John Archer Jr.'s notes on Materia Medica lectures held at the University of Pennsylvania, 1797-1798.
Name:
Archer, John, 1777-1830.; Archer, Henry Wilson, 1813-1887.; Barton, Benjamin Smith, 1766-1815.; University of Pennsylvania. School of Medicine.
Date:
1797-1851
Description:
This collection consists of notebooks kept by three members of the Archer family between 1797 and 1851. Two booklets of notes on materia medica lectures held at the University of Pennsylvania make up the first file in the collection. John Archer Jr. attended the lectures (delivered by Benjamin S. Barton, M.D., a Professor of Materia Medica, Botany and Natural History) in 1797 and 1798. Addressing what is now considered pharmacology, the booklets detail medical treatments for a number of diseases. The first volume of the set is concerned largely with the nutritional benefits of various foods and the categorization of medicines, whether as botanical or mineral astringents, tonics, emetics, stimulants, and the like. The second volume discusses the merits of different medicines (mostly plant-based) and lists viable treatments for a range of diseases. A note on the last page of the second volume suggests that there was a third booklet in this set of lecture notes.; The Archer family was a prominent and politically active family of medical doctors based in Harford County, Maryland. John Archer was born in Maryland in 1741 and (due to the alphabetical antecedence of his last name) was the first person to receive a medical diploma in North America, which he earned from the College of Philadelphia (later the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania) in 1768. His son, John Archer Jr. (1777-1850) also attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1798. J. Archer Jr. returned to Maryland after earning his degree and served as a surgeon of the Maryland militia in the War of 1812. Henry Wilson Archer (1813-1887) was the son of John Archer Jr. Another graduate of the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, H. Archer lived in Harford County and married Mary Elizabeth Walker in 1849. The final volume in the collection is an account book created by Robert Harris Archer. Three individuals named Robert Harris Archer (brother of (1775-1857 or 1858), nephew of (1813-1883), or son of (1820-1878) John Archer, Jr.) may have been the account book's author.
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