born June 10, 1735, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.
died Oct. 15, 1789, Philadelphia
U.S. medical educator.
He studied medicine in Europe before returning to the American colonies to found their first medical school in 1765 at the University of Pennsylvania. As North America's first professor of medicine, he required a liberal education of his students and separated medicine, surgery, and pharmacology into distinct disciplines, policies widely opposed by colonial physicians. He was made head of the army's medical system in 1775; however, the Continental Congress did not let him organize the system and dismissed him in 1777, holding him responsible for the war's high death rate. Though absolved in 1779, he never recovered, and he died an impoverished recluse.