Caspar Wistar

Background

Caspar Wistar was born on September 13, 1761, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Richard Wistar, Sr. and Sarah Wyatt, and a grandson of Caspar Wistar, glass manufacturer.

Education

He attended the Penn Charter School and began his medical studies under Dr. John Redman. He attended the courses at the medical school at the time of the separation of the College of Philadelphia and the newly created University of the State of Pennsylvania, receiving the degree of B. M. from the latter in 1782. The following year he went abroad and, after studying for a year in London went to Edinburgh University, where he received the degree of M. D. in 1786. In Edinburgh he served two terms as president of the Royal Medical Society, a student organization, and assisted in founding a natural history society. His graduating thesis, De Animo Demisso, was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin and Dr. William Cullen.

Career

Upon his return to the U. S. in January 1787, he entered on the practice of his profession in Philadelphia, where he was at once appointed one of the physicians to the Philadelphia Dispensary. In 1789 he succeeded Benjamin Rush as professor of chemistry in the medical school of the College of Philadelphia. When the University of the State of Pennsylvania and the College of Philadelphia were united in 1792 as the University of Pennsylvania, he was made adjunct professor to William Shippen, professor of anatomy, surgery, and midwifery. On Shippen's death in 1808, Wistar succeeded him as full professor of anatomy and midwifery, and from 1810 until his death continued as professor of anatomy. In 1811 he published his System of Anatomy, the first American textbook on that subject. Wistar's other writings are all comprised in his Eulogium on Doctor William Shippen (1818) and a half-dozen communications to the American Philosophical Society. His other activities were varied. He was one of the physicians to the Philadelphia Dispensary and a member of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital (1793 - 1810), served valiantly during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, and in 1809 founded a society for the promotion of vaccination. In 1787 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, and throughout his life it was a predominating interest with him. He was elected curator in 1793 and vice-president in 1795, and from 1815 to 1818, succeeding Thomas Jefferson, he served as president of the Society. For some years before his death he suffered from heart disease, with severe attacks of angina pectoris. Caspar Wistar died on January 22, 1818.

Achievements

• Caspar Wistar was an eminent physician, whose chief achievement as a practical anatomist was the elucidation of the correct anatomical relations between the ethmoid and sphenoid bones. The botanist Thomas Nuttall named the genus Wisteria in his honour. The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1892 by his great-nephew, Isaac Jones Wistar, is also named for Caspar Wistar. From 1803, Caspar Wistar was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Works

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• book

  • A System of Anatomy: for the Use of Students of Medicine Volume 2

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A System of Anatomy: For the Use of Students of Medicine; Volume 1

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Membership

From 1787, Caspar Wistar was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Philosophical Society.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1803.

Connections

On May 15, 1788, Caspar Wistar married Isabella Marshall, they had no issue. On November 28, 1798, he married Elizabeth Mifflin, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. His children left no descendants.

Father:

Richard Wistar, Sr.

Richard Wistar, Sr. was an American glassmaker and landowner in Pennsylvania.

Mother:

Sarah Wistar (Wyatt)

Sister:

Catherine Bache (Wistar)

Sister:

Elizabeth Wyatt Miller (Wistar)

Wife:

Elizabeth Wistar (Mifflin)

Wife:

Isabella Wistar (Marshall)

Daughter:

Elizabeth Wistar

Son:

Richard Mifflin Wistar

Son:

Mifflin Wistar

Brother:

John Wistar

Brother:

Thomas Wistar

Brother:

Bartholomew Wistar

Brother:

Richard Wistar

Friend:

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809.