Samuel Powel Griffitts (July 21, 1759 – May 12, 1826, sometimes also written as "Griffiths") was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, widely regarded as the founder, in 1786, of the Philadelphia

Dispensary A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital, industrial plant, or other organization that dispenses medications, medical supplies, and in some cases even medical and dental treatment. In a traditional dispensary set-up, a pharmacist dispen ...

(a free clinic for poor people). He was an early member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

, elected in 1785.

Life

Griffitts was born into a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

family in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, the third son of William and Abigail Powel Griffitts. In 1776, he entered the College of Philadelphia, where he studied medicine with

Adam Kuhn Adam Kuhn (28 November 1741 – 5 July 1817) was an American physician and naturalist, and one of the earliest professors of medicine in a North American university. Formative years Kuhn was born in Germantown, Province of Pennsylvania, a son ...

, a physician and botanist who had been a pupil of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. His education was interrupted by the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

, particularly the

Philadelphia campaign The Philadelphia campaign (1777–1778) was a British effort in the American Revolutionary War to gain control of Philadelphia, which was then the seat of the Second Continental Congress. British General William Howe, after failing to draw ...

. Together with his classmate

Caspar Wistar Caspar Wistar may refer to: * Caspar Wistar (glassmaker) (1696–1752), Pennsylvania glassmaker and landowner * Caspar Wistar (physician) Caspar Wistar (September 13, 1761January 22, 1818) was an American physician and anatomist. He is sometim ...

, Griffitts was one of the medical volunteers who treated wounded soldiers after the nearby

Battle of Germantown The Battle of Germantown was a major engagement in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War. It was fought on October 4, 1777, at Germantown, Pennsylvania, between the British Army led by Sir William Howe, and the American Con ...

. After the British occupation of Philadelphia disrupted programs at the College of Philadelphia, Griffitts finished his degree at the

University of the State of Pennsylvania The institution now known as the University of Pennsylvania was founded as a secondary school in 1740 and by the time of the American Revolution had grown to include a college and medical school called the College of Philadelphia. While it operat ...

in July 1781. Upon completion of his medical degree in 1781, Griffitts sought training in Europe, as did many physicians of his generation.

Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush (April 19, 1813) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, ...

gave him a list of eighteen recommendations for medical students in Europe:

Rush recommended that .. Griffitts attend lectures on
natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...
as well as on medical subjects, visit the hospitals, noting the prescriptions and modes of treatment, spend a few hours daily for some weeks in a chemical laboratory and apothecary's shop, and acquire a library...and spend an hour daily for three months on dancing lessons.

Griffitts went first to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and then to

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

, but transferred his studies to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

as soon as hostilities ended, writing to Rush in 1783 that although London was "the Metropolis of the whole world for Practical Medicine" the French hospitals were cleaner and had better nursing arrangements. In June 1783, Griffitts moved to

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

for a year, where he studied with

William Cullen William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG (; 15 April 17105 February 1790) was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and professor at the Edinburgh Medical School. Cullen was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment: He was Dav ...

before returning to Philadelphia in the spring of 1784. After returning to Philadelphia, one of his first professional actions was to work toward establishing the Philadelphia

, the first charity clinic in the United States. Although his contemporaries regarded Griffitts himself as its founder, Griffitts credited a visiting lecturer

Henry Moyes Henry Moyes (1750 – 1807) was a blind Scottish lecturer on natural philosophy.A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘Moyes, Henry (1749/50–1807)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 Life As an itinerant public spea ...

with first proposing the idea of a free clinic to him and to his uncle

Samuel Powel Samuel Powel (October 28, 1738 – September 29, 1793) was a colonial and post-revolutionary mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since Philadelphia's mayoral office had been abolished early in the revolutionary period, Powel was the last colonial ...

in 1785. (Powel, his mother's brother, had been Philadelphia's last colonial mayor (1775–1776) and would later be its mayor again (1789–1790).) Funding for the Philadelphia Dispensary would come from subscriptions, while physicians were expected to volunteer their services. Soon 320 subscriptions were gathered and a building was found; the clinic first opened early in 1786. Griffitts headed the list of the dispensary's first doctors and continued to make daily visits to its patients for more than forty years. Griffitts later played a large role in creating two more Philadelphia dispensaries as the city's population continued to grow. According to his biographer Gouverneur Emerson, Griffitts "may be fairly considered as the father of the dispensaries of his native city." He was also a member of the Humane Society and the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society. In 1792, he was elected Professor of Materia Medica at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, and held this position for four years before resigning it to

Benjamin Smith Barton Benjamin Smith Barton (February 10, 1766 – December 19, 1815) was an American botanist, naturalist, and physician. He was one of the first professors of natural history in the United States and built the largest collection of botanical specime ...

. Griffitts continued practicing medicine and serving the community for the remainder of his life until succumbing to a sudden illness in 1826.

Family

He had seven children through his marriage to Mary Fishbourne, daughter of Philadelphia Mayor William Fishbourne. His mother's brother

, twice mayor of Philadelphia, was also a member of the

. His great grandson was

Thomas Morgan Rotch Thomas Morgan Rotch (1849–1914) was the president of the American Pediatric Society for 1890–91 and America's first full professor of pediatrics. He was the great-grandson of Samuel Powel Griffitts. Biography Thomas Morgan Rotch was born ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Griffitts, Samuel Powel 1759 births 1826 deaths Members of the American Philosophical Society 18th-century American physicians 19th-century American physicians Physicians from Philadelphia