Background
John Redman, the son of Joseph and Sarah Redman, was born on February 22, 1722 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
John Redman, the son of Joseph and Sarah Redman, was born on February 22, 1722 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
After a preliminary classical education he was apprenticed to the morose and churlish-tempered John Kearsley, a physician of Philadelphia. He later practised medicine in Bermuda, and, after saving some money and acquiring a small amount from his father's estate, went to Europe to complete his education. A year in Edinburgh (1746), where he took notes on the lectures of Alexander Monro primus and Charles Alston (now preserved in the College of Physicians, Philadelphia), was followed by study at the University of Leyden, where he was graduated M. D. , July 15, 1748, his thesis being entitled, "De Abortu. " After obtaining his degree he continued to study in Paris and London, in the latter city at Guy's Hospital.
Returning to Philadelphia, he soon established himself in practice, first in surgery and obstetrics, but later, owing to the delicacy of his health, he confined his work to medicine. He was an ardent disciple of Boerhaave and Sydenham, regulating his treatment of fevers by extreme depletion through purgation.
In the yellow-fever epidemics of 1762 and 1793 in Philadelphia, he was the most strenuous advocate of saline purgatives as opposed to emetics and bleeding. He also defended direct inoculation for smallpox (A Defence of Inoculation, 1759).
Redman was one of the consulting physicians to the Pennsylvania Hospital (1751 - 80) and served as the first president of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1786 - 1804).
Aside from his professional duties he served as a trustee of the College of New Jersey, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, trustee of the College of Philadelphia.
Redman's position in American medicine is an unusual one. He lived just before the period of medical schools and therefore taught medicine by the apprentice system, but his pupils, Morgan and Rush, founded medical education in this country.
He was a good physician for his time; well trained and well read, he exerted considerable influence by the use of Sydenham's principles of practice, by his assistance in establishing the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1786), and by his education of young physicians, particularly John Morgan, Benjamin Rush, and Caspar Wistar. His superior training and high ideals served well the succeeding generation.
He served as a member of the Philadelphia Common Council (1751). He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society.
His wife was Mary Sobers. They had two sons and a daughter.
