Background
Jackson was born on March 22, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of David Jackson and Susanna Kemper.
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Samuel Jackson
Edit ProfileEducation
As a boy Jackson worked behind the counter of his father's drug store. At the same time he attended school and in 1808 he graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania.
Career
Not at first successful in practice, Jackson carried on his father's drug business, though he hated it, for he had small aptitude for affairs. During the War of 1812 he joined the first city troop of cavalry and took part in operations along the Chesapeake and in parts of Maryland. In 1815 he returned to the practice of medicine, gradually achieved success, and paid the debts on the drug business, which had meantime failed. He gained prominence during the yellow-fever epidemic as president of the Philadelphia department of health. In papers read before the Academy of Medicine he advanced the theory that the disease was indigenous and associated with putrescent animal matter. Jackson pointed out that patients did not infect their attendants and that the "black vomit" was hemorrhagic. In 1821 he aided in founding the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, became a member of its board of trustees, and from 1821 to 1827 served as professor of materia medica and pharmacy. He was also connected with the Medical Institute of Philadelphia, which Nathaniel Chapman had established in 1817. In 1827 he was appointed assistant to Chapman in the University of Pennsylvania. There he taught the "institutes of medicine" - an old name for physiology. In 1835 a chair of the institutes was established and Jackson held it for twenty-eight years. For three years (1842-1845), he taught in the wards of the Philadelphia Hospital. In 1822 Jackson was made attending physician of the Philadelphia Almshouse, a position which gave him wide opportunities for pathological research. Here he studied the use of auscultation, then a new diagnostic method, and checked his results by post-mortem examinations. In 1832, during an outbreak of Asiatic cholera, Jackson was sent to Montreal to study the disease and diagnosed it as malignant cholera. Returning to Philadelphia, he took charge of a cholera hospital. He died on April 5, 1872, nine years after resigning his chair in 1863. He wrote The Principles of Medicine, Founded on the Structure and Functions of the Animal Organism (1832), and published numerous papers in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences and in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences.
Achievements
Personality
In person Jackson was small and vivacious, with a long narrow head and long light hair, twinkling gray eyes and a fascinating smile. Enthusiastic, losing himself completely in the excitement of a lecture, he spoke in a peculiar chirping voice, with quick nervous gestures, but held his hearers till the last word. He had a genius for friendship. He overcame many physical difficulties, for he was never robust and during later life was almost crippled by neuritis or arthritis.
Connections
While on work in Canada Jackson married the daughter of a British officer.
References
- A Discourse Commemorative of the Life and Character, Samuel Jackson, M.D: Late Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, in the University of Pennsylvania (Classic Reprint)
- Medicinisches Schriftsteller-lexicon Der Jetzt Lebenden Aerzte, Wundärzte, Geburtshelfer, Apotheker Und Naturforscher Aller Gebildeten Völker, Volume 9
- The Genealogy of the Jackson Family, Vol. 5 (Classic Reprint)
- The Principles of Medicine, Founded on the Structure and Functions of the Animal Organism (Classic Reprint)
- The First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy: 1821-1921 (Classic Reprint)
