Main content
George Bacon Wood poetry
Notifications
Held at: Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia [Contact Us] 19 S. 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
George Bacon Wood was born in Greenwich, New Jersey, on 12 March 1797; he was the son of Richard and Elizabeth Bacon Wood. George B. Wood married Caroline Hahn (d. 1867) on 2 April 1823. Wood died in Philadelphia on 30 March 1879.
In 1815, George B. Wood received his A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania. He then studied medicine under Joseph Parrish and attended courses at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his A.M. and M.D. from the University in 1818. Wood's thesis was on dyspepsia. After his graduation, Wood lectured on materia medica at Joseph Parrish's Association for Medical Instruction.
George B. Wood was one of the founders of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1821. He was Professor of Chemistry at the College (1822-1831), then Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy (1831-1835). Wood resigned from the College in 1835, to become Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1850, he became Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the University and held that position until his retirement in 1860. Wood was Attending Physician at Pennsylvania Hospital (1835-1859) and President of the Board of Managers (18741879). From 1850 to 1860, Wood was also chairman of the Committee on the Revision of the United States Pharmacopoeia. In 1865, he helped to organize the Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wood wrote several books, including The dispensatory of the United States (1833), The history of the University of Pennsylvania (1834), A treatise on the practice of medicine (1847), and A treatise on therapeutics and pharmacology, or materia medica (1856).
George B. Wood became a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1827 and was President from 1848 to 1879. Wood was also a President of the American Philosophical Society (1859-1879) and the American Medical Association (1855-1856).
The collection contains a small assortment of George B. Wood's poetry, 1820-1849. Folder 1 contains a fragmentary commonplace book with two lengthy undated poems, one untitled, the other, "The triumph of Morpheus" (pp. 19-30). The volume also contains nine geometrical theorems (pp. 119126) based on Wood's studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1814.
Folder 2 contains seven poems on friendship, 1820-1831, originally written in albums of several individuals; Wood's translations of five poems by Schiller, circa 1849; and three undated drafts or fragments of poems.
The source of the collection is unknown. On 18 August 1978, a preliminary examination of the collection was made, a call number (10c/141) assigned, and the authorship attributed to Sully Longstreth, but analysis of the handwriting and contents indicates the author is almost certainly George B. Wood.
The collection was catalogued in 1990.
Subject
- Publisher
- Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia