Edward Augustus Holyoke was an American physician and scientist. He was a pioneer in the treatment and prevention of smallpox.
Background
Edward Augustus Holyoke was born on August 1, 1728 in Marblehead, Massachussets, United States. He was a descendant of Edward Holyoke who emigrated from England and settled in Lynn, Massachussets, in 1638, and the son of Reverend Edward Holyoke, president of Harvard College from 1737 to 1769. His mother was Margaret Appleton of Ipswich.
Education
Holyoke graduated from Harvard College in 1746, and the following year taught school in Roxbury. He studied medicine under Doctor Thomas Berry of Ipswich and began practice in Salem in 1749, becoming one of the foremost New England physicians of his day and a factor in medical education.
Career
From 1762 to 1817 Holyoke trained thirty-five students, among them Nathaniel W. Appleton and James Jackson. In March 1777 he took charge of the smallpox hospital in Salem where he practised inoculation; he was also an early vaccinator and by 1802 was employing that preventive commonly. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Medical Society and its president from 1782 to 1784 and from 1786 to 1787.
He was essentially a family physician, and his practice is reputed to have been based on four drugs, mercury, antimony, opium, and Peruvian bark. His pupil, James Jackson, "beloved physician" of Boston, in his thesis, Remarks on the Brunonian System (1809), which was inscribed to his "glorious master, " declared: "By you I was taught to pay a sacred regard to experience as the source of all medical knowledge and by you I was forbidden to resort to speculative principles as guides to practice except where experience failed. " In that tribute may be found the keynote of Holyoke's teaching. His published writings include: "A Letter. Respecting the Introduction of the Mercurial Practice in the Vicinity of Boston, " "An Easy and Cheap Method of Preparing Sal Aeratus, " "An Account of the Weather and of the Epidemics at Salem for the Year 1786" and "The History of a Retroverted Uterus, " "An Ethical Essay, or an Attempt to Enumerate the Several Duties Which We Owe to God, Our Saviour, Our Neighbour and Ourselves, " "A Meteorological Journal from the Year 1786 to the Year 1829 Inclusive. "
Achievements
Politics
Holyoke was an avowed Loyalist.
Membership
Holyoke was also a founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, serving as president for six years (1814-1820), and of the Essex Historical Society, over which he presided for eight years (1821-1829).
Connections
Holyoke was the father of twelve children, born to his second wife, Mary, the daughter of Nathaniel Viall of Boston, whom he married November 22, 1758. She died in April 1802. His first wife, Judith Pickman, whom he married in June 1755, died November 19, 1756.