James William White was born on November 2, 1850 in Philadelphia, Pa. , the son of Dr. James William White and Mary Ann (McClaranan) White, and a nephew of Samuel Stockton White. He was descended from the Rev. Henry White who emigrated from England about 1649 and settled in Virginia. White lived and died in Philadelphia.
White attended the public schools in Philadelphia, then a Quaker private school, from which he entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. He also matriculated in the department auxiliary to medicine, pursuing both courses simultaneously, and in 1871 was graduated with the degrees of M. D. and Ph. D.
In the summer of the same year he secured an appointment as analytical chemist with a scientific expedition under the leadership of J. L. R. Agassiz, and set out in the Hassler for a year's cruise to the West Indies and the east coast of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, and up the west coast of South America and Central America to San Francisco. Years later he visited China and adjacent countries. Upon his return from the South American trip he became a resident physician at the Philadelphia Hospital (1873) and then resident physician at the Eastern State Penitentiary (1874 - 76), where he interested himself in the study of crime and the mentality of criminals. In 1876 he became attached to the surgical staff of the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and soon began to lecture on genito-urinary diseases in the medical department of the university. He was professor of clinical surgery (1887 - 1900) and in 1900 succeeded John Ashhurst as John Rhea Barton Professor of Surgery. He resigned the professorship of surgery in 1911, to be made professor emeritus, a trustee of the university, and a manager of the university hospital. He was a president of the University Athletic Association and for a long time dominated it. He was also a commissioner of Fairmount Park, a member of numerous professional associations, and for a quarter of a century an editor of Annals of Surgery (1892 - 1916). During the World War he wrote A Primer of the War for Americans (1914), later called A Text-Book of the War for Americans, and America's Arraignment of Germany (1915), which set forth arguments for America's entrance into the war on the side of the Allies. In Paris, where he had gone to assist in the organization of the American ambulance unit, he began to notice the first signs of osteitis deformans, from which he suffered until he died of pneumonia in April 1916. In his early days White was an enthusiastic athlete, a great swimmer, a skilled boxer, a member of Alpine clubs, and a rollicking good fellow known to all his friends and students as "Bill White. " He was a gay young surgeon to the 16t City Troop (1878 - 88), a bon viveur, and spent much of his time at social clubs. In the latter third of his life, however, there occurred a sudden change both in his philosophy and in his behavior, said to be the result of a circumstance affecting the private life of a friend, which led him to give up many of his pleasures and take a more responsible attitude toward human affairs.
Though he wrote many papers, his most important work was his Genito-Urinary Surgery and Venereal Diseases (1897), written in collaboration with Edward Martin. With W. W. Keen he edited An American Text-Book of Surgery (1892), and with J. H. C. Simes translated a treatise on syphilis (1882) by A. V. Cornil. He believed that one of his important contributions to surgery was the operation of castration for treatment of hypertrophy of the prostate, but the method is no longer practised.
As a teacher he was clear, concise, and interesting, though rarely inspiring.
He was married on June 22, 1888, to Letitia (Brown) Disston, daughter of Benjamin H. Brown of Philadelphia (Philadelphia Press, June 23, 1888). There were no children.
