and (most important of all) tavern-keeper and proprietor of the local stage-coach to Boston.[1]
But of all the Harvard undergraduates who made the sudden plunge into military medicine that year, the most famous in after life was Ebenezer Crosby of Braintree, a sophomore. He evidently possessed many sterling qualities besides great natural medical skill, for after rising to an important position in the “flying [or field] hospital,” he was honored in 1779 by the post of surgeon to Washington’s bodyguard. In the meantime, stimulated by Dr. Morgan, the founder of the medical school at Philadelphia, he had managed to attend enough lectures there to obtain the degree of M.D. in 1780. With commendable persistency he then returned to Harvard and finished his regular course, taking the A.B. in 1782 “as of” 1777. In the same year he was further distinguished by the A.M. from Harvard and Yale simultaneously. In spite of his army work he had specialized in obstetrics—then a new branch for male practitioners—and when King’s College (afterwards Columbia) opened a medical department in 1785 he was called to the chair of Midwifery, thus sharing professorial honors with Dr. Warren and Dr. McKnight.[2]
- ↑ Teele, History of Milton, 123, 529; Life of John Warren, 118; Pension Office Records, Revolutionary Claim S. 1665.
- ↑ See Harrington, Hist. Harv. Med. School, i, 62; Godfrey, The Commander-in-Chief’s Guard, 144 (silhouette, p. 70); Institution of the New York Society of the Cincinnati, 188 (whence the portrait here reproduced); Life of John Warren, 197.
