Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Wagner, John

WAGNER, John, surgeon, b. in Charleston, S. C., 7 July, 1791; d. there, 22 May, 1841. He was graduated at Yale in 1812, studied medicine in New York, went to England in 1815, where he became the pupil of Sir. Astley P. Cooper for three years, and, while attending his lectures, was employed as a dresser in Guy's hospital, London. Two large manuscript volumes on surgery and anatomy remain as a register of the important cases that he studied during this period. He received a degree from the Royal college of surgeons, and also studied in Paris under Dupuytren. On his return he settled in Charleston, S. C., where he soon rose to eminence as a surgeon. He successfully performed the third operation for osteosarcoma of the lower jaw. In 1826 he began a course of dissections and demonstrations in practical anatomy. In the art of making and preserving anatomical preparations he was rarely excelled, and his specimens, which still remain, are models. In 1829 he was elected professor of pathological and surgical anatomy in South Carolina medical college, which is said to have been the first college to establish this department. In 1832 he succeeded Dr. James Ramsey in the chair of surgery.