The Biographical Dictionary of America/Francis, John Wakefield

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The Biographical Dictionary of America, Volume 4 (1906)

Francis, John Wakefield

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4680720The Biographical Dictionary of America, Volume 4 — Francis, John Wakefield1906

FRANCIS, John Wakefield, physician, was born in New York city Nov. 17. 1789. His father was a German emigrant who arrived in New York about 1784, and the son was apprenticed to a printer, meanwhile preparing himself for the sophomore class of Columbia, where he was graduated in 1809. He studied medicine under Dr. David Hosack and at the College of physicians and surgeons, receiving his M.D. degree in 1811. He was associated with Dr. Hosack in the editing of the American Medical and Philosophical Register, 1810–14, and in the practice of medicine, 1811–20. He was professor of materia medica at the College of physicians and surgeons, 1813–16; spent one year in study in Europe under Abernethy; was professor of the institutes of medicine and of medical jurisprudence, 1817–18, and of obstetrics 1820–26; and was professor of obstetrics and forensic medicine in Rutgers medical school, 1826–28. He was a member of the Typographical society; of the New York historical society; of the New York lyceum of natural history, and director of the Woman's hospital and of the State inebriate asylum. He was a reorganizer and the first president of the reorganized New York academy of medicine in 1847–48: editor of the Medical and Physical Journal, 1822–24, and the author of biographical sketches of many old New Yorkers. He was a trustee of the College of physicians and surgeons, 1814–26. His sons, Valentine Mott and Samuel Ward, became well known physicians and authors, practising in New York city and in Newport. R.I. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Trinity college, Conn., in 1850 and from Columbia in 1860. He published Use of Mercury (1811); Cases of Morbid Anatomy (1814) Febrile Contagion (1816); Notice of Thomas Eddy (1823); Denman's Pratice of Midwifry with notes (1825). Letters on Cholera Asphyxia of 1832 (1832); Mineral Waters of Aron (1834), The Anatomy of Drunkenness; and Old New York, or Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years (1857, reprint, 1865). He died in New York city Feb. 8, 1861.