Background

Horatio C. Wood Jr. was born on January 13, 1841, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, into a well-off family of Horatio Curtis Wood and Elizabeth Head (Bacon) Wood. Horatio was a descendant in the sixth generation of Richard Wood, Quaker, who emigrated from England to Philadelphia in 1682 and later settled in New Jersey.

Education

Wood began his education, when he was three years old. At the age of four, he was sent to a boarding school in Westtown, where he was the smallest boy among two hundred pupils, and where he said he received "valuable lessons in physical tenacity and endurance of punishment without flinching". From there, Horatio went to the Friends' Select School in Philadelphia.

Besides, at an early age, Wood developed a passion for natural science and haunted the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (present-day the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University), where Joseph Leidy took an interest in him. In 1861, when he was but twenty years old, the Academy published the first of his papers, "Contributions to the Carboniferous Flora of the United States" and a "Catalogue of Carboniferous Plants in the Museum of the Academy".

In 1859, Wood began attending the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1862. He then continued his studies as a resident physician at Blockley and the Pennsylvania Hospitals, being on the medical staff from 1870 to 1883 and on the neurological staff in 1883-1888.

Moreover, Horatio received several honorary degrees from Lafayette College, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

After spending some time as an intern and resident physician at Pennsylvania Hospital, Wood entered the United States Army in the midst of the Civil War, acting as a surgeon for the Northern Army, including a spell at the front-line Fairfax Seminary General Hospital. He returned to Philadelphia at the close of the war.

Wood began his teaching career as a "quiz-master" in the practice of medicine, therapeutics and chemistry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1866 to 1876, he was a professor of Botany at the same school. During that period, Wood became devoted to the study of nervous diseases and, by 1873, had earned a lectureship on nervous diseases, and, by 1876, a clinical professorship, which he held until 1901. From 1876 to 1906, Horatio was a professor of Materia Medica, Pharmacy and General Therapeutics at the school. In 1907, he retired from the educational establishment as emeritus professor of Therapeutics.

As for Wood's scientific work, it embraced four separate fields: natural science (botany and entomology); experimental pharmacology, physiology and pathology; medical jurisprudence; and nervous diseases and related subjects. His scientific bibliography includes almost three hundred papers and six books: "Thermic Fever or Sun-Stroke" (1872), "A Treatise on Therapeutics" (1874), "Brain-work and Overwork" (1880), "Nervous Diseases and Their Diagnosis" (1887), "Syphilis of the Nervous System" (1889) and "The Practice of Medicine" (1897), written with R. H. Fitz. In addition, with J. P. Remington and S. P. Sadtler, Wood revised "The Dispensatory of the United States", written by his uncle, George Bacon Wood. Moreover, Horatio acted as an editor of several scientific journals, including New Remedies from 1870 to 1873, as well as the Medical Times in 1873-1880 and the Therapeutic Gazette between 1884 and 1900.

It's also worth mentioning, that Wood was at one time a collector for the Smithsonian Institution and was a member of its expeditions to the Bahama Islands and into the Mexican Desert.

Achievements

• Horatio C. Wood Jr. was a notable physician, biologist, entomologist, who also taught at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  Wood gained prominence for his publications, which brought him the Boylston Prize, the Warren Prize and the Special Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Society. "A Treatise on Therapeutic" (1874) is his most famous work. Besides, his work, titled "The Myriapoda of North America" (1865), included the first complete list of North American millipedes.
  
  It's also worth noting, that Wood's reputation as an entomologist may be judged by the fact, that J. L. R. Agassiz entrusted to him the specimens of Myriapoda, that he had collected on his expedition to Brazil in 1866.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Dispensatory of the United States of America

    (Initially written by George Bacon Wood, this work was rev...)

    1918
  • Thermic Fever or Sunstroke 1872
  • A Treatise on Therapeutics 1874
  • Brain-Work and Overwork 1880
  • Nervous Diseases and Their Diagnosis 1887
  • Syphilis of the Nervous System 1890
  • The Practice of Medicine 1897

Membership

Wood was a member of different scientific societies, including the American Physiological Society.

• 

  member

  National Academy of Sciences , United States

  1879

• 

  president

  College of Physicians of Philadelphia , United States

  1902 - 1904

• president

  Neurological Society , United States

  1883

Personality

Many of Horatio's relatives share similar names and there is some confusion over Wood's own middle name. Although reported in different sources as "Horatio Charles Wood" and "Horatio Curtis Wood", his son, Horatio Charles Wood Jr., has stated, that his father's middle name was simply the letter C. This was a compromise between Wood's parents, his mother preferring the middle name Charles and his father, Horatio Curtis Wood, preferring Curtis.

As for Horatio's personality, he was a man of great physical and mental activity, as well as a person of unusual diligence.

Connections

Horatio married Elizabeth, a daughter of James Longacre, on May 10, 1866. Their marriage produced a daughter and three sons, two of whom became physicians.

Father:

Horatio Curtis Wood

Mother:

Elizabeth Head (Bacon) Wood

Wife:

Elizabeth Wood

mentor:

Joseph Leidy

Horatio studied under Joseph Leidy at the present-day Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.