Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright

Background

Wright, Joseph Jefferson Burr was born on April 27, 1801, at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to a family of English descent, long resident in that community.

Education

He received the degree of A. B. from Washington College, Pennsylvania, in 1821 and in 1825 - 1826 was a student in the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

He took up a rural practice in Luzerne County near his native town but on October 25, 1833, was appointed an assistant surgeon in the United States army. Joining at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, he served for the next seven years at various posts in the Middle West. He took part in the Seminole War (1840 - 1841, 1843) and was with the 8th Infantry in the occupation of Texas in 1846. With Gen. Zachary Taylor's army in the invasion of Mexico, he took part in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and had charge of a hospital at Matamoras. In the following spring he was medical purveyor of the army that left Vera Cruz for the capture of Mexico City, participating in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey. He treated successfully the grape-shot perforation of the chest of Gen. James Shields, received at Cerro Gordo, and reported this remarkable case in F. H. Hamilton's Practical Treatise on Military Surgery (1861). At San Antonio, Texas, on the staff of William Jenkins Worth when a highly fatal epidemic of cholera occurred (1849), Wright furnished a detailed account to Southern Medical Reports (vol. I, 1850). He was on field duty with troops quelling disturbances in Kansas in 1857 and in the Utah expedition of 1858. He entered the Civil War as medical director of the Department of Ohio on the staff of Gen. George B. McClellan. He was present at the battles of Rich Mountain and Carrick's Ford in West Virginia, for which engagements he organized the field medical service and general hospitals. On account of advancing age he declined the detail to accompany McClellan to the Army of the Potomac, and joined the staff of Gen. Henry W. Halleck at St. Louis, Mo. In April 1862 he went to the cavalry recruiting depot at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as surgeon, where he remained until he was retired from active service with the grade of colonel on December 31, 1876.

He had been brevetted colonel on November 29, 1864, and brigadier-general on Mar. 13, 1865. He contributed case reports to the surgical volume of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (6 vols. , 1870 - 1888), and in a special report on malaria made to the surgeon-general in 1843 he reported the successful use of quinine sulphate in dosage considered excessive up to that time. All his writings are in the florid style much employed in his time, but since entirely outmoded in medical writing.

Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright died on May 14, 1878, at his home in Carlisle, of a stroke of apoplexy.

Achievements

• Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright was a noted military surgeon, who was among the first to use and recommend sulphate of quinine in large doses during the remission in the treatment of malaria.

Personality

Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright was a man of conspicuous tact and courtesy, with a high sense of justice and honor, and a high conception of the obligations of the soldier.

Connections

Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright was married to Eliza Jones, with whom he had two daughters and a son. His second wife was Hannah M. Jones.

Wife:

Eliza Wright (Jones)

Wife:

Hannah M. Wright (Jones)

Daughter:

Mary Elizabeth Tyler (Wright)

Son:

Joseph Payson Wright