James Woodhouse began his academic life in the University of the State of Pennsylvania (later the University of Pennsylvania) in his fourteenth year (1784), receiving the degree of B. A. in 1787, and that of M. A. in 1790.
Placing himself under the supervision and preceptorship of Benjamin Rush [q. v. ], he became a student of medicine and in 1792 received the degree of M. D. upon the presentation of an inaugural dissertation, "On the Chemical and Medicinal Properties of the Persimmon Tree and the Analysis of Astringent Vegetables. "
Career
It was there, by devotion and unusual skill, accompanied with inexhaustible patience, that he gave the most convincing arguments against the doctrine of phlogiston; frequently his demonstrations were made in the presence of Joseph Priestley [q. v. ], believer in the phlogiston theory, who was a regular visitor to Woodhouse's small but famous laboratory.
Woodhouse's contributions to American chemistry were noteworthy in several ways.
, were attracted to his laboratory.
He issued an attractive edition of James Parkinson's The Chemical Pocket-book (1802), and revised Samuel Parkes's A Chymical Catechism (1807) and J. A. C. Chaptal de Chanteloup's celebrated Elements of Chemistry (2 vols. , 1807), all of which he annotated copiously.
He died of apoplexy at the early age of thirty-eight.
[See E. F. Smith, James Woodhouse, a Pioneer in Chemistry (1918); Joseph Carson, A Hist.
of the Medic.
Dept. of the Univ. of Pa. (1869); J. L. Chamberlain, Universities and Their Sons: Univ. of Pa. , vol.
Daily Advertiser (Phila. )
, June 6, 1809. ]
Religion
This contribution met with general acclaim and very probably caused Woodhouse to abandon medicine for chemistry, for in the same year he founded the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, one of the earliest chemical societies in the world.
Interests
Music & Bands
He executed all the chemical analytical work (1798) necessary to establish the basaltic nature of certain important rock formations, and exhibited attractive experiments on the conduct of metals toward nitric acid.
Connections
Immediately after their marriage (1766) the parents went from Alnwick, England, to Philadelphia, where the father began business as a bookseller and stationer.
No records in regard to other children of this worthy couple have been discovered.
He was unmarried.
parents:
John
I (1901), p. 302, which gives the names of Woodhouse's parents as John and Sarah (Robinson) Woodhouse; death notice in Poulson's Am.
companion:
Hare
His The Young Chemist's Pocket Companion (1797) was probably the first published guide in chemical experiment for students, and able students of the science, among them Robert Hare and the elder Benjamin Silliman qq.v.
