American Medical Biographies/Allen, Jonathan Adams (1825–1890)
Allen, Jonathan Adams (1825–1890)
Jonathan Adams Allen, son of Jonathan Adams Allen, 1787–1848 (q.v.), was born in Middlebury, Vermont, January 16, 1825. Jonathan graduated from Middlebury College, Vt„ from which he received his A. B. and A. M. In 1846 he graduated from Castleton (Vt.) Medical College and removed to Kalamazoo, Michigan, the same year, where, January 1, 1847, he married Miss Mary Marsh, and visited his first western patient the next afternoon. In February, 1848, he was appointed to the chair of therapeutics, materia-medica and medical jurisprudence in the Indiana Medical College at Laporte. On the organization of the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1850, he accepted the chair of physiology and pathology which he held until 1855. In 1858 he was elected president of the Michigan State Medical Society and in 1859 he was appointed to the chair of principles and practice of medicine in Rush Medical College, and in September of the same year removed to Chicago. Here he soon became the most popular medical teacher in the college faculty, holding this professorship for thirty-one years, until his death, August 15, 1890, during the last thirteen years being president of the college. He was editor and proprietor of the Chicago Medical Journal which he conducted until its sale in 1875, when it was consolidated with the Chicago Medical Examiner. Besides his articles on medical subjects in the journal, he was the author of several published works and frequent papers read before medical societies. He left a fund of knowledge in a series of journals, only some of which have found their way into print.
For twenty-four years he was surgeon in chief of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railway. He stood high in the Masonic fraternity both in Michigan and Illinois and his portrait has a place in their temple at Detroit among the grand masters of Michigan. At Chicago he was grand commander of Knight Templars, an honorary member of the 33° of Scottish Rite, Northern Jurisdiction. On days of celebration he was frequently chosen orator of the occasion. On the occasion of his last visit to Europe for travel in an effort to restore his failing health, the students of Rush College rained down dollars on the floor of the class room until more than four hundred were gathered up, with which a handsome watch was purchased and presented to him as a loving testimonial of their high regard.