Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/331

DEWEES married in 1818, was Elizabeth Appel, of the neighborhood, who died seventeen years later, leaving three sons and four daughters.



Dewees, William Potts (1768–1841).

This Philadelphian obstetrician was so famous that no parturient woman of the time considered herself safe in other hands.

His great-grandparents were among the early Swedish immigrants at Delaware Bay. His mother was the daughter of an Englishman, Thomas Potts, who bought much land here and founded Pottstown on the Schuylkill, where William was born on the fifth of May, 1768. Early left fatherless he had only an ordinary school education, and after attending medical lectures in the University of Pennsylvania began practice with an M. B. degree when only twenty-one, gaining patients by his talents and his handsome face and winning ways. He specialized in midwifery and did good work in days when Mrs. Gamp was nurse. There was no systematic teaching in obstetrics and Dewees grew restless under this negligence, and collecting a band of pupils gave lectures on midwifery and strengthened his position in 1806 by taking his M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania with a thesis on "Lessening Pain in Parturition." Shippen notes this thesis as marking an era in the history of medicine.

Finally, in 1810, after Wistar, James, Chapman and Dewees had spent ill-spared time in pleading for it, a chair of midwifery was established in the university with the provision "it shall not be necessary, in order to obtain the degree of doctor of medicine, that the student shall attend the professor of midwifery."

James was chosen the first professor, Dewees becoming adjunct professor in 1825 and professor in 1834.

He had married Martha, daughter of a Dr. Rogers, of New England, but she died young, and in 1802 Dewees married Mary Lorrain, a Philadelphian, and had three daughters and five sons. An attack of pulmonary hemorrhage in 1812 made him resign his work and invest his money in land at Phillipsburgh and retire there. His money was lost but his health restored and he came back to gain speedily his old position and popularity, though in 1834 he had an apoplectic attack and the next year had to resign his professorship. Williams speaks of his "relaxation in the pleasures arising from social intercourse necessitated by want of sleep, irregular hours and laborious occupation." On the eighteenth of May, 1841, worn out by anxiety and disease, he died in Philadelphia, an old man of seventy-three, leaving good writings behind as his lasting memorial.

In 1824 appeared his "System of Midwifery," which ran through twelve editions. "It deviated from the principles of the English authorities, and, while resting upon those of Baudelocque, who was the exponent of the French school of obstetrics, presented so much of original thought and observation as to bestow a high reputation upon its author." Other works of his were: "A Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children," 1825 (ten editions); "On the Diseases of Females," 1826, also ten editions; and "Practice of Medicine," 1870.



Dewey, Chester (1784–1867).

Chester Dewey, botanist, geologist, chemist and lecturer in medical colleges, was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, October 25, 1784, son of Stephen Dewey and Elizabeth Owen; he was descended from Thomas Dewey, first settler in Dorchester, Massachusetts, about 1634. He graduated A. B. at Williams College in 1806, and studied divinity under Dr. Stephen West of Stockbridge, Mass.; was licensed to preach, and settled as minister in Tyringham, Mass.; the next year he was called to Williams College as tutor, and thus began a long career as a teacher. He was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Williams College (1810–1827); principal of Berkshire Gymnasium in Pittsfield, Mass. (1827–1836); principal of the High School, afterwards known as the Collegiate Institute, in Rochester, New York (1836–1850); professor of chemistry and the natural sciences in the University of Rochester, N. Y. (1850–1861); and emeritus professor from 1861 until his death. His connection with the medical profession was as teacher, not as practitioner. He was professor of chemistry, botany and natural philosophy in the Berkshire Medical Institution from 1822 to 1852 and lecturer in the Medical School in Woodstock, Vermont, from 1842–1849. He was chaplain of the First Massachusetts Infantry in the war of 1812. He never abandoned the ministry, but for more than fifty years