landed in Paris after the trip, failing under
a pulmonary affection and on September
15, 1868, he sank rapidly and died.
His keen desire for knowledge of all kinds was starved in his boyhood, and his library, with its old books and curi- osities, told how one day he meant to enjoy a learned leasure which, long expected, never came.
D. W.
Tr. M. Soc, N. Y., 1869. (H. O. Jewett.)
Shippen, William, Sr. (1712-1801).
Plodding through old medical biographies—works of the never-was-and-never-will-be such another man type and wherein every doctor seems to have had "few equals and no superiors," readers may glean that William Shippen, after being born in Philadelphia Oct. 1, 1712, studied medicine in his youth with Dr. John Kearsley, Jr., and soon after became "uncommonly successful and rose to a high reputation." He was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey towards which he donated large sums and bequeathed an annuity, and was first physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, also a trustee of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia.
"He never in the course of his whole life" says the biographer " was once heard to swear profanely and never drank wine or spirituous liquor," which two facts were certainly worthy of record in those old times. He wore "a ruffled shirt" and had an unruffled temper, was a firm friend of Whitefield the Methodist reformer, and departed this world on November 4, 1801, "being buried by the side of his six grandchildren, followed by a large train of his mourning relatives and friends."
D. W.
Thacher, Med. Biography.
Morton and Woodbury, Hist, of the Penn. Hosp.
Shippen, William, Jr. (1736-1808).
He was born in Philadelphia October 21, 1736, and went as a boy to an academy kept by the Rev. Samuel Finley, Nottingham, in which John Morgan and Benjamin Rush were also pupils. He received the degree of A. B. from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1754. He was the valedictorian of his class, and the great preacher Whitefield, who was present, is said to have declared that he had never heard better speaking and urged Shippen to go into the ministry. He, however, returned to Philadelphia, where he devoted himself to the study of medicine with his father. Dr. William Shippen, Sr., until 1758, when he went abroad to finish his medical education. Watson[1] quotes a letter written by the father to an English correspondent, in which he writes, "My son has had his education in the best college in this part of the country, and has been studying physic with me, besides which he has had the opportunity of seeing the practice of every gentleman of note in our city. But for want of that variety of operations and those frequent dissections which are common in older countries, I must send him to Europe. His scheme is to gain all the knowledge he can in anatomy, physic, and surgery."
In London young Shippen studied anatomy with John Hunter and mid-wifery with William Hunter and Dr. McKenzie. He also had an opportunity of seeing much of the work of Sir John Pringle and Dr. William Hewson. He also became upon friendly terms with Dr. John Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician, a friendship which was fruitful in great benefit to medical education, as Fothergill became greatly interested in the Pennsylvania Hospital, and in the medical department of the College of Philadelphia. To the hospital he sent a series of crayon pictures illustrating the anatomy of the human body, which he had especially made by Remsdyck. The pictures are still there and in a good state of preservation.
Before returning to his native land Shippen obtained his M. D. from Edinburgh University, his thesis being "De Placentae cum Utero Nexu." In Edin-
- ↑ Annals, vol. ii, p. 378, Edited 1844.
