Memoir of William Pepper, M.D. / by James Tyson.

  • Tyson, James, 1841-1919.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Memoir of William Pepper, M.D. / by James Tyson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    MEMOIR OF WILLIAM PEPPER, M.D. By JAMES TYSON, M.D. u From a life so crowded with events and so fruitful of important and wide reaching results as that of Dr. Pepper, it is difficult to de- cide what is suitable for a memoir intended for preservation in the archives of the “ College/’ as well as to be read to its Fellows. For the former, fulness of detail can scarcely be excessive; for the latter, the axe of condensation must prune out much that would add to the interest of a memoir to be read in the closet. Abbreviation may, however, be excused when it is known that there will shortly be published by Prof. Francis N. Thorpe an extended biography which will deal exhaustively with Dr. Pepper’s life. Dr. Pepper’s ancestors on his father’s side were German. His great-grandfather, Henry Pepper, emigrated from Strassburg to this country so lately as 1739, and settled in Schaefferstown, in what is now Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, removing to Philadelphia in 1774. His father, Dr. William Pepper, was the leading physi- cian and consultant in Philadelphia at the time of his death at the comparatively early age of fifty-four. He was four years Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine in the University of Pennsyl- vania, resigning in consequence of ill health. He was especially skilled in diagnosis based on exhaustive and accurate investigation of each case. Dr. Pepper’s mother, Sarah Platt, represented the fifth generation in descent from Thomas Platt, whose exact place and date of birth are unknown, though he was born somewhere between 1685 and 1690. His son, Thomas Platt, was born in Bur- lington County, N. J., in 1715. Dr. Pepper’s great-grandfather,