Bodo Otto was an American Senior Surgeon of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
Background
Bodo Otto was born in 1711 in Hanover, Germany. His father was Christopher Otto, controller of the district of Schartzfels, and his mother Maria Magdalena Nienecken. He was named for his baptismal sponsor, Privy Councilor Baron Bodo von Oberg.
Education
Bodo Otto received an excellent scholastic education with a view to entering the profession of medicine, served an apprenticeship with physicians and surgeons in Harzburg, Hildesheim, and Hamburg, was intern for a time at the Lazaretto at Hamburg.
Career
Bodo Otto began his career as surgeon in the Duke of Celle's Dragoons. After this he settled in Luneburg where he was accepted as a member of the "College of Surgeons" and became surgeon to the prisoners and invalids in the fortress of Kalkberg. In 1749 he was appointed chief surgeon for the district of Schartzfels. This position he held until 1755, when, with his family, he emigrated to America on the Neptune from Rotterdam. He opened an office in Philadelphia late in 1755, but in 1760 he removed to New Jersey, where his practice is said to have extended over Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland counties.
Otto was a stanch Lutheran and through the influence of the Patriarch Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, a lifelong friend, removed to Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1773. Later in 1776 he was appointed senior surgeon of the Middle Division of the Continental hospitals and labored in New Jersey with the wounded from the battle of Long Island. On February 17, 1777, Congress ordered him to Trenton to establish a military hospital for the treatment of smallpox. He remained until September 1777 when he was assigned to a hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1778 he was placed in charge of the hospitals at Yellow Springs where many of the sick from the camp at Valley Forge were treated.
Upon the reorganization of the medical and hospital departments by Congress in 1780, Otto was one of the fifteen physicians selected for the hospital department and was among the last to leave the service February 1, 1782. At the time of his retirement from the army Dr. John Cochran, the director-general, wrote a testimonial commenting upon Otto's humanity and the success of his medical practice. After the war he reopened his Philadelphia office but soon returned to Reading. Bodo died in 1787 and is buried in the churchyard of Trinity Lutheran Church of Reading, where a shaft has been erected to his memory by the D. A. R. A sword and some of his surgical instruments are in the collection of the Historical Society of Berks County.
Achievements
Politics
Bodo Otto's influence amongst his countrymen of German descent was great and he became a leader in the patriot cause, serving upon the Berks County Committee of Safety and as delegate to the Pennsylvania Provincial Congress of 1776.
Membership
Bodo Otto had been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1769 and had for many years been an active member of the Pennsylvania German Society.
Connections
In 1736 Bodo Otto was married to Elizabeth Sanchen. They had one daughter, Mary Elizabeth. After the death of his first wife he was married in 1742 to Catharina Dorothea Dahncke. They had 4 children: Frederick Christopher, Doratha Sophia, Bodo Jr. , and John Augustus. The sons by this marriage became surgeons and later assisted their father in hospital service during the American Revolution. After the death of his second wife in 1766, he married Maria Margaretha Paris. They had no children