Background
John Morgan was born on the 16th of October, 1735 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was third son of a Welsh merchant, Evan Morgan, and Joanna Biles Morgan.
John Morgan was born on the 16th of October, 1735 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was third son of a Welsh merchant, Evan Morgan, and Joanna Biles Morgan.
Orphaned at 13, John attended West Nottingham School, became a medical apprentice to John Redman, and later became apothecary of the Pennsylvania Hospital. Morgan studied at the University of Edinburgh where he recrived a Doctor of Medicine in 1763, at Paris, and in Italy.
Returning to the colonies in 1765, Morgan founded their first medical school at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) and there was appointed North America’s first professor of medicine. His policies of requiring a liberal education for medical students and the separation of medicine, surgery, and pharmacology into distinct disciplines, outlined in his Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America (1765), met with widespread opposition from colonial physicians and failed to gain acceptance.
Upon the start of the American Revolution, Morgan became an ardent patriot and was appointed Director-General to the Military Hospitals and Physician-in-Chief to the American Army by the Continental Congress in 1775. Morgan tried to bring the nearly autonomous regimental surgeons under general army control, but Congress would not reorganize the system. A faction headed by William Shippen, Jr., sought to oust him from office, and in 1777 Morgan was held responsible for the high mortality rate in the army and was dismissed from his post by Congress.
Two years later Morgan was absolved of all wrongdoing both by President George Washington and by the Congress, but he never recovered from his disgrace and died an impoverished recluse 10 years later. Morgan also wrote A Recommendation of Inoculation (1776).
John Morgan was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
John Morgan was too idealistic and egocentric to work harmoniously with others.
John Morgan was married to Mary Hopkinson.