Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/157

 was unbounded, a sway over the opinions of his contemporaries and pupils which directed their practice and controlled their actions. He may truly be regarded as the Father of American Obstetrics.

William Potts Dewees was a native of Pennsylvania, his family being of Scottish origin. He was born in the year 1768. As his family were not in affluent circumstances, in his youth he had to contend with difficulties in obtaining an education, and to make amends for the want of extensive means of intellectual training by industry and perseverance in the use of such as were within his reach.

He determined early to study medicine, and was for this purpose placed by his father in the establishment of Dr. Phyle, a practising apothecary. Under the superintendence of this gentleman he acquired a knowledge of pharmacy and its collateral sciences. He subsequently entered the office of Dr. William Smith, and during his continuance in this position and residence in Philadelphia attended lectures in the University. In 1789, at the age of twenty-one years, he took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine.

The early professional life of Dr. Dewees was spent in the country, at Abington, a settlement to the north of the city. The appearance of the yellow fever, in 1793, having thinned the ranks of the profession in Philadelphia, Dr. Dewees was induced to remove thither in December of that year. He entered upon his new field of duty with the confidence, and, it may be stated, under the patronage of Dr. Bush. His associates and competitors for medical practice at the time were Drs. Physick and James, who had just returned from their sojourn abroad. It was at a period of need in the important branch of obstetrics that Dr. Dewees located himself as a practitioner among the citizens of Philadelphia. Its condition was not flattering, as has already been mentioned. Dr. Hodge informs us that “at that period the science was hardly known in America. The physicians who occasionally engaged in its practice had received no instruction, with the exception of a few, who, having visited Europe, brought home a general knowledge of the subject, but who, from the prejudices existing against the employment of male 11