Author: DORSEY, John Syng
Biography:
DORSEY, John Syng (1783-1818: Wikisource)
An Elegaic [for Elegiac] Poem, on the Death of Dr. Benjamin Rush (1813) laments the death of the Philadelphia physician and Founding Father Benjamin Rush (1746-1813). It has been plausibly attributed to another medical man of Philadelphia, John Syng Dorsey. The son of Leonard Dorsey, a prominent merchant, he is said to have been born on 23 Dec. 1763. His mother’s name is not recorded and no public document has so far been traced. He attended the Friends Academy, then studied medicine under his uncle Philip Syng Physick (1768-1837) before graduating MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1802. (Physick and Rush were friends; Physick had also obtained his degree from UPenn.) Dorsey’s first appointment was to the City Hospital during an outbreak of yellow fever. In 1803-4 he continued his studies in London and Paris and set up his own practice in Philadelphia upon his return. In 1807 he married Maria Ralston, with whom he had three children. By that time he was an adjunct professor of surgery at UPenn; in 1813 he was appointed professor of materia medica. He was a popular teacher and wrote a successful textbook, Elements of Surgery (1813). His pastimes included music, poetry, and drawing. On the day on which he delivered his inaugural lecture as professor of anatomy, 12 Nov. 1818, he was already suffering from typhus, and died the same day. The story of his being baptised into the Episcopalian church on his deathbed is at odds with the official record, which gives the date as 11 Nov. 1817—but the original document leaves the date blank. (“American Medical Biographies/ John Syng Dorsey,” wikisource.org 19 May 2025; “Physick, Philip Syng,” ANBO 20 May 2025; ancestry.com 19 May 2025; findmypast.com 19 May 2025) HJ