Caspar Wistar

Caspar Wistar's signature

Caspar Wistar (born September 13, 1761 in Philadelphia , Province of Pennsylvania , † January 22, 1818 ) was an American doctor and anatomist .

Live and act

Caspar Wistar was born to Thomas Wistar and Mary Waln Wistar. He was the grandson of Caspar Wistar sen. (1696–1752), a German immigrant and Quaker . In 1788 he married Isabella Marshall, who died two years later. In 1798 he married Elizabeth Mifflin.

Wistar studied medicine in Edinburgh , where he graduated in 1786 and taught on his return to the United States at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania . Here he developed anatomical models and dealt with the preservation of human organs using wax injections. The university museum founded by Wistat with its valuable anatomical collection was later continued by his successor William Edmonds Horner (1793-1853).

Wistar was a proponent of vaccination . While treating yellow fever patients during the epidemic in 1793, he contracted the disease himself. In professional circles, Wistar became known as the author of medical textbooks such as the two-volume A System of Anatomy (1811-1814).

In 1787 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society and was president of this society between 1815 and 1818. He took over from Thomas Jefferson . In 1803 Wistar was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Honors

The botanist Thomas Nuttall named in honor of Wistar the genus Wisteria , to which the as wisteria is one known ornamental plant. The spelling Wisteria (instead of Wistaria) was an etymological error, but must be retained according to the rules of botanical nomenclature ( International Code of Botanical Nomenclature ).

swell

The Wistar-Wister Family

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Horner, William Edmonds. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 617.

personal data
SURNAME	Wistar, Caspar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American physician and anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH	September 13, 1761
PLACE OF BIRTH	Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	January 22, 1818

[1] Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Horner, William Edmonds. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 617.