Caspar wistar biography of christopher

(b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 13 September ; d. 22 January )

anatomy.

Fifth of eight children of Richard Wistar, proprietor of a glass factory at Salem, New Jersey, and his wife, Sarah Wyatt, both of whom were Quakers, Wistar attended Friends’ schools in Philadelphia and, moved, it is said, by the sufferings of the wounded at the battle of Germantown in , determined to study medicine.

After a preceptorship with Dr. John Redman, he entered the University of the State of Pennsylvania in , and was graduated Bachelor of Medicine three years later. Although he had some difficulty in obtaining permission of the Quaker monthly meeting to go abroad, because he had fought a duel, Wistar went to England, where he studied anatomy in London under John Hunter.

At Edinburgh he so impressed his instructors that, had university regulations not prevented, they would have allowed him to take a degree after only one year’s study. Wistar was equally respected by his fellow st