 1775, after the American Revolution had started, Congress appointed him medical director of the hospitals and chief physician of the colonial army. Morgan insisted upon such high standards and reforms in the medical department that his subordinates rebelled and forced him from office. He was later exonerated by George Washington, but never completely recovered, dying in poverty ten years later.
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