Dates: 1768-1829
Notes: This surgeon, founder of the University of Maryland, was born in Annapolis in 1768, his father, an ex-captain in the British Army, his mother Honor Howard of Anne Arundel County. At an early age he was deprived of his father, and his mother wanted to apprentice him to a cabinet-maker. But, resolved to have an education and obtaining aid from friends and coming into possession of some slaves through the death of a relative, he entered St. John’s College and there took his A.M. in 1789, beginning to study medicine with Drs. James and William Murray, of Annapolis, and spent several years in Edinburgh, where he devoted himself especially to the study of anatomy. His voyage to Scotland was made in a sailing vessel, and among his shipmates were Drs. Hosack, Brockenbrough and Troup; and they, encountering very rough weather, were compelled to work hard at the pumps to keep the vessel from sinking. From motives of economy, like many students of the time, he took his degree (April 22, 1793) at Glasgow rather than Edinburgh. About this time he married Wilhelmina Stuart of the Firth of Solway, a lady several years his senior. After practising for a short time in Birmingham, England, he returned to Maryland, and finally selected Baltimore as his permanent home. In 1797 a severe epidemic of yellow fever raged in the city and there was a public discussion of the disease by the physicians in the newspapers. Davidge bore a prominent part, and early in the following year republished his views in a volume which was freely quoted in later works upon the subject.
He was one of the first attending physicians to the Baltimore General Dispensary on its foundation in 1801. In 1802 we first note his advertisement of private courses of medical lectures, and these courses were continued annually until 1807, when, being joined by Drs. James Cocke and John Shaw his school was chartered as the College of Medicine of Maryland. In 1813 a charter for a University was obtained, and this institution became the department of medicine, Dr. Davidge holding the chair of anatomy and surgery from 1807 to his death, and for a number of years he was also dean.
In person, Prof. Davidge is represented as being short and stout, with blue eyes, florid complexion and homely, rugged features, small hands and feet and a graceful carriage. He walked with a slight limp after 1818, in consequence of a fracture of the thigh bone. His lectures were described by Prof. Lunsford P. Yandell as being “models of simple elegance,” but “he seemed to forget the English idiom the moment he took pen in hand.” His style of writing was stiff, affected and obscure, and marked by obsolete modes of spelling and expression. He had very positive views on medical subjects and believed menstruation to be a secretion of the uterus excited by ovarian irritation. He opposed the support of the perineum on the ground that nature is sufficient for her own processes. He also declared himself against the speculum vaginae because it smacked of immoral curiosity.
His first wife dying, Dr. Davidge married Mrs. Rebecca Troup Polk, widow of Josiah Polk, of Harford County, Maryland, who survived him with four of his children, a son by his first wife and three daughters by his second.
He died at his house in Lexington street on August 23, 1829, of malignant disease of the antrum of Highmore.
His most important writings were: “Treatise on Yellow Fever,” 1798; “Nosolgia Methodica” in Latin, two editions, 1812 and 1813; “Physical Sketches,” two volumes, 1814 and 1816; “Treatise on Amputation,” 1818. He edited “Bancroft on Fevers,” 1821, and a quarterly journal entitled, Baltimore Philosophical Journal and Review, 1823, of which only one number appeared. His important operations were amputation at shoulder-joint soon after 1792 (Reese); ligation of the gluteal artery for aneurysm; ligation of the carotid artery for fungus of the antrum; total extirpation of the parotid gland, 1823. He invented a new method of amputation which he called the “American.”
Eugene P. Cordell
Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland, Cordell, 1891.
Medical Annals of Maryland, Cordell, 1903. Portrait.
His great-great-grandson, Walter D. Davidge, an attorney of Washington City, has an oil painting of him.
Source: Kelly, Howard A. and Burrage, Walter J., American Medical Biographies Baltimore: Norman, Remington Company: 287-288
Dates: 1872/01/15
Notes:
OBITUARY.
Monday night, the 15th inst., at the residence of her son, Dr. John Polk, Abingdon, Harford County, Md., Mrs. REBECCA DAVIDGE departed this life, 87 years of age.
Mrs. Davidge, nee Troup, was born in Queen Anne County, Eastern shore of Maryland, and was married to Josiah Polk, son of Judge William Polk, of Somerset County, Maryland; her descendants in this City from this marriage are Mrs. D. D. Field and Mrs. Eugene Pomeroy. Some years after the death of Mr. Polk she married Dr. John Beale Davidge, of Baltimore, Professor of Anatomy, and one of the most eminent physicians of his day. Mrs. Davidge was remarkable for great simplicity and dignity of presence. She was charity itself; no harsh or unjust sentiment could find place in her breast; she was graceful, sincere; she was kind and true. She enjoyed the consideration which such characters naturally inspire; her friends were numerous and devoted. Full of years and of Christian virtues, she has passed into that sleep from which the awakening is into everlasting life. Such reflections cannot fail to soothe the sense of beareavement.
SOURCE: New York Times Jan. 18, 1872
Source:
Dates: var. dates.
Notes: Davidge, John Beale 1768-1829
See: American National Biography. 24 volumes. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. (AmNatBi)
See: Biographical Index to American Science. The seventeenth century to 1920. Compiled by Clark A. Elliott. Bibliographies and Indexes in American History, no. 16. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. (BiInAmS)
See: Dictionary of American Biography. Volumes 1-20. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928-1936. (DcAmB)
See: Dictionary of American Medical Biography. Lives of eminent physicians of the United States and Canada, from the earliest times. By Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1928. Reprint. Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands: Longwood Press, 1979. (DcAmMeB)
Dictionary of American Medical Biography. Two volumes. Edited by Martin Kaufman, Stuart Galishoff, and Todd L. Savitt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. (DcAmMeB 84)
See: A Dictionary of North American Authors Deceased before 1950. Compiled by W. Stewart Wallace. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1951. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1968. (DcNAA)
See: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Volume 22. New York: James T. White & Co., 1932. Reprint. Volumes 1-50. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1967-1971. Use the Index to locate biographies. (NatCAB 22)
See: Who Was Who in America. A component volume of “Who’s Who in American History.” Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Revised Edition. Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1967. (WhAm HS)
Source: Biography and Genealogy Master Index (BGMI). See Ancestry.com
Source:
Medicine in Maryland, 1752-1920 