CHAPMAN
CHAPOTON
began to study medicine in the Pennsyl-
vania School. Other than an excellent
education in the classics and two years
desultory medical reading he had no ad-
vantages. Yet, although a stranger, poor,
without acquaintance or introduction,
he had capital in a delightful personal-
ity, making powerful friends by his gra-
ciousness and holding them by his ster-
ling qualities. The popular young fellow
graduated in 1S00 with a thesis on
"Hydrophobia" in which he defended
certain propositions of his preceptor
Rush. Then he went abroad for three
years and seems to have been a social
lion in Edinburgh, where he was taken
up by Lord Buchan, Dugald Stewart
and Brougham.
In 1804 he settled down to practice in Philadelphia and had immediate success for a period of fifty years commanding whatever he could attend of practice; also that same year he married Rebecca, daughter of Col. Clement Biddle. The personality of the man made a great im- pression on the Philadelphia of our grand- fathers. He was always gay, jovial and witty, and as he grew older his habit of punning increased. His easy graceful way of treating everything appeared even in his writing when he became editor of the "Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, " founded by the well-known publisher, Matthew Carey. After four years (1S24) he took as his as- sociates William P. Dewees and John L. Godman and the journal has run a suc- cessful career right up to the present time ("American Journal of the Medical Sci- ences") . Another important undertaking of Chapman was the founding, in 1817, of the Medical Institute of Philadelphia, whicn ma j' be considered as the first post- graduate school in the States.
Nathaniel Chapman did a great many other things it would be pleasant to tell. Three years before that July 1, 1S53, on which he died he had retired from active service, but his friends and confreres sought him and Philadelphia will from generation to generation reap the fruit of his teaching and writings.
His works included:
"Discourses on the Elements of Thera- peutics and Materia Medica," 1817.
An essay on the "State of Canine Fever," 1801.
Lectures "On the more important Eruptive Fevers," 1844; "On the More Important Diseases of the Thoracic and Abdominal Viscera," 1844.
Lectures on the "Theory and Practice of Medicine," 1S46.
Select speeches "Forensic and Par- liamentary," five volumes, 1S0S.
His appointments included:
Professor of materia medica, 1S13; pro- fessor of theory and practice of medi- cine and clinical medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 1816.
Rush had been chosen for the same chair in 17S9 and except for a short occu- pancy by Barton, these two men, Rush and Chapman, held it for more than sixty years J. G. M.
Narrative of Med. in Amer. J. G. Mum- ford., Phila., 1903.
A Discourse Commemorative of Nath. Chap- man. S. Jackson, Phila., 1854. Life and Character of the Late Nath. Chap- man. St. Louis Med. and Surg. Jour., vol. xi., 1853.
Biog. of Nath. Chapman. S. D. Gross, Lives of Eminent Phys., Phila., 1861. Tribute to Nath. Chapman. N. Y. Med. Gaz., 1853, vol. iv.
Analysis of the Life of Nath. Chapman. Rich- mond and Louisville Med. Jour., 1869, vol.
There is a portrait in the collection in the Surg. -gen. Lib. at Washington, D. C.
Chapoton, Jean (1690(?)-1760).
Jean Chapoton, post-surgeon general, son of Andre 1 Chapoton and Ann Cas- saigne, was born in the village of Baga- ille, diocese of Uzes, Province of Lan- guedoc, France, about 1690. After receiving a good education, he entered the government service and rose to the rank of major in the Royal Marines and surgeon in the French Army. In 1719 he was ordered to relieve Dr. Forestier as post surgeon at Detroit, (or Fort Pontchartrain). In the records of St. Anne's Church at the post, Dr. Chapoton first appears as best man at
