Dr Edward Augustus Holyoke

Description

Physician, Scientist. An early proponent of innoculation against smallpox, it is estimated he vaccinated 600 persons during his career against the disease. Son of Harvard College President, Rev Edward Holyoke & Margaret Appleton, he graduated from Harvard in 1746. He taught school for 2 years before apprenticing himself to a practicing physician for 2 1/2 years. Later, while already a long-practicing physician in Salem, he would receive the first MD awarded by the Harvard Medical School, even though he believed physicians did not need a college education. A loyalist before the Revolution, he was so esteemed in fervently patriotic Salem, that he was left unmolested during the war, and as the struggle continued began to favor the American cause. He theorized that weather conditions could affect health and specific ailments and throughout his life kept precise weather measurements. He was a founding member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and served as its president for 6 years. He also led the Mass Medical Society and contributed numerous articles to the New England Journal of Medicine. He was married first to Judith Pickman of Salem, and after her death to Mary Vial of Boston.

Bio by: Bob on Gallows Hill NOTE: Tomb# 15 ...purchased 1802...