Parrish, Joseph (1779–1840)
Joseph Parrish, private medical teacher, was born in Philadelphia, September 2, 1779, of Quaker parents, and started in life as a hatter, but when he became of age, turned to the study of medicine, and became a student under Dr. Caspar Wistar (q. v.). He took his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1805, and in the same year, became resident physician at the yellow fever hospital. From 1806–12 he held the same post at the Philadelphia Dispensary; from 1816–22, at Philadelphia Almshouse, and 1816–29, at Pennsylvania Hospital. He was associated in the establishment of the Wills Hospital, and was an active member of the College of Physicians. He was one of the foremost Philadelphia physicians who at that time took an active interest in natural history as well as in scientific medicine. Among other studies which led to considerable popular reputation, was his demonstration that the poplar worm is harmless. It had hitherto been supposed to be venomous and trees were being ruthlessly destroyed because a man was found dead with a worm beside him. In 1807 he gave what was then a novelty, a popular course of lectures on chemistry. This led some seven or eight years later to systematic courses of lectures on chemistry, anatomy and materia medica, and he had constantly from ten to thirty pupils with him until the year 1830, being one of the foremost private medical teachers of the time.
In 1808 he married Susanna, daughter of John Coxe of Burlington, New Jersey.
He was an editor of the North American Medical and Surgical Journal. According to Dr. George B. Wood, "perhaps no one was known more extensively in the city or had connected himself by a greater number of beneficent services to every ramification of society." From 1806 to 1822 he was surgeon to the Philadelphia Almshouse, where he gave lectures that were well attended, and in 1816 he succeeded Dr. Physic as surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital, a position he filled with honor until 1829, when he resigned because of failing health. He wrote "Practical Observations on Strangulated Hernia and Some of the Diseases of the Urinary Organs," Philadelphia, 1805, and an appendix for the first American edition from the corrected London edition of Lawrence's "Treatise on Ruptures," Philadelphia, 1811. He died in Philadelphia, March 18, 1840, leaving two sons, Dr. Isaac and Dr. Joseph Parrish (q. v.).
Parrish, Joseph (1818–1891)
Joseph Parrish was born November 11, 1818, the son of Dr. Joseph Parrish (q. v.) and Susanna Coxe. He entered the College Department of the University of Pennsylvania, but left at the end of the freshman year and entered the Medical Department, and graduated in 1844. He began to practise in Burlington, New Jersey, but returned to his native city in 1855, and the following year took the chair of obstetrics in the Philadelphia Medical College. Resigning soon after, he went abroad until 1857, when he returned and was made superintendent of the Pennsylvania School for Feeble Minded Children at Media. At the opening of the Civil War he was connected with the U. S. Sanitary Commission, and visited hospitals and camps in the interest of supplies and hospital stores. He was also active in organizing auxiliary associations in various states. After the war he established the Maryland Sanitarium for Inebriates, near Baltimore, which he conducted for seven years. In 1875 he went back to Burlington and conducted a home for nervous patients. The energies of Dr. Parrish's life were largely devoted to the treatment and care of inebriates.
He was instrumental in founding the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, and was its president for many years. He was vice-president of the International Congress on Inebriety in England in 1882, and was a member of many home and foreign societies. He wrote a number of papers on this subject. In 1848 he established the New Jersey Medical and Surgical Reporter, the forerunner of the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia. During the war he edited the Sanitary Commission Bulletin.
His wife was Lydia, the daughter of Caleb Gaskill of Burlington. He died January 15, 1891.
Parry, Charles Christopher (1823–1890)
Charles Christopher Parry, botanist, was born in the hamlet of Admington, Gloucestershire, England, August 28, 1823, and descended through a long line of clergymen of the Established Church.
In 1832 the family removed to America, settling on a farm in Washington County, New York. He entered Union College at Schenectady, and graduated with honors, in 1842, beginning the study of medical botany in his undergraduate years, and subsequently
