He was born on February 19, 1766 at North Hempstead, Long Island, United States, the son of Jotham Post and Winifred Wright, and a descendant of Richard Post, an early settler in Southampton, Long Island. He was baptized Philip Wright but dropped his first name.
Education
He went to a local school for his early education and was also tutored privately by David Beatty. At fourteen he was placed under the guidance of Dr. Richard Bayley, chief of staff of New York Hospital.
He spent four years apprenticed to Dr. Bayley and then went to London, where in the spring of 1784 he served as house pupil of John Sheldon, the well-known surgeon of Westminster Hospital, with whom he came to be on intimate terms; he also studied at the London Hospital. In London he studied under Matthew Baillie, and under William Cumberland Cruikshank, who was at that time at work on the structure of the lymphatic vessels.
Career
He returned to New York in September 1786 and the following year was encouraged by Dr. Bayley to give anatomical lectures at the New York Hospital. In 1791 he entered into partnership with his father-in-law.
After his appointment to the professorship of surgery in the medical department of Columbia College in 1792 he made a second journey abroad to visit foreign medical schools and to collect specimens for his remarkable anatomical museum at Columbia. In 1814 he made another trip to Europe collecting further specimens for his museum. After the union of the medical faculty of Columbia with the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1813 Post, resigning from the chair of surgery, was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology in the new faculty, and from 1821 to 1826 he served as its president. From 1792 to 1821 he was attending surgeon at New York Hospital, and from 1821 until his death he served as consulting surgeon.
Post's reputation as a surgeon became established in 1813, when he successfully tied the external iliac artery for aneurism and in 1817 he ligated the subclavian outside the scaleni muscles.
Achievements
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Mott says of him: "As a man he was tall, handsome, dressed stylishly and wore his hair powdered and in a queue. He read little, was averse to writing, and was not brilliant in speaking. "