Background
William Potts Dewees was born on May 5, 1768 near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, United States. On his father’s side he was of Swedish descent.
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William Potts Dewees was born on May 5, 1768 near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, United States. On his father’s side he was of Swedish descent.
Dewees apparently had only a moderate amount of school education, seems to have made an early decision to study medicine, and was placed in the office of a Dr. Phyle who was a practising apothecary.
Later he was placed with Dr. William Smith, a practitioner of medicine, and attended classes at the University of Pennsylvania from 1787 to 1789.
There is some doubt as to whether he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at that time.
In any event it was not until 1806 that he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. His thesis was entitled An Essay on the Means of Lessening Pain and Facilitating certain cases of Difficult Parturition (1806).
Dewees began practise at Abington, Pennsylvania, and in December 1793 he moved to Philadelphia, it is said with the encouragement and patronage of Dr. Benjamin Rush. At this time the subject of obstetrics received little attention from the profession in general and the great majority of deliveries were in the hands of midwives. There was no proper teaching of the subject and no formal instruction was given in the University of Pennsylvania. There was still a strong prejudice against men engaging in obstetrics. The “man midwife” was an object of derision well exemplified in the character which Laurence Sterne drew of Dr. Slop in Tristram Shandy. It must have required a good deal of courage to take up this specialty. Dewees devoted himself not only to the practise of obstetrics but to teaching it and was soon giving instruction to classes in his office. He became a very successful practitioner and it is said that he delivered over ten thousand women. About this time there was strong pressure brought to bear on the authorities of the University of Pennsylvania to establish a chair of obstetrics and after much pleading this was done in 1810, but with the handicap that attendance on the lectures was not necessary for graduation. There was a keen struggle for the appointment and Dewees saw it given to a rival, Dr. Thomas C. James. Other disappointments came as his health failed and he developed pulmonary tuberculosis. On this account he was compelled to give up the practise of medicine for a time and went to Phillipsburgh, where he took up farming. He lost money in this venture but regained his health so that in 1817 he was able to return to Philadelphia and resume practise.
He became associated with the Medical Institute and resumed teaching. Soon afterward he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society. As the health of Dr. James had been such that he was unable to carry on the duties of his chair, Dewees was appointed adjunct professor of obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania in 1825 and did most of the work of the department for nine years. He succeeded James in 1834 when he was appointed professor of obstetrics.
Misfortune continued to follow him, as in 1835 he had what was probably a cerebral hemorrhage and was compelled to resign his professorship. It was a tragedy that when he had reached the height of his ambition, sickness so soon compelled him to give up active work.
Afterward he lived in Mobile, Alabama, for four years, later returning to Philadelphia where he died in 1841.
His chief work was A Compendious System of Midwifery (1852), which went through twelve editions. In it Dewees followed the ideas of the French School to a considerable extent but introduced his own ideas and showed much original thought. He also published volumes on the diseases of women and children and went farther afield in a work on the practise of medicine. This last was evidently written hurriedly and did not add to his reputation.
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Dewees is described as having been a good speaker and teacher but caustic in his criticism.
Dewees was married twice: first, Martha Rogers, a daughter of a Dr. Rogers of New England, and second, Mary Lorrain of Philadelphia (1802).
