John Morse

Background

Morse, John Lovett, , Massachusetts 1865 1940 Male Pediatrician pediatrician, was born in Taunton, Massachussets, the older of two children and only son of Erastus and Sarah Seabury (Bassett) Morse.

Education

Morse graduated from Bristol Academy, Taunton, Massachussets, in 1883, from Harvard College (cum laude) in 1887, and from the Harvard Medical School (cum laude) in 1891.

Career

About 1895 his interest turned to pediatrics, which was just beginning to be recognized as a specialty, and in 1896 he was appointed to a teaching position in the Harvard Medical School in the newly formed department of pediatrics, organized by Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch [q. v. ].

He also became associated with the Children's Hospital and the Infants' Hospital, both in Boston.

Soon after turning to pediatrics Morse developed a large and fashionable practice.

In 1910 he gave up family work and confined his private practice to consultation.

His knowledge of pediatrics was profound and accurate, and he had a wide acquaintance among the practitioners of New England, who had much respect for his honesty and knowledge and confidence in his judgment.

In person Morse was a thoroughgoing New England Yankee.

In his later years this trait was carried to an extreme and did him harm.

Always punctual, he expected others to be the same.

He was an excellent conversationalist, loved a joke, and was a good companion with those he liked, though somewhat difficult with those he did not like.

Morse was at various times in his career president of the American Pediatric Society and of the American Academy of Pediatrics and chairman of the section on diseases of children of the American Medical Association.

[Other books by Morse are his Case Histories in Pediatrics (1911), Diseases of Nutrition and Infant Feeding (with F. B. Talbot, 1915), and The Infant and Young Child (with E. T. Wyman and L. W. Hill, 1922).

Obit.

articles in Jour.

of Pediatrics, May 1940; Am.

Jour.

of Diseases of Children, June 1940; Jour.

Am.

Asso. , May 4, 1940; Trans.

Am.

Soc.

Religion

He was conservative in every aspect of his life--he hated to let go of anything that had been proved good even though it was long ago outmoded, whether an overcoat or a medical theory, and he was loath to accept anything new until he was entirely convinced that it was worthy of acceptance.

Personality

He was intolerant of sham and foolishness and not uncommonly made enemies when discussing papers at medical meetings by the sharpness and sometimes tactlessness of his criticism.

Connections

At that time, when there were no pediatricians except in the large cities, pediatric consultants were much in demand, and he was continually called to see sick children all over New England.

He was a most successful consultant, with the faculty of rapidly sizing up a situation and discussing it with the parents in simple language.

child:

Fairbrother

Morse married in 1906 Adelaide May Fairbrother of Portland, Maine, by whom he had one child, Lovett.

married:

Fairbrother

Morse married in 1906 Adelaide May Fairbrother of Portland, Maine, by whom he had one child, Lovett.