William Shippen (1736-1808)

William Shippen, Jr. (1736-1808), an early US graduate of Edinburgh University, was co-founder of the Medical College at the University of Pennsylvania, the first medical school in the United States.

Born in Philadelphia, he was the son of William Shippen (1712-1801), a prominent physician and educationalist who later represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress. Shippen Jr. graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1754, and went on to study medicine under his father. He then travelled to Europe and in 1761 qualified MD at the University of Edinburgh with a thesis De Placentæ cum Utero Nexu.

On his return to Philadelphia in 1762, Shippen began America's first series of anatomy lectures. Three years later he joined with another Edinburgh graduate, John Morgan (1735-1789), in persuading the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to found the first medical school in the Original Thirteen Colonies. The school opened in Autumn 1765, with Shippen offering classes in anatomy, surgery, and midwifery. The latter caused much controversy, as many were opposed to male midwifery, and Shippen's classes were often disrupted by protesters. Morgan and Shippen followed the example of Edinburgh in supplementing lectures with bedside teaching at Pennsylvania Hospital.

The two men would later fall out during the American Revolutionary War, when Shippen connived to replace Morgan as Chief Physician and Director General of the Continental Army (forerunner of the Surgeon General of the US Army). With the assistance of Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), another Edinburgh medical graduate, Morgan succeeded in forcing Shippen's resignation.

Shippen was a founder of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, serving as its President from 1805 to 1808.

Related Pages

• First American Graduate, 1749

Sources

• Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage, American Medical Biographies (Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Company, 1920)